A Kiss at Midnight (31 page)

But it was too deep, too greedy to last. He started pumping faster, and she was crying now, arching hard against him, and then they broke, together, shattering time and silence and any molecule of space between them, molding their bodies into one flesh, one heart.

He stayed like that, bent over her like any animal with its mate, until she made a small noise and straightened against him.

At that moment, a hissing noise sounded in the distance and, as they both turned to watch, an explosion was followed by a rain of emerald-green sparks, falling back to earth.

Kate was shaking her skirts down but she stopped, her eyes meeting his. His heart thumped in his chest. “I’m so glad,” she said, “that those fireworks didn’t happen a minute or two ago. It would have been absurd.”

Another explosion . . . Ruby sparks melted, turned to pink, and died.

He couldn’t bring himself to answer her, to say a word. Instead he helped her put up her hair, his fingers lingering in its thick gold, stealing a last touch. Then he took her hand and led her from the center of the maze.

She raised her face to his as they turned the last corner. He didn’t move, so she had to find his mouth with her own. She took—or was it a gift?—that last kiss with cool deliberation, as if she were giving him a message that he could not interpret.

In the last patch of darkness, he knelt again at her feet, genuflecting as would any medieval knight to his lady.

Her small foot rested trustingly in his hand as he slipped her shoe over the arch of her foot. Then the other, and he had to stand up. He couldn’t stay there in the darkness forever.

“Kate,” he said, once standing. He reached out for her again, his grip tightening on her arms.

The orchestra began playing . . . they had moved down beside the lake, and the notes of a waltz swept into the quiet night like a joyful wind. He shifted his grip, one hand dropping to her waist.

“You said,” she whispered, “anyone who saw us waltzing would know that we were lovers.”

“No,” he said fiercely. “They will know only that I am in love with you. Please, dance with me, Kate.”

She put her hand in his, smiled, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. Without saying a word, he held her hand high and swept her into a slow waltz. She didn’t follow perfectly, so he pulled her tight, showed her silently how to feel by the press of his body which way he was about to turn.

Sure enough . . . she learned, she learned. By a moment later they danced together as if the air had decided to embrace the wind, as if they were two blossoms caught on a warm draft.

The music came to an end. Gabriel had not taken his eyes from her face, never glanced over his shoulder to see whether they had an audience. He didn’t care.

She curtsied, held out her hand to be kissed.

Gabriel stayed in the shadow of the hedge, watching Kate pick her way across the grass toward Henry, who turned toward her and gave her a swift kiss.

The evening seemed endless. Finally they were summoned back to the drawing room by Wick, who had footmen circulating with hot drinks for those who were chilled, and tiny, delectable pastries for those who were hungry. Gabriel stayed at Tatiana’s side. He felt like an automaton, but there he stayed, escorting her from place to place, laughing when she giggled, smiling when she smiled.

Dragging his eyes away from the bright flame that was Kate.

Suddenly he realized that Tatiana was addressing him. “Your Highness,” she repeated.

“Forgive me,” he said, turning back. Ormskirk was standing beside Kate next to the fireplace; he was leaning over Kate . . . It looked as if Kate was saying goodbye to Henry and Leo, but that couldn’t be. She couldn’t be leaving . . . he had to see her tomorrow morning, see her one more time.

Tatiana looked up at him. She was a tiny thing, but there was a firmness to her chin and a strength in her eyes. “Would you be so kind as to escort me to my chamber?”

“Of course,” Gabriel said, turning his back on Kate.

Tatiana placed her fingers delicately on his arm and they began to walk from the room. She had exquisite manners, smiling and nodding at various guests, even as she said: “There is a sadness in you, prince.”

He cleared his throat. “I am sure you misinterpret—”

“No,” she said. They had reached the door, then the entryway. She drew him into the shadow, to the right of the great arched door standing open to the courtyard. “I do not misinterpret. I see what I see.”

Gabriel had no idea what he was supposed to say.

“I saw you waltzing with that lovely woman. I suppose,” she said thoughtfully, “that you have a story.”

He blinked at her.

“A love story,” she clarified. “You have a story, or so we call it. Many, oh many, of my relatives have a story in their past. We are passionate, we Cossacks. We love to be in love. And it seems to me that you have such a story as well.”

There didn’t seem to be any reason to deny it. Tatiana was not angry, nor was she particularly upset. “Something of the sort,” he admitted.

Tatiana nodded. Her eyes were sympathetic, very kind. “We in Kuban know our fairy stories,” she said.

“As do I,” he answered, knowing exactly what she was saying. “All stories come to an end.” He leaned down and dropped a kiss on her nose. “You are a very sweet person, princess.”

