Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

éTIENNE

September 22, 1765

Palace of Versailles

She was much stronger than she appeared. No match for the supernatural strength the plague had bestowed on me, certainly, but still, much stronger than I expected. While I didn't put much stock in the usefulness of the women of the court beyond slaking certain appetites and exerting occasional influence upon their more dim-witted husbands, I could at least acknowledge when some ornamental ninny possessed something outside the ordinary. I'd seen the duchesse watching me over the last several months but hadn't considered her a proper threat until recently. I realized now, clutching her arm, I had miscalculated—an oversight I soundly regretted. As my father had often warned, " Never underestimate a woman ."

Especially one sent to assassinate you.

I had to hand it to The Order—of all the ways they'd tried to deliver me unto Death, this was the most… enticing .

Her soft peaches-and-cream complexion, wide violet eyes, and pert rosebud lips set in a furious pout gave her the appearance of a wrathful angel boiling over with self-righteousness. She was unable to free herself from my grip, so I allowed myself the luxury of an intimate perusal of her full form—partly because it unsettled her, but partly because I found her fascinating. My gaze raked lazily over her, from the top of her powdered curls, down the graceful column of her neck, to her luscious breasts straining at the top of her neckline. I tracked down the crimson silk of her bodice to her trim waist, ensconced in those unseen stays, and wondered what her undergarments might look like. Would they be silk? Would they be adorned with ribbons, rosettes, or lace? Would they match this daring, provocative gown? I hardened at the thought.

"If you wish to speak with me, Monsieur," she spat. "Then perhaps you might release my arm so that we can converse properly."

"Perhaps I don't want to release you," I murmured in her ear. "Perhaps I don't feel like being staked tonight, despite your orders ." I breathed in her scent—orange blossom and vanilla. I wondered what she'd taste like.

I saw her eyes widen momentarily. So, now she knew that I knew her allegiance to The Order. When the moment of shock wore off, she huffed in irritation and gritted her teeth.

"Then go on and break it."

I stepped back, stunned. She hadn't offered it as a careless challenge. Her expression was determined, not daring.

"I beg your pardon?" I relaxed my grip on her arm but did not let her go. A quick glance across the courtyard told me we were beginning to attract attention. The disappointed moue of the Marquise de Balay told me that people would be gossiping already.

The beast has found his next diversion.

Cursing silently, I tugged her into the king's ridiculous hedge maze, away from the prying eyes and wagging tongues of the idiotic aristocracy. After so many clandestine trysts out here, I knew the ins and outs of the garden labyrinth almost as well as my own chateau.

She practically growled at me in response, exciting something embarrassingly primal in my blood. I was trying to sort out whether I wanted to feed on her or fuck her. Probably both, provided she doesn't plunge a stake into my heart .

"Break it, then," she repeated, steel in her gaze. She struggled and I tightened my hold on her.

She hissed at me in disgust and tried to pull away again.

"If you know that I'm with The Order, Monsieur, then you'll know why they sent me. You may break my arm to escape death at my hands tonight, but I assure you, I have had worse and it will only buy you a few hours reprieve."

I enjoyed that the spoiled little minx had spirit, but her comment ignited a spark of dread and anger. She'd had worse than a broken arm? She was a beautiful woman, and a duchesse, for God's sake.

Infuriated, she continued.

"Allow me to tell you how this will go. You will break my arm, I shall scream, the guards will come running, and even with your monstrous strength and speed, they will catch up to you—probably in the daylight hours when you need your rest. And because you'll have brutally injured the Duchesse de Duras—when you are not , in fact, her husband—our beloved king will have your head cut off and my task will be accomplished regardless of the function of one arm. So, either let me go or break my arm. It matters little which."

I tugged her further into the maze, impressed by her vivid imagination and the speed at which her mind worked. Yet again, her words gave me pause.

"When I am not, in fact, your husband—what do you mean by that, Madame?"

"None of your damn business, you brute!" Her cheeks flamed near the color of her gown. In her fury, she'd obviously admitted more than she would have liked. She kicked at my shin, but I sidestepped it. I twisted her arm behind her back and pushed her forward. She let fly a string of curses that I hadn't heard many ladies use. With her free hand, she produced a wooden stake from one of her pockets, which I knocked away. She uttered a muffled scream of frustration.

"Let me go, you oversexed bloodsucker!"

I couldn't help but laugh at the insult. This is too much fun.

Finally, we neared a stone bench at the center of the maze. Few other revelers would make it in this far, which guaranteed us a modicum of privacy.

