It had been three weeks since Chauvelin had seen Monsieur Bouquet or Mademoiselle Meaux, on that fateful night when he’d run into Citoyenne St. Just again. He’d spent a good fourteen nights out of that three weeks with her so far. Nothing really happened. He wanted to let enough time pass so that she would feel entirely comfortable and trusting around him, and had to be even more sensitive to her needs because of her young age. At eighteen years old – she stoutly declared she’d be nineteen next July – she was even younger than Jacqueline was. At least, appearance wise. Jacqueline had been made a vampire at twenty, but only just. It had been mere days after her birthday when the bite occurred.
Chauvelin wasn’t exactly sure what sort of game he was playing with the fetching young creature. He didn’t want to feed off of her, though why was beyond him. If he was hungry, he made himself wait until after he was well and away from her before hunting. Such a lovely neck would make a prime target, but he was very reluctant to even consider the prospect of biting her neck. Even if he didn’t make her a vampire, which he had no intention of doing, then she would be useful to come back and feed on periodically.
But he kept his teeth well and away from her veins. It was hardest when vampire instinct screamed in his ears, or he wanted her particularly badly, but he kept his self control on all counts. He stole kisses, he had dinner with her, they talked, they dreamed, but he did not sleep with her and he did not bite her.
Not that he was exactly planning on remaining chaste with her. That was far too boring to his vampire mind and body. He was planning on seducing her, but he would let it wait for its own good time. It seemed to him that the time was drawing nearer, because she’d been extremely receptive to his attentions. He would plan to have dinner with her, and if she was at the theater, as she so often was, he went to her dressing room. On two occasions now she had quite unabashedly threw her arms around his neck and covered his face with kisses. He’d had a devil of a time retaining all self control and reminding himself they were in a theater, as he found his hands were suddenly on the slim waste and that the young, warm body was pressed against his own.
The warmth was the best part of all. It was such a wonderful change to be warm around her. Except for after a feed, or with another lover, he was never warm. He hadn’t had any lovers for a year or two – which felt like a week or two to him – and the blood only lasted at most four days. And you only felt the warmth of fresh blood for about an hour. He wasn’t always cold. More often than not he just was. There was no sense of temperature at all. Marguerite often commented that his hands were freezing, and she’d wrap her own delicate ones around them in an effort to warm them up a little. He loved that. It was wonderful.
He’d sort of met her brother. Walking her home that first night they’d been introduced. A young man of just twenty one, the brief words they’d exchange revealed that they shared some similar interests. Otherwise the only thought that Chauvelin gave the boy was the thought that he was part of the reason he couldn’t seduce Marguerite very quickly; he was a terribly protective older brother.
Morals didn’t play too much into it. Marguerite had been “ruined,” the moment she’d set foot on a stage. Brave she was, but she was also a bit bashful. It was quite obvious that Marguerite hadn’t even so much as been kissed by anyone else, except for other actors on stage. It had actually rather astounded Chauvelin, and he asked her if her fellow actors hadn’t even attempted to have such a pretty little thing as their woman. She’d flushed at the compliment and muttered that if they had been making any sort of advances, Marguerite was particularly dense in receiving the signals, and whatever interest she took in her coworkers was pure childhood fancy. There was nothing real or lasting about it.
“And me? What am I? Am I one of your childhood fancies? Lord knows you’re little more than a child.”
She hated it when he called her a child, but she hadn’t been able to answer as he’d suddenly kissed her. He loved throwing her all to pieces like that. The first time he’d kissed her had practically been an accident. She’d been walking to him, tripped, and fell right onto him, and he only just barely caught her. He hadn’t been able to resist kissing her after that. She was far too pretty when she blushed like that.
She clearly didn’t care what most people thought of her, and she didn’t have a lot of love for the upper class. A few people she got along particularly well with, and was dear friends with some, but she did not spend much time with aristocrats out of love for their social order.
Witty, intelligent, charming, pretty, talented, she was just the sort of girl to hold Chauvelin’s attention long enough for him to want to spend three mortal weeks waiting for the right moment to come. And he had strong suspicions that the moment was upon him.
She’d invited him to the flat she shared with her brother for a meal she’d cook herself. When he asked if her brother wouldn’t object to his spending so much time with her, she said that her brother did not quite enter into it, as he was out of town on business and would not return until the night after next. So, Chauvelin had determined that he was either overly eager in interpreting these flirtatious signs as her very good will toward him, or she wanted him just as badly as he wanted her. It didn’t really matter. Either way, he’d done with the waiting, and now the perfect opportunity had presented itself, and by God, he was going to take advantage of it. If she was reluctant, he hated to have to use tricks of the mind to get her to relent, but he’d been patient for far too long. Part of the vampire in him needed to be let out, and not just any girl would do. It had to be Marguerite.
