My Immortal (3 page)

But Lizzie wasn’t here. And no one knew where she was.

His eyebrows shot up. “So long ago? I’m not sure I can remember who was here in June, but I can ask around if you’d like. Maybe someone will recognize her.” He looked at the picture again. “This is you, yes?” He tapped her face in the photo, half hidden behind Sebastian’s round apple cheek and her own sunglasses.

She nodded absently, wondering what she needed to do next. Call the police and file a missing persons report. Then what?

“Your son?” His eyes were unreadable, unemotional.

“No. Lizzie’s son.” And Marley felt guilty even looking at him in a picture. She knew he was happy and healthy staying with their cousin Rachel and her husband. They had three kids under the age of eight, and Sebastian was benefiting from a stable home environment where he was loved and well cared for. But Marley still felt ashamed that from time to time she had resented that it was Lizzie who had a child, when she herself wanted one so desperately.

That had been the only rift in their relationship, when Sebastian had been born and Marley had offered to raise him. Lizzie had balked, angry, offended, but here it was two years later and she had dumped her son with Rachel. Sometimes Marley wondered if that was meant to be a slap to her.

“You look a more natural mother than your sister,” he commented, handing the picture back.

Marley bristled as she tucked the picture back into her purse, her need to defend her sister greater than her own personal resentments. “Lizzie tries to be a good mother, she’s just young.”

“I’m sure. Is the child missing too?”

Damien didn’t sound worried, just mildly curious. Marley found herself disliking him, even as she acknowledged she was being unfair. If he didn’t know Lizzie, he had no reason to feel the same concern that she did. “No, her son is fine. He’s with family.”

“That’s good.” As he spoke, he glanced down at her chest, she was sure of it. She hadn’t imagined that, and he actually lingered, really studying her breasts in her tight T-shirt, making her shift her feet in discomfort. It was absolutely the wrong time for him to behave like that, and even worse was that her own body reacted positively to the attention. Marley bit her lip and shifted her purse in front of her chest.

“Do you have a child, Marley?”

The way he said it, his faintly accented voice hypnotic, his eyes caressing, made her cheeks grown warm. It was none of his business, but she found herself answering. “No. I’m a teacher, first grade.”

He laughed softly, the sound unexpected and not pleasant. “That doesn’t surprise me in the least.”

It sounded rude; it felt humiliating. Maybe he meant nothing by it, but all she could hear was a good-looking man saying it was totally obvious to him that she would be a spinster teacher, a dried-up cliché, a woman afraid of herself and her own sexuality. That wasn’t true at all. She hadn’t found a man she really connected with, that she could love, and that was nothing to be embarrassed about.

Which didn’t explain why her cheeks got hot and she fought the urge to explain herself. “Look, will you just call me if you find anything out about Lizzie?”

“Of course. Give me your card and I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”

“I don’t have a card.” She’d just told him she was a grade school teacher. She didn’t walk around passing out pencil-border business cards. That was not in the budget. “Do you have some paper?” She started digging in her purse for a pen.

“Just come into the house and I’ll put your numbers in my PDA.”

“Okay, thanks,” she started to say, but he was already walking away, moving across the lawn in the opposite direction of the house. She scrambled down the steps and followed him, wondering where he was going.

In a second it became apparent he was headed to the round, white towerlike structure. The
pigeonnier
, she had to assume. He opened the door and stepped inside, not really waiting for her. Marley hesitated in the doorway. The round room was a living area, complete with a thick couch slip-covered in white cotton, blue pillows tossed on it, and, set at a prominent angle from the one window, a modern steel desk with a laptop computer. The walls were stark white painted bricks, and the décor was sleek, focusing on texture instead of color. Except for a very prominent piece of art, framed in gold, its somber blues and grays a splash of cloudy color on the otherwise blank wall.

Damien tossed his MP3 player down on the desk and lifted a PDA out of its charger. “Phone number? Cell? E-mail?”

She rattled off the necessary info and watched him quickly and efficiently enter it. He glanced over at her, dark eyes expressionless. “I’m sorry, what did you say your name is?”

“Marley. Marley Turner. My sister is Elizabeth Turner.” Not that she believed for one minute this man could help her. He said he didn’t know who Lizzie was—and he didn’t really care.

But she was too worried not to push a little harder. “Do you think someone might remember her?”

