Before the Dawn Read online

  Alyssa could smell the faint fragrance of his cologne. Looking at him in profile like this, she could see that his lashes were extraordinarily long. She suspected that he usually had women falling at his feet. Well, this was one woman who would not.

  “You must help me,” Freret told the new arrivals. “Monsieur Gerard is trying to persuade me to leave Paris.”

  “Leave Paris!” Jean-Louis Deligne looked as shocked as if King had suggested that Claude fly to the moon. “Whatever for?”

  “His life,” King suggested dryly.

  “His life?” Michaude’s cool eyes moved to King with mild interest. “Has it been threatened?”

  “A few times. By Adolf Hitler.” King shook his massive head, exasperated. “Haven’t you heard about the things he’s done to the Jews? Claude’s Jewish.”

  “Half Jewish. And I’ve never been particularly religious.”

  “That doesn’t matter to Hitler. Have you seen S. E. Marek’s reports? They’re making Jews wear armbands with a yellow star on them, segregating them, taking away their money and privileges. Not only shopkeepers, but also people of status and prestige.”

  “Yes, but that is in Germany,” Claude protested, waving his hands for emphasis. “I am a Frenchman!”

  “So was Alfred Dreyfus,” Alyssa put in, surprising everyone. So far she had kept her silence throughout King and Freret’s argument. “You remember, the one Émile Zola wrote about?”

  Philippe glanced at her sharply. Alyssa wasn’t sure what the look meant—was he intrigued? Or just astonished that an American actress had read Émile Zola?

  “Who?” King asked. “I don’t know this Zola character, but I have looked at a map. It’s not as far from Paris to the German border as it as from L. A. to Frisco.”

  “But, Alyssa, the Dreyfus case was long ago. Frenchmen would never do what the Nazis are doing to Jews,” Claude assured her.

  “What if the Nazis were in France?” King asked pointedly. “What if you lose this war? You know, the bookies aren’t giving you guys good odds.”

  “Lose the war!” Jean-Louis jumped in now, horrified at King’s suggestion. “But France has the greatest army in the world.”

  “The biggest,” Philippe Michaude amended quietly.

  “Exactly.” King gave the Frenchman an approving nod. “Biggest isn’t the same as the best.”

  “But the Maginot Line!”

  “Jesus H. Christ!” King snapped. “Maybe it would have helped you a lot in 1914, but it’s 1940 now. How in the hell do you think those forts will stop airplanes? They’ll fly right over them. Haven’t you seen what the Luftwaffe did to Poland?”

  “That was Poland. France is different.”

  “Yeah, at least Poland had an air force for the Germans to smash. Anyway, the Maginot Line, even if it could protect you, doesn’t run all the way along your border and it doesn’t run between you and Belgium.”

  “Please,” Lora put in in her husky voice. “Let’s not have a war of our own right here. Okay, fellas?”

  King grimaced and leaned back in his chair, shutting his mouth.

  “You know, Claude,” Lora went on sweetly, “King isn’t asking you to leave France forever. He just wants you to sign a contract for a couple of years. Wouldn’t you like to come to the U. S.? See California?”

  “That is true, Monsieur Freret,” Philippe Michaude agreed, and the director stared at Philippe as if he had stabbed him in the back. “You could go for a year or two. That way you’d be safe if anything did happen. And if not, you can come back—richer, and having worked with beautiful ladies like these. It doesn’t sound too bad to me.”

  “But my life is here.”

  “It will still be here in two years, surely.”

  Claude blinked and was silent. Finally he said grudgingly, “Well… perhaps I will think about it.”

  “Great.” King reached over and gave Freret a friendly pat on the shoulder. He knew when to let negotiations slide. “In the meantime, what do you say we all go out somewhere? I want to see this nightlife Paris is so famous for.”

  “But, of course,” Philippe agreed with alacrity. “What about Shéhérazade? Or Suzy Solidor’s?”

  The others agreed, and Philippe stood up, reaching out politely to pull back Alyssa’s chair. And somehow Alyssa found herself walking out of the dining room with her hand tucked inside Philippe’s arm.

