A Kiss at Midnight (17 page)

Sure enough, Effie wiped her eyes and apologized. “I’m nervous,” she said, “because Beckham arrives today, and I haven’t seen him since last year.”

Kate narrowed her eyes. “He’s coming to the castle?”

“Yes, today,” Effie said damply. “Isn’t that bad luck? I managed to avoid him all season because my mother bribed one of his footmen, so we always knew what he was doing. But now my mother says we can’t leave because Lord Hathaway is close to proposing to me.” She didn’t look terribly happy about that prospect.

“I like Lord Hathaway,” Kate said.

“So do I, of course,” Effie said, sighing. “It’s just—well—he’s not exactly romantic, is he? He would never bring me flowers unless they happened to be in his garden and he tripped over them.”

“You have quite an imagination,” Kate said.

“I can just see his poor wife,” Effie said. “She’ll be waiting expectantly for her birthday to arrive, hoping that he’ll bring her a diamond tiara or at the very least, an Indian shawl, and he’ll turn up with a tea cozy. Tears will come to her eyes, but since she really loves him—and it’s not his fault—she’ll swallow her sadness.”

“And buy herself an Indian shawl, I would hope,” Kate put in. “You’re a superb storyteller! I could almost see her weepy eyes. Why don’t you just put about the real story of Beckham? I’m sure you could convince people.”

Effie shook her head. “My mother feels strongly that a lady should never mention such matters. She feels everything so deeply. In fact, she’s not getting out of bed today because she feels so distressed over my near death last night.”

Kate raised an eyebrow.

“I know . . . most people think you nearly died instead of me.” Effie sighed.

“If you told my godmother, Henry, she could squash Beckham,” Kate said.

“Does she really like to be called Henry? It’s such an odd name for a woman.”

“Her name is Henrietta, but she prefers Henry.”

“I love the way she calls her husband sugarplum,” Effie said. “It’s just so—”

“Romantic,” Kate said, laughing.

“I read too many novels,” Effie said shamefacedly.

“I haven’t read many, but the villain always gets his comeuppance, as I understand it. And that’s what’s going to happen to Beckham, I promise you. Think of Henry as being like a fairy godmother: She can wave her magic wand and take care of that nasty little toad.”

“How I’d love to see him turned into a turnip,” Effie said.

“Just watch,” Kate said. “She’ll make turnip mash out of him.”

Twenty-one

Y
ou will be taking a large party rabbit hunting this afternoon,” Wick said, catching Gabriel by the arm after the luncheon meal.

“That I will not,” Gabriel said instantly.

“What’s got into you?” Wick demanded. “You’ve never been the most biddable person, but I’d prefer you didn’t go stark raving, if you wouldn’t mind. I have a castle full of people, and your aunt’s reader has already driven half the ladies into fits by handing out fortunes like confetti, and all of them depressing.”

“You want depressing, go talk to my uncle. I had to listen to him for an hour last night as he sobbed—sobbed!—over the failure of his naval spectacle.”

“It’s my fault,” Wick said. “I’d watched them practice it over and over, and I simply didn’t picture the timing’s being altered by drunk passengers.”

“Well, no one drowned,” Gabriel said. “I have it from Miss Starck, who breakfasted with Kate, that the lady is just fine. So no harm done.”

“That being the case, would you get on your bloody shooting gear and take some of these men off my hands?”

“No. Ask Ferdinand to take my place, will you?”

“I’ll see if I can drag him out of the pigsty,” Wick said, turning away.

When Gabriel was sure that Wick was well out of hearing, he snatched a young footman and gave him a number of explicit, rapid instructions.

Then he went to his study, locked the door, and walked over to a small painting hanging on the far wall. In the picture’s background, a battle raged; in the foreground, a songbird perched on a low branch. On the ground below lay a suit of armor, abandoned just where a knight had managed to kick it off. All there was to be seen of him was a lifeless foot in the lower right. And the bird sang on, his hard, alert eye showing total disregard for the crumpled warrior foolish enough to die under his tree.

