Time for Eternity (20 page)

The girl wandered into the center of the hall, staring up at the chandelier. How he wished she could have seen it lighted. “No need,” he said to the caretaker. “I know my way.”

The old man glanced to the girl with a small smile. “Very good, your grace.” He turned to another candelabrum sitting on a small table and lighted each candle from one of his own. Who did not smile when they saw her? Her beauty was fresh. But it was that light of intelligence in her eyes, her emotional resonance, that moved her from the ordinary into the extraordinary. He ’d barely noticed her, though she’d lived next door for nearly a year. And now he could hardly take his eyes off her. What had changed?

And now she was off-limits because she was his ward.

“One can hardly imagine living in such luxury,” she murmured.

He, of course, could hear her clearly. “The public rooms are very grand, and of course the king’s and queen’s suites. But the courtiers lived in tiny boxes, three thousand of them crowded into a veritable rabbit warren.”

“Really?”

“Oh, quite, my lady,” Brendal confirmed. “Almost squalid conditions.”

Henri picked up the candelabrum, nodding his thanks to the old man, and slipped the expected gold into a discreet hand. “So we shan’t bother with them.” He motioned her ahead. “The Hall of Mirrors, however, is definitely on the tour.” With his flickering light in one hand, and their dinner basket in the other, he trailed after her as the old man drifted away. The sway of her dress shushed across his senses. The aroma of wet hair and fresh female flesh wafted behind her. None but he could have caught the scent. He found it more erotic than the perfumed elegance of the women who usually filled his bed. All that perfume was meant to mask long hair rarely washed, just powdered and ratted, and bodies that bathed once a week at best.

Who would have guessed that the simple scent of a woman could rouse him so?

“Who are all these people?” Françoise asked as they came to a salon with portraits hung in dizzying profusion from the wainscoting to the ceiling on red padded wall covering.

Her companion obligingly held up his candelabrum. “I’ve no idea,” he said after a moment. “I’m afraid the painters are more recognizable than the subjects.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well …” His eyes searched the wall. “Third down and five over from the doorway. Dutch school. Vermeer. And two over from that, Rembrandt without doubt.” She went to look closer at the Rembrandt.

“Why, it says it’s a self-portrait. How odd that he wouldn’t make himself more attractive. It’s very alive-feeling though, isn’t it?”

Avignon followed and held up the light. She was acutely aware of his body standing so close to hers. The power of his muscled frame was only enhanced by his electric sense of aliveness. A thrum started inside her. “He was more interested in light and truth than in conventional notions of beauty. Not good for business, I’m afraid.”

She couldn’t help but chuckle. She turned back to the face that glowed out of the dark canvas. “Memorable, though.”

They wandered on, through salons sometimes stripped of carpets, always stripped of anything small enough to be carried away, like clocks and lamps. Often only the huge rococo chests were left. “I wonder what this would have looked like when it was fully furnished.”

“Overwhelming. That’s the effect they wanted. Austere on the outside, and overornamented on the inside. They thought it made them grander themselves.”

He pointed out the pastel pastorals of Fragonard, populated by chubby women and cherubs, and the romantic myths of Poussin in huge canvases that dominated the walls.

“I wonder how much gilt they used in here?”

“Ah, you are coming to the best, the Grands Appartements.” He led the way into a huge room. “This is the Hercules Salon.” He pointed up. “Each is named for the painting in the ceiling. Lemoyne, if I remember.”

She peered up into the dimness. The immense painting was only partially illuminated by Avignon ’s flickering candles. Hercules was apparently being welcomed into heaven. “Imagine having that stare down at one.”

“Remember, not for living, but for overwhelming. Louis wanted everyone to feel small.”

“He achieved his aim,” she murmured, touching the gilt carving of the fireplace set with the faces of Hercules.

Avignon led her through room after room, each with another painting on the ceiling. It all began to run together. “You’re looking a little peaked. Are you ready to dine?” Avignon asked.

“I don’t suppose there’s an intimate little dining room around here anywhere.”

