A Kiss at Midnight (22 page)
H
enry watched them leave, and then turned to Kate. “I don’t suppose
you
know anything about the prince’s unlikely digression into knight-errantry?”
“I may have mentioned Effie’s plight,” Kate said cautiously.
“And he set off like a knight in shining armor to do your bidding. Curious, my dear. Very curious. If I were you, I’d be wary. When men start behaving like members of King Arthur’s court, they’re generally planning to shake the sheets, if you’ll excuse the phrase.
Your
sheets, in this case.”
“Oh no,” Kate said weakly. Her blood heated at the picture that presented, of Gabriel, tangled in her sheets, his hands pulling her to him, his . . .
“Oh yes,” Henry said. “Don’t bet your fortune on a card game, m’dear, because your sins are written on your face.”
“Sins? I haven’t—”
“Sins to come,” Henry said. But there was a smile in her eye. “Just don’t make a fool of yourself. Do you know how to prevent a babe?”
“Yes,” Kate said, a blush hot in her cheeks. “But I don’t need to know. I told him—” She shut her mouth.
“Fascinating,” Henry said. “Unfortunately, his wife-to-be will apparently arrive on the premises at any moment. Would you take her place, if you could?”
Kate shook her head, taking a dainty little teacup that Henry offered her. “No.”
“Why not? He’s personable, he’s got a fine leg, and he doesn’t smell. You could do much worse.”
“He’s my father all over again,” Kate said flatly, “down to the fact that he has to marry for money. It’s not his fault, exactly, nor was it my father’s. But I’m not going to lie in a darkened room while my husband is out wooing other women.”
Henry bit her lip. “I feel an unwelcome pang of guilt. I have to tell you that generally I never entertain the emotion.”
“I didn’t mean you,” Kate said. “Frankly, I’d much rather that my father had cavorted with you than with Mariana. My point is merely that he didn’t love my mother. He didn’t honor her, or even truly care for her. I want a
real
marriage, Henry.”
“A real marriage . . . It’s hard to know what you mean by that, love. Marriage is a complicated beast.”
“Surely it’s less complicated if one starts out with respect and affection,” Kate said.
“How do you know the prince doesn’t feel that for you?”
“He feels lust,” Kate said bluntly. “Which doesn’t mean much.”
“There’s nothing without lust,” Henry said. “Between men and women, I mean. Just think about your purported fiancé, Lord Dimsdale. If a woman was lucky enough to feel lust for him, affection might follow. Otherwise . . . I’m not so sure.”
“Gabriel doesn’t like the idea that he is, perforce, marrying for money. It doesn’t suit his character, and so he’s wooing me in his spare time, as it were. Toying with the idea of making me his mistress. Playing the prince enamored of the swine girl.”
There was a second of silence. “That’s a cold assessment of the man,” Henry said, finally. “I see him as a more passionate type, the kind who would throw his heart over a windmill if he met the woman for him.”
“No prince can do that,” Kate said. “His marriage is a matter of royal protocol and treaties and that sort of thing.”
“You can’t say he’s like your father in that regard,” Henry pointed out.
“My father should have married you.”
“Then you wouldn’t be here,” Henry said. “What’s more, I loved my first husband. And I love Leo, too. My second husband wasn’t terrible, though I can’t say I was quite as enthusiastic. I don’t want you to think that Juliet just keeps pining her whole life, because she doesn’t. Or rather, I didn’t.”
Kate laughed. “I can’t imagine you pining.”
“Precisely,” Henry said. “There’s no use to it.”
“I would simply like to marry without regard to money.”
“The more important point is not to fall in love with someone who
is
marrying with regard to money.”
“I won’t,” Kate promised.
“I wish I believed you,” Henry said, rather gloomily. “I would have fallen in love with the prince myself if I were your age.”
“I’ll find a man who loves me for myself, and then I’ll fall in love with
him
.”
“I’m trying to remember if I was ever as young as you are, but if so, the memory is lost in the mists of time.”
“I’m not young,” Kate said, grinning. “Practically an octogenarian, as you characterized Effie.”
Henry sighed. “I suppose that poor Dante is no longer in the running? I think he’s taken a great liking to you.”
“He’s a wonderful man,” Kate said.
