Black Ice - Anne Stuart [101]
The den was too vulnerable, and she was going to be out for hours on end. Maybe, with extreme luck, she’d stay unconscious until all this ended, and she’d never have to know a thing about it. By the time she came to he’d be long gone, the danger passed.
The only drawback was that he’d have to take the necklace, and for some reason it was important to him that she have it. But if she kept it, she’d always be wondering when he was going to show up again. Too much to risk on a sentimental gesture.
Their best spot was a second-floor bedroom near the back of the house. The windows on the sloping site were close enough to the ground if they had to jump, but it gave him a decent vantage point of the overgrown grounds surrounding the house. It was a slim advantage, but the only one they had. He picked her up off the sofa, marveling again at how damned light she was, and carried her upstairs. The light from the hallway illuminated his way, and set her down on the king-size bed before he went to open the window a crack. She looked pale, cold, even in the shapeless, bulky clothes no Frenchwoman would ever wear, and he pulled back the covers and slid her under them, tucking her in.
He stood there, staring down at her for a long moment. And then, on impulse, he pushed her tangled hair away from her forehead. She looked the same—stubborn, pretty when there was no room in his life for pretty, and on impulse he leaned down and kissed her, softly, while she slept.
And then there was nothing he could do but keep watch. And wait.
Until Monique came to kill her.
23
When she opened her eyes she was disoriented, confused. The room was dark, only bright moonlight coming through the uncurtained windows, and for a moment she didn’t know where she was. Slowly it came back to her…she was in the back guest room, the one her older brother and his wife usually used. She was tucked up in bed, in the darkness, and she’d dreamed she saw Bastien once more.
Someone was sitting in a chair by the window. She could only see his outline, but she knew it hadn’t been a dream.
She didn’t sit up, didn’t move. Her voice was very quiet when she spoke. “Why are you really here? It wasn’t the necklace, was it?”
He must have known she was awake. He always seemed to have an instinctive awareness of everything about her. Oh, God, she hoped not everything. She hoped he didn’t know the mixed, crazy tangle of emotions he brought out in her. For a moment he didn’t answer, and it was long enough for him to fantasize all sorts of things, that he couldn’t live without her, that he had to see her one more time, that he loved…
“Someone wants to kill you.” His voice was calm, dispassionate.
It was no more than she’d expected, and that one crazed moment of hope hadn’t lasted long enough to make it hurt. Much. “Of course they do,” she said. “Why should anything have changed? And you’re here to save my life? I thought you’d already done your duty. You got me safely out of France—the rest should be up to me. And presumably the American cops or CIA or whatever.”
He didn’t say anything, so she sat up, frustrated. “And why in hell would anyone want to kill me? You’re a much more likely target. I didn’t do anything to anybody—I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’m no threat to any of your insane plans for world domination.”
“You’ve been watching too much television,” he said. He had less of an accent now, along with his different look. She wondered if he had a different name as well.
“Who wants to kill me and why? And why should you care?” Please, she thought. Just say something, anything that I can keep with me. Something to let me know I’m more than a hindrance.
But she knew what he was going to say. He’d said it far too many times. He didn’t care—he simply felt responsible, and she didn