Midnight Soul (17 page)

“It also can be used for ill, if turned into
a weapon,” Valentine retorted. “And this happens often, in both
worlds.”

Lavinia returned her gaze to her friend.

“Quite right, my dear,” she whispered. “Odd,
we seem to have this conversation often. With varying results. This
suggests love is foremost on our minds most of the time. Including
yours.”

Valentine didn’t deign to reply.

“You must come soon,” Lavinia urged, wisely
changing the subject. “I’ve only visited with Franka once, and I
didn’t know her before, but from what I knew of her, she’s much
changed, though I think she’s discomfited by it.”

Valentine knew
very
well how that
felt.

Lavinia spoke on. “Not to mention, when I’m
with the others, they speak of her already not simply with
compassion for what she’s endured, but with humor and even growing
affection.”

This, Valentine had seen in her crystal,
finding herself looking on…
happily
, doing so hoping it would
continue.

“I’ll be there,” Valentine replied.

She then wondered when she started hoping
about anything.

Caring
and
hoping.

How vile. Both were so very
vulgar
.

“Until we meet in my world,” Lavinia called,
and Valentine watched as she faded away.

With an agitated gesture, Valentine shook her
sleek red hair out of her face and looked back to her crystal. She
lifted a hand and trailed her fingers over it, searching, and she
found someone she’d discovered some days ago when she’d decided
that meddling with Franka and Noc would not be enough.

There was another.

And as she watched the large man go about the
business of sleeping in his own bed, her jaw set and she trailed
her fingers over the crystal again.

The smoke vanished.

There she went,
caring
about someone
else.

And worse, doing something about it.

Valentine Rousseau rarely expended effort on
anything someone didn’t compensate her for, except, of course, one
of her trifles.

She
definitely
expended effort on her
trifles.

Her thoughts moved to what she’d just seen in
her crystal and she was pleased in this world, as in the other, he
was such a fine specimen. A plaything such as him would
be—Valentine drew in a wistful breath—
delicious
.

Alas, such as him, she had found, didn’t tend
to like the way Valentine played.

He would be perfect for his intended.

An intended he didn’t know he had (yet). And
that intended had no idea what Valentine had planned for her
future.

A warm curl swirled in her belly.

Valentine sighed yet again as she shook off
her uncharacteristically soft, romantic thoughts.

She was losing her touch.

She needed to find it again.

To do that, her thoughts moved to the young,
naked, firm, male form asleep in her bed, and in the dark,
Valentine smiled her cat’s smile.

She walked back to her bedroom, went to the
nightstand, opened it and took out a box of matches. She struck one
and lit the three candles on the night table.

She brought the match to her lips, blew out
its flame and touched the glowing ember against her tongue where it
sizzled.

She dropped it to the nightstand with a small
smile curving her lips.

She then tossed the matchbox back into the
drawer and closed it.

And then Valentine turned with languid but
definitive purpose to the form in the bed.

* * * * *

Franka

I walked down the front steps of the Winter
Palace somewhat stiffly, but I managed it, hoping I hid the
stiffness by twitching my fur cloak closer around me.

That stiffness became more pronounced when I
saw what awaited me at the bottom of the steps.

I was headed to the jail to see my
parents.

Noc had told me he’d be accompanying me.

However, at the bottom of the steps, milling
about at the side of not
my
sleigh but one of the queen’s
sumptuously-appointed
royal
sleighs, stood not only Noc but
also Finnie, Frey, Circe, Lahn, Cora and the Noctorno of my world
(who allowed those close to him to call him Tor, something he
invited I do at my command attendance at dinner last night with the
lot of them and the queen).

What, by the gods, were they
all
doing
there?

No.

No.

I didn’t care.

In my estimation from the message delivered
by the bird my brother sent sharing when they’d left his home,
Kristian and his family would arrive at the Winter Palace on the
morrow.

It had been nine days since the drama in the
buttery. Due to a physician’s care (and Josette’s), my back still
ached, but it was healing far more rapidly than normal.

