Where Passion Leads (Berkeley-Faulkner #1)(66)

As he sat at the desk and brooded, Rand was oblivious of the supper that Mireille herself had undertaken to prepare down in the kitchens. For obvious reasons she did not trust anyone else to handle his food, and so she had supervised the arrangement of cold meats, fruit, and bread with quite an air of authority for a fifteen-year-old girl. As the platter went untouched, however, she began tentatively to draw his attention to it.

“Vous n’avez mange rien, monsieur.”

Rand looked at her blankly, and then his gaze flickered to the food. “I’m not hungry,” he said, and folded the letter neatly before reaching for a stick of sealing wax. “You may have it.” He spared not a glance as Mireille approached the food with barely restrained eagerness, for she needed little encouragement to partake of the tempting array. The quality and quantity of nourishments was far superior to the scraps she was usually accustomed to. After Rand had settled down in the chair by the bedside again, he braced his elbows on his knees and stared at Rosalie steadily. In the corner of his field of vision the sight of a tactfully proffered sandwich held in a napkin cloth appeared. Mireille had tucked a slice of peppered roast into an echaudée, a round, gold-crusted roll. She regarded him entreatingly as he raised his eyes to her.

“You haven’t eaten anything,” she repeated in French with a slight quaver in her voice, and to her relief Rand wryly reached to take the food.

“I suppose you think it will improve my disposition,” he questioned, and his eyes remained on her as his strong white teeth bit into the crackling crust. “Yes, monsieur,” she agreed gravely, and Rand sud denly chuckled. After she brought him strong tea to wash the food down with, he looked at her in a kinder fashion, wondering at the hard life she seemed to lead. She worked hard in an uncomplaining manner, her attitude servile, but she appeared to be far more quickminded than the usual servant.

“Do your parents work in the hotel, child?” “I have no parents, monsieur.”

Rand frowned. She was extremely young to be married, but perhaps . . . “A husband?”

She smiled at the thought, shaking her head vigorously. “No, monsieur. I have a brother who takes care of me. We have traveled all over France, and whenever he finds a job, we stay there until . . . until—”

“He is fired?” Rand guessed, and she nodded. “There are always more jobs. He can do anything,” she said prosaically. Remembering her shyness, she lowered her eyes as she picked up the tray to take it from the room. “Monsieur?” she questioned. From the way she spoke, Rand guessed that she was nearly consumed with curiosity about Rosalie. “Is mademoiselle your . . . sister?”

Rand was silent for a moment. His eyes flickered to Rosalie, containing a bleak gleam. “No,” he said huskily. “She’s not my sister.”

“Ah.” Mireille ducked her head in a nervous bob and scurried away as he continued to stare at the bed. The sky darkened, night fell, and slowly the hours crawled by. As Mireille dozed lightly in the next room, Rand searched in vain for any sign that Rosalie would wake. The entire world seemed to have shrunk to the proportions of the small room, and nothing outside of it was of any consequence. For long stretches of time he held her hands in his, curling and uncurling her lax fingers, warming them with his palms. Finally weariness swept over him in a relentless wave, and he leaned forward to pillow his head in his arms, his hands tangling in the edge of the bedclothes.

“Rose,” he whispered huskily, the cotton sheet blotting the dampness of his lashes, “come back to me.”

It seemed like something out of a dream when he woke much later in the dead of night to the tiny clicking sound of the door latch. Blinking sleepily, Rand looked toward the subtle noise and saw a thin wire inserted at the edge of the door, sliding upward to lift the latch easily. In less than a moment Rand silently moved from the bed to the wall by the door, flattening himself against the brocaded surface just as the portal opened smoothly. A slim dark shape glided into the room, and Rand’s eyes narrowed as he tried to make out the figure in the darkness. The intruder moved with lanky grace and an assured step, approaching Rosalie and staring down at her before reaching to find a pulse in her neck. Rand felt a protective rage sear through him like a bullet, and with swiftness he crossed the floor in two noiseless strides. Hooking a steel-banded arm around the stranger’s neck, he jerked the man backward and began systematically to exert the pressure necessary to cut off his windpipe.

“I think,” Rand snarled, “that introductions are in order.”

With a smothered sound, the intruder burst into immediate action, and Rand flinched at the crushing blow of an elbow in his ribs. He cursed as his hold on his opponent was broken, and without a split second of delay he launched himself at the wiry figure, intending to break every bone in that hapless one’s body. The scuffle lasted during a lightning-quick succession of movements, both of them hampered by the darkness. It was immensely satisfying on some primitive level for Rand to have a tangible opponent to fight. All of his building frustration finally had a release, and he thirsted to draw the other man’s blood. He grabbed the first opportunity to fasten his hands around the intruder’s throat and began to squeeze unmercifully, his lips parted in the imitation of a smile.

“By God,” he rasped, his fingers tightening, “if you’re the one who did this to her, I’ll pop your head off like the cork of a bottle.”