“Too boring, the poor sweetheart, with all his talk of blackbirds and vicars. He’ll end up with Effie after all. Though I do like her considerably better than I did before.”
“He’d be lucky to end up with Effie,” Kate said. “She would keep him on his toes. She has a madly dramatic streak, you know.”
“Did you see the countess’s face when Effie described the prince as wielding the sword of heaven? She definitely has a way with words.” Henry rose. “This will be a very, very interesting evening. I hope that the Russian princess is beautiful indeed . . . for her own sake.”
A
s she followed her godmother out the door, Kate couldn’t bring herself to agree with Henry about the
interesting
evening.
Was it normal, could it be normal, to be absolutely in the grip of something as fierce as her anticipation of the evening seemed to be?
From the moment she’d awakened in the morning, she hadn’t been able to focus on anything other than Gabriel’s promise to kiss her, discover her, give her pleasure. And didn’t he say—didn’t he say
love her
? What did that mean?
Her obsession had only grown worse once it was clear that Gabriel had fulfilled his side of the bargain. Beckham was dispatched to parts unknown; Effie’s reputation was repaired and she would likely be married off within a fortnight, if Lady Dagobert had her way.
Kate had to fulfill her side of the promise, and let Gabriel do with her as he willed.
Henry went off to find her husband, and Kate continued up the stairs, desperately trying to pull her thoughts in order.
Give her pleasure
sounded . . . it sounded wonderful. Every bit of her body tingled at the thought, turned warm and soft. It was like a fire in her blood, a kind of madness. She couldn’t help looking everywhere for Gabriel, thinking he might come around the corner any moment.
It took all her self-control not to walk back down the stairs and loiter in the drawing room, waiting for him. Or worse, humiliate herself by asking Wick where his brother might be found.
The very thought of it stiffened her backbone, and she started walking more quickly down the corridor that led to the west wing.
She had to allow his kiss, whatever that was. But she didn’t have to humiliate herself by allowing him to know the feverish state she was in.
She would simply get through whatever it was he had planned . . . with her dignity intact. Her heart was pounding at the thought, and she began to walk faster and faster.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise when she rounded the corner into the picture gallery and barreled straight into someone.
It wasn’t Gabriel. She knew that instantly because her whole being was attuned to the spicy male scent of him. This man smelled faintly like a pigpen, with an overlay of soap.
“Your Highness,” she gasped, dropping into a deep curtsy before Gabriel’s uncle, Prince Ferdinand. “I do apologize. I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
“Miss Daltry, isn’t it?” he said, peering at her, his eyelids fluttering madly. His gray hair was flying straight up at the top of his head, and he wore a pair of pince-nez on the very tip of his nose. “No harm done, m’dear. I’ve been examining these paintings, trying to put together a bit of Pomeroy history. History is terribly important, you know.”
He was standing before a long-nosed patriarch. “This is the first of them,” he said. “Looks like this fellow built the castle back in the 1400s.”
“How long has it been since there was a Pomeroy living here?” Kate asked, curiosity replacing her embarrassment.
“Centuries,” Prince Ferdinand said. “I consulted some sort of peerage book that was hanging about in the library this morning. The line died out with the Tudors.” He moved down the line. “You see this lady? She’s the last of them.” He was standing before a sweet-faced woman with a little girl on her lap. She wore a stiff ruff, and a small dog poked its nose out from under her chair.
“She was the last duchess?” Kate said, wondering if the dog was Rascal, Dandy, or perhaps Freddie.
“They weren’t duchesses,” the prince corrected her. “Nothing higher than barons, actually. Well set-up barons, one has to assume. With a castle this size, they likely were of help to the crown, supplying an army and the like. England was a roustabout type of place back in the day.”
“Do you know her name?”
Prince Ferdinand took out a sheet of foolscap, covered with notes in shaky handwriting. “Eglantine,” he said, after a moment. “Or perhaps that was the child. No, it’s Lady Eglantine. Let me see if I can find her daughter’s name . . . I know I wrote it down here somewhere.”
“Could it be Merry?” Kate asked, reaching out a finger to touch the painted cheek of the smiling little girl.
“That sounds right,” the prince said, turning his sheet upside down. “Yes, I wrote it just here. Born in 1594, died in 1597. Only made it to three years old, poor scrap.”
