A.K.A. Goddess (9 page)

Melusine’s river had yielded bupkas.

“It was a good idea,” Rhys insisted, not for the first time, as we paused in the narrow hallway outside our room to unlock the door. Yes, one room—two twin beds, but one room. Yes, way to invite trouble. But we’d wanted a view of the town’s medieval landmark, called Melusine’s Tower.

Like Lusignan, Vouvant claimed its castle was built by the fairy Melusine. But this one still had pieces standing. This little hotel had that view—from one available room—and the added benefit of not keeping their reservations on-line.

Just in case someone was looking.

I had faith in my ability to resist Rhys Pritchard, even if today’s time outside had given him just enough sunburn to add an extra glow to his eyes, a windblown carelessness to his hair. And I had faith in my ability to fight him off, if he couldn’t resist me…assuming I wanted to.

“It wasn’t a good idea,” I said, about the rocks. “It was a waste of time.”

I ducked through the too-low doorway into an incredibly quaint room, complete with wood beams across the angled ceiling, striped wallpaper, antique furniture, and a gabled window overlooking a small, twilight field with a chunky, crooked tower. Fireflies, blinking on and off near the tower, added to its fairy feel.

I dropped my backpack onto the bed by the window. “Mind if I take the first shower?”

“I do not. If you’ll stop blaming yourself,” said Rhys.

But I didn’t feel like making any promises, just now.

I took my minimal laundry down the hall to the shared bath, along with some personal items and the extralarge T-shirt I’d just bought at the café/souvenir shop next door. In a few minutes, it and my last pair of clean underpants were going to be the only dry things I owned.

I started the water in the claw-foot tub, washing and rinsing my clothes as the tub filled. Then, with the laundry wrung out and draped wherever it might dry, I slid into warm water.

For now, I was going to soak and hope no other guests needed this particular room.

My exhaustion came from more than sun and exertion. I felt tired from something a lot like defeat.

The bathroom was tiny. The roof above me slanted, the tile was cracked in several places. I sat up long enough to wash my hair, then closed my eyes and sank lower into the wonderfully deep, old-fashioned tub.

Then it occurred to me that it was Saturday night—and my eyes opened. This was exactly what Melusine had supposedly done every Saturday night, wasn’t it? Soak in a tub, whip her tail around, and hide her true self from her husband?

The similarity annoyed me. It was one thing to understand the myth of Melusine, to find her chalice. But did I want to actually emulate her?

Not on your life—and not just because of the snake tail! I had no need to magically build castles, and I sure didn’t want to expend all my energies on a man who would turn traitor. In fact…

Just to prove to myself that I wasn’t a wimp, I picked up my cell phone. Two messages. I thumbed the buttons to check my call log. Both from this morning. Both from Lex.

Now or never. I dialed into my voice mail, and selected to hear the first recording.

“Maggi? It’s Lex.” We both knew I would recognize his voice anywhere. His formality had to be a polite—or maybe sarcastic—nod toward my distance of late. “As long as we’re both in Paris, let’s get together. Dinner. Coffee. Pick a place.”

I frowned. This was getting close to desperation, for Lex.

“We need—I need to talk,” he continued, more softly. “Give me a call?”

And he recited his number, as if I would have lost it. As if I could have forgotten it in the first place.

Of course he didn’t sign off the way he used to, saying he loved me. That’s at least partly because I’d made it clear, after last year’s breakup, that he didn’t have the right to love me anymore. Not unless I gave him that right.

Against my best logic, when given the option to delete the message or to save it to archives, I chose saving it.

I could always delete it later, right?

The second message, also from Lex, was shorter. He said softly, firmly, “Please.”

My heart lurched with familiar confusion. Damn it. Damn, damn, damn it. Why did I always let him do this to me? No. That wasn’t fair—why did I do it to myself? When we were right we were so very right. Almost spiritually so. But that couldn’t counteract all the times we were wrong. Could it?

Not permanently. And how many more times could I reopen the wounds in my heart before they would scar that way and never again heal?

But none of my internal arguments mattered. He’d already won a call-back, at the very least, with that “Please.” I couldn’t have stopped myself if I wanted to…and I didn’t want to.

