Victoria Janssen - The Moonlight Mistress

“I am also not young and idealistic, like you,” she said. “I would love to stay with you a bit longer, to see what might happen, but I can’t. I have to go home. I feel I owe a duty toward my country.” Also, she feared Pascal did not truly mean what he said, not deep in his heart. He might think he did, after their enjoyable sexual encounters, but she doubted he could have formed serious feelings for her in so short a time.

Pascal didn’t speak for several kilometers. At last he said, “There’s a sign. Perhaps we can find coffee in that town. That would immeasurably improve the quality of this day.”

As Lucilla had suspected, croissants were not on offer in the village of Grobschmiedensberg, but she was able to obtain sausages, cheese, fresh bread, a thermos of strong coffee, and bottled beer and lemonade for a reasonable sum. Two cans of petrol cost an exorbitant price, but she was glad for it, having no idea how much remained in the motor’s tank, and how much petrol would be required for the distance they must travel. The hazards of being an auto thief, she supposed. Three kilometers down the road, she stopped the motor and they ate ravenously, in silence.

Lucilla offered the last of the coffee to Pascal. He shook his head, so she drank it herself and shook the drops into the road. “Will you tell me about Herr Kauz?”

“Why do you wish to know?” Pascal looked wary. Even earlier, in the midst of danger, she hadn’t seen that expression on his face.

“It’s a long way to the border.” He knew about her work—it was common knowledge that she experimented with pharmaceuticals to alleviate pain—but she knew little about his. Before she had to leave him, she wanted to know more of this man with whom she’d shared her body.

Pascal leaned over the seat back, rummaged in his rucksack one-handed, and emerged with a crumpled wax-paper packet. Lucilla tidied away the remains of their breakfast and tucked the brown paper parcels in among the beer and lemonade, so the bottles wouldn’t clink together. When she settled back in her seat, Pascal pressed a small piece of chocolate between her lips.

Sweetness blossomed on her tongue, mingling with the saltiness of his fingertips. She suckled the tip of his thumb, closed her eyes and swept out her tongue, caressing its length. He cursed softly and kissed her, crushing their hats together.

Desire drenched her entire body. For a few moments, she didn’t care that the motor sat beside an open field, many kilometers from safety. The sun heated her blood, and Pascal’s hand on her cheek was even hotter. She dislodged his hat and grabbed the back of his head, holding him to her with a desperation she’d buried until this moment.

He pulled his mouth away and thudded his forehead to hers. His breath puffed unsteadily against her face. “Pardon,” he said.

“Bugger,” Lucilla said. She loosened her hands in his hair and let them drift down to his shoulders, stroking him absently as she tried to bring herself under control instead of nuzzling into his chest and tasting him with lips and tongue. She pulled away and clenched her hands in her lap, staring down at her whitened knuckles. Her desires fought her, and she had a difficult time remembering why she could not set them free. “I will miss you when this is over.”

He reached for her again, then let his hand fall. “I will help you to get home,” he said. “I have cousins who work in Le Havre.”

“Thank you,” she said. For the first time in years, she wanted to weep.

“We should go,” he said.

Lucilla started the engine and released the hand brake. She concentrated on the road for several minutes, then said, “Tell me about Herr Kauz.”

The noise of the motor and the wind necessitated he face her as he spoke. Lucilla focused on the road ahead rather than risk glancing at him. What did she think she would see in his eyes, anyway? They were brown. That was all. Her own were the same, and just as subject to bits of blown grit. She had sand in her eyes now. Her own fault, because she had not looked for Kauz’s goggles. She blinked furiously.

Pascal said, “Kauz first wrote to me over a year ago.”

“Why?” She swallowed, and gave the motor a bit more petrol.

“Long before I was born, he was married to my great-aunt.”

In some families, like her own, a connection by marriage could be a close one, but Pascal’s tone said otherwise. Lucilla looked away from the road for a moment, at Pascal. His expression was blank. She sensed some family trouble there. “You didn’t know him well.”

“At all,” Pascal said. “My great-aunt never returned from Germany. She died shortly after her marriage. She bore no children. It was forever after a source of grief for my grandoncle, Erard, who was her brother.”

“Kauz presumed upon his distant relationship with you?”

“To try and obtain funds, yes. My superiors found items of interest in his work and thought I would be the best candidate to extract further information from him.”

“Unpublished items of interest, I assume,” Lucilla said. She cast her mind back to the library at Somerville and the welcoming odor of old books. She remembered pursuing strings of letters through a series of journals, trying to discover if any of the writers thought or felt as she did, back when she still imagined she had hope of a permanent academic position, somewhere other than a school for girls. The shifting rivalries and alliances had fascinated her. She’d corresponded with a few fellow chemists, never revealing her gender, but it was difficult to explain why she held no position, and never attended conferences. She had not wanted to lie and pretend to be infirm.

“Yes. He is very secretive—it is rumored he has other laboratories than those at the Institute and at his home, where he pursues bizarre interests in isolation from the scientific community. His public work is often privately funded, and no one knows how much remains unpublished. For instance, his work with the body’s healing mechanisms ran parallel to that of an English biologist I knew from Cambridge, and there were hints of great advances he did not fully reveal. Also, disturbing implications about how the body could be harmed.”

“What college at Cambridge?” she asked.

“Trinity.” He paused. “My English is more respectable than my French.”

She’d barely heard him speak his own language. She nodded. “So why did you come to Germany? What did he promise you?”

Pascal said, “You should understand, not all of the scientists with whom I speak are conventional. I am used to being told strange things. I didn’t know when I traveled here what Kauz wished to reveal to me, though I had my suspicions. He gave only hints.”

“Stop hedging,” she said, annoyed. “I want the story.” She risked a glance at his face, and was surprised by how disconcerted, almost fearful, he appeared. He looked away quickly. His next words were almost lost in the roar of the motor and the rush of the wind.

“Very well, I will tell you. Kauz claimed he had met a woman who could transform her body into that of a wolf.”

“You mean a werewolf?”

His jaw dropped. “You don’t sound surprised.”

“If it weren’t odd, you wouldn’t be embarrassed to tell me about it,” she pointed out. “I think such legends are interesting. My father used to terrify us with lurid tales of beasts who would eat us at the full moon. Well, lurid enough for children. I imagine Kauz’s imagination outdid my father’s. For instance, that he made his werewolf a woman. That doesn’t surprise me at all.” He’d acted as so virulent a misogynist, could perversion be far behind?

“The scope of Kauz’s imaginings is impressive.” His tone was flat.