The Moonlight Mistress (20 page)

She fidgeted with her top button and said, “That was good.”

One corner of his mouth lifted. “Thanks. Likewise.”

“Why so glum?” She turned away after she’d asked, picking up his tie to hand to him.

Still watching her, he began to button up his shirt. “My best friend is—” he hesitated a split second, then continued “—dead, and you ask me what else?”

She flipped up his collar, looped his tie around his neck and touched his chin so he’d lift up. It was easier to talk to him while she fussed with the knot. “You’ve been funny,” she said. “Since before that.”

He cleared his throat. “So now I get the traditional advice of the officer’s servant?”

“Maybe.”

Meyer gently grasped her wrist and lowered it. He looked up at her solemnly for a long time, his eyes searching her face. He didn’t do anything else, but she felt as if he was touching her delicately all over. “Thank you,” he said.

“What for?”

He grinned again, briefly. “Persuading me. I do feel much better.”

He obviously had more to say. She took her hand back from him and tightened the knot of his tie a bit more.

“You don’t even have to say
anything
, do you?”

She shook her head.

“All right, then. I fucked Crispin Daglish.”

She might have been more surprised about that before she’d known about him and Ashby. She wondered what he meant by fucked, if it meant sodomy or something less serious. It was clear they hadn’t been caught, and she hadn’t seen Daglish trying to eat his pistol or poke his head into a sniper’s rifle, so it didn’t make much of a difference, did it? She shrugged. “Where?” she asked.

“Where?”

“Yes, sir.” The logistics stymied her. Whose idea had it been? Daglish had been smitten with Meyer since he’d joined the regiment, but hadn’t made any kind of advances that she’d seen, or that any of the men had seen, and that kind of thing got around, fast. The men would have been on Daglish like a pack of wolves if they’d suspected him of anything sexually untoward. Even if no one else would have noticed, she would have; she was used to keeping a closer eye on men, simply for her own safety. What had changed? And why was Meyer upset, if men fucking men didn’t shock him?

“I shouldn’t have done it.”

Bob handed him his uniform tunic. He laid it on the cot beside him, stood and began to shove his long shirttails into his trousers. He should have done it the other way around; he was going to have lumps. She watched him and tried to figure out how to explain. She said, “He’s got a passion for you.”

“What? Now?”

“Since the first.” She thought back to when she’d noticed. “Before Southampton.”

Meyer strode forward and grasped her shoulders. “Did he tell you that?”

She shrugged. “Saw it. He’s a sodomite.”

“I’m a bloody sodomite and I couldn’t see it.”

“No, you’re not. Not like him,” she said, lifting her chin to indicate the cot. He’d enjoyed fucking her, enough so he’d gone on for longer than she would have dared. “Daglish’d watch you. I watched him. Wanted to make sure he wasn’t a wrong’un.” Meyer wouldn’t have noticed that on his own, not in a thousand years. She’d practically had to bludgeon him to get him to notice her.

Meyer covered his face with his hands. Should she do his trousers up for him, or yank them off and start over again, since he’d made such a mess of it? She found her cap and slapped it on. Meyer said, “I thought I terrified him.”

Bob laughed. “I was proper terrified, sir, just now. If you want to terrify me again sometime—”

“I’m not fit to be let out on my own, am I?”

She grinned, patted his shoulder and yanked his shirttails back out of his trousers. “I say that about all the officers, sir.”

LUCILLA PLACED A FEW MORE BEAKERS INTO THE sterilizer and closed the lid, then put a brick on top in case ground shudders from distant artillery triggered the faulty latch. She straightened slowly, hand pressed to her lower back, and yawned before she saw Matron standing in the doorway.

“Your brother is here,” she said.

Lucilla’s insides went cold, and she felt short of breath. “He’s not hurt, is he?”

“No, no. I’m sorry I frightened you. He only just arrived. I put him in the front parlor.”

“Let me wash my hands,” Lucilla said. “May I have an hour with him?”

Matron smiled. “Take the afternoon, Daglish. I know you’re on duty most of the night.”

