A Kiss at Midnight (23 page)

Twenty-nine

H
e was seated in a chair by the window, reading, and the sun was making bronze streaks in his hair. “I wouldn’t pull that cord, if I were you,” he said, turning the page, a wicked little smile hovering at the edge of his mouth. “Your maid might be shocked.”

“Gabriel,” she said, feeling blood pound through her body and a terrible, strange joy take hold of her. “What are you doing in my chamber?”

“Waiting for you,” he said, finally raising his eyes. “You owe me. In case you had forgotten.”

“I have heard something of the matter,” she said, drifting away from him toward the other side of the room. It felt too small with him in it. “Where’s Freddie? He usually sleeps on the bed while I’m gone.”

“The one to ask about is Caesar,” Gabriel said. “That dog is as short-tempered as my aunt Sophonisba, and that’s saying quite a lot.”

Kate frowned and looked on the other side of the bed. “What have you done with them?”

“Freddie is here,” Gabriel said. “Lazy sod.”

She looked over and saw Freddie lying between the arm of the chair and Gabriel’s leg. His chin was resting on the prince’s thigh and there was a look of utter bliss on his face. She laughed. “Well, what of Caesar, then?”

“Locked in your dressing room,” Gabriel said. “I believe that mongrel thought I was an intruder.”

“You
are
an intruder,” Kate said, plucking open the door to her little dressing room. “There you are, Caesar. Did you try to warn me that my room had been invaded?”

“I thought he’d have an apoplectic fit,” Gabriel said.

Caesar seemed chastened now. He growled at Gabriel’s boots but otherwise kept his mouth shut.

Kate got down on her knees and gathered him up. “You’re a good dog,” she told him. “You knew this rascally prince did not belong in my room because he might ruin my reputation, and you did your best to tell the world, didn’t you?”

Caesar gave a little woof in the affirmative.

“One would almost think you’re fond of that animal,” Gabriel said, putting down his book.

She looked at him over Caesar’s silky head. “You must leave my room, Gabriel. If anyone knew you were here—”

“I know,” he said, pulling out a length of black lace. “I brought along the veil. No one will see us leaving together.”

“I’m not going with you anywhere,” she said instantly. “I want a bath, and then a rest before tonight. Has your princess arrived yet, by the way?”

“She’s on her way,” he said. “Should be here in a few hours. Wick has all the servants in a pother over it.”

Kate looked at him dubiously. “You must be . . . Are you excited to meet her?”

“Enthralled,” he said flatly. “There’s dancing tonight, and you can’t dance.”

“I can try,” she said with dignity.

“Not until you’ve had lessons. Not unless you want everyone to know that you’re not Victoria. The lucky thing is that given the arrival of Princess Tatiana, no one will even notice if you don’t make an appearance. They’ll be too busy ogling her.”

“They’ll notice if
you
don’t,” she pointed out.

“I’ll have to come and go,” Gabriel said.

“Come and go from where?” she asked suspiciously. “I only promised you a kiss, Gabriel. You’re making this sound like an event.”

“I took my life into my hands last night, fighting that blackguard,” he said, his eyes innocent. “Of course I expect you to spend some time with me.”

“Spend time where?” she said. “Were you really in danger?”

He held out his hand. Still kneeling, with Caesar on her lap, Kate leaned over and saw a tiny cut on one knuckle. “Dear me. I’m like to swoon just thinking of the peril you were in.”

“Wretch,” he said. “I think we should leave Freddie here, don’t you?” He ran a finger over the dog’s sleek head. “We wouldn’t want to embarrass him.” Freddie gave a luxurious sigh. “Wick will send up a footman to give the dogs an airing later.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Kate stated. “As I said, I am planning to take a bath and a nap.”

“I approve,” he said. “It’ll be a sacrifice, but I’ll leave you to take a bath alone, I promise.”

“I like it here,” she said, stubbornly.

“My chambers are in the turret,” he said. “Please, Kate. I’ll show you that pot, the one that held the knucklebones.”

She opened her mouth to say no, but there was just a shadow of uncertainty in his eyes. Something else too, something that she’d never seen in a man’s eyes before.

“Tatiana isn’t yet here,” he said. “Not in my castle. Please.”

