The Passion (20 page)

"Don't be deceived,
chérie
," I said lightly. "You wil fal desperately in love with some handsome young human and forget al about me. You wil bear him a dozen children and I—" I rifted a finger of admonishment when she opened her mouth to cry a protest. "Wil find a mate among my own kind.

These pleasures that we share wil be nothing more than a fond memory for you."

Her eyes clouded. "But why can't I be your mate?

Why can't we lie together like husband and wife?

Why must there be others?"

"Understand this,
chérie
," I told her firmly. "Such a thing is impossible between werewolves and humans. It is a simple matter of physiology, and since you are such a bright and curious human, I wil spare you no detail. At the point of arousal, whether sexual or emotional, the werewolf wil inevitably resume his natural, bestial form. The only exception to this is when we have just changed forms, for it requires a period of recovery before we can change again. In human form we can't maintain copulation long enough to inseminate a female. Do you understand what I mean by that?"

At her shy, uncertain nod, I continued. "No human female could accept the penetration of a male in wolf form even if he desired to mate with her. No human male could penetrate a female in her natural form; it would be physical y impossible. No doubt this is Nature's grand scheme to prevent cross-contamination between the species. Do you understand this, Tessa? Have I left in your quick, curious human mind any question unanswered?"

She whispered, eyes swimming, "
Je't'adore,
Monsieur le Loup-garou
."

I stroked her cheek with fingers that smel ed stil of her musk. "
Et je't'adore, Mademoisel e l'Humaine
."

She caught my fingers and kissed them sweetly. "I wil have no other lover," she whispered. "But you…" She lifted eyes to me that were dark and anxious. "What can I be to you?"

I smiled at her. "An impertinent little human who asks too many questions that are of no consequence, and who must never forget…" And now I let my expression soften. "That she is my dearest treasure and my truest friend." With that I kissed her closed hand again, and saw her melt beneath my touch.

She drew near to me, and kissed my throat. Such tenderness, such innocence, such sweetness to make the heart break. Being with her, curled together before an open window in the sunshine of a spring afternoon, was like emerging from a dark murky pool into crystal mountain waters; bathed in effervescence, I was renewed.

She tilted her head back, smiling softly, and she said, "I'm so very glad I found you, Alexander Devoncroix. Whatever else you think of me, please believe that."

Then she cast down her eyes, and in a quite different tone announced, "And because I am feeling so wel disposed toward you at the moment, I think you may have your surprise after al ."

I played her game. "What,
chérie
? You keep secrets from me in my own house? What are you hiding?

Let me see."

Eyes sparkling, she leapt to her feet and withdrew from her pocket a gilded envelope. My heart stuttered a beat or two when I saw the crest and I was embarrassed, for I forgot, momentarily, that she could not hear the irregularity of my pulse or guess the reason for it. I snatched the envelope from her and tore it open with my thumbnail.

"It arrived a month ago," Tessa was chattering, straining to position herself to read over my shoulder. "I wanted to forward it to you, but Poinceau wouldn't give me the address… It's from her, isn't it? What does it say? Is there to be a coronation? May I go?"

The flowing gold script read simply, "Elise Devoncroix is pleased to offer her hospitality at Palais Devoncroix upon your return. Awaiting your leisure."

It was signed personal y with her signature design: a cursive initial
E
crossed through by a looping, flowing X. My throat was a little dry as I returned the card to its envelope. My heart was racing.

"Wel ,
chérie
," I said in an admirably negligent tone,

"we'd best start packing."

Chapter Eight

My country home in Lyons was not so grand as the house in Paris, for life in the provinces was much more relaxed and there was little need to try to impress. Moreover, lying as it did a mere twelve kilometers from the Palais Devoncroix, the estate was not a place where I ever presumed to do any formal entertaining. That right belonged exclusively to the royal family, and it would have been a foolish

—and social y short-lived—werewolf indeed who tried to compete. I kept a smal staff in residence, of course, but it had been a year or more since I had spent any appreciable amount of time there.

Preparing for the move was no smal undertaking.

First I dispatched a note to the Palais informing the new queen of my intention to open my country house for the summer, and adding that it would be my honor to cal upon her when I arrived. This business of sending formal notes, cards and invitations was a custom borrowed from humans but one we quite enjoyed, and we employed it as much as possible to lend an air of ceremony to our undertakings. In matters of urgency, of course, we would simply send a runner—always faster and more efficient than the human post—but for the most part we preferred to have these little niceties written down.

I sent Poinceau and Crol iere, with their respective staffs, ahead to open the house, and kept Gault, Lavalier the chef and, of course, Tessa with me to close up the Paris residence. This was not a situation which sat wel with either Gault or Crol iere, the latter of whom stil saw Tessa as one of her

"girls" and who simply could not understand my attachment to her.

"You spoil that human shamelessly," Gault told me irritably. He was understandably put out—not because we were packing to leave again when he had only just arrived home, but because he was the last to know about it. "Al the best werewolves in Paris are talking about you. The next I know, you'll have her sleeping on your pil ow like a kitten. It's disgusting."

"The best werewolves in Paris find her as amusing as I do," I returned, "and if they did not, they wouldn't be worth my notice, now would they?"

I was at my desk, dashing off notes to acquaintances and business col eagues, and I had little patience with Gault's complaints. Besides, it was true. Tessa had been on my arm almost constantly in the past few weeks as I made the round of cal s upon my acquaintances—both human and werewolf—to catch up on a winter's worth of gossip and to inform them of my plans for the coming season. She real y was an insufferable little pest whom it was easier to indulge than to discipline, but I also enjoyed having her along. She stil made a little game of trying to identify the werewolves among my friends, and when she thought we were alone she would whisper to me,

"Ah, monsieur, but she is too beautiful—she must be loup-garou!" or, "He is very charming, isn't he?