There was a faint sound, like a muffled sob, a scuffle of a jeweled heel . . . he raised his head in just enough time to see the flash of cream taffeta disappear through the arch to his right.

He swore and started after Kate, never thinking of what it must look like to Tatiana, to anyone who watched. She was flying across the courtyard, through the arch leading to the outer courtyard steps, without looking back.

He ran faster.

But he was too late.

The courtyard shone empty in the moonlight. In the near distance he could hear the trundling sound of carriage wheels starting down the gravel drive.

Too late, too late, too late.

He took one step forward, thinking to run after the carriage, to run mad, madder than he already was. His foot brushed something.

He bent down.

It was one of Kate’s glass slippers. It shimmered in his hand, as delicate and absurd as any bit of feminine nonsense he’d ever seen in his life.

He said it aloud, because there was no reason to be silent. “I am—undone. She has undone me.”

And his hand closed around the glass slipper.

Thirty-nine

K
ate’s godmother’s house was exceptionally comfortable: cozy, expensive, and slightly dissipated. “Just like Coco,” Henry pointed out. They were lounging in her dressing room, whose walls were covered in watered silk, hand-painted with rather improbable coral-colored primroses. “She and I both have the air of a
très-coquette
. Leo says that my little darling graced a brothel in her past life.”

Kate looked over at Coco, who was perfectly groomed and ornamented, as of this morning, with a sprinkling of amethysts. “She’s too self-conscious to be a good trollop. A man could tell with one glance that she only wanted the coin.”

“That’s the nature of the job,” Henry said, very sensibly. “Now listen, darling.”

Kate got up and walked to the window, knowing from the tone in Henry’s voice that she wouldn’t want to listen. The dressing room window looked to the front of the house, onto a small public garden, windswept and rather forlorn. “Winter is drawing in,” she said. “The chestnut trees are all tinged with gold.”

“Don’t try to distract me with palavering about nature,” Henry said. “You know I wouldn’t know a chestnut from a conker. What I want to say, darling, is that you need to stop it.”

Kate stared out the window, her shoulders tight, hunched against the truth of it, against the warmth in her godmother’s voice. Her head hurt. Her head always hurt these days. “Chestnuts
are
conkers,” she said.

Henry ignored that feeble digression. “It’s been over a month,” she said. “Wait! Even longer.”

“Well over a month,” Kate said drearily. “Forty-one days, if you want an exact number.”

“Forty-one days of you in a vile temper,” Henry said. “That’s enough.”

Kate came and knelt by the arm of Henry’s low chair. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t mean to be so sharp.”

“I know you can’t help it, up to a point.” Henry tapped her on the chin with one beringed finger. “That point has come.”

“I don’t mean to—have I really been in a vile temper?”

“Did you just imply that my darling Coco would fail as a night walker?” Henry demanded.

Kate couldn’t stop a weak chuckle. “I did.”

“I can assure you that she would be in the
highest
demand, as indeed would I be, should we have taken up such an insalubrious occupation. And last night at dinner, did you not inform Lady Chesterfield that her daughter was as adorable as a
newborn calf
?”

“She is,” Kate said feebly. “Same absurd expression on both of them.”

“And finally,” Henry concluded, “did you not advise Leo that his sister’s hair was now the exact color of horse manure in the spring?”

“But I didn’t say so to
her
.”

“Thank God for small favors.”

“It’s just that particular shade of olive green,” Kate said. “I’ve never seen it anywhere else in nature.”

“It wasn’t a question of nature, as any fool would know. The poor woman wanted to turn her straw to gold and it didn’t work out. I’m not saying you haven’t been a pleasure to live with, in some respects. I particularly enjoyed your characterization of the regent as Aaron’s rod with a bend in the middle. Though really, one shouldn’t joke about royalty, no matter how limp they are reputed to be.”

“I’m sorry,” Kate said, kissing Henry on the cheek again. “I’ve been horrible to live with. I know it.”

“It would be better if you would at least leave the house now and then. I miss going to the theater.”

“I will,” she promised.

“Tonight,” Henry said, folding her arms. “Tonight you are reentering society, Kate.”

“I’ve never really been
in
it, have I?”

“All the more reason that you start now.”

Kate clambered up from her knees, feeling very old and sad. She walked back over to the window, where twilight was drawing in over the chestnuts, and the last rays of sun were slanting through the boughs. Oddly enough, there was a bit of bustle in the park, which was generally as lonesome as a stone.

“You did the right thing,” Henry announced, from behind her.

Kate turned around. Her godmother hadn’t said a word about Gabriel, not since . . . not for forty-one days.

