Jean Marc hesitated. “In a little while. Just give me time to look for the statue.”
“It’s in a chest in the courtyard,” Juliette said. “He was about to leave when we came. I think he’d just finished…” She had to stop and steady her voice. “I’d really like to go now, please.”
Jean Marc took her arm and led her from the room, down the stairs, and out of the casa. “Go to the horses,” he said gently. “I’ll just check to make sure the statue’s in the chest and join you in a moment.”
She nodded and crossed the courtyard, careful to avoid glancing at the fountain. Jean Marc joined her only a few minutes later and tied the chest containing the Wind Dancer on the back of the stallion.
His gaze was concerned as he lifted her on the back of the mare.
“Dupree’s dead.”
Juliette shuddered. “Can evil like that ever die?”
“Don’t think about him.” Jean Marc slapped hermare’s haunches with his reins and kicked his own stallion into a trot. “Don’t think about anything.”
They rode half the night toward the coast.
“We’ll rest here until daybreak.” Jean Marc lifted her down from her horse.“Merde, you’re cold. Why didn’t you tell me?” He wrapped her cloak more closely about her and then enfolded her in a blanket. “Sit here while I find wood for a fire.”
“I didn’t feel cold.” Juliette huddled in the blanket still only vaguely aware of the cold wind cutting through her. It was nothing compared to her inward chill.
The ground was stony, barren of vegetation, the night starless and bitter. She could hear the howling of the wind through the passes of the jagged blue-black mountains to the north.
Dupree had howled like that when Jean Marc had shot him.
“Come here.”
She looked up to see Jean Marc standing before her. He opened his cloak and, for an instant, the wind caught it, forming flaring, hawklike wings.
Black Velvet.
He had looked like this the first time she saw him, she thought hazily. Then he was kneeling, taking her in his arms and enfolding her in the security of those wings.
A little of the ice clawing at her eased and then melted away. “The fire…”
“I’ll make the fire after you go to sleep. I think you need this now.”
She buried her face in his shoulder. “She didn’t love me, you know. I was always in her way. When I was very tiny, every night before I’d go to sleep I’d say to myself ‘Tomorrow she’ll love me. Tomorrow …’” She shook her head. “The only reason she bore me was that she hoped to give my father a son.”
Jean Marc tightened his arms about her.
“I didn’t think she mattered to me any longer.” She fell silent, thinking about it. “But she must have meantsomething or I wouldn’t feel so…empty. I can remember her at court. She was so beautiful that everyone wanted to reach out and touch her. The queen kissed her hand and called her enchanting. I used to stare at her and wonder…”
“Wonder what?”
“Why they couldn’t see that there was nothing inside her.” She frowned. “But perhaps there was something there for everyone else. Maybe she just couldn’t feel anything for me. I was never a sweet child.”
“You wereherchild.” Jean Marc rocked her back and forth with rough tenderness. “That should have been enough.”
“I used to be so certain about everything. I used to think I didn’t need anything or anyone but my painting. I used to think I could close everyone out and live in my own world. I’m not sure of anything any longer.”
“Tomorrow you’ll be yourself again.”
“Will I? I feel very strange. Alone. I have no one now but Catherine, and she’s growing away from me.”
“Nonsense. She still loves you.”
“She’s found something…” She closed her eyes.
