Out of the Dark (9 page)

The biting command came from Lucien. He walked forward, took the glass from the older woman’s hand and set it on the table. Then he strode to the door and pulled it open, holding it while his gaze raked Anne-Marie’s father and stepmother. “I would like to talk to my future bride. Alone, if you please.”

The last words were mere politeness. It was obvious from the tempered steel in his voice that he meant to speak to her without their presence whether it pleased them or not. Or regardless of whether she herself wished for it.

As he closed the door behind her father and stepmother and turned to face her, it was all Anne-Marie could do to remain where she stood. The need to flee was so strong that her lower limbs twitched, quivering with it. But there was nowhere to go. She was trapped.

With his hand still on the door knob, Lucien spoke in low tones. “I apologize for springing this on you in this way. I assumed your stepmother would inform you, as is customary. Since there had been no suggestion that you were not agreeable, I felt everything was in order.”

His gaze was dark with concern, yet direct. She had little choice except to believe him. She suspected that her father might also have been given the idea that she was amenable, a deliberate ploy of her stepmother’s to prevent her from registering her protest until it was too late.

She said, “If you feel this is necessary because of possible talk concerning our adventure the other day, then I must tell you that it is not.”

“My decision has nothing to do with compromising behavior, real or otherwise.”

“No? Well, then what? The novelty, perhaps? Do you think having a wife who consorts with animals will be sufficiently entertaining to make up for my other defects? Or do you simply feel sorry for me?”

His frown was instant as he moved away from the door, coming closer to where she stood on the Turkish carpet that centered the room. “None of those things apply. How could they? You are a beautiful and intelligent woman, one who doesn’t bore me or giggle or cling. You have more courage than most men, and you don’t mind showing it. You may not adore me, but you aren’t afraid of me, either. If you don’t like what I’ve done, you say so; you don’t smile to my face and damn me behind my back.”

“Oh, I see. You want me because I don’t dote on you. You require the stimulation of a full-scale argument before breakfast every morning, and wish to feel that you are not leaving a disconsolate wife at home when you go out on your usual round of drinking and gambling with your friends.”

A sardonic smile carved lines of amusement into his face. “What an opinion you have of me,” he said softly. “Would you believe me if I tell you I intend to be an exemplary husband, hanging on your every word, seldom leaving your side? Can you accept that I am consumed with impatience to put my wedding day behind me so that I may keep you close at my side and the rest of the world at arm’s length?”

“No,” she said in steadfast disbelief.

He studied her, from the suffocating color in her face to her clenched hands at her side. “No one has ever told you that you are beautiful, have they? No one has ever said they wanted you. Are they blind?”

“Maybe it’s you who are blind,” she said rudely. “Or insane after all.”

“I am neither. Rather, I am a man who knows his own mind and goes after what he wants when he finds it. I would have liked to proceed differently, but there was no time. If we are to save Satan, then you must marry me without delay and leave all the rest to work itself out as it will.”

Her interest shifted, sharpened. “Satan? What do you mean?”

“If he stays here, he will eventually be killed. It can be no other way. If he is transferred to my home below New Orleans, he will have a vast new territory to explore. The acreage is large, a grant of several thousand
arpents
received from the French king more than a hundred and thirty years ago. There is no reason why your panther should ever have to see another human being. He will be safe there.”

“But how could you take him? There is no way he could be captured and caged for transportation. He would not enter a cage, not even for me.”

“Satan came to you when he was injured. It was as natural to him as breathing. He answers when you call, follows where you go, I think, because of the mystical connection that sometimes occurs between people and the animals they love. He would trail after you into the mouth of hell itself—or to my home if you come as my wife.”

Was it possible? She would like to think so, but who could tell?

Had he mentioned hell and his home in the same breath for a reason, or was it an accident? Did he realize she saw the choice before her in that light? He was a man of perception, with a penchant for irony. He might well take an odd pleasure in presenting this union to her in the blackest possible light.

“Yes, I begin to see,” she said, the words barely above a whisper. And she did. She saw that he wanted her. Her, personally. For herself.

He had not said so in those exact words, yet the suggestion had been in every phrase he spoke. That explanation was slightly more understandable, and acceptable, than any protestation of undying love and devotion. Desire did not require perfection, had little use for logic, cared nothing for suitability. It did not depend on morals, easily overcame antipathy. She had discovered these truths for herself since meeting Lucien
Roquelaire
.

She was surprised that he was willing to exchange his freedom for the prospect of attaining what he coveted. Still, was that not what men had been doing for countless ages?

His wife. If she agreed, she would drive away with him to his home many long miles away. There, she would be close to him, near his side, forever. Everything would be changed; she would have a position, a new name. She would be free of her stepmother’s dominion.

Free. That was a strange way of thinking about this marriage when just minutes before she had considered it a trap.

