Captives of the Night (48 page)

She hurried on through and down the corridor and down another. She didn't know where she was going. It didn't matter. One minute's privacy. That was all she wanted.

"Leila."

His anxious voice came from behind her.

No. Please. Leave me alone. Just one minute, she told herself. That was all she needed. There were stairs ahead. She hurried up them to the landing.

"Leila, please."

She paused and turned, just as a footman emerged into the hall. She saw Ismal move to the servant to say something. She saw the light shimmer in his hair, heard the easy, friendly murmur… smooth and soft as silk. There was a strange buzzing in her ears, a flash of color.

She sank down onto the nearest stair and held her head and took deep breaths. The dizziness passed swiftly, but the chilling dread remained. For a moment, she'd experienced the dream, yet it wasn't the same. Not the same hall. There was only one man with him, not two, and this one was English, while the ones in the dream were foreigners.

She was dimly aware of footsteps, voices.

"Madame."

A hand covering hers. His hand.

She raised her head. Ismal crouched before her. The servant stood behind him.

"You are ill," Ismal said.

Though she wasn't, she nodded for the footman's benefit.

Ismal swept her up into his arms and carried her up the stairs, the servant leading the way.

He took them to a small sitting room. Ismal gently deposited Leila on the chaise longue while the servant poured her a glass of water.

While she dutifully sipped, he had another whispered consultation with Ismal, then left.

"I have ordered a carriage," Ismal said when he returned to her. "One of the maidservants will accompany you home."

She looked up, confused. "Aren't you coming?"

"I think I have done enough damage for one night." His voice was harsh. "I drove you from the ballroom in tears. You nearly collapsed on the stairs. I think I might at least stop short of making scandal. I shall remain and make soothing excuses for you. A combination of a rich dinner, champagne, and an overcrowded room made you ill, I shall tell your friends. Meanwhile, I shall pray you did not swoon because you are with child."

He turned away, raking his fingers through his hair. "Only tell me, Leila, if it is so."

"Is
which
so?" she asked dazedly. "You didn't — " She gave herself an inward shake and quickly sorted reason from emotion.

"I was overset," she said steadily. "I didn't want to make a spectacle of myself in company. I'm sorry I upset you. I assure you I'm not breeding — can't be."

He let out a shaky sigh, then came back to her. "When you turn away, terrible things happen inside me," he said. "I am sorry, my heart. I have been most unkind, thoughtless. In too many ways."

"Terrible things," she said. "Inside you."

His eyes were bleak. "You are dear to me."

She didn't know what was wrong, only that something was — something apart from alarm that she might be enceinte, something more troubling even than Andrew. She doubted she could bear it, whatever it was. Already her world was falling to pieces. If Andrew was false, nothing, nobody was true.

All she had left was this man, whom she loved with all her heart.

Don't
, she begged silently.
Don't be false, leave me something
.

She heard footsteps approaching. "Don't keep away tonight," she said softly. "I need you. Come as soon as you can. Please."

He came a few hours later.

She had donned her nightgown and sat propped up against the pillows, the sketchbook in her lap, the pencil in her hand. Even after he entered the bedroom, it took her a moment to tear her gaze from the page.

Ismal wanted to know what had captivated, her quick mind, but even more, he wanted to get his ordeal over with.

"There is something I must tell you," he said.

"I want to explain," she said at the same time.

"Leila."

"Please," she said. "I need your help. I can't — I don't know what to do. I can't bear to fail you."

His conscience stabbed deep. "Leila, you would never fail me. It is I — "

"I understand," she said. "You just want things settled. You don't
want
to hurt anybody. I know you wish as much as I do that we could find a villain. Someone we could loathe. Someone we could want to punish. The trouble is, Francis was so horrible that one can't imagine anyone worse. So we won't get what we want. Instead, we get people we care about, sympathize with. I
know
you don't want to harm Andrew — if he's the one. I love you, and I want to be your partner — and I'd follow you to the ends of the earth. But — "

"I do not ask it," he said. "I have no right to ask such a thing, to ask anything."

"Yes, you do. I just need you to understand." She patted the mattress.

"Leila, please. Before you say anything more, I must — "

"I know," she said. "You've some ghastly confession to make."

His heart pounded. "Yes."

"Are you going to break my heart?" Her eyes burned too brightly. "Shall I go to pieces, do you think? And who shall pick me up, I wonder, and help put me back together? That's the trouble with Andrew, you see. One relies on him. Whenever I had a problem, I knew I could turn to him, and he'd help me set everything right. He set me right when I was a girl. He taught me how to be strong and as good as I was capable of being. And now I'm to view him as a cold-blooded murderer. Now I can't
help
viewing him so."

