The Moonlight Mistress (24 page)

“Perhaps you could hunt them,” Lucilla said, knowing if he didn’t occupy himself soon, she would go mad.

He shook his head. “Too tired to change again.” He turned away suddenly.

She was sorry she’d said it. She knew what had likely happened to him. She ought to have been more forgiving of his nerves, but she was nervous, too. As when she and Pascal had stolen the motor, she hadn’t been frightened or worried at all during the rescue. She’d been cool and casual as she hacked off the lock to Ashby’s cell. She’d been exhilarated
when she’d got safely away, Ashby in the cart behind her. Now, as she waited, she felt cold and nauseated and a bit shaky. She wanted Pascal to arrive and put his arms around her.

Ashby came back to the dogcart and held out his hands to her. “Battle nerves?” he asked.

He sounded matter-of-fact, which gave Lucilla the courage to place her cold hands in his warm ones. He pulled her to her feet then wrapped her in his arms, briskly massaging her back with his knuckles. She said, “Is this the cure for your men’s nerves?”

He rubbed his cheek over her hair. “I might be fraternizing a bit with you. You did rescue me, after all.”

Gradually, she stopped shaking. When she moved away from Ashby, he looked momentarily helpless, then shoved his hands into his pockets. “How long until our rescue arrives?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “It wasn’t easy to find a motor to secretly commandeer. The owners—the driver couldn’t leave except at certain times.”

“We could set off on our own,” Ashby suggested.

“Too far,” she said. “Besides, I didn’t fetch you out just so you could be picked right back up again.”

“As if we’ll be any safer in the motor of a complete stranger,” he said, then closed his eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m a bit nervous.”

“If it helps, the motor belongs to a nunnery,” she said.

Ashby began to laugh. “Oh, good. Perhaps I’ll have them send a postcard to Mater. She’ll be thrilled imagining that I finally went to mass.” Then he sobered. “I’ll ask her to pray for Miss Claes.”

Tanneken strained, struggled, twisted. The metal mesh only grew tighter. At least the others were gone, leaving
behind a fug of chemicals and anger and cowardice. None could now see how humiliatingly she was trapped, wire slicing deeply, only her thick undercoat preventing the grid from cutting her skin.

She whuffed out an exhausted breath and collapsed to the cold floor, panting. She could no longer smell Captain Ashby at all. He must be similarly confined, far enough away that she would not smell him. Dense walls would prevent her from hearing his howls. Or he might be dead.

Enraged, she again writhed, trying to bite the wire, succeeding only in cutting her gums and smearing her muzzle with blood. The pain brought her back to herself for a moment. It was unwise to care what happened to her fellow captive. Apparently, it was too late to remind herself of that fact. It did matter to her, if Ashby lived or died. There were not so many werewolves in the world that she could afford to scorn one, especially one who was not her enemy. One who did not curse her sharp human tongue.

One whom she liked.

To run with another through starlit darkness would be the kind of joy she hadn’t felt since before her mother first fell ill. He could not be dead. Their kind did not die easily. She knew that more than most. She might be able to—

Was this hope?

She heard a rustling in the corridor outside her cell and she tensed, bracing to leap should the grid be removed. The door was too thick for her to discern how many enemies there might be. She heard scratching like mice in the walls, distant clicks, then a pop and wheeze as the door eased open. She inhaled and then froze. Even without the familiar sharpness of lime shaving lotion, she recognized Pascal Fournier.

Her lips slid slowly back over her teeth. She smelled no one other than Fournier and, without her willing it, she fell momentarily limp. A soft whine escaped her throat.

“Ah,
merde
,” he whispered, hurrying to her. “Hold very still, Madame Claes—Tanneken—”

The shock of hearing her own name while in wolf form kept her from moving as he reached into his coat pocket and emerged with a pair of cutters. His execrable accent as he murmured to her was reassuringly real. Carefully, he insinuated a blade into one of the squares pressing into her bloodied muzzle and, after a moment’s painful pressure, snipped the wire. It sprang free. His breath eased out with hers. “We are very lucky we thought to search here. I must cut a few more.” He brushed his hand over her head before beginning, once again, to cut.