  Chapter 4

  Philippe stood back politely to let Alyssa pass out of the dining room before him. The back of Alyssa’s dress was cut fashionably low, and the silk fabric was gathered into a rose nestled seductively at the base of her spine, drawing the eye to the sweet curve of her derrière. Philippe thought of running his hand down the smooth, creamy flesh to crush the saucy flower and caress the swell of her hips. As she walked, Alyssa’s hair brushed the skin of her shoulders, and Philippe wanted to wind his hands through it and lift the hair from her shoulders, to touch his lips to that skin. He ached to have her. He had to remind himself to move slowly. A woman such as this was meant to be wooed. She required a slow seduction—flowers, sweet words, little gifts.

  Philippe had moved so quickly to escort Alyssa from the room that he managed to separate the two of them from the rest of the group by several feet. Alyssa raised her face to look at him, and he was struck by the full power of her vibrant blue eyes. He wondered how long he would have to wait to kiss her.

  “You surprised me, Monsieur Michaude.”

  “Please—Philippe.”

  “Philippe.” Alyssa’s melodic voice accented his name perfectly.

  Philippe smiled. There was no need to correct her pronunciation.

  “And your name is Alyssa?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I call you that?”

  Alyssa wouldn’t have hesitated with another man. She was used to the casual manner of the theater. But addressing her by her first name so soon after meeting her was very informal in the French code of manners. He would probably interpret it in a way she didn’t mean. So she replied coolly, “I see no reason for you to. After all, we have just met.”

  “But Alyssa is such a beautiful name.” His tongue savored the word. “It is a shame not to use it.”

  Alyssa thought she could listen to the liquid beauty of his accent all night. Why was it that English on the French tongue made one think of satin sheets tangled around naked limbs? She steeled herself against the appeal. The practiced ease with which he had separated them from the others annoyed her. It was obvious that he was a man accustomed to seducing women—and just as accustomed to success.

  It was equally obvious that he intended Alyssa to be the next victim of his charms. She couldn’t deny that he was attractive—those sharp, handsome features; the finely cut lips; the thick black hair that her fingers longed to touch. But Alyssa had spent far too many years fending off men who thought actresses would fall into bed with any man if he played the seduction game right. She wasn’t about to be one more in a string of women for any man, no matter how charming his smile or how much his accent melted her bones.

  Philippe abandoned the subject of her name. “Tell me, why did I surprise you? By urging Claude Freret to go to the United States?”

  “Yes.”

  “Pah!” He made a very French gesture, dismissing Monsieur Freret. “He’d be an idiot not to. Even Zola sought sanctuary in England when it appeared he was to be found guilty of libel. I was very impressed earlier by your knowledge on the Dreyfus affair, incidentally.”

  “Impressed because I am a woman or an American?” Alyssa teased.

  “Ah, now you are trying to lay a trap for me.” His eyes twinkled. “Shall I just say that beauty and intelligence are a rare combination in anyone?”

  “A very neat way of slipping that trap,” Alyssa responded. All right, she was flirting, but he was difficult not to flirt with.

  “Hollywood holds much promise for Monsieur Freret.” Philippe turned bac
k to the earlier topic. “More money. Safety. A chance to direct you in a film. Most Frenchmen aren’t such fools as to turn that down.”

  She smiled. “Thank you. But he wouldn’t be directing me. I’m a stage actress.”

  “But I have seen you at the cinema, have I not? Jean-Louis and I discussed it. You were in a film with Miss Michaels.”

  “Yes. And I had the lead in another. But I’m not made for movies. I come across better onstage.”

  “You are even more beautiful in person, that’s true.” They stopped at the cloakroom. “But on film you are still beautiful enough for any man. Think of the millions whom you are depriving. I, for one, would very much like to watch you again at the cinema. I am not often in New York.”

  Alyssa backed off a step. The man was too attractive by half. She summoned up a cool smile. “I suspect you’ll manage to console yourself.”

  She turned aside to give her ticket to the cloakroom attendant and waited, running the large black silk scarf she carried through her hand, not even glancing back at Philippe. But she found it hard to maintain her air of disinterest when the attendant returned with her cloak and Philippe wrapped it around her shoulders. His fingertips merely brushed her skin, but she felt it all through her body. Quickly she tied the strings at the neck before he could do so, then pulled on the gloves that covered her bare arms to above the elbow. She was relieved when King and Lora and the others joined them at the cloakroom.