“Well?” he said, moving away toward the table where her wine glass stood. He picked it up, and, returning to her side, held it out to her. His gaze steady, faintly demanding, he said, “Shall we drink to our betrothal after all?”

She met his eyes, her own dark and still and filled with cogent decision. She was breathing fast, each intake of air lifting her breasts against the bodice of her old gown as if she were in a desperate race. She studied his face as if the answers she found there could mean the difference between life and death.

Abruptly, she gave a nod. Her fingers trembled as she reached out to take the glass from his hands. So did her lips as she tried to smile. Still, her voice did not falter as she said quietly, “Yes, to us.”

Touching the wine to her lips, she drank it down.

In a few short hours it would be her wedding day.

Anne-Marie stood on the veranda staring into the dark and trying to make herself believe it. It seemed impossible.

Had she really agreed to be married? Could she force herself to stand composed and still beside Lucien
Roquelaire
while she was united with him for a lifetime?

The very idea made her feel panicky and ill with nerves. She could not think how she had come to agree; it was almost as if she had been under a spell. Perhaps he was a dark angel, after all—a
 
being come down among them who could control people and animals and force them to his will.

That did not, of course, explain why he wanted her. She was no clearer in her mind about that point than she had been on the day two short weeks ago when they had become betrothed. She had thought it mere physical desire, yet he had made no attempt to take advantage of his privileges as her husband-to-be. It was puzzling; she had not expected him to be so punctilious.

Where had the time gone? The days had seemed to rush past like the wind, turning from morning into evening between one breath and the next. Somehow, she kept expecting that something would happen—that Lucien would change his mind or her father would suddenly discover the marriage was a mistake. Nothing did.

She had hardly seen Lucien, in all truth. There had been so much to do on such short notice: seeing the priest, writing out the invitations, planning and organizing the preparation of food and drink, ordering the wedding cake and special nougat confections to be shipped upriver by steamboat to arrive with the New Orleans guests, begging flowers from neighbors to supplement their own. Then there had been appointments with the local dressmaker for the necessary fittings for her wedding gown.

Her stepmother had offered her own wedding dress for Anne-Marie’s use—a billowing, too-large creation of widow’s lavender satin with gigot sleeves. Anne-Marie had refused it outright and resisted all efforts at persuasion. She would wear her own mother’s gown. Of soft silk
mousseline
sewn with seed pearls and diamante, it was a gown of simple design that had yellowed over the years to a shade of amber only a little lighter than the cravat Lucien had worn to the Picard’s ball.

How marvelous it had been, achieving that point over her stepmother’s opposition. It had made her think that she should have enforced her will more strongly before. She had been able to do it now, she knew, only because it no longer mattered if her stepmother was angry or her father upset by quarreling. Their displeasure could not disturb her since she would soon be leaving her childhood home for that of her husband, one that would become her own.

Yet how was it possible, after so many years of being kept close and chided for every small breach of conduct, that she would have leave tomorrow to drive away with a virtual stranger? It made no sense that a few words and a piece of paper could bring about such a difference.

Behind her, a change in the light falling from the salon signaled an end to her time alone. Turning slightly where she stood at the end of the veranda, she watched as Lucien sauntered toward her.

“No sign of him?” her future husband said.

He meant Satan, of course. She wondered briefly how many of the others gathered for the wedding could have guessed she was still keeping watch for the great black cat, even after so long a time. She shook her head. Voice compressed, she said, “I think—I’m so afraid he must have been killed.”

“No one has claimed credit for it.” His voice held steady reassurance as he stopped a few feet away from her.

“No—but he wasn’t as strong as usual, and may have run into more dogs. Or he could have crawled off somewhere to die of blood poisoning in his injured foot. Then maybe he was bitten by a snake, or tangled with a bear.”

“And could be he found a mate and is enjoying a protracted…courtship,” Lucien suggested.

She wanted so badly to be convinced that she ignored the impropriety of his allusion. “I suppose it may be possible, but he never has before.”

“Some males come late to its joys. As I did, for instance. Have I told you that you’re looking particularly ravishing this evening?”

He was trying to distract her, and making a fair job of it. She glanced away from him in sudden embarrassment.

“Don’t you care for compliments?” he asked, tipping his head as he tried to see her face.

“I never know what to say.” The words were barely audible.

“Nothing much is required, only a polite word or two by way of acknowledgment.”

“I—thank you, then.”

“Very good. You should get used to that exercise because you will need it. You were attractive when we first met, but you seem to grow more so every day. And I am a man driven to salute beauty when I see it.”

She gave him a brief glance. “Are you quite certain it isn’t a habit you bring out when other forms of conversation fail?”

“You think I have nothing else to say to you?” He turned to place his back to the railing near where she stood then crossed his arms over his chest. “Now that you put me in mind of it, there is a subject I’ve been trying to raise since we first met. Only something always prevents it or else you manage to turn it aside.”