Chapter 17 #3
But even the mastery of the Dutch painters wasn’t enough to keep her from her need to move. Suddenly, all she wanted was to be alone, and away from everyone in this place.
She wanted to be out, under the night sky, alone…for the first time in more than a century.
She was done with huddling and hiding.
Narcise’s excellent hearing and sense of smell allowed her to avoid the various servants and other occupants of the pleasure house, including Chas, whose voice was coming from behind a door on the first floor.
The low, lyrical responses were obviously from the Irish proprietress, and Narcise didn’t wait to learn the topic of their conversation.
She found her way to a side door and slipped outside.
Her hair was still damp, but despite the lift of the cooling breeze, Narcise wasn’t cold. She was free!
This little alleyway was silent and dim, but beyond, Narcise could hear the sounds of the rest of the world.
As she made her way out of the narrow space between the house and its neighbor, she felt the air stir.
With the soft buffet came the scent of something familiar and pleasant…
damp wool and cedar. It reminded her of Giordan, and she paused with one hand resting against ivy-covered brick.
Her heart pounded and she listened, lifting her nose to better smell the breeze…but the aroma was gone as quickly as it had come and she heard nothing. A phantom memory perhaps, or another man who wore wool and the scent of cedar.
When she moved at last, a brief shower of drops sprinkled onto her shoulders and head from the fog-drenched ivy and she stepped out into the street.
From the front, Rubey’s establishment rose as high and forbidding as the home of a duc back in Paris, with many windows and an intimidating entrance.
Narcise had learned that the proprietress actually lived in a smaller home nearby, and she wondered that a woman was able to keep up and furnish two such residences.
Then she walked brusquely past the pleasure house, with no destination in mind, but wholly aware of the fact that she had never, ever walked on a city street by herself. And that she had no one to return or answer to.
Exhilaration spurred her and she drew in a deep breath, becoming more aware of her surroundings, hardly noticing that she was the only pedestrian not dressed in a cloak or other evening wrap.
Carriages clattered by, couples walked together or in groups, dogs slinked in alleys and cats peered from the lengthening shadows.
Narcise walked and walked, through the affluent residential area where Rubey’s was located and, after many turns and crossing two small squares, onto a street lined with shops now closed for the evening.
She passed a theater or some place of entertainment, noticing conveyances lined up, waiting for their riders to return, and night watchmen strolling along.
“Well, now, ain’t this a foin surprise.”
Narcise halted when a large hulk of a man emerged from a dark spot between two buildings to block her way.
She realized belatedly that she’d turned down a passage that was deserted but for a slight figure in the distance, just turning the corner onto another street.
It was a narrow way, with a sewage canal on one side, and lined on the other by houses or shops with dark windows—either vacant or filled with slumbering residents.
Something moved behind her, and from the corner of her eye, she saw two more shadows sliding into the glancing moonlight in her wake.
A little trip of unease quickly faded. Not only were these mere mortal men, but she neither a captive nor prisoner weakened by a necklace of sparrow feathers.
“I tol’, ye, Griff, it would be a lucky even’n’, comin’ out this a-way,” said one of the others, nearer now, behind her. His companions laughed in agreement.
They moved closer, bringing their smells of desperation and lust, as the first one smiled and reached lazily for her. “An’ she’s a looker, ain’t she?”
She smiled back. Allowed her eyes to glow just a bit of red. “Take your hand off me,” she said calmly—and was delighted when the fool didn’t comply.
Instead, he laughed and tugged her closer to him so that she bumped against his torso.
He reeked of sweat and smoke and old ale, and despite her height, he was taller than she.
“A furriner, listen, to ’er, will ye,” he said.
“Well, we’ll ’ave to show the lady a good time ’ere in ole Londontown, aye, boys? ”
The other two were just behind Narcise, blocking any escape she might attempt, and one of them slid his hand down her spine and over her rear, his fingers scoping intimately around the bottom cleft of her arse.
Narcise’s reflexive spark of fear at being touched dissolved instantly and she slid into action.
With one smooth move, she flung the big man’s hand away and spun to face the one who’d groped her.
Grabbing him by a woolen coat crusty with stains and smelling of smoke and vomit, Narcise lifted him up and tossed him into the air. His arms flailed as he flew back against a shuttered window on the brick wall.