  It was utterly dark when they stepped outside. Alyssa sighed, thinking of the lights that had lit up the city before war imposed a nightly blackout—the quaint gaslights lining the Prince Alexander III Bridge, the floodlights on fountains and monuments, the soft glow of the streetlamps. “So sad. Paris darkened.”

  Philippe’s brow furrowed. “Yes. The City of Light without her lights. Like a beautiful woman without her jewels.”

  “Filthy Boches!” Freret spat, his voice virulent with dislike, surprising them all. “They understand nothing but war.”

  A dimly lit taxi crept by and stopped for them. It as a squeeze to get them all inside. Alyssa was relieved—and a little disappointed—that Philippe politely took the jump seat at a distance from her.

  But once they arrived at Shéhérazade he managed to seat the two of them at the opposite end of the table from the others and turned toward her, one arm resting on the back of her chair, creating an island of intimacy amid the crowd. Jean-Louis and Freret were deep in conversation on the favorite topic of each, French cinema. And Gerard, now that he had wrung at least a promise to think about signing a contract from the French director, seemed happy to ignore everyone but his wife.

  There was a floor show featuring leggy, scantily clad women, but Philippe didn’t glance at it. His eyes were only on Alyssa. It was very flattering, but she couldn’t help but wonder if it was also too practiced. How many other women had he lavished this same attention on? Was he interested in her or in another conquest?

  She had been around too many wealthy and powerful men not to recognize the power in Philippe Michaud. He was accustomed to getting what he wanted; it was there to see in the sharp assessing gaze when he glanced around the room, the ease with which he took command, the deference in others. Such men thrived on competition, seemingly always in a race to acquire, and women were often as much a commodity as a Bugatti or a mansion in the Hamptons.

  Philippe offered her a cigarette from a flat leather case, and Alyssa shook her head. Her voice wasn’t strong, her weakest point as a stage actress, and cigarettes ruined it. They sipped their drinks, and Philippe studied her face, his eyes lingering over her short, vulnerable upper lip. It was so hard to go slowly, to charm and reassure her, when all he wanted to do was kiss her until he couldn’t think anymore, to slide his hands down the smooth fall of her hair and push it aside to expose the nape of her neck—smell it, caress it, taste it.

  Philippe turned away, lighting a cigarette with fingers that trembled slightly. “So,” he said, blowing the smoke away from her. “You are a stage actress. What parts do you play?”

  Alyssa was startled. She had expected flowery phrases and romantic sighs, declarations of her beauty and of how she stirred him. She hadn’t expected him actually to talk to her as a person. “Ingénues, mostly. Light comedy.”

  “And is that what you like to do?”

  Alyssa shrugged, even more surprised that he had gone straight to the heart of her problem. “I love acting. I love the stage. So I enjoy any role, but…I am getting bored. The roles are the same. Sometimes I feel stifled!”

  “What would you like to do?”

  “Anything but a ‘sweet young thing.’ I want a part I can sink my teeth into. I auditioned for a role in a drama last year—a character part, not big. A lady of the night.”

  One of his eyebrows rose in amazement. “A prostitute? You wanted this role?”

  Alyssa grinned. If Michaude weren’t such a wolf, it would be fun to be with him. “It was a terrific part. A bad woman is a lot more fun to play than a goody-goody. You can get so much more out of it.”

  “She was a woman of great beauty? The mistress of powerful men?”

  “No, just a common, garden variety streetwalker. One who drank too much.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think I understand theater people.”

  “Most people don’t.”

  “Did you get this much-desired part?”

  “No. The director said I did a good job, but I’m an ingénue. It’s easy to get typecast. A director sees you in one play and you’re good, so he decides to cast you in the same sort of part because he knows you can play it. You take it because you want to act. Then—you become known as that kind of role. They’ll accept me as a little more sophisticated or funnier or more scatterbrained. But they don’t want to see me in something really different.”

  “You were not a ‘sweet young thing’ in the film I saw.”