It was the only painting that Gabriel had brought with him from Marburg, the painting that summed up his hatred of the patterned violence and sporadic warfare that marked all small principalities, including his brother’s.

With an easy crook of his finger under the frame, he pulled the painting out from the wall. Behind it was a simple lever. One yank, and a door opened in the wooden paneling, revealing an extremely dusty corridor.

Wick and he had decided that the benefits of ordering someone to clean the corridor were not worth the potential consequences, inasmuch as the existence of a corridor that ran inside the thick walls of the castle was not so terrible in itself, but the fact that the corridor offered peepholes into most bedchambers?

Dusty it was, and dusty it remained.

Gabriel set off, dismissing from his mind the fact that Wick would be infuriated to learn that he had decided to reveal the existence of the corridor.

He kept pausing, peering into bedchambers to orient himself. Gold hangings meant the so-called queen’s bedchamber, now consigned to Lady Dagobert. He walked past four more peepholes, calculating his location, and then looked again. He blinked and then hastily walked on. If his guests were choosing not to nap after luncheon, it certainly wasn’t his affair.

He skipped four more, tried again, and knew he had the room, because there was Freddie, curled in a tight ball in the middle of the bed. He didn’t hear anything, which suggested that Kate’s maid was not in attendance.

He put his mouth to the peephole and said, “Kate.”

Nothing.

He said it more loudly. “Kate!”

There was a muttered curse word that made him grin, and then the sound of someone walking over to the bedroom door and opening it. He couldn’t see her, but he imagined her staring into the corridor.

She closed the door again, rather more slowly than she had opened it, and he tried again. “Come to the fireplace and look on the right side.”

“I hate people who spy,” she said in a loud voice.

“I’m not spying!” he protested. “All I can see is your bed.”

A withering silence answered him.

“Freddie looks comfortable.”

“Freddie is always comfortable. Why are you spying on a lady’s bed?”

“I came to ask you to go for a drive with me. In secret.”

“I gathered the secret part. How many people traipse through that corridor at night?”

“No one,” he assured her. “Ever. You’re the only person other than Wick who knows it exists.”

“This is England,” she pointed out. “You didn’t build the castle yourself. Probably half your guests know of its existence.” Suddenly an eye presented itself before him. It was a beautiful eye, pale green like the light that comes through a stained glass window, and ringed in brown.

“Is that you?” she asked suspiciously.

“Of course it’s me.”

“Should I pull a lever to let you out?”

“There’s no entrance to any of the bedrooms.”

“Just for peeping,” Kate muttered. “How distasteful.”

“I’ve got a carriage downstairs, and a picnic. I told the footman that I would take one of my aunts to see the old nunnery.”

“A nunnery sounds like a barrelful of monkeys,” she said, turning away. All he could see was Freddie again. She continued, off to the right. “And your aunt, will she enjoy this excursion?”

“Just the two of us,” Gabriel said, and held his breath. No proper young lady would do it. Ever. No chaperone, no maid, no aunt?

Kate’s eye reappeared. “Are you planning to seduce me in the carriage?” The green looked a little darker with displeasure.

“I’d love to,” he said regretfully, “but I wouldn’t be able to live with my own conscience, so I won’t.”

“Have you a conscience when it comes to people like me? I thought you and Wick had summed up my circumstances.”

“You may be illegitimate, though I don’t think you’re a swineherd’s daughter, for all your intimate knowledge of piggeries.”

“I’m not,” she said, and disappeared again. He could hear her walking about. “If I were a swineherd’s daughter would you seduce me?”

“I’ve actually never seduced a maiden,” he said.

“How virtuous of you.”

“It’s likely not a reflection of virtue,” he admitted. “Princes hardly ever manage to be alone, you know. When I was younger, I would have gladly cavorted with a maiden of any variety, but I wasn’t given a chance.”

The eye reappeared. “As long as you promise on the shambles of your princely honor that you won’t kiss me. I find your kisses distracting.”

That was a facer. “
You
could kiss me,” he suggested.

“I won’t. I need to find a husband, and your fiancée—is she arriving today?”

