“I’m all right,” she said huskily, trying to evade his support.
His heart was pounding. “The devil you are.” He disregarded her feeble attempt to get away. She burned with fever; he could feel the heat without even touching her forehead.
“I am.” She took a breath. “I am. I’m not sick.”
S.T. didn’t bother to argue further. He slid his arm underneath her shoulders, ready to carry her, but she fought free. With a grip that surprised him, she clung to his arm, trying to pull herself up.
“I’m all right,” she insisted, holding herself in a sitting position against him. “I haven’t… eaten. That’s all.”
He hesitated, allowing her to lean on him, her forehead against his shoulder, her blazing temperature refuting her own words. He smoothed his hand over her temple and felt her head droop as she passed out again in the circle of his arms.
S.T. panicked. Her skin looked pale as death, faintly tinged with an unhealthy sallowness. He couldn’t feel her breathing. He grabbed her hand and chafed it, realized that was useless, and gathered her limp body into his arms. He staggered to his feet under the burden, his uneasy balance reeling.
She came to just as he passed through the armory on his way to the bedroom. “I have to get up,” she mumbled. “I can’t be sick.” Her head tilted back and her white, slender throat vibrated with a low moan. “I can’t… be.”
He mounted the spiral stairs and gripped her tighter as she struggled weakly. By the time he reached the first floor, he was cursing the castle’s builders to Gehenna, what with their uneven stairs and tight curves and narrow passage, devised to make the ascent as difficult as possible for any enemy. The nervous bastards must have been anticipating an army of midgets capable of twisting themselves into Gordian knots. When at last he put his shoulder to the bedroom door and swung her through, the rotation completely overcame his precarious stability. His back hit the door; he had to pause to find his equilibrium before he took a breath and crossed the room in a straight and unconfusing line to the bed.
Her body sank into the feather mattress. His nose filled with dust—it had never occurred to him until this moment to air the sheets, but at least the bedclothes were cool and dry, and smelled mostly of lavender and linseed and himself. She looked up at him, tried once more to rise, and then lapsed back under his hands on her shoulders.
She wet her lips. “Don’t put me here,” she muttered. “Is this your room?”
He pushed the damp black hair back from her forehead. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“I’ll have to go away,” she said desperately. “Leave me alone. Don’t touch me.”
“I won’t do anything to you, ma chérie.”
She pushed at his hand. “Go away. Don’t come near.”
“You’re ill,” he exclaimed. “I’m not going to rape you, you little dimwit. You’re sick.”
“No! I’m not; I can’t be. I can’t be.” She closed her eyes and tossed her head. Then with a defeated whimper she suddenly lay still. The strange, blunted lashes seemed outlandishly black against her chalky skin. She opened her eyes, fixing him with a fierce stare. “Yes,” she said hoarsely. “Please go away. Please. I thought… I hoped… ’twas nothing. Poisonous food.” She rolled away, shivering. “I was wrong.”
He watched a shudder rack her body. His fingers curled in futile empathy.
“My head,” she mumbled, and twisted over. “Oh, my head aches.”
She turned onto her elbow. He pushed her back and held her down, cursing softly. His mother had died of a fever like this—sudden and devastating. Years ago; decades, it seemed, and all he could recall was her body lying in state in a cold marble hall in Florence, white and still as the stone. What had the damned doctors done for her? The wrong thing, obviously, but S.T. couldn’t even remember that. They hadn’t asked him into the sickroom, and he hadn’t been breathless to go: seventeen and rebellious and stupid, not believing in death, never thinking that his impetuous, laughing, exasperating maman would not be asking him to carry another billet doux to her latest lover again.
The girl fought his hands. “Let go of me.” She wrenched free. “Don’t you understand? It’s a mortal fever!”
“Mortal?” He grabbed her wrists and held them. “Are you sure?”
She tried to pull away, and then lay panting, nodding weakly.
“How?”
“I… know.”
His voice rose. “How do you know, damnit?”
She wet her lips. “Headache. Fever. Can’t… eat. In Lyon—” Her fingers trembled. “A fortnight ago. I hadn’t enough to pay. ’Twas a very… bad inn. I nursed the little girl—”
He stared at her. “Oh God,” he whispered.