Noc and the rest had not ceased being
friendly and sociable in this time. In fact, the more I was able to
get up and about, the friendlier and more sociable they became.

This didn’t matter to me.

I wanted this final visit with my parents
done and behind me. I wanted to see my brother. After that, Josette
and I (and whatever maid she selected to accompany us, the task of
finding said maid something Josette had thrown herself into with
abandoned glee) were off to cross the Green Sea.

Therefore, whatever befell me at this present
moment, and the next, and the next, I would endure.

Until I was away.

Perhaps the others were preparing to go into
town. There were two royal sleighs waiting and a variety of
horses.

That was likely it.

But due to the fact that they were friendly
and sociable, for whatever reason traits like that made you behave
in ways like this, they were milling about waiting to see Noc and I
off.

Noc noticed me making my descent, and not
surprisingly he broke off from chatting with Cora and Tor and
jogged up the steps toward me.

“How you doin’, sweetheart?” he asked, his
face a picture of concern, his hand capturing mine, and before I
could pull it free he tucked my fingers around the inside of his
elbow, drew me close to his side, kept his fingers snug around mine
in a way I could not escape, and thus he assisted me down the
steps.

“How I’m doing is being quite capable of
descending a flight of steps on my own,” I replied.

“I’ll take that sass as you doin’ good,” he
muttered.

I had learned from the very beginning that
Noc decided to take whatever I said in whatever manner he wished to
take it.

Hence in response I simply sighed.

Noc led us to the side of the sleigh where
Cora and Tor were standing, and I noted Frey ceased speaking with
Finnie, Lahn and Circe and came our way.

We stopped by the sleigh and Frey stopped at
our grouping.

He was looking down on me with the same
concern Noc showed.

“You’re certain you wish to do this, Franka?”
he asked.

“Absolutely,” I answered.

He studied me a moment before he nodded once
and declared, “We’ll be there with you in case something upsetting
happens.”

At his words, I felt my body jolt and knew
the extent of recovery in my back for I only felt a vague twinge of
pain.

“I…sorry?” I asked.

Frey indicated the assemblage with a sweep of
his proud head, which now included Circe, Lahn and Finnie, all of
whom had joined us, before he repeated, “We’ll all be with you in
case something upsetting happens.”

Dear goddess.

They were going to the jail with me.

But…

Why?

“That isn’t necessary,” I stated swiftly.

“A sister has a sister’s back,” Cora decreed.
“And a sister’s man has
her
back.”

I looked to her. “Rest assured I mean no
offense, princess, but we aren’t sisters.”

“We totally are,” she returned.

“But…” I felt my brow furrow. “Are you, that
is to say, is the other me your sister in your world?”

I heard Noc chuckle and saw grins and smiles
all around while Cora answered (through her own grin), “No, babe.
What I’m saying is, we’re both chicks and all chicks are sisters,
blood or not. And we have to look out for each other.”

How peculiar. She, too, used these slang
words “babe” and “chick” to refer to her own gender.

Mad.

And women looking out for women?

That wasn’t mad. It was delusional.

It was my experience (and not experience due
to my participation in such vulgar goings-on, they were so vulgar,
they were even beneath
me
) most women, at least women of my
ilk, didn’t look out for each other.

They seduced one another’s men and uttered
cruel things about clothing, hairstyles, excess of weight or not
enough of it, not to mention honing in on and dissecting with
malicious glee anything else that might be perceived as a weakness
or unattractive. Or they would harp on it to make it
seem
unattractive (mostly due to jealousy or spite). The sound of a
voice. An ungainly talent at a dance. A gaucheness with social
discourse.

These were not the cuts I had once relished,
and not because it was all too easy.

Mostly because if a woman had a man, it was
lower than low to set your sights on him. And tearing apart anyone
for things they could not control wasn’t sport. It was simply
vicious.

But I’d lived my life with women behaving in
this manner. Josette had even shared tidbits of female servants
doing the same.

