Sighing, she began to pluck at the hair of his chest again. "To this day I don't know what happened to change things so suddenly. It just seemed like, overnight, Jean Claude became another person. He began to take to feeding off people who had imbibed too much, and people who had ingested drugs. He even hired servants who were alcoholics so that he could feed from them." She shook her head. "And the more he fed from such people, the more cruel he became."

Marguerite paused, and then admitted painfully, "And he couldn't even seem to look at me anymore without loathing in his eyes. He wouldn't allow me to leave the house alone, wouldn't allow me to have friends. Jean Claude said I was to be a mother to his children, and that was all I was to do." She shook her head with despair. "And yet for the longest time he refused me children."

"Refused you children?" Julius asked softly.

Marguerite nodded. "I wanted to have another child. Lucern was a little over one hundred and I began to ache to hold a child in my arms again." She paused suddenly and realized, "In fact that too started directly after the European tour," she admitted with a little sigh. "I guess it somehow changed both of us."

"And you wanted a child," Julius prompted.

Marguerite nodded. "It was more than want. I needed a child in my arms, they felt empty. I felt as if..." She stopped and shook her head, knowing how ridiculous it must sound.

"Tell me," Julius said, and somehow she knew the answer was very important to him. The problem was, she didn't know why.

After a hesitation, Marguerite admitted, "I felt as if I had lost a child. As if there was a child who should be there, but wasn't. I yearned for a baby...So much so, I pestered him constantly." Marguerite flushed as she admitted that she'd begged her husband to share his seed and get her with child. "I had never begged for anything before that. I had too much pride. But I did then." She managed a smile and shrugged against him once more. "And eventually he did. It took a long time, but a hundred years later he came to me and Bastien was born."

"Were you happy then?" Julius asked.

"It helped," Marguerite said and then tilted her head to tell him. "I love children, Julius. I have raised my own, as well as nieces and nephews. I can't imagine any mother wanting any child dead, let alone her own."

"No. I don't think you can," Julius said solemnly and closed his eyes, but not before she thought she caught the sheen of tears in them.

"What are you thinking?" she asked quietly.

"I'm remembering...a dream I had."

"Tell me," she urged, tired of talking herself.

"It was of you and me in another time."

She smiled.

"We were lovers and true lifemates and so happy sometimes my heart hurt with it. But I seemed always to fear trusting that happiness, afraid that I would lose it. And then I did. I lost it to the actions of another, but mostly through my own lack of faith."

"Lack of faith?" Marguerite asked with a frown. "In what?"

"In you...and in my first instincts about you," Julius admitted. "In the dream someone told me something about you that really wasn't a lie and was the truth as they saw it, but wasn't the whole truth either. My first instinct was that it was not right, but I allowed my fears and doubts of others to convince me that exactly what I had feared had happened, that it had all been false, and I let you go."

Frowning at the sadness in his expression, Marguerite reached up to brush the hair back from his face. "It sounds a horrible dream. We must be sure never to allow it to happen in real life."

"Yes," Julius said huskily. "Never again."

Marguerite wanted to ask him what he meant by 'never again,' but his mouth was on hers and his hands were moving on her and she soon forgot the question. It felt as if she had lived the last seven hundred years just for that moment, to be in his arms, and to hold him in hers. She didn't think life could ever be so perfect again and understood his dream fears, because suddenly she was afraid that it would all be snatched away and she would wake up in her own cold bed, finding it had all been a dream or even worse, that it wasn't Julius in the bed beside her, but Jean Claude.

Julius opened his eyes sleepily and reached for Marguerite, scowling when she wasn't there. The other side of the bed was empty. Marguerite was up before him and gone again which was damned annoying when, like the morning before, he woke with a raging need for her. This may be their second time around-at least for him-but it appeared his need for her was going to be just as desperate as it had the first time he'd met and fallen in love with her.

Those thoughts drifted away as Julius recalled the attack the night before. Marguerite had nearly been killed and should be resting to recover. What the hell was she doing up?

Shifting up onto one elbow, he peered at the bedside clock, frowning when he saw that it wasn't even yet noon. What was she doing awake? Pushing the sheets aside, he slid his feet to the floor and got up, heading for the door without bothering with clothes. Other than Marguerite there were only men in the house. Besides, no one should be up at the moment anyway, including Marguerite.

Scowling, Julius pulled the door open and stepped out into the hall. The bathroom door was open, showing that it was empty and he had just turned toward her bedroom door to check there, to be sure she hadn't slipped off to her own room, when he heard Tiny's voice from below.

"Marguerite? What are you doing up?" the man asked and Julius moved to the top of the stairs to peer down, eyes widening when he saw that Marguerite was just stepping off the bottom step. All she wore was one of his T-shirts, the garment large on her and reaching halfway down her thighs. He'd fetched it for her to wear on a trip to the bathroom last night before they'd gone to sleep and she hadn't bothered to take it off on slipping back to bed, claiming she liked the idea of wearing his clothes close to her body.

Julius had smiled at the time, but wasn't smiling now. While the cotton shirt covered the important bits, it was hardly decent enough to wear and walk around in front of Tiny, he thought with irritation.