“She has landed in England,” Gabriel said reluctantly. “Probably she’ll arrive tomorrow.”

“No kisses,” Kate stated.

He nodded and realized she couldn’t see him.

“The truth is that I am going mad in this room. Effie brought me some dismal tripe to read. I don’t care much for novels. And Henry won’t let me go out because she says if I appear too healthy people will start questioning the illness that made me thinner.”

“I brought a veil, so no one will recognize you.”

“A veil?”

“My aunt wears them all the time. A mourning veil. I’ll meet you at your bedchamber door in five minutes.”

“Can I bring Freddie? I could hide him under the veil.”

“Absolutely not. My aunt never yaps.”

Twenty-two

T
he woman who emerged from Kate’s bedchamber was swathed in black from her head to her toes.

Gabriel offered her his arm, feeling a ridiculous pleasure run through him. “Be careful not to trip,” he said as they walked down the corridor.

The veil trembled as Kate shook her head. “I’m having trouble walking; I can’t see where I’m going. How does she manage this?”

“She’s been in mourning a long time,” Gabriel said.

“How long?”

“Forty years, give or take ten.”

Silence.

“You’re thinking she’s overly mournful.”

“I would never characterize a princess in a negative light,” Kate said primly, though he knew damn well that was a lie.

“It was actually very clever,” he told her. “My father would have found her another husband, but she fell into such a cataclysmic fit of grief that no one would have her.”

“I gather her grief wasn’t all it could have been?”

“My brothers and I loved to go to her chambers. We would play speculation and bet each other with cherry stones. She gave me my first taste of cognac, and lots of very good advice.”

“Such as?”

“She loved to think of improbable scenarios. For example, what if Noah’s flood happened again? How would we survive?”

“Good question,” Kate said. “Did she have the answer?”

“We decided a good boat with a hold full of nuts would save us. When I was small I used to steal filbert nuts from the table so that she could build up a store. I suppose she ate them privately; she never disillusioned me. Every time it rained I would happily think about the vast reserves of nuts stowed under her bed.”

“Very kind of her,” Kate said. “What would she have to say about swineherds’ daughters?”

“Stay away from them,” he said promptly.

“My father would undoubtedly say the same of nearly married princes,” she said.

They were coming down the grand stairs now. “A last cluster of footmen and we’re free,” he whispered.

“Should I hobble?”

“No need. Wick isn’t here, and he’s the only one who might notice. I’m going to put you in the dog cart and take the reins myself. I’ll tell you when we’re out of sight of the front door. We’ll leave the road immediately.”

The moment he gave the word, Kate pulled up the veil and wrestled it off her head. “That is
hot
,” she cried. She had a high flush and—

“Another wig?” he asked, disappointed. The night before, she’d been so drenched that he hadn’t been able to tell exactly what color her hair was, but he thought it was yellow, like mustard or old wine.

“I always wear a wig,” she said primly. But then she looked at him and laughed, and he felt a bolt of desire so fierce that he almost dropped the reins. “My hair is my only glory, so I’m saving it for when I can truly be myself: Kate rather than Victoria.”

“You’re Kate today,” he said.

“No, I’m not. The only reason I’m out driving with you is that Victoria is a bit of a trollop,” she said with a wicked little smile. “I myself would never do anything like this.”

“What
do
you do instead of trolloping?” he asked with not a little curiosity.

“This and that,” she said lightly.

There was a bit of silence as he negotiated the dog cart off the road and onto a little track that wound around the castle, just under the walls. “What sort of things?” he asked. “Taking care of pigs?”

“Actually, no pigs,” she said. “That’s a cheering thought, isn’t it? If I get to feeling downtrodden I can just contemplate what might have been, in short, the pigs.”

“Do you feel downtrodden?”

“Now and then,” she said airily. “I have such a ferocious temper that people tread on me at their peril. Besides, my godmother is taking me in hand, and next time you see me, I’ll be respectably living in London with Henry at my side.”

Lady Wrothe must be giving her a dowry, Gabriel thought, which was decent of her. Though he hated the idea of Kate flirting with cretinous Londoners; in fact, it made him want to snatch her and—

Act like the bad prince in a fairy tale.