He studied her for a second, then shook his head slowly. “Maybe, but to be completely honest, I doubt it. People don’t come to my parties to remember anyone or anything. They’re here to forget, to hide in the dark with total strangers.”

There were so many questions she could ask. Like why did he encourage that kind of behavior in his own house? What was
he
hiding from? And what could anyone possibly achieve or gain or forget by having sex with strangers they didn’t care about and were only using for selfish, distracting pleasure?

But that wasn’t any of her business. All she was concerned with was finding her sister and hauling her back home where she belonged. Where Marley was determined to keep a better eye on her in the future.

Knowing all of that didn’t prevent her from wondering what exactly Damien did at his parties, wondering if he participated or if he was just an observer, a perverted ringmaster.

“I appreciate you trying at all,” she said, annoyed at her crude thoughts, wanting out of the small room, away from this man with the dark green, charming, sinful eyes. He could have sex with three women at once and it was totally irrelevant. People were depraved, and she couldn’t change that, not even in her own sister.

“You know I can’t help you, don’t you?” He suddenly pushed a button on his organizer and tossed it roughly on the desk, scattering some papers resting there. “I want to help you, but I can’t. I’m sorry, I really am. But we can’t always do what we’d like, and we don’t always get what we want.”

Didn’t she know it. If everyone got what they wanted, Marley would be sitting in a house back home in Cincinnati with a husband and children. Lizzie would be a nurse and their mother wouldn’t have tried to kill herself three times. She didn’t need this guy giving her a lecture about regret.

“I just want to find my sister. I’m sorry I bothered you. I’ll just leave now.”

“You do that.” His nostrils were flared, jaw clenched, words low and tight. “It won’t work, you know. I won’t do it, no matter how tempting it is. So yes, you should definitely leave.”

Marley frowned, suddenly sorry she’d given him her phone number and e-mail address. She had no idea what he was talking about, he looked annoyed, and she wasn’t getting anywhere. She backed toward the door. “Fine. I’m sorry.” Her fingers passed over the printout of Lizzie’s e-mail she had tucked into the outside pocket of her purse. She had also printed the letter Lizzie had attached and had put it in the middle compartment of her purse. Bracing herself for a brush-off, she paused in the doorway.

It might tick him off even further to ask, but if he knew anything, anything at all…she had to hear it. Had to know. “I’m leaving, but…”

“But what?” He leaned against his desk, pinning her with a passive stare, his arms across his olive green T-shirt.

“Do you know who Marie du Bourg is? My sister, she gave me a letter from Marie, and I just thought it was odd…it was quite old, a confession apparently…”

Marley stopped talking when Damien stood straight up, his fists clenching, jaw dropping, voice angry and confused. “What the hell do you know about Marie?”

“Nothing. Just that she lived here. I don’t know why Lizzie had her letter.”

“Give it to me,” he demanded sticking his hand out. He moved toward her, and Marley instinctively shifted her purse slightly behind her back.

It occurred to her then that maybe he had lied. Maybe he did remember Lizzie and maybe he did know something that could help Marley find her sister, and he was just choosing not to tell her.

And he wanted the letter from Marie du Bourg for whatever reason. This could work in her favor if she played it right. She took a deep breath, gathered her courage, and stood her ground.

“Find my sister and I’ll give you the letter,” she told him, impressed with how cool and confident she sounded. Blackmail wasn’t exactly her forte, but she was feeling a little desperate.

Damien stopped walking, eyes narrowing. “Well, Miss Marley Turner, I was truly not expecting that. You’re much more devious and bold than I gave you credit for. But I don’t know where your sister is.”

“But you can help me find her.”

“I doubt it.”

“Do you want the letter or not?”

“Oh, I want it.”

“Then find Lizzie.”

“That letter belongs to my family. Your sister is a thief.”

“I don’t have the original. Lizzie just copied the letter into an e-mail. That’s not a crime.”

He smiled, a slow, charming smile that made her stomach flip over. Damien leaned closer to her. “I admire your loyalty to your sister,” he said in a low voice. “Give me the letter and I’ll let it be known that I’m entertaining Friday evening. If your sister is in the area, I imagine she will show up. Does that satisfy you?”

Marley was acutely aware that he was standing only a foot away, that he was tall and broad and very masculine, tension ripe in his taut muscles. “I’m not satisfied that easily,” she told him, lifting her chin and locking eyes with him. He wasn’t going to intimidate her with his sensual persuasion.

The smile became a wolfish grin. “That sounds like a challenge.”