In fact, as I pressed his number on speed-dial, I wondered why I’d kept it. Maybe we’d never be over. My anticipation at the ring of his phone said as much. The best I’d managed to hope for, over the past year, had been a mutually agreeable separa—

“Mag,” Lex answered, on the second ring. Just that. Just my name, in the caress of his voice.

I said, “Hi.”

“Thank you for calling back so quickly.”

At least I didn’t have to feel guilty about avoiding him, but, “Quickly? You called this morning.”

“It’s an improvement on last time.”

Oh. Yeah. The last time he’d called had been about five months ago. I’d been trying my damnedest not to get drawn back into the upper-class, cutthroat, crap-for-values world he lived in, not again. I’d agonized for a week before finally phoning him back and saying, “Don’t call me again.”

And he hadn’t. Not until today.

“You said you needed to talk,” I prompted.

I heard a wry huff of breath on his end. “You can’t imagine. Are you busy tonight? I could come by—”

“I’m not in Paris.”

“Oh.” I could only imagine his frown. “Once I read about your aunt Brigitte’s attack, I assumed…”

“I’m continuing a research project for her.” It felt like a lie, even if it wasn’t. I squirmed slightly, water sloshing.

“When will you be back, then? I have to be in England midweek, but other than that my schedule’s—” He stopped abruptly, then asked, “Mag, are you in a bathtub?”

The way his voice dropped in pitch and increased in intensity made me laugh. “You were saying your schedule is…”

“Shhh,” Lex commanded, a whisper that slid down my spine, then trickled into my thighs, my arms, my breasts. I stretched out my legs in the oversize tub, splashing a little, savoring my own languid, wonderfully familiar response to his desire before I could catch myself.

“Lex,” I warned, and it came out more of a plea than I would have liked. A plea for more than was wise.

“Quiet,” he murmured, the richness of his voice flooding me with enough memories of enough nights to sharpen my response to something between discomfort and ecstasy. “I’m visualizing.”

Tell me what you see. That was all I had to say, and he would wrap me in words so poetic, so erotic, so starkly appreciative that they would eclipse whatever little sex I’ve known outside of his bed. He has always traveled a lot. It wouldn’t be the first time we used the phone that way.

All I had to do was ask it, and his voice would guide me through the warm water to places that he seemed to know better even than me….

And then I would be caught. Again. Just like the last time, and the time before that. Even if I would do that to myself again, I sure ought to make the decision with a clear head.

And wearing clothes.

Somehow, I managed to force words. Normal words. Not Where are you and are you wearing anything? “And here I thought you loved me for my mind.”

“Mind, body and spirit, Magdalene Sanger.”

I was too tired to deal with this—at least to do so while retaining any autonomy. “So what was it you wanted to talk to me about, Lex?”

He drew a deep breath, and when he spoke again his cool control had returned. Not angry. Not off-putting. Just…steady. “Matters I’d rather not discuss over an unsecure connection. Do you have a landline I can call?”

It was starting all over again, the layering of sex and suspicion. Could he want a landline because they were easier to trace? Or was I being a suspicious bitch? I hated this. I hated what I’d become around him.

“Nothing that would be convenient,” I hedged. “Who do you think is trying to capture your calls anyway—spies?”

Frighteningly, I half believed my joke.

“Paparazzi. They’re brutal around here. Not that they’d generally care about me—”

“But you dated that Italian actress,” I said.

“Eight months ago,” he clarified. We hadn’t been dating at the time. As far as I knew, he’d never cheated on me. “This time they’re interested in a princess I met skiing last February.”

“So we just won’t discuss the actress or the princess.”

“It’s not just that, Mag. I have something—things—I need to own up to. With you. Things I would rather not have publicized.”

Oh? “About the trial?” I suggested. I still didn’t understand much of his role in that damned trial.

His voice stayed steady. A guy who’d been to hell and back by the time he’d hit puberty didn’t shake easily. “In part.”

And about your family’s involvement in suppressing the goddess grails?

“That’s why I wanted to meet,” Lex said. “But if this is going to be my only opportunity to talk to you, I’ll take that chance. You need to know—”

“No.” Even as I said it, I knew I’d lost some kind of don’t-blink-first game, with myself if not with him. I’d been so sure I couldn’t stay involved with someone who’d perjured himself. Especially Lex, my noble Lex. He’d disillusioned me more deeply than seemed possible. And yet here I sat, stopping him before he could publicly implicate himself, just in case.