“’Ey!” shouted the big man, as if offended and affronted by her reaction. “Wot the hell d’ye think yer doin, foin lady?” He lunged for Narcise again, but she easily ducked out of his way and then grabbed his arm, using his own weight and momentum against him.
“I told you to take your hands off me,” she reminded him as she spun him sharply into the third man.
They tumbled together like a load of boulders and she stood over them, looking down as they scrambled to their feet in fury.
Her pulse had kicked up and she felt a rush of energy through her.
Even her Mark was more at ease than it had been for days.
“Ye loose-lipped bitch,” growled the big oaf, and his insult was echoed by the one she’d whipped into the wall a moment ago. The three of them, as cowards often do, shouted encouragement to each other as they bolted toward her in a rage.
Narcise didn’t flinch, and in fact, was enjoying herself as she fought them off.
Despite her restrictive clothing—a corset, slippers, and shoe-length skirts—and the loose braid that whipped around with her every movement, she was quick and efficient.
It was a testament to their stupidity that it took three rounds before they realized she was neither going to go with them, nor suffer being touched.
She didn’t even have to bare her fangs in order to stave them off—it was a matter of strength and speed, both of which she had as an advantage over the three men.
When they were at last in an unmoving heap on the ground, their noses bloodied—and the scent not even the least bit tempting to her—and lips cut, perhaps an arm broken or an eye blackened, she stood over them. “Don’t ever accost a woman again. The next time, I’ll kill you.”
The largest one whimpered when she bared her fangs at last and swooped toward him, her eyes glowing bright and red as she yanked him up by his shirt. “Do you understand?” she demanded, breathing through her mouth so as not to inhale his putrid odor, now colored with the scent of terror.
“A-aye,” he managed, closing his eyes and turning away as if expecting her to take a hunk out of his skin.
“Good,” she breathed, and licked her lips enticingly. “Because I’ll be watching you…and the next time you even look at a woman, I’ll find you. And I’ll be hungry.” She showed him her fangs, long and wicked.
Then she smelled the pungent odor of fresh urine and shoved him toward the half wall along the sewer, satisfied that he’d been well and truly frightened.
“Go off with you. All of you,” she ordered, standing there in the dark street, feeling as strong as she’d ever felt—as powerful, as sure of herself.
And as her would-be attackers scuttled off into the night like frightened beetles, she felt a bubble of laughter come up from inside her. Joyous and warm, delight swelled inside her as she realized who she was.
And what she could do. And—
“How startling. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard you laugh.”
Narcise’s stomach seemed to plummet to the ground. Choking off her laughter, she spun, her insides turning inside out and upside down, her thoughts scattering.
“What are you doing here?” she managed to say as she swallowed back her heart and felt her cheeks burn.
Giordan sauntered toward her with studied casualness.
The moon was kind to him, filtering silvery light over the thick, dark curls on his head and the broad shoulders encased in a dark coat.
It was open to reveal a silver-buttoned waistcoat and white shirt, brilliant and crisp, fairly glowing in the low light.
His boots were soundless and his eyes dark and glittering, focusing on Narcise with unpleasant intensity. His comment had been laced with irony.
“I’ve been following you since you left Rubey’s,” he said. “At first I thought you had a destination in mind…but then I realized you were simply walking.”
So she had scented him, and, Giordan being the cunning, manipulative man he was, had probably kept himself downwind from her as he followed her through the streets. Bastard.
Their eyes met and Narcise found that she couldn’t pull hers away. Her heart pounded high in her throat and she tried to dig down inside to pull out her anger and revulsion toward him…this man who’d destroyed her.
This man who was looking at her as if he’d never seen her before.
“I thought—” She stopped herself. She had nothing to say to him. Nothing at all.
“If I didn’t feel such sympathy for them, I’d have found the entire scene more than a little amusing,” he said, gesturing in the direction where the cowardly beetles had gone. “Is that why you were laughing?” His tone had softened, perhaps, a bit.
She drew herself up, still searching for that deep betrayed feeling, and replied, “No.” Her fingers were shaking and her insides were doing unpleasant and pleasant things at the same time.