“No.” He smiled. She liked that smile, roguish and always a little rueful. She understood the rueful part on some level. “But it wouldn’t be a picnic then, would it?” He led the way into …

A wonderland. Avignon stepped into a vast long hall and the candles in his holder seemed to multiply. Floor -to-ceiling mirrors along one side faced windows equally large on the other. Just now those windows were black, only hinting at the waves of rain outside. Françoise stood and stared, imagining dancers whirling in panniered dresses and skirted coats of magenta and yellow under the glittering chandeliers whose light was cast back by the mirrors. Golden statues held crystal lights which would have echoed the chandeliers in a long line.

Avignon set down his burdens in the center of the room then spread his cloak on the parquet floor. “Voilà,” he announced. “We picnic in the wild wasteland of Versailles.”

She smiled. He took off his coat and knelt on the cloak in his shirtsleeves and waistcoat to begin digging through the hamper. She shrugged off her own cloak, still damp, and sat on his, tucking her feet under her. He produced a bottle of wine and cut -crystal glasses, knives to carve a cold duck with cherry sauce on a platter. The dishes kept emerging. He served her, talking lightly of life at Versailles and telling tales of the outrages the kings of France had perpetrated on their unruly and possibly subversive followers.

Whenever she laughed she was rewarded with that elusive smile. The circle of candlelight created an intimate space inside that grand hall. The wine was a marvelous burgundy. He cut her meat and poured her wine. She felt … cared for, perhaps for the first time in many years.

With a start she realized she was utterly comfortable with him.

No, no, no. One shouldn’t be comfortable with the devil. Panic seeped in. She should never have come. At the least she should keep him at arm’s length rather than laughing at his ridiculous stories. The intensity of that feeling was more overwhelming than the Hall of Mirrors.

That must be the girl surfacing that Lady Toumoult had warned and frightened into believing that experience was dangerous.

She’d already made her choice tonight. She wanted to come to Versailles. She even wanted Avignon to kiss her. She watched him pack up the hamper.

“Anything else you’d like to see?”

She swallowed. “The king’s apartments? Or the queen’s. I’d like to see how they lived, where they slept.”

He examined her face, her eyes. He wanted to know what she meant by that. She felt a slow flush creep from her breasts to her throat and into her cheeks. Unfortunately, that would tell him exactly what she meant.

“Very well.” He rose, and helped her to her feet. Why did touching his hand always seem to shock her right between her legs?

She’d never felt anything like that. He swung her cloak around her, and picked his up along with his coat and carried it over his arm. He grabbed the candelabrum. “Let’s go.”

“Are you going to leave the hamper?”

“Think of it as a gift for Brendal and his
chère
wife.”

He took her hand and led her onward. Her hand in his felt small, protected.
Danger!
a voice shouted inside her.
Don’t do this.

She pressed it down and followed Avignon. “We will eschew his public apartments. He didn’t live there, at least not for very long.”

He led her up the stairs into a cozy room lined with cupboards of some dark wood, a porcelain bath painted with scenes, a bed with a brocaded coverlet. It was really rather comfortable. Not what she expected.

“This is rather nice.”

“As the dressing room of a king should be.”

This was a dressing room? It was three times as big as her bedroom at Madame LaFleur’s house had been. He opened a door onto a huge room that looked like a receiving salon, then thought better of it and tried another door.

“Yes, here it is.”

She stopped, stock-still.

“Oh, my.”

This room was gigantic. The ceiling was carved and adorned with painting. Red and gold brocade hangings lined the walls. There was an ornate dressing table, several wardrobes in the rococo style, a gaping fireplace with an ornately carved marble mantel and great golden andirons. Chairs lined the walls as though the king held audiences here. Dominating the room, a huge bed, ornately carved and heavy, sat on a raised dais hung with so much gold braiding and red fringed draperies it looked as though it were a room in itself. Everywhere rich carpets, gold-threaded brocades, shiny satins, and the rich gleam of wood gave the room a kind of heavy magnificence that was enough to weigh one down.

“This is the king’s bedroom.” Avignon came to stand behind her as she stared at the bed. He held the candelabrum high. His voice was deep and bittersweet, like the cup of chocolate she’d had with
petit déjeuner
the first morning in his house.