  “That’s true. It was rather fun getting to be a wicked woman.” Alyssa’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “But I’m a stage actress, not a movie star. I don’t like Hollywood or the studios; I don’t like the way they shoot, with the story line all jumbled up. I even got tired of sunny weather.”

  “Did you work for Monsieur Gerard?” Philippe was fairly certain she must have, but he was at a loss for a better question to ask her. Watching Alyssa’s eyes dance was distracting, and it was harder to think when his senses were filled with the smoke of Alyssa’s voice or the smell of her skin mixed with a subtle yet tantalizing perfume he couldn’t quite place.

  “Yes. Royal Studios.”

  “He wants you back?”

  “So he says, but I don’t think he’s serious. King simply hates the thought of someone leaving him instead of the other way around.”

  “I watched him tonight. He displayed a rather proprietary interest in you.”

  “King?” Alyssa’s voice rose in amazement.

  “Yes. Holding out your chair, touching your arm. I have to confess to a certain jealousy.”

  Alyssa laughed. “You must be kidding. Everyone knows he’s crazy about Lora. He hardly looks at other women. Well, perhaps he looks, but he doesn’t do anything about it. He used to have something of a reputation, but since he married Lora his only reputation is that of a faithful husband.”

  Philippe found it difficult to believe that a man could wish to be so faithful to the pretty blond woman when a devastating beauty like Alyssa was around. “If you say so.”

  “Believe me, it’s true. He was just being nice. He felt he had to play escort to me, too, you see.” She paused and smiled. “Though I have to admit that King would like the idea of having a woman on each arm. Besides, I think he has some lurking notion that he needs to be a good American male and protect me in a foreign country.”

  “He doesn’t need to do that,” Philippe replied in a low voice. Slowly he ran his thumb across her bare shoulder and up her neck beneath the soft veil of her hair, watc
hing its progress across her pale skin. His mouth softened. “I can protect you better here. It is my country, after all.”

  His thumb was faintly rough against her skin, searing with heat. An answering warmth sprang up deep in Alyssa’s abdomen. She wanted to shiver. She wanted to lean back her head and stretch like a cat, offering her throat to his touch. She swallowed and replied a little breathlessly, “Maybe I don’t need protection from anyone.”

  Philippe smiled lazily, bringing his thumb back down her neck and along the hard ring of her collarbone, stopping at the soft hollow of her throat. His hand spread out over her neck and shoulders. “Oh, yes, I think you do. There are many predators around.”

  “Indeed. I think there’s one beside me right now.”

  His teeth flashed in the dim light of the club. “But I won’t hurt you.”

  Alyssa managed to get out a chuckle. It was difficult. With his hand on her, it was difficult even to breathe. “That’s what the wolf said to Little Red Riding Hood.”

  He leaned closer, until his head was almost touching hers. “I promise, I never bite—well, hardly ever.”

  Her pulse was beating much too rapidly, and there was an iron band around her chest, tightening. This man was all too dangerous to her peace of mind. She couldn’t remember when a man had stirred her senses so deeply, so quickly.

  Philippe moved back, and his hand slid off her shoulder and onto the top of her chair. Alyssa was surprised at how much disappointment she felt. The floor show had ended. The lights on the dance floor had dimmed, and the band played. Couples moved slowly around the floor, dotted with sparkles cast by the revolving, faceted silver ball overhead.

  Michaude turned to Alyssa. “Will you dance with me?”

  “Yes.” She ought to refuse just to show she was immune to him, but she didn’t want to.

  Philippe took her hand, and they walked to the dance floor. He liked the soft warmth of her skin against his palm, the slick hardness of her nails curled up against the back of his hand. He imagined those nails trailing down his bare back.

  All evening he’d wanted to hold her in his arms, and now she stepped into them. It was intensely pleasurable to feel her hand on his shoulder, her arm against his, to curl his arm around her waist and touch the bare skin of her back. But it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. His hand moved teasingly over her lower back, exploring the ridge of her spinal column and the soft flesh to either side of it. His hand pressed against Alyssa’s back, moving her closer, so that their bodies brushed against each other as they moved. It was far too close to be polite, but not nearly as close as he wanted.