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“I was afraid she was. I was on the veranda when I heard the two of you come into the salon and hid on the walk beside the house when he dragged you here.” His arms suddenly enfolded her and held her tightly.

“I was afraid to try to overpower him while he had the gun pressed to your side. I had to wait until he was distracted.”

Juliette’s arms hung limply at her sides, but they suddenly slid around Jean Marc to cling fiercely. “He wanted me to see her.”

Jean Marc’s hands gently caressed her back. “Shh.”

“She was always so beautiful. She’s not beautiful now…” Juliette shivered uncontrollably. “She’s lying there in that chest She’s naked and there are snakes and roaches crawling all over her. In her hair, in her mouth…”

“Mother of God!” Jean Marc held her tightly, then gently pushed her away. “Will you be all right if I leave you for a little while?”

Juliette’s eyes opened. “Where are you going?”

“Your mother.” He turned and left the veranda.

Juliette’s palms clutched at the rough stone balustrade as she heard the chest open again. She heard Jean Marc’s muttered oath and then the sound of movement.

Ten minutes later Jean Marc came back to the veranda. “Come with me.”

She gazed at him numbly for a moment and then let him lead her through the house and up the stairs. “Where are we going?”

He opened the door at the head of the stairs. “I want you to look at your mother.”

“No!” She tried to pull away. “Not again. I don’t—”

“Look at her!” He jerked her into the room and grasped her shoulders from behind. “Dammit, I don’t want you remembering her the other way for the rest of your life. You have enough hellish memories now.”

Her mother lay on the bed covered by a white silk sheet. Her lids and mouth were closed and though her face was gaunt it held a peaceful expression. She must certainly have yearned for death these last days, Juliette thought dully.

“How did she die? The snakes?”

“The snakes were harmless,” Jean Marc said. “He stabbed her.”

“Oh.” She should do something but she couldn’t think what it was. “Burial. I’ll have to go to the priest and arrange for—”

“No.” Jean Marc shook his head. “We can’t be found here. Just the fact that we’re French would encourage them to use any excuse to throw us into prison. We’ll stop at the church and leave a note and money for the priest with full instructions.”

Juliette cast one more glance at her mother before turning away. “Whatever you think best. Can we go now?”

Jean Marc hesitated. “In a little while. Just give me time to look for the statue.”

“It’s in a chest in the courtyard,” Juliette said. “He was about to leave when we came. I think he’d just finished…” She had to stop and steady her voice. “I’d really like to go now, please.”

Jean Marc took her arm and led her from the room, down the stairs, and out of the casa. “Go to the horses,” he said gently. “I’ll just check to make sure the statue’s in the chest and join you in a moment.”

She nodded and crossed the courtyard, careful to avoid glancing at the fountain. Jean Marc joined her only a few minutes later and tied the chest containing the Wind Dancer on the back of the stallion.

His gaze was concerned as he lifted her on the back of the mare.

“Dupree’s dead.”

Juliette shuddered. “Can evil like that ever die?”

“Don’t think about him.” Jean Marc slapped her mare’s haunches with his reins and kicked his own stallion into a trot. “Don’t think about anything.”

They rode half the night toward the coast.

“We’ll rest here until daybreak.” Jean Marc lifted her down from her horse. “Merde , you’re cold. Why didn’t you tell me?” He wrapped her cloak more closely about her and then enfolded her in a blanket. “Sit here while I find wood for a fire.”

“I didn’t feel cold.” Juliette huddled in the blanket still only vaguely aware of the cold wind cutting through her. It was nothing compared to her inward chill.

The ground was stony, barren of vegetation, the night starless and bitter. She could hear the howling of the wind through the passes of the jagged blue-black mountains to the north.

Dupree had howled like that when Jean Marc had shot him.

“Come here.”

She looked up to see Jean Marc standing before her. He opened his cloak and, for an instant, the wind caught it, forming flaring, hawklike wings.

Black Velvet .

He had looked like this the first time she saw him, she thought hazily. Then he was kneeling, taking her in his arms and enfolding her in the security of those wings.

