A Kiss at Midnight (10 page)

“My father is dead,” she said, feeling a queer thump of her heart. “But you and he had a great deal in common, and I’m afraid that that has given me immunity to your particular charms.”

“Not to mention, you’re in love with Dimsdale. Did your father want you to marry him?”

“My father died years ago. He doesn’t belong in this conversation. Anyway, you’re quite mad. You couldn’t marry me, and it’s unkind of you to raise my expectations. What if I believed you? You are marrying a Russian princess, by all accounts.”

“It’s true that I need to marry an heiress,” the prince said casually. “You’re one, by all accounts. I don’t necessarily want someone well-connected. I just want someone rich.” His eyes drifted over her bosom. “Beddable.”

Kate hoisted Caesar a little higher, so the dog almost covered her wax breasts. “This is the most improper conversation I’ve ever had in my life,” she observed.

“It must be your age that inspires my impropriety,” he said. “I’ve had many improper conversations, though not, I admit, with nubile maidens.”

She felt that like a sting, though she didn’t quite work out whether he was implying she was young or old. “Do you often confess your desire to marry a woman for her money, then?”

“Generally we speak of other desires.”

“I can just imagine,” she muttered. “This has been absolutely charming. Just so you know, I’m not available for marriage. And I’m not rich either.” She buried the memory of Henry’s belief in her mythical dowry. It was too fantastical for truth.

He cocked an eyebrow. “You’re not? Does Dimsdale know that? Wick seems to think you have a healthy inheritance.”

“Absolutely,” she said. “Algie loves me anyway.”

“Interesting. My nephew strikes me as the sort who would put adoration a strong second to monetary policy.”

“Unlike you, who would apparently put it at the bottom of the list.”

“As would you,” he said cheerfully.

“Does this mean that I can walk my dogs without fear that you’ll leap out at me from a dark corner?” she asked, putting Caesar back on the ground.

“One would certainly think so,” he said. “But then . . . you’re extraordinarily beautiful.” And while Kate was still registering that comment, he gathered her up in his arms in a businesslike fashion and lowered his head to hers.

And then he wasn’t businesslike anymore. All that restless, wild energy she felt in him poured into his kiss, into a demand that she had no hope of denying. She thought kissing was about a brush of the lips, but this . . . this was about tasting and feeling. He felt like silk and fire.

He
tasted
like fire. She leaned into it, opened her mouth, feeling a tremor go down her back again. He murmured something into her mouth, something hot and sweet. She dimly remembered that she meant to give him a lesson, to teach him not to kiss any lady he met.

She ought to give him a slap.

But then he might take his lips away, or his large warm hand from her waist, or . . . it was only innate self-preservation that saved her. His kiss had started out with a question, but it was quickly turning into a demand, and inexperienced though she was, her whole body was answering in the affirmative.

Yet one rather small, cool voice in her head reminded her exactly who she was, and whom she was kissing.

She pulled back; he resisted for one second, one glorious blazing second, and then it was over.

Her first thought was utterly irrelevant: that she’d never noticed how thick his eyelashes were. Her second was that she’d done nothing more than feed his absurd conceit, and now he would think that he was irresistible even to Englishwomen.

In that split second, she drew on years of composure honed in Mariana’s presence. She opened her mouth to say something that ought to shrivel his self-esteem, but he spoke first.

“Oh damn,” he said, and there was a kind of hoarse hunger in his voice that spoke of truth, “I wish you were my Russian princess.”

And just like that, her irritation with his pompous princely self drained out of her and she started gurgling with laughter. “You’re—” She stopped. Did she really want to compliment him, to add to his already monumental self-regard?

It was only fair.

She leaned forward and brushed her lips across his. “If money could buy kisses like that, I wish I were an heiress. I’d even go so far,” she added, “as to wish myself a princess’s pedigree.”

His hands came up and cupped her face. “I have to taste you again,” he said with a queer kind of groan in his voice.

They were thinking the same things, she thought dazedly, about tasting—but then she
was
tasting, and he tasted like dark honey and something smoother and wilder, something that made her tremble and—

And then he put her away.

“You are dangerous,” she said slowly.

His smile told her that she’d said the wrong thing, fed that monumental self-conceit again.

“Princes,” she said with a sigh. “I suppose you do have some usefulness after all.”

