Marianne was gentle to start, thinking the patient could neither support her weight nor exert himself in the dominant position. She turned away from him on the bed and spread her thighs to reach between them and guide him inside her from behind.
She was shocked when he seized her shoulder and jerked her over onto her back. He was upon her in an instant, already stiff and panting, and entered her with such force she felt that he would impale her to the mattress.
The violence alarmed her. She twisted her face away from the heat of his breath and tried to struggle free, but his body was heavy as well as hot, constricting her chest, suffocating her. She knew blind panic; and (to her astonishment) the tingle of approaching orgasm. She stopped resisting then. It would be over soon and sweet.
In the next moment she was fighting again; for her life.
His hands clenched round her throat. Corded fingers dug into the arteries, stopping the flow of blood along with her breath. She clawed at his naked back. She drew blood, but the pressure increased along with the pumping of his pelvis. She got her hands between them and pushed. His body wouldn’t yield.
Her vision shrank. She was looking up through a long narrow tunnel into the eyes of an animal. The vessels of her eyeballs were closing like wire nets. Her tongue swelled and slid out between her lips. She was strangling.
Charles! She could only think the name; her voice was gone. Would he be her last thought? How curious life was, in the leaving.
Suddenly Meuchel’s breath caught in his throat with a croak. His body shuddered, but not with release. His expression went from surprise to agony. That terrible grip slackened. Marianne sucked in air with a sob.
In her panic, her vagina had closed tight, strangling his member as he was strangling her, stopping the blood in the thick veins that upheld his erection, starving the rest of his body. Charles had often complained of the razor action of her loins. Like the scarlet lady of Paris, he’d said with a gasp; meaning Madame Guillotine.
And in that moment something had given in Meuchel; broken loose. Not sexual release. She felt a sudden warm wetness, but it wasn’t semen. Instinctively, she plunged both hands down and tore at his bandages. The seep became a gusher.
He let go of her and sprang from the bed.
Sounds of rustling—clothing thrown on, scraping—the valise being slid from beneath the bed—the jingle of a belt buckle. Then measured breathing. She sensed he was looking down at her, weighing some decision. She lay still. Only her breasts moved, the lungs beneath gulping air. Then more rustling, as of something being put away under a coat.
Pistol? Dagger? It scarcely mattered which. Another close call.
Bang!—she flinched, but it was only the door, swung wide on its hinges and striking the wall, followed by a fall of plaster. Footsteps retreated. More rustling in the adjoining room; muttered curses. Then silence.
The Widow Deauville lay for what seemed an hour in a pool of sweat, hers and his, until it felt cold as ice; then found the energy to roll from bed and claw poor León’s bayonet from the drawer of her nightstand.
She stood holding it flat to her bosom with both hands, shivering half-naked in the night air but drawing strength from tempered steel. When at last her hands were steady enough, she released one to turn up the lamp, and saw a scarlet smear on her chemise, the only clothing she wore. The blood wasn’t hers. Major Meuchel’s wound had reopened; that was the reason he’d quit.
She hoped the rupture was fatal. Such a thing would be more certain than to die from asphyxiation of le coq.
He paused long enough in the damnable slut’s house to seize the dress she’d been sewing, and once he was outside tore off a piece and jammed it between the bleeding and his bandages, cinching it tight with the courier’s belt. It needed fresh dressing, and possibly stitches.
He hurled away the rest of the garment. Merde! He’d let his beast get the better of him. It was always a danger when he was bored.
First carelessness on the road, now this.
The bitch! It had been like sticking his member into a steel snare. He should have killed her.
But no. He’d been wise to relent. The trail was bloody enough without an unnecessary death to draw more attention.
He’d kept his wits about him during the ride from Eslée’s house and remembered the way. He paced himself to avoid jarring loose his rude dressing.
He needed the doctor just once more, and then it would be time to finish him. He was an inquisitive man with a lively mind, and his patient had sandwiched too much truth between his lies, in an effort to make them plausible.
A horse and a mule were tethered in front of Eslée’s house. He heard three distinct voices coming from inside, one belonging to the homeowner.
He’d have to find his medical treatment somewhere else.
He went round the back, picking his way carefully through darkness toward the carriage house.
“Your pardon, sir.”
Turning in the direction of the voice, he made out the vaguely womanish shape of a man standing near the corner of the house. The Viper stepped toward him, grasping the handle of his dagger.