“Don’t you see? I couldn’t just watch them send her off on a hurdle!” She shivered, a tremor that went from her hands through her whole body. “I had no money. I couldn’t pay them for the bed.”
“And she had a pestilent fever?” he cried. “Imbécile.”
“Yes. Imbécile. I’m sorry. I dosed myself; I thought enough time had passed to be safe. I have to leave. I shouldn’t have come. But I didn’t realize; until now—I was sure ’twas only… some bad food. Please go away… quickly… and I’ll leave.”
There was no doctor in the village. A midwife, at best—and how could he send word? He thought frantically. It was nearly dark—the walk down the canyon took him two hours in the middle of the day… and no certainty he’d find anyone who’d come, with fever to risk and no money to pay, a fact the villagers were well aware of. He obtained his brushes and canvas and wine with barter and promises, and lived off his garden and the land otherwise.
“Go away,” she mumbled. “Don’t touch me. Go away, go away.”
He strode to the narrow window, pushed open the leaded glass, and peered out into the twilight. He put his fingers in his mouth and blew a piercing whistle.
Nemo might hear it. He might track Marc by the scent clinging to an empty bottle of wine. Marc might allow a savage wolf with a message tied to its neck within a hundred yards without shooting it dead.
S.T. leaned his cheek against the stone. From the edge of his vision, he caught the dark shadow that slipped over a break in the ruined castle wall.
His heart rose and tightened, caught between fears. Why had he never told Marc about Nemo? He’d not spoken, not even when the rumors of a lone wolf in the vicinity had been ruffling the waters of village gossip. Instinct held his tongue. S.T. was accustomed to murmur and subterfuge; he’d lived by it for years. He knew rumor. He’d used it, let it grow and turn from hearsay into legend by the casual drop of a word or a knowing smile. Let them worry about a wolf, he’d reckoned. Let them leave him alone in his castle to paint, the only one brave enough to walk up the canyon and sleep sound at Col du Noir.
He looked back at the bed. She was sitting up, leaning on her elbow, facing away from him. In a moment she’d have her feet on the floor, and a moment after that she’d be laid out on it—a sequence he could predict with perfect clarity.
Nemo came padding into the room. He slunk along the wall, skirting the bed as far as possible. After a perfunctory sniff of S.T.’s knees, he stood leaning against his legs, looking dubiously toward their guest.
There was a sketch pad and charcoal on the table by the bed. S.T. left Nemo cowering by the window and went to her.
“Lie down, you idiot,” he said, pushing her back into the pillow. She barely resisted him, drawing her body up into a curl with a soft sound of distress. He tore a strip of paper and scribbled a note, folding it carefully in order to keep from smearing the charcoal.
He looked around the room for something to tie it with. Something obvious. Human. Unmistakably civilized.
The discarded wig hung where he’d left it on the bedpost. S.T. swept it up, rummaged in his chest for the satin ribbons he’d used to tie his queue in his damsel days, and advanced on Nemo. The wolf looked up at him, his head cocked, his pale eyes calm and utterly
trusting.
S.T. tied the wig onto Nemo’s head, smoothing down the fur and tucking the note beneath. He tugged it, to make sure it wouldn’t slide into the wolf’s eyes or interfere with his throat. Nemo accepted the decoration solemnly. S.T. stepped back, and the ridiculousness of the earnest picture the wolf made gave him a sick and guilty ache in his gut.
Why do this?
Send Nemo to the village, and someone would shoot him. ’Twas as simple as that. A wolf would come out of the dark, and no one would stop to ask why it wore a tie wig.
Hell.
She wasn’t worth it. What did he know about her? A capricious, helpless, romantic female. He’d lost enough to her kind. He’d lost Charon, and half his hearing, and all of his self-respect.
He looked at her, a huddled curl of misery on the bed. He wanted her to live. He wanted to sleep with her because she was beautiful and he hadn’t had a woman in three years, damn it all, and that was the sum total of it. Weighted against Nemo’s life, it was nothing.