“No. Just a warning.” Marley took another step back, not wanting to turn around so close to him, not wanting that feeling of vulnerability that not having an eye on him would bring. “I’ll be here on Friday for the party and I’ll bring the letter. If Lizzie is here, I’ll give it to you.”

“If that’s your requirement, then be back here tomorrow. I need some more information about your sister so I can make sure she arrives on Friday.”

Marley debated the wisdom of that. “Why can’t I give the info to you now?”

“I have an appointment that I am already late for.”

It went against her better judgment, but she nodded. “Fine.” In the morning she’d rent a car, since she’d be staying in the area until at least Saturday. And being able to drive away from this man on her own whenever she couldn’t tolerate him anymore felt absolutely essential.

“Excellent. Just one question before you leave. If Lizzie has been missing since June, why are you just looking for her now?”

It was a direct hit. Guilt sliced through her, agonizing and raw. “I didn’t know she was missing. I’ve been in a convent all summer in solitude.”

The look on his face was sheer horror. He pointed an accusing finger at her. “You’re a nun?”

“No. I went on a religious retreat.” And discovered that in many ways, she had lost her faith.

Some color returned to his face, but he still shook his head slowly, his eyes disbelieving. “Oh, this is priceless.”

On that note, she turned around and just left. There was something so volatile and disturbing about him, even when he was being polite, that she felt cornered, vulnerable. It wasn’t a good feeling and she cut across the grass, taking big purposeful steps.

“See you tomorrow, Marley,” he called from the door, amusement in his voice. “I’ll be waiting for you, with bells on.”

How Lizzie could have ever thought for one second that she loved this man was beyond Marley.

He did nothing but disgust her.

And fascinate her.

Damien watched Marley Turner walk quickly across his lawn toward the waiting taxi. He hit number two on his cell phone and listened to it ring three times.

“Hello?”

“I’m not amused,” he said, leaning in his doorway.

“Damien, sometimes your cryptic remarks are adorable. Sometimes they just piss me off. Today is the latter.” There was rustling, like Rosa was rolling over in bed. Then the click of her lighter, and he heard her suck in a drag of her cigarette.

“The girl showed up.” Or more accurately, woman. Marley Turner had been an intriguing little package, obviously scared but gutsy and determined. When he had tipped his hand and shown how eager he was for Marie’s letter, she had seen an advantage and taken it, and he respected that kind of quick intelligence.

She was also clearly disgusted with her sister’s behavior, but defended Lizzie fiercely in the next breath.

“Your latest ploy to tempt me.” Usually the bait Rosa shoved in front of him didn’t interest him—or did, but was easy enough to resist. This time, though, she’d found a woman who was going to prove a challenge. Marley was gorgeous, with thick, lusty brown hair with golden streaks in it and flawless skin, pale for August, a small dusting of freckles across her nose. Her body was lush, curvy, with thighs that Damien had wanted to grab on to and thrust into, and her dark hazel eyes met his straight on. Not with boldness, but with determination. She had been attracted to him, like all women were. After two hundred years, that was often more wearying than arousing, but what had intrigued him about Marley was that she had the willpower to resist the pull, the lure, the charm he had been given along with his immortality.

She wasn’t exotic or a blond bombshell. She was dangerous because at first glance she seemed so ordinary, just an average-size woman in her mid to late twenties. But then she had stared him down, and Damien had felt the first niggling of concern.

Marley had gotten into the back of the taxi, and as it pulled away now, she turned and glanced back at him, eyes wide. Damien felt a very painful kick of lust even as she disappeared from view down his pitted driveway.

Her innocent sensuality appealed to him, and he wanted for the first time in a very long time.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about and I don’t care.” Rosa sounded like she was about to drop back to sleep.

“She knew about Marie. She couldn’t have known that without a little help from you. But it won’t work, you know. I won’t do it, no matter how many carrots you dangle in front of me.”

“She knew about Marie?” Rosa was more alert. “Damien, I didn’t, I wouldn’t…”

“You’re a terrible liar. Just let it go, alright? I’m not so easily manipulated.”

Disgusted, he hung up the phone and concentrated on the retreating taxi.

He would resist her. He had to. It was the only way to save himself.

November 11, 1790

Dearest Sister Angelique,

I have debated the wisdom of penning this letter to you, but have found myself unable to resist the compulsion to sit down and write to you. I miss France dreadfully. I find myself quite steeped in nostalgia these days, missing the quiet companionship of the other girls at school, the way we laughed and talked and dreamt of our respective futures. I miss my youth.