She rubbed her temple. "I wish you'd come sooner. I've had such horrible thoughts. I think I'm becoming hysterical. It was the near-fainting. And the buzzing in my ears. The last time that happened was the night Papa was killed, and Papa turned out to be false, too. So now it’s all mixed up. Papa and Francis and that gloomy hallway. I keep dreaming about it," she went on hurriedly. "I thought I was dreaming tonight. I saw you turn your head to speak to the servant, and I was so frightened. It wasn't the same hall or the same servant, but I was frightened for you all the same. Only this time I didn't wake up, because I wasn't asleep."

He moved to the bed and took the sketchbook from her. On the page was one of her rougher drawings. Nonetheless, he recognized Mehmet and Risto and guessed who the vague figure between them was. The view was from above, the artist looking down on her subjects… as she must have done that night a decade ago.

"This is what you dream," he said, his gut in icy knots. "Do you know what it is?"

"The light's always the same," she said. "Coming from that open door. The same two men, and you between them."

He sat down on the bed. "I was between them." He kept his eyes on the page. "Ten years ago. In a palazzo in Venice. There was a girl upstairs, Risto told me." He forced the words past the constriction in his throat. "
I
did not trouble to look. I assumed she was a child."

The air about him throbbed ominously.

"
You
?" Her voice was low, hard. "That was
you
!"

He nodded.

"You lying, false — you
bastard
."

He felt the movement, heard the rush of air, but he moved a heartbeat too slowly. Something slammed against his head, and he fell forward, onto the floor. The world spun perilously toward darkness. There was a terrible clanging, like hammer blows, vibrating through his skull. He grabbed blindly and something crashed beside him.

There was a tumult — cries, pounding footsteps — but he couldn't make sense of it. All his will was fixed on resisting the darkness, unconsciousness. He heaved himself onto his knees just as the door opened.

"Monsieur!"

"Madame!"

He dragged his head up and made himself focus. A toppled nightstand next to him… Gaspard… Eloise.

He found his voice. "
De rien
," he gritted out. "
Allez-vous-en
!"

"Get him out of here!" Leila cried. "Take him away before I kill him! Get him — make him — " The rest was a sob.

Eloise pulled her husband back through the door. It shut.

Silence, but for Leila's weeping.

Ismal's own eyes scalded. He turned toward her. She sat on the edge of the bed, her face buried in her hands.

He couldn't ask a forgiveness that was impossible to give. He couldn't utter apologies for what could never be excused. All he could offer was the one true thing in his false, breaking heart.

"
Je't'aime
," he said helplessly. "I love you, Leila."

She gazed down despairingly at him. She didn't want to understand. She didn't want to cope with him, with anything, anyone, any more.

Papa. Francis. Andrew.

And this man, this beautiful, impossible man to whom she'd given everything — honor, pride, trust. She'd held nothing back. Body and soul she'd given herself to him. Gladly.

And he had made her glad, her heart reminded.

He'd given, too.

He was, after all, almost human. She saw the hurt in his eyes, and her heart reminded her that the monstrous admission he'd just made, he'd made on his own.

"You're all I've got," she said unsteadily. "There's only you. Give me something, please. I love you. You've made me so happy. Please, let's be fair with each other." She held out her hand.

He stared at it for a long moment, his face taut. Then he put out his own hand, and she took it and joined him on the floor.

"I know I should have told you long ago, but I was afraid," he said, his eyes upon their joined hands. "You are dear to me. I could not bear to lose you. But tonight, I could not bear what
was
. I could not comfort you. I could not take you home. Just as I could not be there for you when the dreams frightened you. I could not take care of my own woman, because she was not my wife. And I could not prevail upon you to be my wife. I could not even ask properly. Only in joke, making light of what was most important to me, because it was dishonorable to urge or coax until I could offer with a clean heart."

"Is it clean now?" she asked. "Was that all? That night in Venice — you were the one with Papa, and those were your men?"

"It is not all of my past," he said. "Not even the worst, perhaps. I injured others. Yet those debts have been paid long since. Even to your country I have made amends. I have served your king nearly ten years." He looked up, his eyes dark. "But to you I have not made amends. Instead, I only compound my sins."

Ten years, she thought. A decade serving a foreign king, making amends by dealing with the worst and lowest of villains, the most complicated and delicate of problems. Whatever was too much, too dirty, or too disagreeable for His Majesty's government was thrust into Ismal's elegant hands.

"If His Majesty is satisfied," she said carefully, "then I ought to be. Even if — even if you killed Papa, it sounds as though you've paid."

"I did not kill him," he said. "Please believe this."

"I believe you," she said. "But I should like… just to know. What happened."