Belle Morte Bites (Belle Morte 4.3)

Clotilde

Clotilde didn't reply.

"Look at me," Ysanne said.

Clotilde did.

"Why is he here?" Ysanne asked.

"I left home a year ago. He's come to take me back."

"Why did you leave?"

Clotilde shrugged. "I wanted more from this life than he would allow me."

"Reading," Ysanne guessed.

When she'd first met Clotilde, the other woman hadn't been able to read a word. Ysanne had taught her, like she'd once offered to teach Edmond, and many evenings over the past few months had been spent in bed together, surrounded by books.

Clotilde nodded. "I know that one day I'll have to settle down with a husband, but I'm not ready."

"Why do you ever have to be ready?" Ysanne asked, ignoring the continued hammering at the front door.

"Because . . ."

"You could stay with me," Ysanne said, taking Clotilde's hands.

"Forever?"

"Why not?"

"But we can't. He's found me now."

"So we'll go somewhere else, somewhere he can't find you."

Clotilde didn't seem to know what to say.

Her father wasn't giving up, and anger seared Ysanne's chest.

"Wait here," she said and strode from the bedroom.

She marched through to the entryway of her small house and flung open the door. The man who stood outside was red-faced with anger, his hands bunched, his chest heaving with violent breaths.

"Who are you?" he snarled.

"I own this house," Ysanne said.

"Where's my daughter?" He tried to barge past her past, and Ysanne put out an arm to stop him.

"I own this house," she repeated, "and I don't take kindly to people who don't respect my property."

He gaped at her. Ysanne was willing to bet that no woman had ever spoken to him like that.

Bare feet shuffled behind her; Clotilde stepping into her periphery. Her face was pale.

"What are you doing here?" she said.

"What the hell do you think? I'm taking you home," her father snapped.

"I don't think she wants to go home with you," Ysanne said.

"I am her father –"

"I wouldn't care if you were the King of France himself. If she doesn't want to go, you're not taking her," Ysanne said.

He clenched his fist, half-raising it as if to strike her, and Ysanne pinned him with a frigid glare.

"Try it," she warned, her voice low and lethal, and he hesitated.

Not completely stupid, then.

He looked past her to Clotilde, and his face darkened. "Come with me," he commanded.

"She doesn't want to," Ysanne said, moving so she blocked the man's view.

"I'm warning you, woman –"

"No, I'm warning you –"

He took a sudden swing at her. It was impressively fast, but not fast enough. Ysanne slapped his hand aside, and his whole body spun with the movement. He reeled against the wall.