The Passion (21 page)

"At last!" declared Tessa, evincing a relieved impatience that reflected my own but to which I would never have admitted. "Such a great lot of trouble, so many gold-embossed cards going back and forth, for such a simple thing as a neighborly cal . I doubt even the Queen of England makes so much fuss when entertaining the President of France!"

"Ah, but she is not a werewolf," I responded, and al owed her to snatch the card from me, dancing close to the window so that she might better study the elaborate, flowing script.

"It doesn't say what time," she observed, surprised.

"Whether for tea or luncheon or any meal at al .

How wil I know what to wear?"

"You may wear whatever you please," I replied, and sat down to compose the note that would accompany the case of wine I would send to the Palais by way of response that afternoon. "Because you wil not be going with me."

A deadly silence fol owed. I was occupied with a turn of phrase and barely noticed.

Then she said, "What do you mean, I won't be going? Of course I'm going! We've come al this way and waited al this time—of course I'm going!"

I waved a hand to silence her. "Tessa, stop buzzing about my ears. I'm trying to concentrate."

She came swiftly to my desk and sank down on her knees before it in a swirl of skirts and lavender perfume. "But you promised! Months and months ago you promised to introduce me, remember?"

"Yes, and I shal . But not at the Palais, and not tomorrow."

"Why not?"

Her pretty upturned face and the distress in her eyes gentled my exasperation with her. "Because,
chérie
, you were not invited. And because to bring a human into the presence of the queen without permission would be—" I searched for the word, in French or English, and settled for a close approximation. "Impertinent."

Her big eyes clouded with disappointment, perhaps even a misting of tears. "But—"

"No more arguments, please; we'll talk about it when I return. Now go and find Gault and send him to me. Go now, hurry."

In another moment she rose on heavy feet and left the room.

La fin de siècle
. What an interesting time to be a werewolf. Much of the human population had begun to tire of royalty and rituals; pageantry and spectacle were variously considered either passe or ostentatious. Werewolves, on the other hand, have always known the value of a strict social hierarchy and never lose a chance to celebrate, as lavishly as possible, the traditions that govern it. For us, pageantry, spectacle and, yes, ostentation are always in fashion, and were never more so than at the turn of the century.

The Devoncroix estate was located just outside Lyons, a vast wal ed compound of some several thousand acres of lush parks, deep woods, streams, pools and gardens as wel as virgin wilderness that supported species of wildlife known nowhere else in France. The average Frenchman would be astonished to learn just how enormous the complex was, but no more than he would be to know what resided within it. Here Mile. Devoncroix lived precisely as she should have done, as her family had always done: like royalty.

To the humans who lived around them, the Devoncroix were considered mildly eccentric and far too wealthy for those eccentricities to matter. The Palais itself was an imposing structure which, like many of the chateaux of its kind, had been designed in a time when it might be cal ed upon to feed and shelter large numbers—in this case, a good portion of the entire pack—for an unlimited time. Unlike other chateaux, however—human châteaux—Palais Devoncroix had never been al owed to fal into disrepair or disuse. It was stil one of the most beautiful in the val ey, employing the best of Gothic and Renaissance architecture, and constructed of immaculately cut blocks of pale pink stone imported from Italy and an abundance of glass. It spread graceful y across a knol surrounded by a green park, its ornate majesty captured in a large reflecting pool at the bottom of the slope. Coming upon it for the first time always took the breath away.

The Palais was outfitted with marble hal ways and Roman pools, running water and gas lamps. Wal coverings and draperies were changed every year, extravagant new furnishings ordered periodical y from around the world. Al of this, of course, kept a great many human craftsmen wel employed, which in itself generated enough goodwil to dispel the occasional murmurings about the odd goings-on behind castle wal s. The Devoncroix, like many of us, kept a few human servants and employed many hundreds of others in their various enterprises, but none of them lived inside the Palais. The three-hundred-eighty-member household was composed entirely of werewolves, for this was, after al , our last bastion.