I imagine that is melodramatic, and you would scold me something fierce for not appreciating the good fortune bestowed upon me by my most advantageous marriage. But I shall tell you, Sister, the secrets of my marriage, because I cannot keep my lips sealed any longer. If I do not expel it all from me, I shall burst forth in hysterics upon my maid, or a complete stranger, perhaps even one of the neighborhood ladies—I shall tell them every last dreadful, seductive, scandalous, horrifying moment of what has happened here at Rosa de Montana, and that, of course, I cannot do.

I arrived in Louisiana in May of last year, as you know. What you don’t know is that after the three-month-long oceanwide journey, I already knew what was in store for me in my marriage. It was destined to be a loveless match, of course, based on politics and business. That I understood when I took my vows. It was what I expected, and I knew my duty. What I did not anticipate was the callous disrespect my husband showed me. Damien is a fantastically attractive man, with a physical form and features that are unflawed. Would that I could say the same for his character. But I am muddling this, not making sense.

Our wedding night—I should not even speak of this, I should be ashamed of my indelicacy, but the truth is, Angelique, I will never post this letter. Damien reads my mail before it goes out, and generally speaking, begrudges me the post. Also, even without his interference, I have neither the courage nor the time to actually send you this missive. It is as if I am talking to you, taking comfort from you, yet I do not have to witness your sadness, your judgment, your pity when you discover how far into sin I have fallen. I daresay I drank too much wine tonight as well, so it is best if I write all of this out, purge myself, then dash the whole sheaf into the fire.

That is precisely what I shall do.

So I can tell you the truth of that night.

I spent my wedding night alone. Yes, I did. After that whole day of anxiety, of smiling falsely, of feeling Damien’s hand upon my elbow as he led me around the room greeting our five hundred guests, I was deposited in my bedchamber in his town house in Nantes. I donned the appropriate white nightrail and camisole, tied with pale blue ribbons, straight from Paris, exquisite and fabulously expensive, as Maman deemed only appropriate to wear when sealing marriage to one of the wealthiest men in France.

I confess to nerves, and allowed myself to spin certain fantasies about the tenderness of my new spouse as he assuaged my fears. But there was also a bit of anticipation, as my husband, as previously noted, is a very attractive man, and I felt certain if any man could bring pleasure to a marriage bed, it was him. I was to be disappointed on both accounts.

Damien did not enter my chamber at all that night, and the next morning, after I had dried my tears and the maids had snickered behind their hands at me, we boarded the ship for our passage to New Orleans. My husband, who had left me alone the night before to what purpose I knew not, was distant and aloof. I can tell you the whole of what he said to me that entire day.

As we departed the house: “You have entirely too many trunks, Madame.”

Port side: “Wave good-bye to France, Marie, as you’ll not see her again.”

In my cabin, adjacent to his, long after sunset: “Do you know what it looks like that my brand new wife cannot trouble herself to attend a dinner with myself and the captain one day after our marriage? Sit up.”

The latter came eight hours after the initial two sentences, when I was feeling the ill effects of the sea. Never having traveled by boat before, I was unprepared for the devastation of the constant motion, and it was in this state of extreme mortification that my husband found me.

“I apologize, Monsieur, but I’m feeling unwell.” I tried to pull myself to a sitting position, but the room spun most dreadfully and I leaned against the cabin wall, bilious and suffering.

He gave a snort of disgust, sat on my trunk, and pulled his boots off. I was too ill to consider what he was about. You know I have never been of the most reliable health, and at that moment it was all I could do to keep from disgracing myself. His anger was not readily apparent to me, preoccupied as I was, though I sensed he was displeased.

When he approached me, I thought it was to offer me comfort. To assist me. I laugh now, a bitter laugh of pain at my utter naïveté. What a foolish, young, innocent child I was, with no notion of the depravities and cruelty of men. I know now. Damien had not my comfort in mind.

“Cease your playacting,” he said, sitting on the bed next to my waist. Having already peeled off his coat, he unbuttoned his vest and yanked his shirt loose. “I allowed it last night, but tonight I am of a mind to taste exactly what I’ve bought.”

“I am not playacting. I feel quite ill.” Behind the nausea a prickle of panic rose. Surely not. He wouldn’t. He hadn’t before, so he wouldn’t now.

“And I suppose last night you did not lock me out of your room?”