That stung, and she noted it with satisfaction because her knees were trembling and her—her legs—

“No,” he said, a bit harshly. “I have little utility, I assure you. Now, unless you wish to be caught and kissed by another stranger, Miss Daltry, I strongly suggest that you return to your room posthaste, and do not emerge again unchaperoned.”

Fourteen

T
he next morning Kate took the dogs down for a constitutional, this time accompanied by Rosalie. It was only just after dawn, but she was used to waking up early and couldn’t seem to sleep in, even when Freddie whined and tried to hide under the covers. The moment her eyes opened she remembered the evening before—and that was that.

“Come on,” she told them. “You three are going out without a leash. We’ll visit the lion in daylight; if you don’t behave, you’ll be down his gullet, so keep that in mind.”

The courtyard echoed emptily as she and Rosalie walked across the flagstones. Last night it had been a warm, velvet enclosure. This morning it looked hundreds of years old, chilly, and capable of existing far past their lifetimes. Kate shivered and walked a little faster.

The lion was awake. He yawned at the sight of them and padded forward. She fell back a respectful step.

He was far shaggier than she would have thought. She had a vague idea that lions were glossy, but this lion looked time-worn, like a battered hearth rug. He gave them a disgusted look and walked to the rear of the cage, turned around, and walked forward again, shaking his mane as if his head was too heavy.

“Oh, miss!” Rosalie squealed.

Caesar had pranced forward and was sniffing the bars. Kate snapped her fingers and he moved back, so she gave him some cheese.

“All the servants are talking about that lion,” Rosalie said. “The beast has eaten half the household pets, they say. We’ll be lucky to leave with all three dogs.”

“I expect he’ll get Caesar first,” Kate said ruthlessly.

The lion came to the bar and looked hungrily at the dogs, so she threw him some cheese instead. He sniffed disdainfully but ate it up.

“That animal gives me the shivers,” Rosalie said. “Just look at Freddie. He’s scared to death. We’ll visit the elephant. Come on, Freddie; let’s get away from this nasty cat.” She headed around the corner to the other cages, but Kate stayed where she was, staring at the enclosed lion.

“Good morning, Miss Daltry,” came a voice at her shoulder. She turned to find the prince’s majordomo smiling at her.

“Good morning, Mr. Berwick,” she said. “I do believe we’re the only people awake in the whole castle.”

“I came out to see how the lion’s holding up. He seems better.”

Berwick didn’t seem to be in a hurry, so Kate ventured a question. “Would you mind if I asked you some details about the castle?”

“Not at all,” he said, leaning against the bars of the cage.

“I estimated last night that you must be taking in at least two hundred wax candles a week. So does the castle have its own chandler? I know you must have a baker, but what about all the sort of things one usually finds in a village, such as a smithy?”

Berwick wore beautiful livery with frogged buttons and a high collar. He looked precisely like the very best sort of servant, but just for a moment, his eyes twinkled at her and she felt . . .

Absurd. As if she knew him, or had at the least met him before.

“The castle does include its own chandlery,” he replied. “But you’ve underestimated the candles, Miss Daltry. In a normal week, I have more than three hundred burning throughout the castle, and we also employ Argand lamps in some rooms. With the ball, of course, I’ve ordered quite a lot more to make sure that the candelabra are fully lit till dawn.”

“Fascinating,” Kate said. “What about servants? How many are there, overall?”

He paused for a moment, obviously calculating. “I just hired four and let go one, so with a net gain of three, we currently employ one hundred thirty-seven in and around the castle.”

“Does most of the income come from rents?” she asked, before she thought. Then she colored. “I do apologize; that was a remarkably improper question.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “The English are more prudish than we are about matters of money. The castle is surrounded by farms, of course, and they bring in rents, which support the castle in a minimal fashion. The prince doesn’t feel they are sufficient, given the number of people living here.”

Kate felt pink rising in her cheeks. “I certainly didn’t mean to inquire about the prince’s financial situation!”

“Why not?” he said, shrugging. “Impecunious princes are thruppence a dozen in Marburg, I assure you. Prince Gabriel is singular in that he has a castle to oversee.” Berwick’s hair was tied back in a proper queue, but as he shrugged, part of it fell over his brow.

Then, as if a mirror appeared before her, she saw the prince’s face—in Berwick’s. Cast in the same mold, as it were. Twin sides of two coins.

Her mouth fell open.

The majordomo met her eyes and clearly diagnosed her stunned look. His sideways smile was a precise copy of his master’s.

“Ump,” Kate said, recovering herself.