She was whispering something under her breath. He closed his eyes and turned his head away, but the move only brought her voice more clearly to his good ear.
“… don’t think I… can get up,” she was saying. “You must go away, Monseigneur. A fortnight. Twelve days. Bathe in a cold stream to strengthen yourself. Don’t come back before twelve days. Don’t let… anyone come before. I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have come… but please, Monseigneur—go away. Don’t take this risk.”
He put his hand on Nemo’s head, on the silly wig, and moved it down to smooth the soft ruff of fur.
She wasn’t asking.
Damn her pluck, that she wasn’t asking for his help.
He knelt suddenly and pulled Nemo into a fierce hug, burying his face in the sharp scent of wolf and wildness. A hot tongue licked his ear; a cold nose sniffed curiously at his neck. He tried to memorize those sensations, tried to put them away in a safe place in his heart. Then he stood up and grabbed the empty wine bottle from the bedside.
He held the bottle for Nemo to sniff, and gave two simple orders before he had time to change his mind.
Find men. Find this man.
Go.
Chapter Three
S.T. started awake to the sound of bird calls and a whispered muttering from the bed. He rubbed his neck, feeling on every bone the imprint of the wooden chair where he’d slept for the last ten nights. A bare, chilly glow of dawn sky showed through the open window. He squinted toward the shadows that lingered in the room.
She’d pushed the sheets off again. S.T. rose stiffly. He wiped his eyes, ran a hand through his hair, and took a deep breath. The place at his feet where Nemo should have been was empty, as it had been every morning. For a moment S.T. rested his palms and his forehead against the cold stone wall. He was past praying.
The whispered mumble became a low moan. He exhaled heavily and pushed himself away from the wall.
She opened her eyes as he ladled water from the bucket into a cracked clay cup. He saw her blink and moisten her lips. Her fingers moved fretfully, plucking at the white folds of her shirt amid the tangled sheets. Her wandering glance found him, and those dark brows drew downward in fierce disapproval. “Damn you,” she breathed.
“Bonjour, Sunshine,” he responded tartly. “Ça va?”
She closed her eyes. Her face was white and stark, set in hostility. “I don’t want your help. I don’t need it.”
He sat down on the bed, catching both her wrists in one hand before she could start to fight. She tried to avoid him, but she was too weak to put up any struggle. She turned her face away instead, her breath rapid and shallow even with that small effort. He stuffed a pillow behind her head and held the cup to her lips.
She refused to drink. “Leave,” she whispered. “Leave me alone.”
He tilted the cup. She stared dully ahead, her eyelids barely open. Her skin felt like paper, dry and ashen except for that bright deadly color on her cheekbones. He pressed the cup against her mouth. Water slid uselessly down her chin and throat.
He stood up and added two fingers of brandy to the cup, downing it himself. The welcome heat of alcohol swamped the back of his throat and blossomed in his weary brain.
“Let me die,” she muttered. “It doesn’t matter. I want it.” Her head rolled. “Oh, Papa, let me die, let me die.”
S.T. sat down in the chair and put his face in his hands. She was going to die, yes; she’d made that choice somewhere in her delirium, and what the fever didn’t burn up simply faded with each passing day. She called for her father with increasing frequency, drifting in and out of sense, falling deeper into the hours of silent stupor.
S.T. hated her. He hated himself. Nemo was gone. When he thought of it, he felt as if he’d been hit in the stomach; his chest and his throat ached for breath that wouldn’t come.
“Papa,” she whispered. “Please, Papa, take me with you. Don’t leave me alone… don’t leave… don’t leave… She turned her head restlessly, lifting one weak hand. “Papa…”
“I’m here,” S.T. said.
“Papa…”
“I’m here, curse it!” He strode to the bed and grabbed her hand. Her bones felt like porcelain in his fist. He reached for the ladle and filled the cup again. “Drink this.”
At the touch of the cup rim against her lips, she lifted her lashes. “Papa.” She wet her lips and opened them. When S.T. tilted the cup this time, she swallowed.
“That’s good,” he said. “That’s my girl.”