"I'll offer you a trade then," I said. "I'll return your arm to you in exchange for the opportunity to enlighten you."

She narrowed her eyes and her lips twisted in derision. "If you think to enlighten me carnally, know that I would rather fuck Lucifer himself than willingly let you defile me."

My cock twitched at her profanity and I chuckled again. "What a wicked mind and sharp tongue you have, Madame. But no, rest assured I prefer my bedmates' dispositions to be much more amiable and, more importantly, willing. No, ma chère Duchesse , I mean only to enlighten you with the truth. With several truths, in fact."

"And you'll let me go unharmed? If I merely listen to you?" Suspicion darkened her tone.

"Of course. But you'll have to promise the same. We'll both leave this meeting alive—well, alive or undead."

"You'll just be postponing the inevitable," she sneered.

"Perhaps, but if that is the case, you have nothing to lose," I pointed out.

She considered this. Testing my grip on her arm once more as if to confirm her predicament, she groaned in irritation and relented. "Very well. You have my word. I will hear you out."

"And?"

"And I will not attempt to kill you tonight. I cannot promise the same for tomorrow."

I nodded, satisfied, and released my hold on her arm. She pulled away and sat on the stone bench, rubbing her hand. When I was sure she wasn't going to stake me or run, I sat on the opposite end of the bench and faced her.

"I wouldn't have broken it, you know," I said. "I do not hurt women."

She scoffed at me—her disbelief needling me more than it should have. Irritating harpy .

"…unless they ask me to," I purred. She attempted that imperious glare again, but it faded with her impatience.

"Plead your case, Noailles ," she demanded.

"étienne."

"Your Christian name will not soften me to you," she chided. "But in the spirit of détente , you may address me as Daphne."

Daphne. The beautiful nymph who begged to be turned into a laurel tree, rather than love the sun god, Apollo. A fitting myth of one woman's pride in the face of love.

"It suits you," I chortled.

She tapped her foot expectantly. I sighed.

"I did not kill Madame de Pompadour," I said. "I'm sure that's what The Order has told you and I'm sure that's why you're here tonight, but it isn't true."

"And I'll just take your word for it, shall I? You'll have to do better than that if you are to convince me."

"Were you at court that day? The day they found her body?" I asked.

She shook her head and glared at me accusingly. "No, but I heard the report and the stories. Her throat had been bitten, almost all of her blood drained. You are the only vampire allowed inside the palace. There are guards posted everywhere. If any other sanguisuge had come in, they would have been found and executed."

At her use of the elitist slur for the vampire peasants, I could not stifle my disgust. I whirled on her, enraged. My fangs lengthened and my eyes darkened. A predator ready to strike.

"Take care with your words, Duchesse."

She leaned back, eyes wide.

"Do you know why there are so many vampires in Paris?"

"The plague," she said. "Most say it came over from the East. There is no treatment or cure. It spread through the city because of the deplorable conditions the peasants live in." She spoke slowly—guardedly.

Waiting for me to attack her, I suspected. Most of the nobles thought vampires were little better than slavering dogs, unable to master their baser instincts. The fools . I leaned into her, forcing her back against the barrier of greenery.

"Wrong. Oh, yes, it's true enough that it came from the East. From somewhere around the Carpathian Mountains, in fact. And it's true that there are no treatments and no cure. But it didn't spread because of the filthy peasants and their deplorable homes. It spread because they are deliberately infecting themselves."

"What utter nonsense! No one would willingly choose such a life."

I stared into her lovely violet eyes, so blind to the struggles of a country—a world—outside Versailles. Frustration clawed at me, loosening the tether of my self-control.

"You might if you were starving! If you had too many mouths to feed and not enough bread because of the grain blight, and your beloved king had nothing to offer you but empty promises. No help, no charity, just taxes to pay for his foreign wars and the champagne at his garden parties, while he remains safely ensconced in his walled palace of decadence. How fortunate you are, Duchesse, that you've never had to put yourself in a position risking your very soul for a full belly."

"You know nothing of my life," she hissed, her eyes suddenly wild with emotion.

I seethed in silence for a moment, too afraid I'd given away my own secrets—my family's secrets. Anger, desperation, and a sense of solitary forlornness flowed through me. I was fighting a losing battle with the king and the court, and this damned woman represented every part of my struggle—the ignorance, the entitlement, and every backwards aristocratic ideal. The beauty, the glitter, and the wealth were everything I'd once been promised that had been ripped away from me, only to be dangled in front of my face like some kind of poisoned apple when the king needed a vampire to control.