Her eyes dropped to his mouth, and she was lost. “What about my maid?” she asked helplessly. “She’ll come to dress me soon.”

“I told Wick to keep her occupied.”

“You told
Wick
?” She got off her knees, Caesar scrambling to the floor. “Just what did you tell Wick?”

Gabriel rose to his feet. “Believe me, I was in more danger from Wick than from Beckham. He was livid when I told him you would—”

“I can’t believe you told him that!” Kate cried. “Don’t you know what you’ve done? Everyone in this bloody castle will think I’m a doxy before the evening is out!”

Gabriel’s jaw set. “Wick is my brother. He’s my right hand and my closest friend. He would
never
tell a soul, if only because he deeply disapproves.”

“And well he should,” she flashed. “I can’t go to your rooms! Even to be seen on the way there is tantamount to ruin.”

“You won’t be seen,” Gabriel said. “My aunt is housed in the same tower as I am, and you will be wearing her veil.”

“This is too dangerous,” she said. “We might well run into an acquaintance of the princess’s. What if we meet Lady Dagobert? She told me a short time ago that she knows everyone. Algie will wonder where I am.”

“Wick has already informed Lady Wrothe and your supposed fiancé that you are suffering from a stomach upset,” he said promptly.

“You take a great deal upon yourself,” she said, glowering at him.

“Please, Kate.”

The sad truth was that his
please
was irresistible. “I suppose I would like to see the little pot. I could visit you for an hour. At the most,” she added.

He held out the veil. “If you please, love.”

“Don’t call me that,” she said, shaking down the veil so that a muffling layer of black lace stood between her and the world. “I’m not your love. I’m merely—I’m merely—”

“Do tell,” he said, taking her arm. “To ask my earlier question a different way, what
are
you? Wick wanted to know the same thing and threatened to lay me out cold when I said that to my mind you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever dream of seducing, not that I plan to.”

“I almost wish he had laid you out,” Kate said. “I’m sure this will all end badly.”

“Well, just think of this: Everyone would think that I was trifling with Miss Victoria Daltry, not with you,” Gabriel said.

“They already think that,” Kate said gloomily. “Victoria will be furious with me.”

“Because you’ve marred her reputation?”

“She didn’t even have the fun of the flirtation,” she pointed out. “Not to mention the fact that Victoria is truly in love with Algie.”

“I find that hard to imagine,” Gabriel said. “He was with us last night, you know. He told me that he would have gone to Oxford, but he judged it a waste of time.”

“Yes, that’s Algie,” she said, resigned. “I’m sorry.”

“A sharp right turn ahead, and we haven’t seen a soul yet. Why are you sorry? He’s apparently a sprig from
my
family tree.”

To her horror, at that very moment she heard a cheerful, familiar voice somewhere in the vicinity.

And that voice was singing. “
That very morning to the spring I came
,” Algie sang, rather tunefully. To her horror, he sounded a bit tipsy. “
Where finding beauty culling nakedness
—” He broke off, obviously seeing them.

Kate tried to peer through the veil but all she could see were people-shaped mounds that looked like moving piles of coal.

“Princess Maria-Therese, may I present Lord Dewberry and Lord Dimsdale,” Gabriel said. She sank into a tottering curtsy, mumbling something.

“It’s a great pleasure to meet you,” Lord Dewberry said.

Algie was undoubtedly engaged in one of his floor-scraping bows.

“Step back, for God’s sake, man,” Dewberry said. “You’re going to topple over if you bow forward like that.”

Kate’s heart was pounding so hard that she felt as if they must hear it. If Algie discovered her, it would be one thing, but Lord Dewberry . . .

“I hope you are in good health, Your Highness?” Algie said cheerfully.

“My aunt is undoubtedly shocked by your song,” Gabriel said before she could say anything. “Have you imbibed of the grape, Viscount?” He sounded more pompous than she could have imagined.

“We’ve been on a tour of the wine cellars with Berwick,” Algie said. Yes, he was definitely tipsy, if not three sheets to the wind. “Lovely wine collection you have, Your Highness.”

“I am escorting my aunt to her chambers,” Gabriel said. “If you gentlemen would please excuse us.”

