Dark Legend Page 0,99
You know I can."
He broke away from her, breathing heavily. "No, Francesca, just let me be for a moment. I've been getting these headaches the last few days and they're killers. I even had a CAT scan done to see if I had a tumor." He pulled a tube from his pocket, took off the lid, and shook several small pills into his mouth.
Francesca could see his hand was trembling. "You don't need medication. I can take the pain away," she said softly, feeling hurt by his rejection.
He shook his head again, this time decisively. "Don't waste your time and talent on me. The pills work just fine. Give me a few minutes and I'll be okay."
A small frown touched her soft mouth. "Brice, I know you're angry with me, but these headaches sound serious. You know I can help. How often are you taking these pills? What are they?"
He shrugged and cut through the park along a dark pathway, holding aside the low-lying branches to prevent them from hitting Francesca. "It doesn't matter. Why were you looking for me?"
"Where in the world are we going, Brice? This path leads out of the park toward the cemetery. Let's go back."
He swung around to face her and once again she thought there was something crafty in his eyes. Then he blinked and it was Brice looking down at her with sad eyes. But Francesca was very uneasy now. Nothing felt right to her, not Brice, not the path they were taking, not even the night itself. She bit down on her lower lip while she tried to think what he could be planning. Brice was not a violent man, she knew that much about him. He was gentle and caring, even if he was ambitious.
"We aren't going back, Francesca, not until we talk this out. If nothing else, I want to stay friends. I'm hurt, I won't deny that, and I've acted like a spoiled child, but I always thought you would come around and marry me. I really did. In my mind we were already engaged." He shook his head as he picked his way along the uneven surface of the road. "You never looked at other men, never. I thought that meant you truly felt something for me, but you had been hurt and were afraid to love again."
Francesca could see the first of the many headstones standing like silent sentinels of the dead in the graveyard. It was a beautiful place really, ancient, a place where it was believed the sacred and the damned had to be kept apart. One side of the burial grounds was sanctified, blessed with holy water, while the other was for those who had lived lives of sin and debauchery, criminals and murderers. It was now being torn up, the dead removed to the new cemetery away from the middle of the city. The machines hadn't yet reached the area where they walked. The imminent destruction made her sad; she had many human friends buried there.
"I never was interested in anyone else, Brice. I preferred your company, but it was friendship I felt, the love of a sister. I often wanted to feel more, and when I thought about the future, I wished I could love you as you wanted me to, but I never loved any man other than Gabriel. I thought him dead to me, all these years, but I was not over him."
"Why didn't you ever mention him?" Brice demanded, sounding petulant again. "Not once did you even say his name. If we were such good friends, why didn't you share with me such a terrible tragedy as losing your husband?" He spat the last word out distastefully. "I didn't know you'd ever been married to anyone." He was moving faster, now, taking the lead, pushing his way over the small rock wall to hurry along a little-used path leading to the mausoleum.
"I never spoke of him to anyone, Brice. It was too difficult." That was the truth. Even her mother had never known about that small incident in the village so many centuries earlier. When her family had been wiped out in the wars, she had fled the Carpathian Mountains, making her way to Paris, where she learned to hide herself from her people. Tears shimmered unexpectedly in her dark eyes, the memory of that time still raw. She blinked them away and followed Brice along the winding trail.
"I wasn't just anyone, Francesca. I was your best friend. But