"I can't believe you," she breathed. "That cannot be true. I know they are struggling because of the grain blight, but surely they can find other ways to?—"

"To eat? Yes, they have found another way. Many of them have reasoned that it is easier, more economical , to sustain themselves on blood instead of bread. And I'll tell you something else, Duchesse—they have not forgotten who has forced their fangs. A day of reckoning is on the horizon for Louis, for all of us. And damned if we don't deserve it when it comes."

Daphne gasped. "You speak of treason!"

Defeat weighed down my shoulders as I shook my head. My fangs retracted.

"I speak the truth."

Unnerved by my emotional outburst and melancholy tone, she shifted uncomfortably on the bench and toyed with a ruffle on her skirt. After a moment, she recovered.

"And is this why you killed Jeanne? To visit some kind of twisted revenge on the king who has supposedly condemned your kind?" She shot to her feet with the allegation, but I saw the beginnings of doubt clouding her violet eyes.

I moved toward her slowly, stalking her. To her credit, she didn't back away or flinch. She stood her ground, staring up at me defiantly. I heard her pulse quicken and smelled the anticipation in her blood. Exquisite .

"Madame de Pompadour's throat was not bitten, Daphne," I said softly. "It was ripped out."

"What?" she uttered, horrified.

"I saw her body when they took her away that night. Her head had almost been severed."

Daphne paled. "But why would you—you could have?—"

I rolled my eyes, my temper ebbing.

"In theory, yes, I could have. I possess the physical strength it would take to do such a thing to a body, but as I told you, I do not hurt women. I only drink from them with their permission, and almost never from the throat."

She stared at me in confusion. "Then, where…?"

"There are so many more delicious places where the blood flows. Would you like me to show you?" I offered, my voice a low rumble of desire.

I grinned lasciviously at her, loving the sound of her gasp. I was inches away from her, mesmerized by the blush blooming across her chest and cheeks. Suddenly, I was ravenous with hunger—but not for blood. Her lips parted on an intake of breath and my cock hardened to granite. Damn it, man. Get ahold of yourself .

I stepped back. Daphne blinked and straightened, and I felt a rush of pleasure at the thought that she, too, had been stirred by our encounter. That pleasure was swiftly followed by a jolt of panic—in the space of a few minutes, this woman had obliterated my carefully crafted sense of self-control. I'd have to be on my guard in the future. Clearly, she was much more dangerous than I'd anticipated.

She glowered at me.

"Are you so sure I'm to blame for Jeanne's death? Why do you think Louis has not ordered my arrest, then? If everyone is so certain I killed his beloved mistress, why is it left to The Order to be responsible for my punishment?"

She turned from me and I knew I had her.

"Assuming you're telling the truth—which, I'm still not certain of—you must have some idea who killed Jeanne."

"I'm at a loss, I'm afraid," I admitted. "But that's why I have a proposal for you tonight, Duchesse."

She folded her arms in front of her chest, likely to signal her displeasure, but it merely served to squeeze her breasts tighter against her bodice. I forced myself to meet her eyes.

"You are charged with killing the murderer of Madame de Pompadour, no? I am in agreement, because of course I didn't do it. Furthermore, I don't believe it was any vampire. I don't want The Order to send some other assassin after me, so it's imperative I clear my name before they do. Ergo, I propose you and I work together to find the killer and bring the bastard to justice."

"Absolutely not," she scoffed. "Perhaps you are telling the truth. If that's the case, I'll discover the murderer myself and deal with him as The Order commands."

"And how will you eliminate the possibility of vampire involvement? Just stroll through the streets of Paris and knock on the nearest coffin for questioning?"

"Why not? I am the Duchesse de Duras," she said with a haughty sniff. "The title is good for something."

"No one will talk to you, Duchesse. You represent the cause of their misery. You'll be lucky if you return to Versailles unmolested and unbitten."

She frowned, uncertainty creeping into her lovely visage again.

"If only you had some sort of intermediary who could help you—an emissary, if you will! Someone who had connections all throughout the city, in both high places and low. Someone else with a stake—no pun intended—in the truth. But where would you find such a humble, handsome ally?"

A look of sheer loathing twisted Daphne's face and I preened.

"If I agree to a temporary alliance with you, it's just that— temporary . We will not become friends, or lovers, or anything more than a means to an end—the end, in this case, being the truth. And if I find out that you really are responsible for what happened to Jeanne, I will take great pleasure in cutting out your heart and feeding it to my dogs."

I arched a brow at the violent rage simmering beneath her soft curves.

"And they say that I'm the monster!"