“I suppose she’s my aunt as well, in some degree,” Algie said. “Shall I take your other arm, Your Highness?”

Kate shrank back against Gabriel and shook her head violently.

“The princess is quite particular about those with whom she associates,” Gabriel said. His voice rang with authority, as if he were the Grand Duke himself.

“Of course,” Algie said hastily. “I meant no disrespect, Your Highness.”

With huge relief, she heard the clatter of their heels as they continued down the corridor. And then, just as the sound died out, she heard Algie say, “Woman looks like an awful goat in that get-up. Someone should tell her we don’t hold with nuns over here.”

There was a murmur from Dewberry and a last word from Algie. “All I’m saying is that she reminds me of the Grim Reaper. Could use her to frighten children at night.”

The hand on her arm was shaking. “Stop laughing!” Kate hissed.

“Can’t,” Gabriel said, his voice choked. “One shouldn’t ever know one’s relatives socially. It’s so lowering to one’s
amour propre
.”

“What does that mean?” Kate asked. “Are we almost there?”

“Just the stairs left,” he said, taking a firmer grip on her elbow. “
Amour propre
is a man’s sense of himself. The very idea of Algernon gracing my family tree takes the edge off my self-esteem.”

“Good,” Kate said firmly. “It’s likely the first time in his life that Algie’s been so useful.”

Thirty

G
reat stone steps curved up the inside wall of the turret. Kate concentrated on not tripping over her floor-length veil, trying not to think about the foolish mistake she was making even climbing those steps.

Gabriel meant to seduce her. She knew it in her bones. So why, why was she taking step after step into his lair, so to speak? Was she to be the second of her father’s daughters to disgrace his memory by finding herself unmarried and with child?

Not that her father’s memory could be disgraced, she reminded herself. What disgracing there was to do, he had done himself. The very memory of her father and his philandering made her jaw set.

She would see Gabriel’s little pot. And she would let him kiss her. But nothing further, and that much only because—it would be stupid to deny it to herself—she had the most terrible infatuation with the man.

Which probably happened to the prince at least every other Tuesday, and unless she wanted simply to be grist for the mill of his arrogance, she would never let him know. So, as she threw off the veil, she put a nonchalant look on her face, as if she visited gentlemen’s chambers on a regular basis.

As if those same gentlemen planned to kiss her into a wanton frenzy, and the only thing standing between them and her virtue was the strength of her will.

Unfortunately for Gabriel’s plans, her will had gotten her through seven years of hard labor, humiliation, and grief. It would get her through this encounter unscathed.

“What a lovely room!” she cried, turning around. From the outside, the castle’s two turrets looked squat and round, like baker’s hats. But the rooms inside were high-ceilinged and airy. “You’ve put in glass windows,” she said appreciatively, going over to look.

“They were here when I arrived,” Gabriel said, coming to stand at her shoulder.

“And what a view,” she exclaimed. The castle stood at the top of a slight hill. The window at which she stood looked to the back of the castle, and manicured lawns stretched before her, edged at the far end with a stand of beeches.

“The maze looks so simple from above,” she murmured, putting her fingers against the cool glass. “Yet Henry and I failed to make it through and were dumped out there, by the ostrich’s cage.”

“It is simple, but clever. I’ll show you how to get to the center.” He was leaning against the wall, looking at her, not at the maze. His eyes touched her like a caress, sending a prickle of warning down her spine. At the same time, warmth drifted to her more intimate parts.

He wasn’t supposed to look at her like that. Rank seducers didn’t look like that. They didn’t say things that assumed time beyond the present, space outside this small room.

“I can stay only a moment or two,” she said, as much to herself as him.

“You’ll like the view over here,” he said, taking her hand and leading her across the room. The windows opposite looked down onto the dusty drive which she and Algie had traveled a few short days ago. From above, the road drifted along by twists and turns into a violet distance where dark groves met the late afternoon sun.

“It makes you think of a fairy tale,” she said, awed.

“The kind where a prince waits at your feet?” He said it lightly, but there was something there too.

“A princess is making her way up that road,” Kate pointed out. She turned away again and flitted rather blindly across the room until she was brought up short by an enormous carved bed. As if she’d been scorched, she swung about and walked in the opposite direction.