Not that life could or would be created in such a situation. What the girl did not know was that she was running her fingers through the hair of a vampire, a creature who’s instincts to blood and to make love were burning in his veins. The girl did not understand that it was physically impossible for him to ever produce a child by making love to a woman. Her ignorance actually excited him more, because it meant that she felt she was taking on a certain amount of risk by entertaining him in such a manner, and was willing to take that risk to be with him.
The kisses were coming with increased frequency, and the words were dropping out as the superfluities they were. Silent and unafraid, their passion for each other continued to rise, until finally Chauvelin just stopped kissing her all together. The next step was hers to take.
She paused, puzzled as to why he’d stopped kissing her, and reached up to brush her lips against his again, but he pulled back slightly. He wanted it clear and out in the open before he made another move. Giving up, she leaned her head on his chest, comforted by the even breathing. Finally, she asked “Will you stay here tonight?” The nervousness in her voice was practically chocking the words, but Chauvelin could hear them anyway. He put his arms around her shoulders and didn’t respond. He didn’t need to. She sighed slightly and snuggled even closer to him, as if any gap between their separate bodies was far too wide a gap.
“You’re terribly young,” he murmured, kissing her soft hair. “Much younger than I am.” Much, much younger.
“I’m not that much younger,” she restated for the millionth time, her arms tightening around his torso. “I’m not a child.” If actions speak louder than words, than Marguerite’s renewed and fervent kisses were practically screaming in Chauvelin’s ear. He felt his self control slipping, and had to remind himself that now he was allowed to let it slip away. His hold around her waist tightened as she ran her hands along his shoulders and they let their secret, desperate passion slowly loose.
So why was she acting like this now? Chauvelin couldn’t fathom it. He’d waited for her in her dressing room like he always did, and yet she very reluctantly kissed him when she’d entered, when she talked it was with a tense and nervous tone, and she was trying very hard not to look in his direction. At first he’d borne it with surprised yet patient indifference. Now it was just so irritating that he had to grab her arms, sit her down in one of her dressing room chairs and demand answers from her.
“Look, I’m sorry if I went too far last night. You weren’t exactly protesting at the time, and-”
“No, it’s not that,” she said, a bit astounded.
“Okay,” he said, backtracking. “In that case, I’m even more sorry if you didn’t enjoy yourself last night. I certainly had a pleasant evening, so if that’s what’s wrong I’d rather you just said-”
He stopped. She’d flushed such a deep shade of red that he’d hardly thought that such a dark color on a human face was possible. “No,” she muttered, “it’s not that either…..that was….very nice, thank you.”
Sighing with a weary, patient note in his voice, he drew her out of the chair and pulled her against him. “What’s gotten into your pretty little head?” he asked, stroking back the locks of hair as they fell into her attractive blue eyes.
“I just got a little….worried, that’s all.”
“Worried? What on earth about?”
“That we should have been more careful. That something could have happened.”
“Something? Oh, wait, you mean…..something.” That kind of something. That very big kind of something. That very big nine months worth of drama kind of something. He laughed, which actually succeeded in making her a little angry, and she pushed herself away from him.
“Well, I’m glad you think it’s so funny.”
“It is, actually,” he laughed, collapsing into her now vacant chair, clutching his sides with laughter.
“Mind sharing the joke?”
“Marguerite, I can’t…that is to say…Well, to be perfectly candid, you aren’t going to be having any children by me. Not ever.”
Her deep flush had receded into very surprised pale. “What?”
“I’m….” His attempts at explaining the situation without sounding like a complete mental case were not being successful.
“Sterile?” she finally supplied, and he decided that sounded good, better go with that.
“You could say it runs in my family,” he said with a shrug. “It’s rather a miracle I’m here at all.” More like accident, but she wasn’t the only one who could act.
“Oh,” she whispered, feeling a little foolish, and Chauvelin quickly rose from the chair and swept her into his embrace.
“I hope that made you feel a little better.”
“It did.”
“Good,” he said, delicately kissing her. “Now, if you’re brother won’t be back until tomorrow evening, like you said, how about I play host at my flat tonight?”
She thought it was a wonderful idea.
To Be Continued...
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