“Today we will have a picnic al fresco in the gardens behind the castle,” Berwick said, without flickering an eyelash. “Several ladies have expressed an interest in seeing the rest of the menagerie, which is housed behind the hedge maze. Punting on the lake can also be very enjoyable.”

The lion had gone back to sleep. “Don’t you think that that beast needs a bigger cage?” she asked. The realization that Berwick must be intimately related to the prince made him somehow easier to speak to.

“How much bigger would you advise?”

“Well, think about pig enclosures. You could put a large sow and all her piglets in a six-by-six enclosure, but I believe most farmers consider a larger space preferable. This lion has less space than a fallow pig. That can’t be right.”

She looked up at Berwick to find that he was blinking down at her in a puzzled sort of way. “I shouldn’t know the size of a sow’s sty,” she said, sighing.

“Who is to say what one should and shouldn’t know?” Berwick murmured. “But I will admit that the few English ladies I encountered during my time at Oxford appeared to find an extraordinary number of topics indelicate.”

“Oh, were you at Oxford as well?” she asked. “Or were you there as the prince’s attendant?”

“As myself,” Berwick said cheerfully. “And myself attends the prince, so it worked out very well for both of us. I studied philosophy and he studied history and we both studied women. We were very young, you understand.”

Kate grinned at him. “Does philosophy help you in your current position?”

“You can have no idea,” Berwick said. “I resort to philosophical reasoning on a daily basis when things get sticky.”

“Matters of precedence and such?”

“The prince’s relatives,” he said with some vehemence, “are an unruly lot. Did you meet Mr. Tippet last night?”

Kate frowned. “Rather pale and a bit plumpy?”

“That’s he. Mr. Tippet is a reader attached to one of His Highness’s aunts. You might remember Princess Sophonisba by her penchant for wearing plumes.”

Kate brought to mind a fierce-looking woman with a bosom like a plow. “How nice that she has someone to read to her,” she said politely.

“Tippet reads palms. Or so he says,” Berwick added with an elegant touch of doubt. “At any rate, he is being driven quite mad by Prince Ferdinand, who demands that he read his palm over and over, searching for a better answer.”

“The idea that one’s palm might change moment to moment seems to invalidate the whole idea,” Kate observed.

“Mr. Tippet has already informed the prince that he will marry a dark-haired lady, and live to one hundred and twelve, and any number of other interesting fortunes, but none of them are good enough.”

“So you call upon your philosophical training to manage the travails of your—” And caught herself up. Whether Prince Ferdinand was indeed Berwick’s relative was none of her business.

“Exactly,” he said smoothly. “Miss Daltry, may I point out what an extraordinary young lady you are?”

“Ah well,” she said, and then, realizing that she really liked him, “royalty aren’t the only ones who have oddly shaped families, you know.”

He nodded, his eyes resting thoughtfully on her. At that moment, Rosalie came back around the corner.

“You must come and see the elephant, Miss Katherine,” she cried, not noticing that she was using the wrong name. “She has the sweetest monkey clinging to her leg. I’ve never seen anything so darling in my life.”

“The monkey is a castle favorite,” Berwick commented.

Kate glanced at him to see if he had caught Rosalie’s mistake, but he showed no sign of it.

It turned out that Caesar, who showed proper caution around the lion, had no such sense when it came to the elephant. He rushed between the bars of the cage, yapping madly, trying to catch the monkey.

The elephant looked uneasy and began shifting back and forth.

“Elephants don’t like mice, and that dog is not much bigger,” Berwick pointed out, sounding entirely unconcerned. “She might stamp on him.”

“Caesar!” Kate cried. “Please come out of there!” She waved a piece of cheese desperately.

But Caesar was as dimwitted as he was brave, and he seemed to think the monkey’s tail would drop into his mouth if he barked loudly enough.

Berwick sighed. “Excuse me, ladies.” He pulled open a small box attached to the cage, took out a key, and unlocked the door. One step inside the cage and he scooped up Caesar.

“I’ll have to keep him on a leash,” Kate said. “I’m afraid that he’s quite fearless. He has no brains.”

“None?”

Kate shook her head. “Absolutely none that I can ascertain. It’s like that sometimes.”

Berwick raised an eyebrow.

She smiled at him, just as if she were at home, funning with Cherryderry. “He’s male. I’ve noticed that sometimes the brains simply get left out of the package.”

She and Rosalie left the courtyard to the sound of the majordomo’s laughter.