Christ.

“You look a bit hot,” Kate said. “Where is this nunnery, anyway?”

“We’re not actually going to a nunnery. We’re going around the side of the castle, and we’ll enter one of the gardens, a secret one.”

“A secret garden . . . how on earth did you find it? Don’t tell me that a fairy led the way.”

“I was given a key. It’s a secret merely because the gate opens out to the castle grounds, rather than the courtyard, so no one bothers to go there. Even Wick hasn’t investigated it.”

They drove in a circle around the castle for a few more minutes. Then Gabriel pulled up the pony and jumped out, throwing the reins over a small bush. He grabbed a basket from the cart and turned to give Kate a hand, but she was already out of the cart.

He wanted—what he wanted was ridiculous. He wanted to be blatantly possessive, to pluck her from the carriage, carry her to the gate. He wanted to throw down a blanket and pull up her skirts right there in the open air where anyone could see them.

He wanted to—

He’d lost his mind.

That was the explanation, he thought, walking after Kate, who was hopping about and picking flowers like a five-year-old. Wick was right. The whole question of marriage, of Princess Tatiana’s imminent arrival, had rattled his mental state.

He was about to marry.
Marry.
Which made it all the more unfortunate that—he stopped and rearranged his breeches—there was no one he wanted to be with but one illegitimate daughter of a swineherd, gathering daisies a few feet away.

It was just like a fairy tale, except that life wasn’t like fairy tales, and princes didn’t get to be with swineherds’ daughters, not unless they broke every social convention they had learned in their life.

And he wasn’t going to.

Even though the look of Kate’s body as she bent over to pick another flower made him so hungry and possessive that he found his fingers were shaking. He put the basket down and let fly a volley of silent curses, his favorite method for regaining control.

It had worked in his brother’s court; it worked now.

“Let’s go in, shall we?” he called, walking to the door and unlocking it. The brick wall was high and very old, so old that he could see it crumbling in places where ivy was pulling it down.

He pushed the door open to a tangle of yarrow, butterbur, and purple comfrey. Mixed in here and there were the nodding heads of cabbage roses, petals thrown to the ground as if a young girl had been scattering birdseed.

“Oh!” Kate said. “It’s wonderful!” She ran forward, holding up her skirts. “It really
is
a secret garden. There are secret statues too. See, there’s one, almost hidden in that clump of sweetbriar.”

“Probably a goddess,” Gabriel said, as Kate pulled back the ivy trailing over pale stone shoulders. Together they pulled down a clump of ivy that hung over the statue’s face.

“Oh,” Kate said, her voice hushed. “She’s beautiful.”

“She’s crying,” Gabriel said, surprised.

Kate reached forward and wrenched at another tangled strand of ivy. “She’s an angel.”

The young angel’s wings were folded; she looked down, her face white as new snow and sadder than winter.

“Oh Lord,” Gabriel said, backing up a step. “This isn’t a secret garden, it’s a graveyard. They might have told me that.”

“Then where are the graves?” Kate said. “Look, there’s nothing at her feet but a pedestal. Wouldn’t the family be buried in the chapel?”

“Yes,” Gabriel said with relief, thinking of the tombs of the lords and ladies Pomeroy neatly lined up in the castle’s chapel. “But why on earth is she here otherwise?”

Kate was bending over and pulling ivy from the pedestal. Suddenly she started giggling.

“What?”

“It
is
a graveyard,” she said, laughing even harder.

“Remind me never to escort you on holy ground,” Gabriel said, bending over. He started reading aloud. “
In loving memory of . . .
who
?
I can’t read it.”

“
My dearest Rascal
,” Kate finished for him. She pulled aside a bit of sweetbriar and moved around the pedestal. “And not just Rascal either. Here’s Dandy and”—she moved again—“
Freddie
! Oh my, I have to bring my Freddie here. It’ll be like visiting the tombs of one’s ancestors in Westminster Abbey.”