She knew what might happen there. And she ruthlessly suppressed the fear that threatened to close her throat. She was not dear Lady Toumoult. She would not die having never experienced anything. Having never experienced
this.
It was an adventure and she would have it. It needn’t be more.

Eleven

Henri looked down at that wondrous combination of innocence and experience in her eyes, shocked that what she wanted was so clearly writ there. Her breasts rose and fell against her bodice —so near to escape it made him unaccountably nervous. He’d been holding her hand as he led her up the stairs. He should never have done that. His Companion screamed for life, sending blood careering from around his body to the one place that didn’t need more. His body wanted her. He’d had a thousand women want him. Why was this one any different?

Maybe because the women had all fallen into one of two categories. Either they were attracted by his power and his money alone—grasping creatures out to get what they could from him. Or they were innocents ensorcelled by his attractive vampire sense of life, only to be frightened by what they had unleashed, even if they never realized truly what he was.

An image of an innocent girl, driven to suicide by horror of him, blood blooming on her breast, made him swallow hard. He pushed it down. He didn’t dally with innocents.

But this one was not innocent. He had seen her experience in her eyes when she caught him at his bath, when she so accurately described the failure of heart that long life engendered in one. And yet she still had hope. He could see it almost glowing around her at times. She’d searched the prison for her friend, refusing to give up. She was determined to look for a situation when it was hopeless and anyone else would have cast herself as a courtesan or worse long ago.

He searched her face. He saw no young coquette seducing him without a notion of what that meant. She knew. He could see it in her eyes. They were filled with a hot eagerness, laced with world-weariness. He found it infinitely attractive. So much so that if she looked down right now, instead of so boldly into his eyes, she would see something he was now quite sure would not surprise her. How long had it been since he had wanted a woman like this? He couldn ’t count the years. Just the resurgence of interest made him feel as though the world still held possibilities for him. She need never know what he was. It could be a liaison like any of his others, and not that emotionally charged disaster so long ago that had ended in death for a girl who would rather end her life than spend another instant of it with a monster.

Except it couldn’t be a liaison like his others.

He tore his gaze from hers. “You are my ward, have you forgotten?” Jesus and his Mother, how could he have thought to seduce her? He was her protector, even from himself.

“No, your grace.”

Was she playing games of ambiguity? “No, you haven’t forgotten?”

“No, I’m not your ward, your grace.” She took the candelabrum and set it on an inlaid chest next to the great bed.

“Don’t call me that.” He couldn’t help but snap with his balls so tight and his cock straining at his breeches. “There is nothing of grace about me.”

She smiled. It was a knowing smile. “Henri, then, if you prefer.”

He did not. But she’d trapped him. He found himself grinding his teeth. “You are my ward, whether you acknowledge it or not.”

He should put his coat on again. What was he doing in his shirtsleeves? And why had he let her set down the candelabrum as though they were going to stay here? In a bedroom? That smile again, damn her. He would have been ready to swear she was a virgin yesterday, but now …

“A fiction and you know it. I am more than of age. Almost a spinster. With no prospects but that a very dull shopkeeper might one day offer for me. Not an exciting future.”

He turned away and ran his hand over his mouth, which had suddenly gone dry. “I am your protector. You have a right to rely on me, and that means … certain things.”

“You shock me. The devil has a sense of honor.” He felt her hand on his arm. The shock they were both really talking about went straight to his loins. She turned him toward her.
Did
he have a sense of honor? He cultivated the image of Satan. How long until one became a devil in truth? He gambled and whored and … but not with this girl.

She ran her hands over his chest. “Your honor is misplaced. I’m of age. You would be doing me a great service.”

What was she saying? He couldn’t think when she touched him like that. He could only feel her palms burning his chest even through his waistcoat. He’d been alone so long, regardless of his liaisons. She offered a moment of intimacy with someone who might be a kindred spirit in some small way, and that moment, like a fragile candle flame flickering against the darkness, might give him heart enough to go on. If his liaisons had not been satisfying lately, it might be because the women all seemed sly and greedy.