Three women giving up a morning where they
could be at their leisure to do anything they wished in order to
accompany me to a bloody
jail
just in case I got
upset
?

Unheard of!

“There’s really no need,” I persisted. “I’ll
only be there a short while.”

“There’s a need,” Circe put in.

“Absolutely a need,” Finnie agreed.

I didn’t understand this.

However, this discussion was prolonging a
situation that I’d like to see done. Precisely getting in the
sleigh, getting to the jail, seeing my parents and returning to the
palace.

So I gave in, murmuring, “As you wish,”
pulled free of Noc and turned to the sleigh.

I felt movement around me as Noc reached in
front of me to open the door to the open-topped sleigh. I also felt
his hand at my hip steadying me as if I couldn’t climb into a
bloody sleigh on my own, something I’d been doing since I’d gained
control of my legs and feet.

I clenched my teeth in frustration, attempted
to ignore his touch, which was firm enough that I felt it even
through my furs, my gown and my warm undergarments, and found my
seat.

Noc found his beside me and Cora had entered
the sleigh and was settling beside him.

I didn’t stoop to looking around to see where
the others had gone. I simply grabbed the fur throw that was at the
ready for us on the floor of the sleigh to pull over my lap. It was
large and long and while I did this, Noc adjusted it over his lap
as Cora did the same.

All of us tucked in the sleigh together like
bosom buddies on a jaunt (laughable), Noc reached forward to take
hold of the reins secured before him.

I looked at the four horses attached to the
sleigh.

For the horse’s sake, two was optimal to
share a load, even on a long distance ride.

Four to sledge through town was
ludicrous.

Unless you were a royal.

And since Cora was, I supposed it wasn’t
outlandish.

What surprised me was that Noc took the reins
when I was relatively certain that the other men mounted
steeds.

I turned to him and asked, “Do you not
ride?”

I heard him click his teeth and watched him
snap the straps, lurched with the forward movement of the sleigh,
and then saw him look down at me.

“Ride?” he asked.

“A mount,” I explained.

“Not much of that kind of riding in my world,
babe,” he stated, and I felt myself blink in surprise. “Though I do
ride, just not a horse. A hawg. As in a Harley.”

Cora piped in at this juncture.

“You have a Harley?”

Noc looked to his other side. “Yeah.”

“Wow. Cool. Wish I’d gotten a ride with you
before I had to leave our world,” she remarked.

“Didn’t get to get on it much in Seattle,”
Noc remarked. “Figure that’ll change in NOLA. Least I hope so.”

I heard this conversation but I was still
back where it started.

“You ride a pig?” I asked with disbelief.

Both Noc and Cora’s attention came to me and
they stared at me mutely for a second before they both burst out
laughing.

Well.

How rude.

I looked forward.

“Not laughin’ at you, sweetheart,” Noc said
gently, through laughter that was, indeed,
at me
. “But you
were bein’ funny. We’re talkin’ about motorcycles. You don’t have
them here. We have automotive vehicles powered by gas. Move on
wheels called tires. No animals needed. They go a lot faster. Most
of them are enclosed, but not bikes, what motorcycles are sometimes
referred to as, a brand of which is Harleys. That’s what I’ve got.
Those have two wheels, not four, and are open to the elements. You
ride them kinda like a horse, except they’re motor-powered.”

“Interesting,” I said like it was not.

However, it was.

What kinds of machines would these be, no
animals needed? They seemed implausible and fanciful, just like
what he’d shown me that first night we spoke—his “phone.”

And yet that was real.

I had often thought of his gadgetry since, in
the rare alone times I’d had, wishing I’d taken hold of it,
inspected it, tested its magic.

Animal-less “vehicles” powered by gas I would
adore the opportunity of seeing.

“It’s cute, you not getting it,” Noc went on
to explain, noting my continued mood (as he always did, he just
often chose to ignore it). “If you went to our world, you’d
understand it.”