“There’s a memorial for her in the garden,” Kate said.
“She’s likely buried in the chapel,” Prince Ferdinand said. “I’d look, but I can’t seem to find the key. My nephew must have it secreted somewhere; Berwick doesn’t know where it is. We haven’t got a chaplain, you know. The religious folk all stayed in Marburg, and we sinners took the boat to England.”
Kate dragged her eyes away from Merry and her mother. “To whom was Lady Eglantine married? This gentleman?” She gestured to a fierce-looking lord with his hand poised on his sword.
“Rather scandalously, it seems that she never married,” the prince said, pulling a hand through his hair, which made all the gray fluff stand up straight. “That gentleman is her brother, the last Lord Pomeroy. Died in a brawl, by all accounts, leaving no heir. He had never married either, and of course Eglantine wouldn’t have inherited. So the castle devolved to some distant cousin, a gentleman named Fitzclarence, and they lived here ever since. Two years ago, it came into the possession of the Duchy of Marburg.”
“How on earth did that happen?”
“My brother, Grand Duke Albrecht of Warl-Marburg-Baalsfeld, was attached to the Fitzclarences through King Frederick William II of Prussia’s first daughter, Princess Frederica Charlotte, to the Duchess of York and Albany . . . and through my second cousin, to Caroline of Brunswick,” he said, rattling off the names like a catechism. “Somehow in the middle of all that, Albrecht ended up with the castle. Sort of thing that does happen, more often than you’d think.”
Since Kate would never have thought about it, she kept silent.
“Likely no one would have bothered with the castle,” Prince Ferdinand continued, “and it would have just moldered away, but Augustus was looking for a way to send his rascally relatives packing.” There was a growling undertone in his voice that touched Kate.
“England is a comfortable place to live,” she offered. “It rains quite a lot, but we’re all decent folk.”
“I can see that,” Prince Ferdinand said. “And I didn’t mean to disparage it in the least, m’dear. We all feel the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune now and then. The one I feel sorry for is young Gabriel. You wouldn’t know this to look at him, but the fellow is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.”
“Really?” Kate ventured. Thinking of Gabriel’s fierce eyes, and the set of his jaw . . . you
would
know that he was brilliant, just by looking at him.
“Took a top degree. Set all the heads a-squawking at your Oxford. He published some sort of paper that forced them to think about how they excavate old places. He cares, you see. Lot of them don’t.”
Kate looked at him and suddenly realized that he was talking on two levels: Augustus, clearly, hadn’t cared for his rapidly blinking, elderly uncle. And Gabriel, who did care for his relatives, cared for history as well.
“I think the prince is happy to be here with you,” she said.
“Rather be off in strange lands mucking about with the tombs of kings and extinct cities,” Prince Ferdinand said. “But there, I’m old enough to know that life doesn’t give you what you wish.”
“Would you rather be in Marburg?”
“Not at the moment,” he said. “Not with things the way they are. Mighty unpleasant, those religious types can be. Always asking a fellow to memorize this or that Bible verse.” He gave her a small smile. “Another thing I’ve learned in m’life: You don’t learn kindness from memorizing even a whole book of the Bible. And that’s the important thing, to my mind.”
And without further farewell, he bowed and wandered off the way that Kate had come, leaving her standing before the portraits.
She looked once more at Eglantine and her daughter, Merry, and then set off again for her room.
When would Gabriel claim his kiss? Presumably before his bride-to-be arrived. It was all too ridiculous; the very idea of kissing a betrothed man was scandalous. Somehow she didn’t care.
Fire danced over her pulses again.
She would take a perfumed bath. After all those years working for Mariana, she still found the luxury of a bath to be the greatest pleasure in being a lady.
Then she meant to have an argument with Rosalie. She didn’t want to wear her bosom friends. She was sick of jutting out in front like the prow of a ship, and of the feeling that she had her breasts presented on a platter for men to ogle at.
Though of course it mattered most who was doing the ogling.
The very thought of Gabriel’s eyes and the way he had looked at her wet bodice after saving her from the lake . . .
She wrenched open the door to her chamber, thinking of pulling the bell cord to summon her maid. She darted into the room, reached her hand out—froze.
She wasn’t alone.