The Vampire Narcise (Regency Draculia 3)

As she watched, confused and angry, he yanked on his breeches with a snap of the fabric, dragged on his boots and picked up his discarded shirt. "No matter how hard I try," he said, his jaws tight together, "I can't make you into the evil, manipulative demon I want you to be."

"Why do you want to do that?" she asked, affronted and yet fascinated in spite of herself. She was beginning to realize that his anger wasn't directed at her, but at himself.

"So I can kill you, damn it." With fury and rage surrounding him, Chas stalked from the room, still holding his wadded up shirt.

He didn't return until well after the sun went down, and this time, he didn't reek of drink. She'd spent the day drawing scenes from the window, using the pencils and paper she'd managed to charm from unsuspecting shopkeepers-and through Philippe-during Chas's feverish illness.

When he came into the chamber, she looked up briefly, then returned to her sketch. Much of Notre Dame's towers were visible from her window, and despite the irony of a soul-damaged vampire drawing a holy place, Narcise had spent much effort on the sketch. Now that it was getting darker, she was working from memory.

The emperor had ordered the area around the famous church to be cleared of old buildings, piles of garbage and debris left from the years of neglect during the Revolution. He insisted that the streets around the cathedral be emptied and widened for his upcoming coronation, which was to take place inside. Soldiers and city workers had been toiling over the project for the last month, and it would take well into the autumn before they were finished...or so Narcise had heard him complain to Cezar. Because of this, the coronation had been moved to early November.

"We're leaving Paris tomorrow," said Chas, sitting heavily on the bed. "I've made the arrangements."

She nodded briefly but remained intent on her work, trying to ignore the spike of apprehension in her belly.

"Your brother has the entire city looking for us," he continued. "But he isn't certain we're even together. That works to our advantage. We have to go during the day, so I've taken precautions for you. You'll be driving a cart with a coffin in back...which will contain me-a corpse dead from the plague. I'll stuff the box with old meat beneath me so as to attract flies, and to make a stink, and will fill your pockets with it as well. You'll dress as an elderly woman with a large hat and gloves to protect you from the sun and will be taking your dead husband to the country."

Silence reigned between them for a moment, broken only by the distant shouts from the street below, and a burst of raucous laughter from the pub beneath the floor underfoot. Her pencil scratched quietly as she shaded one of the windows in the square-shaped towers.

"Do you still wish to go to London?"

At that, she rested her pencil on the paper and turned to look at him. "Only if you can suffer my manipulative, evil presence," she said stiffly.

His face tightened. "Narcise, I'm sorry if I've offended you, but understand, I spend my life hunting and killing the Dracule. It's not often that I find one worth saving."

She tossed her head and looked back down at her work, lit by a nearby lamp. To her horror, it began to blur and she furiously blinked back the tears. She hadn't cried in decades, and now in the last week, she'd teared up three times. Was she growing soft?

"Narcise," he said, his voice softer. He rose and came to stand behind her, his fingers sliding gently over her hair. "You saved my life. You stayed with me when you could have left. I was a fool for saying those things to you today. It's just that...I'm beginning to have feelings for you, and it's not what I expected."

She turned to look up at him and read the bleakness in his eyes. "I'm sorry it's so difficult for you," she said, her voice emotionless.

He shrugged, a rueful smile curving his lips. "I am, too. Narcise, I am sorry." He drew in a deep breath and said, "I'll keep you safe. I have a secret place, a small estate in Wales where you can hide...where no one will find you."

She looked at him, her heart leaping. Wales was far from London; she knew that. "Yes," she said, knowing that her heart was in her eyes. "Thank you, Chas."

He gave that little shrug again and said, "And maybe you'll allow me to stay with you for a while." His grin was crooked.

"Of course," she said, and smiled back.

His gaze darkened and his lips parted slightly. "You are the most beautiful woman," he breathed. "God help me."

He reached for her hand and she rose from her chair, suffused for the first time with comfort and security. She trusted him, and somehow, he'd come to trust her.

As long as they made their safe escape from Paris, she would have the chance to be free of Cezar forever.

Chapter 16

Two weeks later Reither's Close, a village outside of London

Narcise paced the small chamber, trying not to imagine what was happening in the pub below. Trying not to picture the meeting between Chas and Giordan Cale.

More than a week ago, she and Chas had arrived on the British shore in the dead of night. Safe.

Between his careful planning, the livres and guineas he'd used to grease palms and her ability to enthrall, their exit from Paris and subsequent passage through the English blockade of the Channel had gone expediently and smoothly.

Without even a detour to London, they were on their way to Chas's secret estate in Wales, but had stopped for three nights at an inn in Reither's Closewell, a small village west of London, so that he could send word to Corvindale and wait for a response.

Everything had gone well during their stay until Chas extricated himself from Narcise's arms-and bed-and informed her that he was to meet a gentleman in the public room below.

When he said, "Perhaps you don't remember Giordan Cale, but he's a confidant of Dimitri," Narcise's entire world had halted.

"Not titled, but rich as Croesus and," Chas continued with a bit of a laugh, "more than a match for me. I met him when I sneaked in to stake him. Obviously we both lived."

Narcise found her voice. "Obviously."

"I can meet him below, but it wouldn't be as private if I asked him up here. Less chance of us being seen."

"No," was all she said. But inside, her body was shriveling into panic. She had to close her fingers together to hide their sudden trembling.

Was Chas watching her closely, or was it her imagination?

"Very well, Narcise."

And she wondered what, if anything, he knew about their history.

For, despite their continued intimacy, she hadn't told Chas about what had happened with Giordan and Cezar. Those events of a decade ago were no longer relevant, and there wasn't any sense in reigniting the memories, reliving that horrible time.