The casino’s former front parlor had been the smallest room, no use for a ward, but its brocaded couches had proved an ideal place to stash visiting officials and the occasional newspaper reporter until someone could see to them. Crispin
looked both as if he belonged in such a setting—he’d taken off his cap, and his curls tumbled onto his forehead, giving him a vaguely romantic, vaguely dissolute look—and as if he’d never been inside so elegant a building before, his boots and puttees caked with drying mud, and his uniform showing the signs of some hasty stain removal. He smelled distinctly of one who’d been living in a trench.

Joy spread out from her heart and into her face. He was someone she loved, and he was alive. She dashed across the room and kissed him warmly on the cheek, holding him close to her, not caring that he had come to see her before having a bath. “Crispin, love,” she said. “Is everything all right?” She sat next to him on the couch and clasped his hands in hers.

“I’m fine,” he said. “But…Hailey told me you knew Captain Ashby.”

Her stomach plummeted. “Oh, no,” she said. “How?”

“We don’t know. We haven’t recovered…him yet.” Crispin looked down at his hands, twisting his cap between them. “We don’t always find—”

“Oh, Crispin,” she said, and embraced him again. “I’m sorry. I liked him very much.” She could barely believe that he was dead. He’d been more alive than anyone she’d ever met. Belatedly, she realized she would have to tell Pascal.

“We all liked him,” Crispin said. “Everyone’s pretty broken up about it. Especially Gab—Lieutenant Meyer. They were best friends. Known each other since they were lads.” He turned his face away from her and swallowed. “I actually came to talk to you about something else, if that’s all right. If you have time. I know you’re very busy here, and if you haven’t time, I can come back some other day. I’m afraid I have to go back this evening.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, tucking her grief away for another time. “I know you can’t just pop over for tea whenever you like. Did you have any tea?” He shook his head. “Would you like some? We have a nook in the kitchen we use sometimes for chats.”

“Please, if it’s more private,” Crispin said.

Lucilla fetched her personal tin and slipped a lump of her hoarded sugar into Crispin’s cup while he warmed the pot. As the tea steeped, she sat across from him at the tiny corner table and grasped his hands. “It’s so good to see you.”

He stared at their joined hands. “I hope you’ll still think so after I’ve told you.”

Lucilla squeezed his hands. “You’re a soldier. I know it’s your duty—”

“Not that.” He pulled his hands from hers. “I think the tea’s ready.”

“You’ll have to tell me sooner or later,” Lucilla said. “Else why come all this way?”

Crispin took his tea and turned the cup around and around between his palms. She noticed anew how square and masculine his hands were, his nails perpetually cropped short and the first joints of his fingers dark with curling hair. “Lucilla, I don’t think there’s another person in the world I trust more than you.”

“Thank you.” She caressed the top of his head before she sat.

Crispin lifted his cup, then lowered it without drinking. “I’m a sodomite,” he said.

Lucilla blinked. She’d expected a bit more general conversation first. Still, he’d accomplished his purpose. He’d unburdened himself to her. And she found she was not shocked or even very surprised. A missing puzzle piece had slid into place. “That makes sense,” she said. Something else occurred
to her; this wasn’t merely a matter of Crispin, but of laws, and presumably army regulations, as well. “You’ll be careful?”

“I doubt he’ll ever know,” Crispin said dourly. “The man I want…we did some things, but not the real thing, you see, and now he hardly speaks to me. So I don’t think I’ll be caught doing anything I shouldn’t.”

“Oh, Crispin,” she said. “I’m sorry.” It had to be terrible, wanting someone he could not have. “Are you sure that he—”

He lifted a hand, and she stopped speaking. “You’re not going to say anything else?”

“What is there to say? I don’t imagine there’s anything I can do to change you, if you’re sure. You’re still Crispin, and I still love you.”

He clasped her hands in his and lowered his head. “Thanks. You can’t know how much. I’m still getting used to this, myself. Not knowing—I’ve always known, I think—but deciding it’s no good to pretend otherwise.”

“Drink your tea,” Lucilla said. “We’ll have a nice long chat about it.”