“Well,” she said, “perhaps we should have that kiss now.”

“Not yet,” Gabriel said.

Kate sat down on a beautiful little chair, upholstered in coral velvet, and took time arranging her skirts. Then she looked up. She was tired of the game of wits they were playing. It was too sophisticated for her, too reminiscent of the sort of complicated and refined conversations that Henry likely had with her beaux
.

“You asked the right question earlier,” she said. “Who am I?”

He sat down opposite her, not taking his eyes from hers.

“I am the elder daughter of my father, Victor Daltry. He was the younger son of an earl, and had a snug estate, built from my mother’s dowry. After my mother died, he left the entire estate to my stepmother, Mariana, who bestowed it on her own daughter, Victoria.”

“You are not illegitimate,” he stated.

“No. My parents were married.”

“And your grandfather was an earl.”

“I have almost no dowry,” she said. “Mariana dismissed my governess and most of the household staff seven years ago, when my father died. I can bargain down the price of bread; I can mend a stocking; I cannot dance a polonaise.”

He took her hand, turned it over. “I am sorry.”

“I should have left years ago, but that would have meant leaving my father’s servants and his tenants at Mariana’s mercy. I stayed, though my stepmother dismissed the bailiff. She could not dismiss me, you see.”

Gabriel put her palm to his mouth and kissed it. “Go on.”

“There’s nothing else to tell,” she said. “Now I have decided to leave, which probably means that Mariana will throw out most of our tenants, who are hardly scrabbling an existence as it is. The harvest was poor last year.”

He nodded.

“The woman who is on her way to you . . . she is a princess.”

With a gesture so graceful that it seemed natural to him, he slipped from the chair to his knees beside her. “True.”

“Your brother Augustus is an ass to have thrown out his family, and you have a castle to support. I know what it’s like to have responsibilities of that sort.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, and the color of his eyelashes was like the color of regret. With a kind of piercing sorrow, she knew that she would never forget this prince.

It wasn’t his dark head and fierce eyes, his unruly hair. It was the way he’d taken in his odd relatives, the menagerie, his aunt’s reader, even the ostrich and the pickle-eating dog. It was the way he looked at her, the way he laughed, the way he brushed the weeds from Merry’s face.

And she would never, ever forget the moment when a prince knelt at the side of her chair. When she was old and gray, and contemplating a life that she hoped would be richly satisfying, she would still remember this.

“If I were not a prince, would you have me?” He said it so low that she almost didn’t hear. “To put it another way, if you had thousands of pounds, Kate, if your estate was your own, would you buy me? Because that’s what I needed, you know. I needed a woman who thought I was worth the price, and my brother found one in Russia.”

“Don’t ask me that,” she whispered. “My mother bought my father, and he never gave her a moment’s happiness. I would
never
buy a man.”

He bent his head again. “The question is irrelevant; I apologize for asking it.”

“Why did you ask it?”

“Do you have any idea what it’s like to be a prince?” His head jerked back up, and his eyes were bitter, his mouth a hard line. “I cannot do as I wish. I cannot be what I wish. I cannot marry whom I wish.”

She bit her lip.

“I am trained to put my honor and my house above all else. I think the pressure of it has driven my brother Augustus a little mad. He is an ass, as you say. But he’s also crippled by the burden of having so many souls depending on him.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“I would like, just once, for a woman to see me as other than a person with a coronet. Simply as a man, no different than other men.” The words wrenched from his chest.

She stopped him by putting her hands to his face. “Hush.” His lips felt cool and soft under hers, and for a moment she just paused there, in an innocent kiss, the kind that maidens give each other.

But his skin was prickly under her fingers, and his smell, his wild masculine scent, came to greet her, and her mouth opened instinctively. One stroke of her tongue and his arms came around her, strong as steel bands.

She toppled forward against his chest and he swept an arm under her legs and just held her there, against him, his mouth slow and fierce at the same time. He kissed so sweetly that she could have wept, and yet the warmth building in her legs at the touch of his tongue against hers made her feel nothing like crying.

She gave some sort of inarticulate murmur and wound her arms around his neck.

“Yes,” he whispered fiercely. “This is the way it is with us, Kate. Isn’t it?”