A little of the ice clawing at her eased and then melted away. “The fire…”

“I’ll make the fire after you go to sleep. I think you need this now.”

She buried her face in his shoulder. “She didn’t love me, you know.

I was always in her way. When I was very tiny, every night before I’d go to sleep I’d say to myself ‘Tomorrow she’ll love me.

Tomorrow …’” She shook her head. “The only reason she bore me was that she hoped to give my father a son.”

Jean Marc tightened his arms about her.

“I didn’t think she mattered to me any longer.

” She fell silent, thinking about it. “But she must have meant something or I wouldn’t feel so…

empty. I can remember her at court. She was so beautiful that everyone wanted to reach out and touch her.

The queen kissed her hand and called her enchanting. I used to stare at her and wonder…”

“Wonder what?”

“Why they couldn’t see that there was nothing inside her.” She frowned. “But perhaps there was something there for everyone else. Maybe she just couldn’t feel anything for me. I was never a sweet child.”

“You were her child.” Jean Marc rocked her back and forth with rough tenderness. “That should have been enough.”

“I used to be so certain about everything. I used to think I didn’t need anything or anyone but my painting. I used to think I could close everyone out and live in my own world. I’m not sure of anything any longer.”

“Tomorrow you’ll be yourself again.”

“Will I? I feel very strange. Alone. I have no one now but Catherine, and she’s growing away from me.”

“Nonsense. She still loves you.”

“She’s found something…” She closed her eyes.

Jean Marc gently pressed her cheek into the curve of his shoulder. “I should never have taken you there. Dupree could have killed you.”

“You couldn’t have stopped me. She was my mother and I couldn’t let her steal from the queen.

The queen was the only person at Versailles who was kind to me.

She was all I had during those years. I…

think I must love her, Jean Marc.” She laughed shakily.

“I’ve never admitted I loved anyone before. I was always too frightened.”

“Frightened?”

“Love hurts…” She wished the wind would stop its howling.

The sound made her feel hollow inside. “I don’t want to love her.

Isn’t it queer you can love someone who doesn’t really love you?

You’d think life would be more fair than to let that happen.

And it’s all my fault. Even as a little girl I knew I shouldn’t love a butterfly. ”

“Sometimes you can’t help loving the wrong people.”

She scarcely heard him. “And you said a butterfly shouldn’t be allowed to rule the greatest country in Europe.

Well, she’s not ruling it now, is she?” The tears were running down her cheeks again and she impatiently wiped them on his shirt.

“I don’t know why I’m crying. I suppose I keep getting my mother and the queen mixed up in my thoughts.

It’s foolish to weep. There’s no reason.

I couldn’t expect the queen to love me, and my mother didn’t even like me. Don’t you see how stupid I’m being?”

Jean Marc didn’t answer, he merely held her and gently stroked her curls until she finally drifted off to sleep.

Dupree heard a scurrying among the rocks, and panic shook him wide awake. The roaches. The roaches would get him.

He turned over on the rock and then screamed with agony.

Bone jutted out of his shoulder, gleaming white in the moonlight.

Blood gushed from the wound in his side.

He was dying.

He heard the scurrying again.

No, he couldn’t die. If he was still, they’d be all over him. In his mouth, in his hair…

He wadded the tail of his shirt and stuck it in the wound.

Pain again.

He opened his mouth and howled.

Agony shot through his face, something was smashed in his jaw.

He began to crawl toward the softer earth beneath the trees, away from the roaches beneath the rocks.

His left leg was broken; dragging it over the rough ground made him dizzy with pain.

He couldn’t stop.

He reached the trees and lay whimpering with anger and pain. Why had his mother done this to him when he had wanted only to please her?

No, it wasn’t his mother this time. It was the others.

He heard the scurrying again. Were they really there or was it his imagination? It didn’t matter. He couldn’t take the chance. He started to inch up the hill. Light. He had to get to the light. They wouldn’t follow him into the light.

He couldn’t die there in the darkness.

He knew well the creatures of the night.

If he lay still, they would seek him out and devour him.