We arrived in style, Gault and I, as was only proper, in my finest crested carriage (for, as one whose ancestors had wisely changed their name al those centuries ago, I was permitted to display on the right-hand door of my carriage and my rail car, but nowhere else, a five-by-five centimeter blue—not gold—crescent and arrow) of polished black with silver appointments drawn by a sleek team of black horses in silver harness. My driver was turned out in fine cobalt, my horses' tails plumed and dancing with high spirits. I could, of course, have taken my motorcar, or driven myself in an open barouche, and since we were neighbors and had known each other for years, neither would have been a particular breach of protocol. But I loved the spectacle: I loved the way the travel ing farmers and vendors with their wagons ful of merchandise pul ed off the road and removed their hats—even if only to scratch their heads in puzzlement—when we passed. I loved the way the children ran out from their houses to gape, and the way the local gentry reigned their mounts and turned to stare.
La fin de siècle
. I would miss it when it was gone.

The approach to the palace was along a three-kilometer avenue lined with chestnuts and offering an occasional superb view of the stil blue canal that encircled the palace proper and provided the water source for the entire complex. Now and then I caught the scent—though not a glimpse or a whisper—of the two guards in wolf form who flanked our carriage, some dozen meters into the trees on either side, and whose sole function was to escort us to the palace steps and to be ready to rip out our throats at the first sign of treachery.

As we rounded the curve that first brought the palace into view, Gault climbed down from the driver's seat and nimbly opened the door and swung inside the carriage to do a final inspection of my appearance. He was an impossible fusspot, but that was precisely what made him such a good personal servant.

He centered my stickpin and smoothed back the fal of my hair. I shrugged him away impatiently. He wrinkled his nose. "You smel like that human," he said.

In fact, I had been bothered by a distinct trace of Tessa al morning, and smel ing her made me wonder whether I had treated her badly by leaving her behind. I decided to bring her a present upon my return, for she was foolishly delighted by smal gifts, and put the matter out of my mind.

I said, "She helped me choose this jacket. I should have had it laundered."

"You certainly should have. You can't go into the presence of the queen smel ing like a human."

"It appears I shal have to, doesn't it?"

Gault's face suddenly went quite stil . He was staring at the space beneath the seat opposite, beneath which was stored a supply of folded lap blankets. "Unless," he said quite clearly, "we kil her first."

I saw then what his vantage point had al owed him to see sooner: the blankets gave a definite, startled twitch.

I listened for the heartbeat the pounding of the hooves had disguised from me before, the sigh of her breathing. I swooped down and hauled her out by ankle and wrist, eliciting several undignified howls of protest and pain in the process. How she had ever managed to wedge herself unnoticed into that smal space I couldn't imagine; that she had been able to conceal her presence from me for so long humiliated and infuriated me.

"You impossible little human!" I flung her onto the opposite seat so hard that she bounced. "How dare you do this thing! Are you deranged?"

"I only wanted to see the palace!" she cried, rubbing her bruised wrist. "I would just have looked around and then gone home. You never would have known I was here!"

She had wrapped herself in one of my long coats, which explained how she had disguised her scent from me for so long, and the heavy muffling blankets had helped. But she must have been sweltering in that smal closed place; her face was flushed and damp and there were dark stains under the arms of her pale yel ow gown as she shrugged out of the coat and pushed it away. Her hair was mussed, the ribbons askew, her face and gown smudged with dust. I made a mental note to speak to the groom about slovenly housekeeping even as I railed at her. "Do you have any idea what you've done? Is it your intention to make me look the fool?

Is
this
the way you repay my kindness?"

She managed to look both bel igerent and hurt at the same time. "I told you, I only wanted to see what al the fuss was about. I wasn't even going to come near your queen, who as we both know is not a real queen at al but just a very wealthy loup-garou who has no power over me whatsoever—"

I saw Gault lunge for her and had to hold him back.

