Free Seduction: A Novel of Suspense by Rose M J Page B

deeper inside myself. Only by indulging in my cravings, my lust, do I find the oblivion I seek.
    I leaned forward slowly to signal what I was about to do—I am not an ogre or a letch and do not like taking kisses by force. You didn’t step back, didn’t hesitate. And so I kissed you gently. There was no response from you. Your expression in the moonlight did not change.
    Ah, Fantine, you were already almost dead and you didn’t yet know it.
    “Do you need any money?” I asked. “Does Madame Drouet pay you enough?”
    “Yes, she does.” Now it was your turn to hesitate.
    “What is it, Fantine?”
    “I have heard about you, Monsieur Hugo.”
    “Yes?”
    “From some of the other servants . . .”
    You left off. I smiled. “So tell me, do they say terrible things about me?”
    “No, quite to the contrary. They say you are kind and generous, and if a girl needs money you are tender with her and ask for very little.”
    “Would you like me to be generous with you?”
    “If it would help you, monsieur. If you need me, I would be happy to give you what you’d like, but I wouldn’t want any money.”
    “And why would you want to do that?”
    “Because of the sadness.”
    “In you?” I asked.
    “No, monsieur, in you.”
    I didn’t know what to say. It had been so long since anyone had had such insight into me. So I kissed you once more. And then we turned back, following our own footsteps now.
    “I would like to pay you, though,” I repeated my offer.
    “No, that won’t be necessary.”
    “But if I don’t pay you . . .” I stopped myself. Why was I becoming angered at your stubborn refusal to take the coins in exchange for what I would ask of you? Why did I want to pay you so badly?
    For the second time that night, you anticipated my thoughts. “I know what you were going to say. If you don’t pay me then you will have to care for me, and you don’t want to.”
    You were like a night nymph standing before me. A wisp of a girl with wild hair and sparkling blue-gray eyes reflecting the phosphorescent waves and the moonlight.
    “But you want me to?”
    “No one has cared about me for a very, very long time,” you said. “I would like to know how it feels again. Even just a bit of caring. I would like to test it and see if it is enough to keep me alive.”
    “What an astonishing creature you are. You are offering me a bargain.”
    You smiled. “I suppose I am.”
    I reached out and touched your beautiful hair, lifting one of the curls. As I did I breathed in your scent again. What a fine perfume. One more suited to a woman seated in front of a silver tea set under a crystal chandelier than to a servant girl walking on the beach in Jersey.
    From my pocket I pulled out a handful of coins and opened my hand to you.
    “You are sure you won’t take these?”
    “There are others on the island who would gladly take your centimes, monsieur. But not I. If you want something from me, I will give it freely in exchange for what you might come to feel for me.”
    Boldly you curled my fingers over the coins, closing up my hand. Rejecting the offer as completely as you could. And then, then you leaned forward and both gave a kiss and took one. My breath caught in my throat.
    When you pulled back, you said two words, “Thank you.”
    I was astonished. “What on earth for?”
    “For making me wonder for the first time in a long time. Now I must go back.”
    “Let me walk with you.”
    “No, you have important things to think about—more important than me.”
    But I didn’t want you to wander off into the inky black sky. I was afraid that you might venture into the sea instead of walking back to the house. I couldn’t bear to think of you in the water, with your dress soaking up the sea, pulling you down, swirling around you, sand and seaweed in your beautiful hair. I wanted to save you, Fantine. Save you, to make up for the other young woman whom I had not been able to save.
    I saw you to the