Freed from the wire cage, Tanneken’s limbs throbbed with the pain of returning blood flow. She rocked unsteadily onto the concrete floor, then nearly yelped when Fournier scooped her into his arms, a dizzying swoop high into the air. She thumped her jaw against his chest in protest, but he made no answer, ducking out the door and hurrying through a dusty corridor she did not remember having traversed before. She must have been carried through it before, unconscious. He shoved through another door with his hip—this one bore a flapping, cut chain—ran up a short flight of wooden stairs and used the back of his shoulder to fling open a trapdoor above their heads.

She smelled musty wet leaves, cold ground, burnt petrol. Fournier did not stop to set her down. Within moments she was sprawled across the rumble seat of an auto, which smelled intriguingly not only of Fournier but of an unknown woman.
Perhaps the auto belonged to someone else. Fournier dumped a blanket over Tanneken and said, “Stay hidden.” The auto’s motor growled to life, vibrating the leather seat cushion beneath her. She panted out pain and worked at stretching her muscles as Fournier drove them to what she hoped was safety, traveling much faster than her own feet would have taken her. She could see nothing, and smelled little beyond the interior of the vehicle and the blanket over her head. It was so anticlimactic and dull, she could not help but believe that she truly was free.

After not much longer, she fell asleep.

She woke when Fournier whisked off the blanket. He eyed her for a moment. “Please don’t bite me when I lift you out.”

She lifted a brow, then yawned. Freedom was sweet, but she was too exhausted to fight anyone, and she would have to change form if she wished to ask what had become of Ashby.

Fournier lifted her out. “Shall I set you on your feet?” he asked with grave courtesy.

After a moment’s thought on how to communicate, she awkwardly bobbed her head.

Tanneken didn’t recognize the house to which he led her, and it smelled of long emptiness. No other house was in sight, though there was a stable, also empty and stale, and a fenced paddock. The inhabitants had no doubt fled during the Boche onslaught. After thoroughly sniffing the front doorway, she followed Fournier inside, aware that she hadn’t the strength to go much farther.

Her nails snagged on a threadbare runner in the front hall. She hurried through, not liking the narrow space, and hesitated at the foot of the staircase. She preferred to climb stairs as a human, but the idea of changing shook her with revul
sion. She padded cautiously up the carpeted steps after Fournier, who waited for her at the top. He said, “I have clothing for you, if you’d like, and I brought you some food.”

She saw an open door and darted inside. She chose a corner facing the door and settled into it, wrapping the brush of her tail around herself and resting her muzzle on her front paws. When he stepped into the room, she growled, and he backed away.

“Very well. I’ll leave you alone for now. Come down to the kitchen when you’re hungry.”

NOEL LIFTED HIS HEAD AS THE LORRY APPROACHED the house. Tanneken was there. Relief swamped him, and he sagged in his seat.

“Yes, Sister Claudette, this is the house,” Lucilla said to the driver. “I recognize the trees Monsieur Fournier described.”

Noel barely listened. As soon as the lorry squeaked to a stop, he thrust aside the tarp, vaulted over the side and ran for the house’s door. Inside, he immediately heard claws on wood. The sound came from upstairs. Without waiting for Lucilla, or for Fournier to appear, he leaped up the stairs, three at a time. He turned right and flung open a door. Tanneken, in wolf form, stared up at him. Noel closed the door, dropped to one knee and bared his throat. She flew at him and gripped his neck in her powerful jaws.

He didn’t move, inhaling hot wolfy breath as she panted against his throat. Her teeth dented his skin but didn’t break it, the pressure only enough to let him know she
could
bite if she desired. He would let her. If she needed that, to feel safe, he would give it to her.