So much for my own damned moral fiber.

“No?” Lex asked it softly, but his question carried weight.

“I’ll be back in Paris soon,” I assured him. “Not long, the way my research has been going.”

“You sound like you’re giving up on something.”

Did I hear censure in his cool tone? Just who was supposed to be whose moral compass? “If I’m ready, I’ll call you then.”

Before he could respond to my latest refusal to commit, a knock sounded on the door. “Magdalene?” Rhys called. “You’ve been a while. Are you all right?”

Well…crap. “I’m fine,” I called, after turning the phone away from my mouth. “I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

Then, wincing in anticipation, I put the phone back to my ear.

To my relief, Lex said simply, “I should let you go, shouldn’t I?”

The double entendre hurt my heart. It was too late for him to let me go. Yesterday would’ve been fine, or the month before, or the month before that. Maybe. Probably.

But not now. He’d offered too much—a confession I needed to hear—“I’ll call when I can.”

“Be careful,” he said. An interesting choice of sign-offs.

No way was I letting that pass. “Anything in particular I should look out for?”

“Just…be careful whom you trust.” And he hung up.

What?

I immediately stabbed his speed-dial number. It rang—

And the bastard let me roll over to his voice mail.

“You son of a—” But no. I disconnected before giving him the satisfaction of a recorded rant. Son of a bitch! Whatever you want, Magdalene. Mind, body and spirit, Magdalene.

Whatever it takes to keep you on the phone long enough for me to make you an offer you can’t refuse, Magdalene.

Now he had me. Worse, he knew me well enough to know he had me. So he didn’t have to grovel anymore. If I knew Lex, he would wait until morning to return my call.

Unless he waited a week.

By the time Rhys got back from his bath, I’d channeled my energy into the chalice, cross-referencing a travel guide, roadmap and index-cards like a student cramming for finals.

I was going to find this chalice if it killed me.

But despite my new determination, when the door opened and I glanced up from the window seat, I almost burst out laughing.

Rhys wore pajamas, like in some old B&W TV-Land classic.

Something must have showed on my face because, as he put down his shaving kit, Rhys cocked his head. “What is it?”

I grinned. “Nice jammies, Mr. Pritchard.”

“Lovely shirt, Dr. Sanger,” he said, because that was the only thing I was wearing. Well, that and panties, but I wasn’t planning to show those. It’s not as bad as it sounds. I’d bought the extralarge shirt, which fit me like a dress.

Besides, he might have meant the picture. In white, on the shirt’s blue background, curled the silhouette of a fairy with bat wings and two long serpent’s tails—the heraldic image of Melusine. In Vouvant, the fairy is the closest thing they have to a tourist attraction.

“Here.” I offered up a sheet of lined yellow paper. “I’ve listed fifteen important places for Melusine—or for anybody who might have worshipped her as a goddess. And I haven’t even started on Luxembourg.”

Rhys took the paper. “Bridge listed most of these, too.” And he handed it back to me, retreating to his side of the room.

“What?”

“She made a list of the sites she wanted to investigate as hiding places for the Melusine Chalice. Lusignan was first, of course, and…was Vouvant third or fourth? I think she listed Parthenai before Vou—Why are you looking at me like that?”

“She already had a list, and you didn’t mention it?”

“I didn’t think of it right off. I can’t remember even a third of the places she listed. Several were in Anjou…”

“Because the Angevins had a similar Melusine story to the Lusignans,” I said, still annoyed. “Demonic, not fairy. To explain why the Plantagenets were such a wicked lot.”

“Ah.” Rhys sat on his bed. “Then there was Talmont. The tower of St. Maixent. The last on the list was Angoulême.”

Bridge had been reaching. “After King John I lost most of England’s holdings in France, his widow, Isabelle of Angoulême, married the Count of Lusignan and squeezed out a whole litter of heirs before she died. By then, Isabelle was in her convent, hiding out from royalists.”

Rhys shook his head, a little overwhelmed, and who could blame him? “It was quite an extensive list Bridge had.”