“No!” Such a thought had never even occurred to me, and had it, I wouldn’t have even known where to secure the key. But I never would have locked him out, even if the key had been placed right into my palm. In those days, I was honest and dutiful, lacking in manipulation and deviousness. I looked up at him in astonishment. “My door was open to you.”

His green eyes were hard, dull with alcohol. “It does not become you to lie to me.” When he leaned closer, I could smell the whiskey, and my stomach churned violently. His fingers brushed my hair back, causing me to tremble. It wasn’t a tender touch, that I knew. It was possessive, angry.

“I understand marriage was not your desire—that if it were left to you, you would have taken the veil.”

I gave a slight nod. I could never let him know what it had cost me, how it had broken my heart to leave behind the convent, my sisters, the Church. “But I will endeavor to please you always.”

He gave a slow, charming grin. “Will you, now?”

“Yes.”

“Then lie back, Marie, and let us lift your skirts.”

Do you know the feeling you have when a horse throws you and you land hard, air slapped out of your lungs? That is how I felt when Damien spoke. My shock was sufficient that I couldn’t say anything in return, could only blink up at him, heart racing.

“I am sorry that this marriage was not your choice, I truly am. But you were a gift to me, from King and country, to increase the blue in my offspring’s blood. For such a gift I paid most handsomely to support Louis’ latest building endeavors. I do not expect affection from you, but I do expect you will satisfy your duty to me.”

I nodded again, not trusting myself to speak. It seemed much, much wiser not to argue with him. His chest blocked out the light from the candle behind him, and the room felt
close, stifling. The boat rocked relentlessly and I felt small and scared, like I did when I was a child and I was momentarily lost in the shop from Maman. I was alone, no one to care, no one to save me. I was now Madame Damien du Bourg, my life would never be the same, and this harsh stranger owned my comfort, my days and nights, my destiny.

I suppose he tried to include me. To engage me. But I felt so cold, so ill, so detached, that I could only lie there stiff, still as a stone. His mouth on mine was suffocating, his hands invasive. He kissed me over and over, in unimaginable places, wrinkling and tugging my skirts and my bodice, and tears rolled down my cheeks, dropping behind my ears onto the bed. I felt a great rocking wave of fear, shame, and sadness, that overwhelmed me as surely as my seasickness did.

“I grow impatient,” he murmured once. “Kiss me back.”

I tried, but I failed. My stomach, it hurt ever so much, and I felt the cold, hard eyes of a stranger on me, his hands touching me, his body pressed against mine, crushing bones, muscle, heart, and lungs.

The pain shocked me, took my breath away, set a little yelp tripping off over my lips before I could stop it.

Then it was done and he was standing up, buttoning. He wiped his bottom lip, head going back and forth. His scoff was disgusted. “That most definitely was not worth my ten thousand livre.”

When we arrived in the port of New Orleans, the brackish water clinging to the ship, a fetid smell rising up our nostrils, and grasping water foliage swaying and reaching for us, Damien gave a grim smile and said, “Welcome to Louisiana, Marie.”

He might as well have welcomed me to Hell.

Marley had grown up in Cincinnati, had spent her whole life on the banks of the Ohio River, knew the mystique surrounding paddle boats, and was aware of how vital the rivers had been in the history of United States commerce. But Cincinnati was nothing like New Orleans. Cincinnati was just as hot and humid in the summer, but it lacked the wild, wet growth of the Louisiana waterways. Her home-town was careful, family-oriented, one foot in a northern climate, one foot in the southern mores of church and chatting.

New Orleans had a wildness inherent to it that Marley didn’t understand, that made her uncomfortable, even as it drew and pulled on her. She wanted to go back to Rosa de Montana—to encourage Damien du Bourg to help her find Lizzie, no question about it, but also because she wanted to see the inside of his plantation house. She was curious whether he had done to it what he’d done to the
pigeonnier
—blended old-world architecture with modern style. And she was curious about Damien, she had to admit, way more than she was comfortable with.

The night before, she’d rented a car, extended her stay at her hotel until the weekend, and had made a last-ditch effort to find Lizzie by calling their cousin Rachel to see if she’d checked in. Lizzie hadn’t called Rachel, and Marley had spent a restless night staring at the textured ivory hotel ceiling, the light in the sprinkler head flicking on and off as she worried. In ten days she had to be back at work for the start of the school year, but how could she possibly go home without her sister?