Slowly, he lifted his right hand and let it descend to her ruff, closing his fingers among the stiff guard hairs without quite gripping.

He heard voices downstairs: Lucilla and a male voice he assumed was Fournier’s. Their conversation was relaxed, intimate; there was nothing to fear here. He lifted his other arm and looped it about Tanneken’s neck.

A moment later, he lay on his back on the dusty wooden floor, Tanneken’s front paws planted on either side of his head, her tongue lolling in his face. The hard floor felt good beneath his back, perhaps because he had the freedom to stretch out to his full length, free of physical pain and restraint. Noel grinned up at her. “I’m pleased to see you, as well.”

Tanneken nuzzled his neck with her cold nose, then licked from his Adam’s apple to his jawline. He said, “I’d let you lick me if you changed, as well.”

She bumped her nose beneath his chin, forcing it up. She growled, not quite a warning.

“Or you can bite my neck again. I’m perfectly satisfied for you to be on top.” Though his palms itched with his need to embrace her, woman or wolf, he resisted, curling his fingers into his trouser legs, instead. “I’ll understand if you’d rather not be human at the moment, but…” He swallowed. “I’d take it as a great favor if you would change. Just for a little. Please?” Slowly, he rolled his head to the side, exposing his throat again. “Or I’ll change, if you like. I’m a bit tired, but I can manage.”

Tanneken’s ears lost a fraction of their alertness. Then she changed, her body writhing and convulsing atop his, the intimacy so shocking he could hardly bear it. He looped his arms around her loosely, while her skin and muscles rippled and transformed.

She was panting when she’d finished, but her change had been fairly swift and without undue pain. He tightened his arms around her, breathing in her complex human scent and relaxing for the first time in days. He had never embraced her before, not when they were both two-legged. The skin along her spine felt soft as flower petals beneath his fingertips. “You’re all right,” he said.

Tanneken withdrew almost immediately, sitting up and straddling his waist. “I will not be all right until I’ve licked Kauz’s lifeblood from my jaws.” Expanding on this theme, she burst into a spate of Flemish profanity.

Noel, forced to wait, rested his hands just above her knees and spent the interval admiring her naked form, particularly her breasts, while enjoying the pressure of her sleek bottom against his cock. After she ran out of words, he said, “I can report the location of Kauz’s laboratory. The artillery can shell it into dust.”

“Not good enough,” she said. “What if he learns of this attack, and flees? What if your artillery is not accurate?”

He decided defending the honor of his nation’s army would not be apropos. “What if you walk into his den and someone rips you open with a machine gun? He’ll be on his guard against us now. He knows what we can survive, and can guess what we can’t, even if his tame wolves haven’t betrayed what it takes.”

“He is your country’s enemy,” Tanneken pointed out. “For that reason alone, you should want to kill him.”

“For what he did to you, I want to kill him,” Noel said, tightening his fingers on her thighs.

“You will not take my revenge from me,” she said, her voice low and cold.

“No. You’d never forgive me. And I hope to remain in your good graces.”

Impatiently, she pushed her hair back from her face. “You still harbor delusions. I haven’t the time for such as you.”

“After Kauz is dead, you might,” Noel said. “After he’s dead, what will you do then? If you still want a child, I’d be happy to give one to you. We could marry and have a child with our wolf natures, Tanneken. Isn’t that what you wanted, before all this began?”

“I should not have told you.” She shoved his hands away from her and rose, standing over him.

To stop himself from reaching for her, Noel wrapped his arms around himself. It helped with the stabbing ache in his chest. He said, “It’s hardly an uncommon desire, especially for our kind. That’s why you married Edel.”

“And you? Have you done something foolish in the hope of a child?”

“All manner of things, and I seem to be doing it again now,” Noel said. He closed his eyes. “You could just tell me
no
and be done with it.”

Long moments passed. She murmured, “I don’t know that I can bring a child into this war. And I am no longer fit to be mother to a helpless creature.”

