Page 58 of The Agent and the Outlaw
“Pardon,I meant no offense. I understand you may have chosen your fate, but Charlotte did not choose hers. She will have to live this cursed life for eternity.”
The emissary lifted a shoulder in nonchalance but regarded me pointedly. “Eternity does not seem so bad as long as you have someone to share it with.”
“My point is that she did not have the choice.”
“Neither did I,” Étienne replied. “Mypoint is that even though I had no choice, I adjusted to life with the plague. Charlotte will do so, too. She is nothing if not resilient.”
“You didn’t see how devastated she was back in Gévaudan when she learned that she had contracted this new condition,” I argued.
“Perhaps she is more accepting of it now,” Étienne shot back. “I know where you’re coming from, Antoine, but it is hardly the sentence you think it is.”
I opened my mouth to argue further, but Daphne stepped between us. “Étienne, would you give us a moment, please? You, too, Doctor.”
Looking rather murderous, Étienne bowed curtly and ushered Van Helsing from the room. Daphne sat back down and leaned forward to study me.
“What will you do if she cannot be, as you put it,saved?”
“What do you mean?”
“There is no cure for the blood plague,” she said. “It is unlikely that there will be a cure for her. Her condition may not be unique, but it is rare. We know even less about it than we know about the blood plague. What then, Lieutenant? What will you do?”
Outraged that she was trying to draw so much out of me, I pursed my lips. I wanted nothing to do with this duchess and her strangely accusatory questions.
“Nothing,” I barked. “I only want to see that she is safe. It is my fault that she was endangered in the first place, and it is a mistake I mean to rectify. Once that is done, I will be on my way. I have things to settle with my father and I aim to ensure that the remainingbêtesare dispatched properly.”
She tilted her head, eyeing me like a naturalist viewing a specimen under glass. “And then what?”
“Pardon?”
“After that, I mean. Where will you go? Assuming you go after your father—a wholly stupid idea, I might add—and dispatch the remainingbêtes, you will not be welcome back in the army. You would be on the run, I would think—trying to avoid the justice for Sade’s murder, your father’s, and potentially five French soldiers. Is that the life you’re prepared to lead?”
“And what if it is?” I nearly shouted. “It isn’t your concern!”
She raised a brow and stood again, making her way to the door. “It might not be mine, but it certainly seems to be Charlotte’s.”
19
CHARLOTTE
December 13, 1767
Château de Ruisseau Magdelaine
Snow fell in soft,sleepy clumps outside, blanketing the manicured grounds below. Since I’d arrived back home, autumn had ceased to hold back winter, and Paris had been frozen in an unending cycle of snowfall and freezing rain. It made everything in the city look as if it were plated in silver and dusted with powder.
My breath fogged the glass of the window and though I knew it was cold, I didn’t feel it. I’d come to accept that part of my condition with some appreciation—no more freezing hands and feet during the winter, no more perspiring during thick, stagnant summers. My wardrobe could be more about fashion and less about function, which was one of the few things I truly wanted in life.
It had been weeks since I’d left Antoine at Grandrieu. Guilt gnawed at me, but I knew he was in the capable hands of Van Helsing, Daphne, and Étienne. Still, every day I wondered if I’d done the right thing. There was so much unresolved…so much unsaid between us. I’d started numerous letters trying to explain things—to admit that I was the grotesque beast in the cave, to tell him the truth about my former husband and divulge my secrets fromles DD, to remind him that we were better off staying away from each other. To apologize for our last words and tell him I wished things were different—could be different. To confess my feelings for him and become something…more.
Every draft ended up in the fireplace. It seemed futile for me to say such things to him when several facts remained: Antoine was on a doomed revenge quest with his own demons to battle, and battling demons was something I’d already had my fill of. I had a duty toles DD, to Daphne, and to king and country. I was doing important work for the fate of France and wouldn’t abandon my purpose to—what? Give up everything I’d fought for to marry again, have a litter of children, and set up residence in the countryside? While admittedly tempting, I rolled my eyes at the thought.
There was also—quite possibly—the fact that I might now be immortal. Daphne had given up sunlight for her love because she couldn’t bear to spend a mortal life without him. I would never ask that of any man, let alone one I wasn’t even sure could bear to be in the same room with me without argument. Plus, I’d seen the horror on his face in the cave. It was forever burned into my memory. There was no way on heaven or earth that Antoine would willingly offer himself up for the bite, whether that came from a vampire or a werewolf. And who was to say that was how the infection would be transmitted anyway? Van Helsing had been most evasive about the specifics of my supernatural state. Everything I’d learned about my condition had been through trial and error over the past weeks, and I suspected I had a long lifetime—if not eternity—to learn the rest. If only that man in black, the beast, hadn’t run off after our battle in the cave. I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him anywhere, and I’d certainly run the midnight miles in creature form to find him.
The Order had been thrilled, of course. When they learned of my new condition, they politely requested a demonstration of my lupine abilities, and so here I was tonight, dressed in a formal gown of dark purple-black silk and a domino mask, ready to go before them and perform like some kind of pet. My stomach twisted in disgust. I believed in the Order and wanted to ensure they were on the right side of things in France, but any time I had to appear for them, it soured my insides with distaste.The dusty old prats.
I’d considered declining, of course, but it would make things go a tad more smoothly when I explained what had allegedly gone wrong with theMarquis de Sade’sdeath. Daphne and I had worked out a plan back in Grandrieu, and I hoped it would prove satisfactory for them. The cover story about Sade’s death was already circulating by the gossip in court, which was the only opinion any aristocrat truly cared about.Killed by one of his unwilling lovers in a fit of passion! Sade died as he lived—wretchedly.
If the Order took us at our word, Antoine would be safe from one threat, at least. As to the remaining threats—his father and thebêteswho’d gone to ground since the attack outside Grandrieu—well, I feared he was on his own with them. Dread settled in my chest.