“Oh, Papa,” she mumbled. She drank again, her eyes closed, each breath and swallow an effort.
“That’s my Sunshine,” he murmured. “Keep trying.”
Her fingers curled in his hand, seeking reassurance like a child. He held her tight, listening to her mindless whimper fade away into silence.
Don’t die, damn you, he thought. Don’t leave me with nothing.
She took a deep, shuddering breath and swallowed the last teaspoon of liquid in the cup. He smoothed her burning forehead, brushing the short, dark curls back from her face. ’Twas a true tribute to her beauty, he reckoned, that after ten days of nursing he could still see it.
He’d seen every inch of her by now. He wondered what her precious papa would think of that. Personally, S.T. was too damned tired and sick at heart to care.
He coaxed and bullied her into drinking a second cup of water. She managed half of it before he lost her to exhaustion and grogginess. After a halfhearted attempt to straighten the bedclothes, which he had a vague idea was proper sickroom procedure, he went downstairs to face the problem of food.
At the door to the courtyard he stopped and whistled.
Twice. He had to restrain himself from a third time, or a fourth or fifth or a thousand. He stood in the dawn and listened to the sound of his own breathing.
He walked across the yard and whistled again. The ducks came waddling after him, irritable and hungry, but he left them to fend for themselves as he headed for the garden. He ought to butcher one, he knew—that was why he’d started the flock—but when it came to the decision he never could quite choose the victim. He’d reckoned he’d leave that to Nemo, who had no such scruples.
Nemo.
S.T. whistled again. He didn’t allow himself to stop walking. The crunch of his boots on limestone and dirt seemed very loud, echoing faintly off the hillside. Every branch and bare rock stood intensely clear in the brilliant dawn light.
In the garden, he had to look hard for what was left among the weeds. Five red peppers, a cylindrical green courgette—profoundly rabbit-nibbled on one end; some broad white beans, two fistfuls of wild rosemary and another of thyme, and of course the garlic, which was his sole agricultural success. He could throw it all in the pot with barley for soup. If she wouldn’t eat it, he certainly would. And he’d mash olives and capers into a tapenade to spread on his bread. On his way back he collected pine kernels, eating them and tossing the cone husks over the cliff as he went.
&
nbsp; After he started the soup, he looked in on her again. She was restless and petulant, drifting from sense to nonsense, taking one sip of water and then refusing the next. Her forehead and hands felt fiery. He might have thought she was reaching a crisis, except the past days had seemed nothing but one endless climax of fever and weakness.
He did what he could for her, bathed her in a decoction of rue and rosemary he’d been boiling daily, ever since she’d had a moment of lucidity and told him to rub himself with it to prevent infection. She seemed to be something of an expert in the matter of physicking, and when he could coax an instruction out of her, he followed it with alacrity. Afterward, he took a half hour, as he had daily, to climb carefully down into the canyon and steel himself to bathe in the icy river that rushed down from mountains.
To strengthen himself, she’d said—and God knew it took backbone to wade in naked and pour a bucketful of frigid water over his head. He’d never been known as a coward, but that little task bordered on being more than he could brave.
He did it, though. Mainly because he had no desire to die the way she was dying.
The sun had cleared the canyon wall by the time he retied his queue and shivered into his shirt and waistcoat. He walked a little way downstream, whistling for Nemo, looking for any signs, still clinging to the faint hope that a female presence might be keeping the wolf in hiding.
He found nothing to reassure him. At last he took a different path up the canyon, emerging onto the track from the village. He kept his eyes on the ground, still looking for fresh signs.
The sign he found wasn’t a wolf’s. On a limestone ledge above the path, the scrambling marks of human footprints led him to a little crevice beneath a juniper bush. In the shadow, a battered cloak bag lay indifferently concealed. He pulled it out, turned it over, and flipped open the buckles, rifling the contents with seasoned efficiency and no compunction.
The elegantly lined interior held a crushed silk gown and matching slippers embroidered in an intricate pattern of Prussian blue birds. Beneath that lay a set of bone stays in brown twill and a few pieces of muslin worked in elaborate needlepoint.