His heart twisted. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I will be a murderer once I kill him. And I do not care. I will kill him and rejoice that he is dead.”

Noel opened his eyes and sat up. “Do you know how many men I’ve killed?”

“No.” She eyed him belligerently.

“Neither do I, but the numbers have gone up steadily since I came to France. Would you say I’m not fit to have a child?”
Tanneken said nothing. Noel said, “I’m not put off by that sort of thing. Quite the contrary. If you don’t want to try with me, just say it.” Again, she said nothing.

Someone knocked on the door. “We’re fine,” Noel said.

“Are you hungry?” Lucilla said.

Mentally, Noel cursed the interruption even as Tanneken’s stomach growled.

Tanneken seized the robe that had been left for her and belted it on. She opened the door wide. “Take me to the food.”

Lucilla glanced quizzically at Noel, who still sat on the floor.

He said, “A cup of tea wouldn’t go amiss.”

If he hadn’t been so distracted by Tanneken, he would have heard Lucilla’s approach, and smelled the mouthwatering bouquet of onions sizzling in butter. Halfway down the stairs, his stomach awoke and he was ravenous. He should have expected his appetite; he’d changed several times in various states of injury while sleeping minimally and eating less. Right now, presented with a fresh deer’s carcass, he would have eaten the lot, or tried.

Fournier waited for them in the huge farm kitchen, a tall and lanky man who looked close to Noel’s own age. His blue uniform jacket and kepi were draped over the arm of a chair, and he’d rolled up his shirtsleeves to cook. Noel sniffed. Fournier wasn’t a wolf, but he was related to one, and not too distantly, either. Apparently oblivious to this fact, Tanneken daintily cut the folded crepe he’d just slid before her. Of course, she’d met him before. It was no surprise to her. Her lack of interest in Fournier as a possible mate gave Noel hope.

He said, “Thank you, Major. For finding us and bringing us out. And also for the food.”

Fournier looked uncomfortable. He said abruptly, “Sit.
Mademoiselle Daglish is making tea in the English way for you. Here is bread until I can cook more crepes. Madame Claes is eating the one I had hoped to share between you.”

Noel tore into the baguette, the first fresh bread he’d tasted in weeks. He moaned in pleasure as the yeasty flavor hit his tongue. “How did you find us?” he asked around a mouthful. He swallowed. “And what are your plans for Kauz and his merry band?”

Fournier said, “I had hoped you would help us with that, as well as Madame Claes. Kauz must be stopped, but I don’t think it wise to reveal his work to the world.”

“I can agree with that,” Noel said.

“We should burn it all,” Tanneken said, forking more crepe into her mouth.

Momentarily distracted, Noel watched her chew. She was visibly enjoying her food. He said, “I’d prefer to be well out of range when that happens. A delayed fuse would be better.”

Lucilla set a folded towel on the table, then set a teapot atop it. “I think it will require more than a spy and a nurse and two werewolves.”

Fournier said, “There is the added problem that the underground laboratory where Madame Claes and Captain Ashby were being held is some distance from the official laboratory. It is the official laboratory where experimentation with chemical weapons is taking place, and that is what my government wishes destroyed. Of course, it must be destroyed, but not at the expense of leaving the secret underground facility. Perhaps, Mademoiselle Daglish, you could travel with me to the official laboratory, while Captain Ashby and Madame Claes destroy the underground chambers.”

“I have a better idea,” Lucilla said. “We enlist my brother,
Crispin, for the official laboratory, and let the army take care of it. He’ll be glad to know you’re alive, Ashby.”

Crispin Daglish seemed to belong to another life, one he’d almost forgotten in recent days. Noel said, “Then we’ll need Gabriel Meyer, as well. He already knows that I’m a werewolf, and is no mean hand with tactics, and best of all, he can speak German pretty well. Bob Hailey would help, as well. They’re trained for raids like that. I would send them to the official laboratory, where they won’t see anything untoward. The rest of us should go to the secret facility, and make sure that no records or samples survive from werewolf captives.”