Too charming for a human, I think."

Werewolf ears, of course, delighted in her "secret"

game, and soon came to deliberately invent diversions and misdirections for her to make it more interesting. Nonetheless, she was right in her guesses more often than not, particularly about the males. It has been my observation that humans almost always have an instinct for the werewolf of the opposite sex, no doubt because of that inexplicable attraction they feel for us.

"She is an annoyance and an embarrassment,"

Gault grumbled. "She should be roasted over an open fire and ground up to season my meat!" Of course, he said things that outrageous only when Tessa was present, and for a while he had succeeded in intimidating her. This time, however, I glanced up in time to see Tessa, who was just crossing the threshold with two new summer frocks to show me, pause to make a gruesome face at him, wrinkling up her nose and sticking out her tongue. I laughed until I couldn't hold the pen, not so much at Tessa's face as at the expression on Gault's.

In the midst of al the chaos and despite Gault's mutterings, we were a happy group that spring.

It took us three weeks to make ready for the move, not only because of the physical preparations to be made—couriers flew back and forth between Lyons and Paris with requests for new draperies and wal hangings, place settings and bed coverings, the usual miscel anea that never seem to survive more than a season or two—but because of the goodbyes to be said and the business matters to be concluded.

My two banks ran very wel without me, thanks to the excel ence of the werewolf staff I employed and the generosity with which I employed them—but also thanks to the fact that, as casual as my management style was, I never let them forget that I was the control ing presence and that nothing ever took place within those wal s about which I did not know. Fortunes were involved, after al , both werewolf and human, and it was important that I make every member of my staff feel the responsibility as keenly as I did. For the most part this was a simple undertaking—I have never understood why humans make such a difficult matter out of managing a business (and in general doing it badly)—but occasional y a bit more personal attention was required. The death of Sancerre was one such occasion, and this departure from Paris, coming so soon after a winter in Siberia and, before that, six weeks in Italy, was another. I made my presence known, I put my people in place, I reassured them I was stil in control.

In addition, those personal cal s I made, those nights at the Opera, those attendances at the bal et and the theater were more than a matter of courtesy. I had been away too long; I had to have news and I had to have it quickly and accurately.

With Tessa, charming brat that she was, to distract and disarm my col eagues, I quickly learned, among other things, that a faction of the pack in the United States had panicked upon learning of Sancerre's death and closed several factories and shipyards, disrupting the economy of that country for months afterward; that six families personal y known to me had delivered healthy spring infants and so had a dozen or so whom I did not know (I instructed Tessa to send gifts to al , as was the custom); that Micheline de Fortenoy had suffered a failure of the heart and was to be succeeded as head of her family by her nephew Philippe; that the artist Galgois had had a show in London and sold, as expected, the most mediocre of his canvases to humans for extraordinary amounts of money (the best of his work went, of course, to werewolf col ectors); and that the young queen Elise had, in the time of my absence, driven off two chal engers whom she did not consider worth her notice, and actual y defeated one in battle. The bones of that unfortunate werewolf had long since been burned in a garbage heap and his name would never be spoken again.

I felt a surge of perfectly natural admiration and pride to know that our leader had acquitted herself so wel .

Not only was it necessary for me to arm myself with knowledge—which is, as even humans know, the only tool of survival it is impossible to do without—

but my appearances about town served another equal y important purpose. I let it be known far and wide that, despite long and recent absences and whatever might have been speculated to the contrary, I was not only alive and wel but thriving in the favor of the pack leader. I never failed to mention the invitation to the Palais which necessitated that I leave Paris—alas!—once again, and I usual y expressed a hope, sometimes condescending, sometimes genuine, that I might see there as wel whichever companion with whom I happened to be conversing. Tessa found it al very amusing and highly pretentious, but one could hardly expect her to understand. Among us, status is everything. To fail to protect that status is to leave oneself vulnerable to al manner of undesirable developments.

At any rate, after al these weeks of preparation, it took us barely a morning to make the trip to Lyons by train. Out of consideration for Gault, who had no love of mechanical conveyances and who had spent far too much time on them during the winter, I took Tessa as my only companion and gave him permission to precede us the night before in wolf form. Tessa was a delight, as excited as a child to be making the trip she had spent so long anticipating, and whol y refreshing in her rapt appreciation of the scenery. I think sometimes we werewolves forget what it must be like to know the world only through the poor shal ow senses of humans—to see the green without being able to smel it, to observe the bird flight without being able to hear the thrum of its delicate wings upon the air—

and it serves us wel to see with their eyes occasional y, so that we might better appreciate what we are.

Gault met us at the station with a carriage and several wagons for the luggage. He and Tessa had their usual squabble, which resulted in his making a grand declaration that he refused to ride inside a closed carriage with a filthy-smel ing human, and stalking off to endure a very uncomfortable trip over bumpy roads on one of the luggage wagons.

Tessa pouted over this a great deal, and insisted when we were in the carriage, "I do not smel bad!"

She looked at me chal engingly. "Do I?"

I tweaked her under the chin. "Not to someone who wants to have you for dinner,
chérie
!"

Such innocent days, such happy times.

I spent the next few days walking through my vineyards, talking with my vigneron, and approving the year's Beaujolais while I awaited word from Palais Devoncroix. The note came a week to the day after we had arrived, stating that the queen would be pleased to receive me on the morrow.