Free Out of the Dark by Jennifer Blake Page A

drive away with a virtual stranger? It made no sense that a few words and a piece of paper could bring about such a difference.
    Behind her, a change in the light falling from the salon signaled an end to her time alone. Turning slightly where she stood at the end of the veranda, she watched as Lucien sauntered toward her.
    “No sign of him?” her future husband said.
    He meant Satan, of course. She wondered briefly how many of the others gathered for the wedding could have guessed she was still keeping watch for the great black cat, even after so long a time. She shook her head. Voice compressed, she said, “I think—I’m so afraid he must have been killed.”
    “No one has claimed credit for it.” His voice held steady reassurance as he stopped a few feet away from her.
    “No—but he wasn’t as strong as usual, and may have run into more dogs. Or he could have crawled off somewhere to die of blood poisoning in his injured foot. Then maybe he was bitten by a snake, or tangled with a bear.”
    “And could be he found a mate and is enjoying a protracted…courtship,” Lucien suggested.
    She wanted so badly to be convinced that she ignored the impropriety of his allusion. “I suppose it may be possible, but he never has before.”
    “Some males come late to its joys. As I did, for instance. Have I told you that you’re looking particularly ravishing this evening?”
    He was trying to distract her, and making a fair job of it. She glanced away from him in sudden embarrassment.
    “Don’t you care for compliments?” he asked, tipping his head as he tried to see her face.
    “I never know what to say.” The words were barely audible.
    “Nothing much is required, only a polite word or two by way of acknowledgment.”
    “I—thank you, then.”
    “Very good. You should get used to that exercise because you will need it. You were attractive when we first met, but you seem to grow more so every day. And I am a man driven to salute beauty when I see it.”
    She gave him a brief glance. “Are you quite certain it isn’t a habit you bring out when other forms of conversation fail?”
    “You think I have nothing else to say to you?” He turned to place his back to the railing near where she stood then crossed his arms over his chest. “Now that you put me in mind of it, there is a subject I’ve been trying to raise since we first met. Only something always prevents it or else you manage to turn it aside.”
    She said quickly, “So tell if you have heard from your letters to your family, and who among them we may expect to be present.”
    “I had a long missive from my sister. She wishes us every joy, but is increasing, hoping to add a boy to the family of girls she and her husband have collected. Since it would unwise to travel, she won’t appear. My brother, ordinarily a sober citizen, fell off his horse and broke an ankle while involved in a drunken race, so sends his profound, and profane, regrets. My cousins who have been giving me house room are agog; they can’t wait to fire off a description of the nuptials to all their friends. That takes care of my family. But you know full well that was not my meaning.”
    She did, of course. With great reluctance, she said, “I suppose you were speaking of your career as a duelist then. You are quite right; I see no need to go into it.”
    “But I do. You called me a murderer some time back. To be condemned without a hearing seems hard.”
    “My view of the pastime is not unbiased, as you know.” The words had a more placating sound than she intended.
    “Certainly. But just as your brother had no alternative to appearing on the field of honor for the first time, neither did I. A loose-tongued fool raised the question of my mother’s good name and why she was killed by my father. Some things cannot be left unanswered.”
    “I understand,” she said.
    He gave her a dark glance. “I doubt it. She was innocent, my mother, her death a tragic accident that