"Marguerite?" Tiny was frowning now as well, concern drawing his expression tight as he stepped out of the living room and into the hall ahead of her. "Are you all right? Marguerite?"

The detective reached out to catch her shoulders to try to bring her to a halt as she continued forward without slowing, but rather than stop, Marguerite reached out, clasping him by the arms and tossing him to the side as if he were nothing more than a pillow that had fallen in her path. She didn't even glance in Tiny's direction as he crashed into the hall wall and fell, but continued on toward the door.

Shocked and confused, Julius hurried down the stairs.

"Are you all right?" he asked Tiny as he rushed past and barely caught his stunned nod before turning his gaze back to Marguerite as he hurried after her. She was at the door now, pulling it open and stepping out into the sunlit day and he shouted her name but she didn't even look around. She had taken several steps outside before he caught up to her and caught her arm.

Julius jerked her around to face him, then saw that her face was completely expressionless, her eyes dull and flat. She raised her hands to clasp him as she'd done with Tiny, no doubt preparing to toss him aside as she'd done with the mortal, but suddenly stopped and went limp.

Cursing, Julius caught her before she hit the sidewalk, and then scooped her up into his arms, but froze as he became aware of the people on the street. At least a dozen people stood around on the sidewalk, on both this and the other side of the street. Some were alone, some in groups, but every last one was gaping at him where he stood completely naked, an unconscious Marguerite in nothing but his T-shirt in his arms.

There were far too many for Julius to wipe all their memories on his own unless he wanted to spend several minutes there performing the task, minutes during which more people would approach and have to be wiped as well, so Julius muttered the only excuse he could come up with. "She sleepwalks."

Whether they believed the explanation for what they'd witnessed or not, Julius didn't care. Turning away, he carried her quickly back into the townhouse, grateful to find Tiny there to close the door.

"We heard you shout, Father. What happened?" Christian asked, hurrying down the stairs with Marcus on his heels.

Julius paused at the foot of the steps. He'd intended to take Marguerite straight up to his room and hold her close until she woke up. The men on the stairs prevented that. They also caused yet another problem. He didn't mind Marcus knowing what had happened, he even wanted to talk to the man about it and get his opinion and advice on the matter, but he definitely didn't want his son there. Or Tiny for that matter.

"Father? What happened to Marguerite? Is she all right? Was there another attack?" Christian asked.

Julius shifted his gaze from the woman in his arms to his son, then past him to Marcus. He briefly met the older immortal's gaze, hoping the man could read the message in his eyes and then gave the same excuse he'd used outside.

"Nothing. Marguerite was sleepwalking," he growled, turning on his heel to carry her into the living room. "Go back to bed."

"She wasn't sleepwalking," Tiny protested, following him. "She looked right at me, but there was nobody home, Julius. It's like she was drugged or hypnotized or something."

"What?" Christian asked as he stepped off the stairs and followed them. "Is that true, Father?"

Julius's only answer was a grunt as he laid Marguerite on the nearest sofa and grabbed a throw off the back of the couch to place over her. He then settled on the edge of the couch and brushed her hair off her cheeks, watching her face worriedly.

"It's true," Tiny insisted, "Marguerite would never hurt me, but she picked me up and tossed me aside like trash. She had to have been controlled like I was in California."

"Controlled?" Christian sounded shocked.

"Yes," Tiny muttered, and Julius felt the material of the mortal's corduroy pants brush against his hip as he moved closer to peer at Marguerite with concern. It reminded Julius that he was naked.

"I'm going to get dressed. You two stay here and watch Marguerite," he growled glaring at Christian and Tiny. "Call me if she wakes up."

He started from the room, glad when Marcus immediately followed. He wanted a word with him. Julius jogged up the stairs and strode straight into his room.

"I hadn't expected this. It was frightening to behold," he muttered to Marcus while dragging a pair of jeans from the wardrobe and stepping into them.

"What was frightening to behold?" Christian asked, and Julius nearly tumbled over sideways as he jerked around, jeans still at half-mast, to see that his son had followed them upstairs.

"I told you to keep an eye on Marguerite," Julius hissed dragging the jeans the rest of the way on and doing them up.

Much to his fury, the man shrugged the suggestion away impatiently. "Tiny can watch her."

"Tiny cannot watch her. Didn't you hear him? She threw him across the room like a bag of garbage being tossed in the back of a truck," Julius growled furiously. "He cannot stop her if she is controlled again and made to walk out the door."

"So, she was controlled," Christian said with triumph.

Cursing, Julius turned away to grab a T-shirt from the drawer where he'd put them and pulled it on as he strode quickly toward the door. He couldn't leave Marguerite alone downstairs with Tiny and risk her being controlled again and sent walking out the door, probably to her death.

"There was a time you would have obeyed me without question," he growled at the boy in passing.

"Yeah, well, there was a time when you deserved that honor," Christian snapped back, following him into the hall.

Julius stiffened and paused at the top of the landing to peer at him narrowly. "Are you saying I don't deserve it now?"

Christian hesitated, and then sighed and said, "I don't know if you do or not, Father. You won't tell me anything and I'm not sure what's going on."

