Page 50

FOURTEEN

T he front door was opening.

“Christ, not again!” Jean Marc muttered as he pushed back his chair and swiftly covered the distance between his desk and the door of the study he had deliberately left ajar. After three nights he had begun to think Juliette’s sleepwalking had been only a singular occurrence not to be repeated.

The front door was standing wide open again. The blasted woman was probably halfway to the goddamned abbey. At least she’d picked a night that wasn’t rainy this time.

But when Jean Marc reached the doorway, Juliette had only just reached the bottom of the stone steps. In another moment he was standing beside her.

“Juliette.”

She didn’t answer and, with a muttered curse, he picked her up in his arms and carried her back to the foyer.

She stiffened in his arms. “The abbey…”

“No.” He kicked the door shut with his foot and carried her across the foyer toward the staircase. “It’s over.”

She shook her head, her eyes glazed, unseeing.

He started up the stairs. “You’ve got to stop this, you idiotic woman. I have no desire to spend my nights chasing you through the streets of Paris.”

Why was he even talking to her? She obviously wasn’t comprehending anything he said.

She had left the door of her chamber open and he carried her across the room, laid her on the bed, and pulled the covers over her. A crisp autumn breeze and pale moonlight poured through the open window beside the bed, illuminating Juliette’s strained expression.

He stood looking down at her, his hands closing into fists at his sides, trying to crush the aching pity and tenderness raging through him.

He didn’t want to feel like this. It wasn’t at all what he had planned for her.

He could permit himself lust, amusement, even respect for a worthy opponent, but not this.

Mother of God, he had wanted her for five long years, and he would not let this softness rob him of her.

“Let me do it again,” she whispered.

He could see the shimmer of her eyes in the moonlit darkness, and he knew he couldn’t leave her until those eyes closed and she fell into a normal sleep. He sat down beside her on the bed, every muscle and tendon of his body stiff and unyielding.

Merde , he didn’t want this.

“I can do it right this time. I have to go to the abbey and do it again.”

Her eyes were moistly brilliant now, and the agony in them woke a pain that echoed with unbearable intensity through Jean Marc.

He couldn’t let it go on.

“I’m afraid you’re right.” He gently stroked an unruly curl back from Juliette’s temple and whispered, “Very well, ma petite , we’ll go back to the abbey and do it again.”

“But I have to get to my work, Mademoiselle Juliette,” Robert protested. “I’ve been sitting on this bench so long my bones are melting into it.”

“Hush, Robert, I’m almost finished.” Juliette added a little more shadow to the seamed lines fanning his eyes. “What’s more important? A painting that will give you immortality or doing your chores?”

“Marie would say my chores,” Robert said dryly. “Keeping the house clean and putting meals on the table with no other servants in the house are not easy tasks.”

“But you’ve both done splendidly. I’ll help you with your chores as soon as we’re finished here.” Juliette grinned as she looked at him over the easel. “I suppose you’ll be glad to see us all gone and the house closed again.”

“Of course he will,” Jean Marc answered for Robert as he strolled down the path toward them. “You can escape now, Robert.”

“Merci.” Robert scrambled to his feet and hurried away from them toward the house.

“You shouldn’t have done that.” Juliette stiffened with wariness, her gaze avoiding Jean Marc’s. “I would have let him go soon. What are you doing here anyway? Have you nothing better to do than take strolls in the garden and interrupt my work?”

“And a pleasant good morning to you also.” Jean Marc stopped before the easel and tilted his head in consideration. “You’ve caught his likeness. It’s quite adequate.”

“Adequate?” she asked, stung. “I don’t do ‘adequate’ work. It’s excellent.”

“But boring.”

“Boring.”

“There’s no sweep, no daring. As I remember, you didn’t used to be afraid to paint the truth.”

“This is truth. This is Robert.”

“And you obviously chose him because he’s a safe subject and would cause you no difficulty.” Jean Marc shrugged. “You shouldn’t feel bad. Many artists prefer to paint the ordinary rather than challenge themselves.”

“I’m not ‘many artists’.” Juliette glared at him as she set her brush down. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. I do challenge myself.”

“Do you?” Jean Marc sat down on the marble bench across from her. “I’ve seen no sign of it of late. You’ve avoided the greatest challenge to your skill.”

“You?” A sudden eagerness tempered the anger in her expression. “Will you let me paint you? If you posed for me, I might be able to—”

“Not me.” He met her gaze. “The abbey. You haven’t painted what happened at the abbey.”