After, Lucilla knew far too much about Lieutenant Gabriel Meyer, and not enough about what had happened to Ashby. Would Meyer, who knew Ashby’s secret, know anything more than Crispin did? Or perhaps she could obtain more news from Hailey. In the meantime, she passed on the news that she’d met up with Pascal again, fed Crispin all the fresh food he could eat, tucked a deck of cards into each pocket of his uniform tunic for his men and fixed up a tidy packet of sandwiches and chocolate biscuits for him to take back with him.

Crispin stood straighter than when he’d arrived. Perhaps it was the tea; perhaps it was because he’d unburdened himself to her, of a weight he’d been carrying for a lifetime. He didn’t
look exactly like the Crispin whom she’d known all her life. He looked like a soldier, entirely too much like the men whom she helped sew back together.

“Do be careful,” she said, stroking his lapel, straightening his tie. “I couldn’t bear to lose you.”

Crispin grinned and embraced her. She’d forgotten how strong he was; he squeezed her hard enough to hurt for a moment. “Thanks, Luce. For the cards, too. And don’t forget to let me know what happens with your Frenchman.”

Lucilla was so sodden with sleep that at first she thought she was dreaming the soft mustache brushing her cheekbone. She turned onto her back, stretching up her arms, and met a solid chest clad in scratchy wool. In her dream, Pascal would be naked or she would know the reason why. She squinted open one eye, feeling as if she stripped off a layer of skin to do so. “What.”

“Mon coeur,”
he said, grinning crookedly. In the light of a single candle, he looked monstrous, indeed a creature out of her dreams. “Rush to my arms and we shall make sweet love until the dawn.”

“Bed.”

His teeth flashed. “I love your practical nature.”

Lucilla closed her eyes, dimly aware of movement and small noises. She must have drifted off again, for her next awareness was of her legs awkwardly bumping Pascal’s as he arranged himself comfortably next to her. He wasn’t naked, which disappointed her. Then he kissed the corner of her mouth and curled his fingers firmly over her breast, and she didn’t mind so much anymore. If she’d had the energy to lift her head, she would have kissed him. She drew in a deep breath and as she let it out, subsided back into sleep.

She woke in time for her shift, before realizing she was off duty for the next twenty-four hours. Sleepily, she cursed until she remembered Pascal had come. She rolled her head to one side and saw his tall form bent, shirtless, over her washstand, attempting to shave in a tiny mirror. She lay still and watched his intent expression, so like when he was focused on her; then her gaze wandered down his shoulders to the sleek muscles of his back until she reached the high waist of his uniform trousers. The cut of them did little for his long legs.

She was still angry with him for not sharing his work with her, but the anger had dulled over time as she contemplated the fact that he had no real reason to trust her with his secrets, other than their physical bond. She might wish it to be otherwise, but wishing brought nothing. In the meantime, he was here, and she was already lonely for his touch.

“Come here,” she said once he’d put down his rinsed razor. “Did you come here to see me, or is there news of some kind?”

“The news can wait a little longer,” he said. He knelt next to the bed and kissed her, tasting strongly of tooth powder.

“I have news for you, also. It can wait for me to brush my teeth, and for us to fuck,” Lucilla said, savoring the word anew, the word she could speak to no one else. She liked the sound of it so much that she considered saying it again, and again, and again, as she pressed her hot skin to his and forced away the bad news she would soon have to share.

“Hurry with the first, so we may be slow with the second,” Pascal said, grinning into her eyes.

Lucilla brushed her teeth in the nude, her feet growing icy against the floor as she watched Pascal shuck off his drawers. His legs were long and strong and cleanly muscled, his skin dense with soft hair. His cock thickened and rose as she
watched; after she’d rinsed her mouth, she grasped it firmly between her thumb and forefinger.

Pascal steadied himself with a hot hand on her shoulder. He kissed her neck and made humming sounds as she delicately touched the head of his cock and slid his velvety-soft foreskin over the firm flesh within. She laid her free hand on his chest, rubbing her palm against hair. “I want you inside me as soon as possible,” she said.

“How?” he asked, pressing his lips behind her ear and sucking gently.