"I have told you why I won't tell you about your mother," Julius began wearily.

"Not telling me about her is one thing, but you have more secrets than that," Christian said grimly.

Shaking his head impatiently, Julius turned to start downstairs.

"Is Marguerite my mother?"

That blurted question made the blood freeze in his veins and Julius came to an abrupt halt on the stairs. He turned slowly to peer up at his son, noting that Marcus looked as shocked by the question as he felt.

"What would make you even think something like that?" he growled, avoiding answering the question.

"The picture in your desk drawer in your study," Christian announced descending several steps until he stood only one above him. "A miniature painted portrait of Marguerite or a woman who looks just like her. She's wearing clothes from the late fifteenth century...around the time that I would have been born."

Julius paled at the words. "When-? How-?"

"I found it when I was a boy," Christian admitted, and added unapologetically, "I was snooping. I looked in your drawer and found the painting. I thought she must be my mother because you kept it hidden and...because she had such a loving smile I wanted her to be." He admitted with a shrug, "I used to sneak in there often just to look at her and imagine that she would appear at our door one day and-" He swallowed and waved away whatever foolish child's dreams he'd had.

"When I met Marguerite in California, I knew at once that she was the woman from the painting." Christian smiled wryly. "Why do you think I hired her? Tiny may be a detective, but she isn't and I didn't really think they'd be able to find the answers I wanted anyway. Only you can give me those."

"Then why did you hire them?" Julius asked, suspecting he already knew the answer.

"Because I knew Marcus would tell you I had, even though I'd asked him not to."

When Marcus shifted uncomfortably, the younger immortal glanced at him and shrugged. "You are a loyal friend to my father, Marcus. You were raised together and are like brothers. You tell him everything," he said dryly and then turned back to his father and admitted, "I brought Tiny and Marguerite over to Europe knowing you'd hear about it and-as usual-try to intervene. I wanted to see your reaction when you met. I was sure I'd be able to tell if she was my mother."

Julius let out his breath on a slow sigh and leaned against the stair railing. Here he'd thought himself so clever keeping everything from the boy and he'd figured out most of it on his own.

"So," Christian said grimly, "is Marguerite my mother or does she just look like her?"

Julius shook his head and opened his mouth to answer, but some instinct made him glance toward the living room door as he did and he froze, alarm snapping his mouth closed. Their voices had obviously drawn Tiny. The detective stood in the doorway waiting for his answer with grim anger, but that wasn't what made the blood run cold in Julius's veins. Marguerite had awakened and stood behind the mortal, her pale face and horrified expression telling him that she too had heard everything.

Eleven.

Marguerite stared past Tiny's back to the men on the stairs, her brain roaring with horror and drowning out any possibility of thought.

"Is Marguerite my mother or does she just look like her?"

Christian's question was screaming in her head, repeating over and over like a skipping record.

"Marguerite?"

She blinked her eyes, seeing that Julius was off the stairs and moving toward her with Marcus and Christian following. Pushing Tiny out of the way, he hurried forward, his eyebrows drawn down with frustration and concern.

Marguerite backed away as he approached, feeling as cornered as she'd been in that stall the night before. She moved back until she came up against the couch, and then flinched when he reached for her.

"Don't touch me. Leave me alone." The words were wooden rather than panic filled as they should have been. She felt disconnected, empty.

Julius let his hands drop, but didn't back off. Instead, he said calmly, "I can explain."

Marguerite stared at him, waiting. She wanted him to explain. She wanted him to have an answer that would fix everything so that her heart would stop breaking...and so she waited, giving him that chance, but he hesitated, and then said almost helplessly, "No, I can't."

Marguerite sucked in a breath, staring at the man she'd found such pleasure with. She'd thought he was her lifemate, had foolishly allowed herself to love him, to dream of a future together. But nothing was as she'd thought.

She knew she wasn't Christian's mother, which meant that she just looked like his mother. She looked like a woman Julius had obviously loved deeply and whose picture he'd kept near at hand for five hundred years. It was Jean Claude all over again, she realized and felt her heart crumbling to dust in her chest.

He reached for her again, but this time Marguerite struck out, slapping him sharply across the face. Julius stilled, eyes glowing black. He didn't try to stop her when she walked around him and pushed her way through the others to leave the room. She could feel their eyes following her as she walked upstairs.

Marguerite went straight to her room, closed the door behind her and just stood there for a moment, the silence crowding around her...and then the chittering began in her brain.

"You look like Christian's mother," it taunted. "Julius must have loved her dearly to still have her picture. She was his true lifemate, you just look like her."

"He can probably read you and was simply saying he couldn't because he wanted you...because you look like his lifemate."

"Every time he made love to you he was thinking of her."

"Every time he touched you, he was touching her."

"It's not you he wants at all. You're just a stand-in."

"It's Jean Claude all over again."

She should leave, Marguerite thought numbly. She should go...somewhere. Find someplace where she could be alone to lick her wounds and think. She moved away from the door and peered around the room, her eyes landing on the bed. Memories of their lovemaking immediately rose up in her mind, making her long for his arms around her, his lips on hers, him inside her...