"Throw her out the door," he advised in little more than a growl. "Let the guards eat her."

Her eyes went wide, as they often did in response to Gault's threats. I had no sympathy for her now, however, and replied with impatient pragmatism,

"Don't be absurd. If we throw her out now we'll be accused of trying to sneak her in for the devil knows what nefarious purpose, and we'll be the ones shredded for fodder on the palace steps." . I cast a hasty glance outside the window and came to a quick decision. "There's nothing but to make the best of it now. Don't say another word, Gault, and for the love of bloody hel , clean her up."

Gault glowered at me, but it was clear there was no other alternative except to brave it out. And though I cursed her through a thousand painful deaths in those last few seconds before the carriage pul ed up into the grand courtyard of the Palais Devoncroix, the truth was I wasn't as concerned as I might have been about bringing Tessa into the presence of the queen. I had my reputation for outrageousness to fal back on, and the fact that Tessa was, for the most part, wel behaved and presentable. Stil , I couldn't think of a punishment severe enough for her when al of this was over.

Tessa gave a muffled screech as Gault suddenly lunged forward and swept her face with the flat of his tongue. He used his handkerchief to scrub the dust and perspiration from her skin while she sputtered and gasped, and then he jerked the ribbon from her hair—along, I could hear, with a considerable number of hairs themselves—and retied it in a more or less presentable fashion. She screeched again and tried to pummel him with her fists as he began to lick her neck and her hands and her exposed bosom.

"Stop it! Alexander, make him stop it! Look what he's—" That was as far as she got before Gault clapped his hand over her mouth and I instructed her shortly, "Hush. Better you smel like him than dust and sweat, and think if you wil how unpleasant it must be for Gault."

I picked up my walking stick and uncrossed my ankles as the carriage drew to a stop. Gault, who was taking a good deal more pleasure in Tessa's distress than was probably cal ed for, held his hand tight to her mouth and hissed malevolently in her ear. "Another screech out of you, my dear, and I wil come while you are sleeping at night and pul your teeth out one by one. It is a common discipline for unruly cubs!"

He released her abruptly, and whether it was due to his threats or to my unwelcoming expression, she made not a sound. She spent the next few seconds before the carriage door was opened trying to wipe his saliva from her skin and rubbing at the red marks his fingers had left around her mouth.

I ignored the startled glance of the footman and offered my arm to Tessa as she descended from the carriage. Gault, having executed his duties by seeing me safely to my destination, went off to seek the company of those of his own status—and no doubt to remove the taste of human from his tongue with several liters of wine—and Tessa and I ascended the wide marble steps unaccompanied.

"I am very put out with you,
chérie
," I murmured to her, although in truth my temper was already beginning to cool, merely with the awe of being inside these grand hal s once again. "However, if you conduct yourself with the breeding I know your father must have instil ed within you and bite your tongue on every question that comes into your head, we may just get through it without doing any lasting harm,
n'est-ce pas
?"

I heard Tessa swal ow. Her eyes were huge and busy taking in everything we passed. "If I had known I was going to meet the queen," she whispered back, "I would have worn a better gown."

The entryway was flanked by two twelve-foot-sized marble statues of wolves: on the right, Armaden, mythical mother to us al ; on the left, Silos Devoncroix, who had defeated the Antonov al those centuries ago. Near them and forming a single file on either side was the palace guard, the strongest and finest of the pack, al in wolf form, and a magnificent display they made, too. I felt Tessa's fingers dig into the muscles of my arm and she shrank a bit closer to me as we passed, for she had never seen so many of us in our natural state before

—actual y, I did not think she had ever seen anyone but me—and they watched her with sharp suspicious eyes, as wel they should. Her step did not falter, though, and she held her head high, which was al to her good fortune. If she had gone into a panic, I doubt that even I could have protected her from an attack.