02 - Storm Winds by Iris Johansen

Author:Iris Johansen
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Man-Woman Relationships, Psychological Fiction, Contemporary, Fiction, Romance, Romantic Suspense Fiction, Treasure Troves, Historical, France, Versailles (France)
ISBN: 9780553290325
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 1991-05-01T05:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

The front door was opening.

"Christ, not again!" Jean Marc muttered as he pushed back his chair and swiftly covered the distance between his desk and the door of the study he had deliberately left ajar. After three nights he had begun to think Juliette's sleepwalking had been only a singular occurrence not to be repeated. The front door was standing wide open again. The blasted woman was probably halfway to the goddamned abbey. At least she'd picked a night that wasn't rainy this time. But when Jean Marc reached the doorway, Juliette had only just reached the bottom of the stone steps. In another moment he was standing beside her.

"Juliette."

She didn't answer and, with a muttered curse, he picked her up in his arms and carried her back to the foyer. She stiffened in his arms. "The abbey…"

"No." He kicked the door shut with his foot and carried her across the foyer toward the staircase. "It's over."

She shook her head, her eyes glazed, unseeing.

He started up the stairs. "You've got to stop this, you idiotic woman. I have no desire to spend my nights chasing you through the streets of Paris."

Why was he even talking to her? She obviously wasn't comprehending anything he said. She had left the door of her chamber open and he carried her across the room, laid her on the bed, and pulled the covers over her. A crisp autumn breeze and pale moonlight poured through the open window beside the bed, illuminating Juliette's strained expression.

He stood looking down at her, his hands closing into fists at his sides, trying to crush the aching pity and tenderness raging through him. He didn't want to feel like this. It wasn't at all what he had planned for her. He could permit himself lust, amusement, even respect for a worthy opponent, but not this. Mother of God, he had wanted her for five long years, and he would not let this softness rob him of her.

"Let me do it again," she whispered.

He could see the shimmer of her eyes in the moonlit darkness, and he knew he couldn't leave her until those eyes closed and she fell into a normal sleep. He sat down beside her on the bed, every, muscle and tendon of his body stiff and unyielding.

Merde, he didn't want this.

"I can do it right this time. I have to go to the abbey and do it again." Her eyes were moistly brilliant now, and the agony in them woke a pain that echoed with unbearable intensity through Jean Marc.

He couldn't let it go on.

"I'm afraid you're right." He gently stroked an unruly curl back from Juliette's temple and whispered,

"Very well, ma petite, we'll go back to die abbey and do it again."

"But I have to get to my work, Mademoiselle Juliette," Robert protested. "I've been sitting on this bench so long my bones are melting into it."

"Hush, Robert, I'm almost finished." Juliette added a little more shadow to the seamed lines fanning his eyes. "What's

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