Tanneken said, “So long as these soldiers stay well clear of me, I do not care how many helpers you have.” She looked sharply at Fournier. “You will do this for me. I do not wish to have imbeciles from your government trying to attack in taxicabs and the like.”

She referred to an incident in early September, in which French troops had been transported in taxicabs and anything else, to protect Paris. Noel might have assured her nothing like that would happen again, but in truth, he had little confidence in the higher levels of command when it came to acting quickly and effectively.

Fournier set a crepe and silverware in front of Noel and said, “I begin to understand why others dislike working with me.”

After their meal, Noel felt almost drugged. He’d passed through the shaky stage back in the barn, and then the jittery stage. Now came the exhaustion; he could barely remember what Fournier and Lucilla had been discussing. He braced both hands on the table and shoved himself to his feet. “I’m for bed. Madame Claes? Shall I escort you?”

Abruptly, she pushed away the tea she’d been nursing and rose. “We are safe here for the night?”

“We are,” Fournier said. “I will be on guard.” He exchanged a look with Lucilla that might have been apology.

“Then I, too, would prefer to rest,” Tanneken said.

Noel suddenly felt much more alert. He offered her his arm and, after a suspicious glance, she laid her hand lightly on it, as if they were parading into the supper room at a regimental ball. Halfway up the stairs, he asked her, “Are you going to change?”

She didn’t mistake his meaning. “It’s safer to have teeth. Fournier has a pistol, but he is not dangerous enough.”

“May I stay with you?”

“You intend to seduce me,” she said flatly. She turned left and went into the second room, the one farthest from the kitchen below.

“It’s hardly seduction if you know what I’m about,” he said reasonably. She hadn’t stopped him from following her into the room. Noel closed the door behind them. The room held a substantial iron bed, a wardrobe, a washstand and two shabby armchairs before a fireplace. Wood bristled from a pail on the hearth, with some crumpled newspaper shoved in on top. He knelt, his back to Tanneken, and began to lay a fire.

“What do you want?” she asked.

Noel reached up and felt around on the mantel until he found a tin of matches. As he lit the tinder, he said, “I want you to want to live, for one thing.”

“I don’t want to die,” she snapped.

“You don’t particularly seem to want to live, either,” he said. “You’d go for Kauz’s throat even if he had a gun in his hand, wouldn’t you?”

“That’s different,” she said. When he glanced at her, she stood with her arms crossed over her chest.

“Since I’ve been in France, I’ve seen how it goes when men don’t care anymore. I make it my business to keep them alive, as best I can. And you—well, I want you to live.”

“I would be happy to live, if it can be managed.”

He sat cross-legged on the hearth, relaxing as heat licked up his back. “All right, then. If we get out of this alive, will you consider marrying me?”

“To have a child,” she said.

“Yes.” His heart tried to pound its way out of his chest. He didn’t dare say more. He was normally glib, but this could so easily go wrong.

She turned away, paced a few steps, then returned to face him. The fire crackled; he breathed in wood smoke and ash. “The Boche have overrun my estate.”

“Would you come to England? I am the only son.”

“You have siblings?”

“Two sisters, much older than I, one married to a human, with human children. And my parents are still living, and three of my grandparents. We would have a house of our own, I promise.”

“I might have no money, even if the war ends and the Boche are beaten.” She sounded as bland as if she were selling turnips.

He rose to his knees and held out his hands. When she hesitantly clasped them, he said, “I have money. I’ll give it to you outright if you want. None of that matters anymore. What matters is that I’ll be a good husband to you. I would never betray you. If anything happened to me, my family would care for you, and not grudgingly, either.”

“You English do things differently,” she said.

“Not really.
I
do things differently.” He raised her hands to his mouth and kissed them. “Will you think on it?”