“It appears that I have my own dog graveyard,” Gabriel said. “If I had a pack of them, the way you do, I could measure out their little graves while they were still alive. I’d start with Freddie, since he’s likely to die of fright any day now. I’ll show this place to my uncle; maybe he’ll feel better if we plant a statue out here of a pickle-eating dog.”

She poked him. “You’re ridiculous.”

He reached out and pulled off her wig. It came with a scattering of hairpins and a shriek. He plopped it on top of the long-suffering angel.

“Nice,” he said with satisfaction, not meaning the angel, who had taken on the look of a tipsy trollop in the pink wig.

The sun slanted over the rosy old bricks and loved Kate’s hair, every buttery, angry strand of it.

She was yelling at him, of course. No one ever yelled at him. No one but Kate . . . and that was because she was a different class, a class that didn’t know that you could never scold a prince.

He hadn’t even been reprimanded when he was nothing more than a princeling. His nurse, and his brothers’ nurses, knew their place. He used to push, when he was a lad, and try to make the servants angry. No one rebuked him, even when he set the nursery rug on fire. When Rupert got one of the upstairs maids with child, his father just laughed.

Only Wick had looked at him in disgust when he saw the rug and told him he was a right fool. He had struck him, of course, and Wick hit him back, and they ended up rolling on the ground, and afterward he felt better. Because a child knows when he deserves a scold, and if he doesn’t get it . . .

Well.

If someone had raked his brother Augustus over the coals once in a while, Gabriel thought, he wouldn’t have been so vulnerable to that infernal friar who happened by with his promises of gilded halos. Augustus knew inside—as they all knew—that he didn’t deserve all he had.

The truth of it made you distrust people, because they lied . . . In Augustus’s case, it made him afraid about what would happen after his death.

Kate didn’t lie. It was fascinating to hear the real anger in her voice.

And that anger, perversely, caused a rise in his breeches.

Or perhaps it was her hair. It shone as if strawberries had been woven into gold. “I just wanted to see your crowning glory,” he explained, breaking through her diatribe. “You’re right. It’s beautiful.”

“I
told
you,” Kate said, but he broke in when she took a breath.

“I know. You were saving it for the moment when you meet Prince Charming himself. Rubbish.” She had her hands on her hips and she was glaring at him like a proper fishwife. Gabriel felt a surge of happiness.

“It may be rubbish to you,” Kate said fiercely. “But I told you my reasons and you—you simply rode over them roughshod, because you think that anything you do is acceptable.”

He blinked at her, her words sinking in.

“Don’t you?” she demanded. “In your narrow, arrogant little world, you can snatch off a woman’s wig simply because you want to, and you could tear off butterfly’s wings too, no doubt, and father children on milkmaids, and—”

“For Christ’s sake,” Gabriel said. “How did we get from wigs to milkmaids and butterflies?”

“It’s all about you,” she said, glaring at him.

The ridiculous thing was that even though she was saying terrible things about him—all true, except for the butterflies and the illegitimate children—he just felt stiffer, more like snatching another one of those kisses and not stopping there, but tumbling her onto a patch of grass.

“Don’t think I misunderstand that look in your eye,” she said, and her own eyes got even sharper.

“What am I thinking?” Damned if his voice didn’t come out of his chest in a rumble, the kind of husky sound that a man makes when—

“You’re thinking that you’re going to break your own promise,” she said, folding her arms over her breasts. “You’re about to persuade yourself that I really
want
you to kiss me, even though you promised you wouldn’t. Because in your world—”

“I’ve heard that part,” he said. “About my narrow world. Do you want me to kiss you?”

He felt as if the whole world held its breath for that second, as if the aimless sparrows shut their beaks, and the bees hovered, listening.

“For Christ’s sake,” she said with disgust, turning away. “You’ll never understand, will you?”

He understood that the curve of her neck was somehow more delicious than that of any woman he had seen in years. As she had her back turned, he quickly rearranged his breeches again. “You think I’m a jackass,” he said helpfully. “You’re probably right too. Because I promised, I won’t kiss you. On the other hand, I never promised not to remove your wig. You instructed me, as regards your wig, which to my mind is something quite different from giving my word.”