“No!” She recoiled as if he had struck her. “I don’t want to paint what happened at the abbey. It was ugly.”

“And you’re afraid of ugliness.” He nodded. “It’s entirely understandable.”

“No, I’m not afraid. I’ve never been afraid. I just don’t want to paint it.”

“Is it that you don’t want to paint it or you don’t know if you can? Such a subject could be done only by a master.”

“I could do it!”

“But you’re afraid to try.”

“No, I’m not afraid. Why should I be afraid?” She drew a deep, shaky breath. “I wish you’d go away. You’re making me very angry.”

“Am I? You showed a great deal of promise as a youngster. It’s a shame you’ve chosen to become only mediocre.”

“I’m not afraid and I’m not mediocre. Why should I paint something no one wants to see?”

“Is that your excuse?” He leaned forward, his intent gaze holding her own. “ I want to see what happened at the abbey, Juliette. I want to see what you saw.”

Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes glittering with tears as she thrust aside the easel and snatched up the sketchbook sitting on the bench beside her.

“You like to see blood? I’ll show you.” She picked up the pen with a shaking hand and began to sketch with feverish, reckless strokes.

“You want to see rape? I’ll show you. You want to see death?

I’ll show you. I’ll show you. I’ll show you… ”

In a few minutes she finished the sketch, threw it aside, and began another. She finished that sketch and began another. The sketches flew from her pen like dead leaves drifting from a tortured, twisted branch.

Jean Marc sat quietly watching as the pile of sketches grew around her. Her face was set in terrible lines of stress and her eyes glittered wildly. Every now and then she muttered something unintelligible, but he knew she wasn’t speaking to him. He doubted if she knew he was there any longer.

Late morning marched into afternoon and then faded into the first blue hours of twilight, and still the pile of sketches grew on the bench beside her.

Finally, Juliette stopped, staring numbly down at the sketch in her hands.

“Are you finished?” Jean Marc rose to his feet and walked over to the bench where she was sitting. “May I see them?”

Juliette nodded.

Jean Marc began to leaf through the sketches on the bench. She had shown him, he thought grimly. She had shown him rape and murder and unsurpassed brutality. Dieu , how had she survived it?

He put the pile of sketches back on the bench. “May I see that last one in your hand?”

She thrust the sketch at him and closed her eyes.

“Who’s the kneeling woman?”

“Sister Mary Magdalene, the Reverend Mother.”

“And the man with the revolutionary bonnet and the scythe?”

“I don’t know his name.” She shuddered. “Butcher. He was the butcher.”

“And this is you?”

She opened her eyes. “Yes. Me. The butcher.”

“You said the man with the scythe was the butcher.”

“He was.” She wrapped her arms around herself to still her trembling. “And I was.”

He went still. “They made you kill the nuns?”

“Yes.”

Jean Marc was silent a moment. “How?”

“The blood.”

“What blood?”

“The blood in the chalice. I thought no one would do anything so bestial. I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”

“Wouldn’t do what, Juliette?”

“Sister Mathilde. They brought her before the tribunal table and made her kneel before me. She was so frightened. I could see how frightened she was. Dupree said I had to toast his fine Marseilles and their work at the abbey. Someone brought the chalice of the Holy Sacrament from the chapel.” She stopped and moistened her dry lips. “I said no.”

“And then?”

“They cut Sister Mathilde’s throat.” Her eyes shut again. “And they filled the chalice with her blood. Dupree said I had to drink it and I said no again.

“They brought Sister Mary Magdalene before the tribunal and told me if I didn’t drink it they would kill her.

” Her eyes opened and she stared blindly ahead.

“I drank the blood but it made me sick and I threw it up. They killed the Reverend Mother and filled the cup again. They brought another nun to kneel before the tribunal. She was crying for me to help her. I tried to help her. I tried and tried but I kept getting sick. I should have been able to do it. I should have been stronger. All I had to do was what they asked and I still couldn’t do it.

” The tears began to run down her cheeks.

“They killed them. Six. I couldn’t do it and they killed them. ”

“No.” Jean Marc scooped her up and cradled her in his arms. “Shh, it wasn’t your fault. They would have killed them anyway. You know that, Juliette.”

Her tears fell silently. “I know. I do know.” She leaned her cheek wearily against his chest and whispered, “Sometimes.”