“You gave him a chance to man up, and he couldn’t do it.”

“He had responsibilities.”

Henry snorted. “You’re better off without him. And you were definitely right not to tell him about the possibility you had a dowry. Just look how large that dowry turned out to be. I expect that you could sense intuitively that it would make all the difference to him, and I can’t imagine a worse reason for him to break his betrothal.”

“I didn’t sense it. I just thought . . . I hoped. Stupidly, I suppose.” It had been forty-one days, and she was stupid to keep a tiny flame of hope alive, merely because there had been no marriage announcement for Princess Tatiana. But who knew when that marriage was supposed to take place?

For all she knew, they had returned to Russia to consecrate their union there.

“One should never hope that men will rise to the occasion,” Henry said sadly. “They don’t, as a matter of course.”

Kate looked at the window again. Her shoulders were stiff and achy from holding in the pain and the tears. But she was so sick of weeping, so sick of wondering why Gabriel was the way he was.

It was like some sort of puzzle box. He was the way he was because he was a prince . . .

The line went drearily around and around in her head.

Henry’s arms came around her shoulders and she was enveloped in a little cloud of perfume as sweet as treacle. “You’ll hate me for this, but some small part of me is glad that Gabriel turned out to be lacking the courage to break his engagement.”

“Why?”

Henry turned her around. “Because I got to spend this time with you,” she said, tucking one of Kate’s curls behind her ear. “You are the child I never had, sweet Kate. You’re the best gift that Victor ever gave anyone.” Her eyes were shiny with tears. “I love him all over again for that, because I love you. And though I hate to see you so sad, the greedy part of me is terribly grateful for the time we’ve spent together in the last few weeks.”

Kate gave her a wobbly smile and pulled her into an embrace. “I feel the same way,” she said, hugging Henry tight. “It makes up for all those years with Mariana.”

“Well,” Henry said, a second later, “I’m actually getting tearful. You’ll think that I joined Leo in a preprandial brandy. I didn’t really mean it about Gabriel. I wish he’d been the man you hoped he was, darling. I truly do.”

“I know,” Kate said.

“Men come and men go,” Henry continued. “They’re like icicles.”

“Icicles,” Kate said stupidly, turning back to watch the men in the gardens bustling about. Their shapes were black outlines against the dark blue sky.

“They hang beautifully, and look all shiny and new, but then they break off with a crash and the really bad ones melt,” Henry said with a sigh. “What on earth are those people doing in the gardens? It looks as if they’re setting a Guy Fawkes bonfire. Is it Guy Fawkes Day?”

“Isn’t that November?” Kate asked. Mariana had hardly been one for honoring public holidays.

Henry gave her a last squeeze. “We’ll go out to the theater tonight and you can lap up some lovely attention from Ormskirk. His notes are getting more and more frantic. I think he believes you to be wasting away. You’ve lost Dante as a prospect. I had a letter from Effie’s mother just now, and she accepted him.”

“Good for her,” Kate said. “I’m so glad Lord Hathaway fought off all those young men and won her hand.”

“So it’s time for you to disprove Ormskirk’s fears of your imminent death,” Henry insisted.

“I am certainly robust,” Kate said. The shadows under her eyes and the hollows in her cheeks were gone. It wasn’t fair that pain in the heart should feel so much more debilitating than mere exhaustion.

“I’m going to send a footman over there to inquire what on earth is going on,” Henry said, stepping closer to the window frame. “Look at all the birds. They look as if they’re having a proper gossip.”

The trees were full of blackbirds, flying up in little groups and landing again in clusters.

“Maybe they’re having a roast of some sort,” Kate suggested, “and the birds are waiting for them to break out the bread.”

“A roast?” Henry said. “In this neighborhood? I highly doubt it. Look, they’re lighting the bonfire. It’s a big one, I must say.”

At that moment there was a scratch at the door and Henry’s new butler entered with a silver salver. “My lady,” he said, “a note has arrived.”

“Has arrived,” Henry asked. “From whom? Do you have any idea what’s going on in the park, Cherryderry?”

“This note comes from the gentlemen in the park,” he said. “But no, I am not certain of the nature of the activity.”

“Would you mind asking Mrs. Swallow to send more tea, Cherryderry?” Kate asked.

He bowed and departed; Henry tapped the note against her chin consideringly.

“Aren’t you going to open it?” Kate inquired.

“Of course I am. I’m just wondering if I should send a footman for the Watch. I wish Leo was home; he would know what to do. Look how those sparks are going up into the trees. What if it all catches on fire?”

“Open up the note and see what on earth is going on,” Kate said.

“I can’t,” Henry said.

“What?”

“It’s addressed to you.”