“Every way,” she said, closing her eyes and tipping her forehead into his. She stroked his cock languidly and looped her other arm around his neck. His palm cupped her cheek and his mouth met hers, sucking her breath into his own lungs as if he couldn’t live without it. She kissed his throat, caressing her own lips with his stubbled roughness, and remembered Ashby’s skin beneath her lips and teeth. Sudden, sharp grief stabbed her, that Ashby would never feel such a thing again, so she kissed Pascal with desperate fervor, her fingers sifting through his hair, trying to find a grip. She released his cock and used those fingers to dig into his sharp hipbone, dragging him closer, trapping his erection between them, all the while kissing him and kissing him, afraid to stop.

Soon merely kissing wasn’t enough. She dragged him toward her bed, stumbling over discarded boots and gasping as his fingers slid from her rear down between her legs, the tip of one long finger piercing her with sharp ecstasy.

“Turn around,” Pascal breathed hotly in her ear. “Turn around and I will fill you so deeply our very souls will touch.”

She fell toward the bed and caught herself on her hands, drawing her legs up behind her. She could easily feel the
wooden slats with her knees, even through the thin mattress; she grabbed more blanket and wedged it beneath herself, for padding. “This will never work. You’re far too tall.”

“I am clever,” he reminded her. He applied a condom and crawled onto the bed behind her, fitting himself to her back. “Also, I have great motivation. Here, sit up on your knees and lean back into me—”

His rigid cock thumped against her back, hot and smooth. He grasped her waist and lifted her, just enough to wedge his cock at the entrance to her sex. She reached and helped to guide him inside her as he eased her down, both of them breathless from the new sensations. And at last, she was too full of pleasure to think any longer.

“Hold still,” Pascal murmured into her ear. He wrapped his arms snugly around her waist and curled himself over her shoulders, until there was scarcely any air between them. His heartbeat reverberated through her chest as well as his own.

“Tighter,” she said. His arms tightened, and she layered her arms atop his. She swore she could feel his pulse beating inside her sex. She tightened her inner muscles on his cock and felt his groan throughout her body.

“Perhaps you’ve held still long enough,” he said, loosening his arms and rearranging his hands on her hips.

Lucilla knelt up, tugging herself off his cock fraction by fraction. Pascal’s ragged breathing and the pressure of his hands cued her when to slide back onto him, and soon they’d established a rhythm that kept them both hovering on an invisible edge, at least until her memory of reality began to intrude. She eased onto her hands and knees and said, “Please, Pascal. Faster now. Deep as you can.”

He braced one hand on the bed and placed the other so
each jerk of his hips rubbed her clitoris hard against the heel of his hand, sharp stabs that quickly drove her to a peak. She came gasping, then rode out Pascal’s last few thrusts in a blissful daze.

Afterward, they lay in a tangled heap, Pascal’s shins dangling off the side of the bed but his arms firmly holding her to his chest. He said drowsily, “Did you hear that Antwerp has been lost?”

“Yes.”

“Madame Claes is missing. She is stronger than a human, and quite capable, but I fear she may have attempted something unwise because of Antwerp’s fall.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“I had hoped your British werewolf might be of help in locating her.”

Lucilla closed her eyes. “My brother came to see me. He said that Captain Ashby was killed.”

Pascal stiffened and cursed softly in French. “Bad luck. Very bad luck.”

“That both should go missing at the same time…” She looked at him over her shoulder. “Crispin said they weren’t able to find Ashby’s body.”

Thoughtfully, Pascal said, “There’s no proof, then, that he’s dead. Do you know where he was last seen?”

She shook her head. “I can give you the date, as close as I can estimate it from what Crispin said.”

“And I can inquire of his regiment.” He quickly kissed the back of her neck, then sighed. “Madame Claes—all her hatred of the Boche centers on Herr Doktor Kauz, or perhaps it is the reverse. We had a general idea of his whereabouts. My men were investigating laboratories as best they could, in
enemy territory. There is at least one location where we know Kauz is working, on a government grant, and one more remote site that is a possibility. She could easily have obtained the information. If Ashby went missing in the same general area as either, then it is possible Herr Doktor Kauz has captured them both.”