She couldn’t answer because she was waiting for him to kiss her again. “Please,” she said, finally.

He laughed, a dark sound that felt like canary wine rushing through her veins. “You’re mine for the moment, Kate. Do you hear me?”

She raised her head and met his eyes. “Not a prince, but a man,” she whispered, running her hands into his thick hair, so that his ribbon slipped over one shoulder and fell to the ground. “Gabriel, not Your Highness.”

“And you are Kate, my Kate,” he said to her. His lips rubbed across hers as if they were young wooers, too simple to know the ways of the wicked. “I won’t take your virginity, because that is yours to give and not mine to take. But Kate, I warn you now that I intend to take everything else.”

He looked down at her, and the expression in his eyes was pure sinful invitation. Kate felt her lips curl without her conscious volition. “How do you know,” she whispered, “that I won’t do the same for you?”

Gabriel closed his eyes for a moment. “I have no doubt of that.”

She leaned forward and licked, delicately, the strong column of his neck. A shudder went through his body and then he rose, still holding her. Kate thought he would lay her on the bed and tear off her clothes.

But instead he put her gently back into the little velvet chair. “Stay,” he commanded, for all the world as if she were Caesar.

“Gabriel,” she said, conscious of the husky timbre in her voice. “Won’t you—won’t you kiss me again?” And she stood up, because she was never any good at taking orders, as Mariana could attest.

“You’re so much taller than other women,” he said. He put a finger on her nose and then drew it slowly down to her chin. “You have a beautiful nose.”

“That’s the compliment I was longing for,” she said wryly.

“This is my evening,” he said, “and I have planned it very carefully.”

Kate put her hands on her hips. She felt saucy and sensuous and joyful all at once, as if desire and laughter were bubbling in her veins. “Oh, so you think you can merely order me about?”

“I have to come and go,” he said, grinning back. “But do you know what I have in mind, Kate?”

She shook her head. “Devilry, no doubt,” she muttered.

“I’m going to drive you mad,” he said, conversationally. “I’m going to kiss you and tease you and taste you . . . and leave. And then I’ll come back and do the same thing again. And again.”

Her mouth fell open. “You will?” Rather to her embarrassment, her voice didn’t sound scandalized as much as curious.

He stepped away from her. “You said you wanted a rest. Would you like a bath or a nap first?”

Kate looked around the great circular room. There was a curtained area to one side, but other than that, it was all one chamber. “You want me to take a nap? Here?” He must have no idea how the blood was pounding through her, warming parts of her body that she rarely thought about. “I’m not sure I can rest at the moment.”

“I understand,” he said, as courteously as if he had offered her a cup of tea. “Perhaps later. Well, I’m afraid that I need to dress for the evening meal. Would you like to sit down? This won’t take long.”

Kate blinked. Was he planning to undress in front of her? “What of your valet?”

“My valet has been commandeered to help Wick this evening,” he said with a grin. “So I have to dress myself.” He reached up and began to slowly untie his cravat.

“Do you need assistance?” Kate asked, mesmerized by the golden skin that appeared as he pulled the cravat free.

Looking at her, he shook his head and widened his stance. As if he had bade her, the movement made her eyes go to his legs. His breeches were tight, molded to his thighs. She jerked her gaze back up in embarrassment.

With an easy movement he pulled off his coat and tossed it on the bed. He was wearing a waistcoat of striped toilinette edged with crimson binding. It fitted close to his chest; a beautiful linen shirt billowed as he casually pulled it free of his breeches.

Kate watched as if she were entranced, not saying a word. She almost felt as if she were at the circus, at a special private performance. There was an air of theater to Gabriel, and the dramatic, laughing flare in his eye showed that he was exploiting every second of it.

“I need help with my cuffs,” he said. With an easy stride, he presented one cuff to her. She bent her head over the snowy linen, and pulled apart the small ruby buttons that held his cuffs together.

Without a word, he held out the other cuff. It was curiously erotic, the turn of his wrist, the way the shirt fell back on his arm. “How did you get this scar?” she said, touching a white mark on his forearm.

“Excavating in Egypt,” he said. “Two years ago. I was bitten by a barga snake; the only remedy is to slash the bite as quick as you can and let it bleed free. Luckily I had a knife to hand.”