A Kiss at Midnight (7 page)

Eleven

W
e’re eating with the family,” Algie said nervously. “ ‘In family’ they call it.”

“
En famille
,” Kate corrected him.

“I suppose that’s the language they speak over in Marburg. I probably won’t understand a word.”

“Actually, that’s French,” Kate said.

“French? I learned that at Eton.” There was a pause. “More or less . . . do you suppose that’s what they speak at the table?”

“I shall translate, if need be,” Kate told him, thinking that it was a good thing she had come rather than Victoria, who didn’t speak a word of French. Thankfully, she herself had learned the language before her father died. “Do you know anything of the prince’s entourage?”

But Algie knew nothing of his mother’s family and had never, it seemed, bothered to inquire.

The meal was served in a delightful room that, although Berwick referred to it as the “small morning room,” was bigger than any single chamber at Yarrow House.

The prince himself sat at the head of the table, of course. He was wearing a midnight-blue evening coat over a violet waistcoat with gold buttons. In fact, her wig and his waistcoat would go very well together.

All in all, he looked magnificent and outrageously expensive. And bored.

She wouldn’t have minded watching him from afar, but in fact, Kate was rather horrified to find herself seated at the prince’s right hand. She sat down in a haze of embarrassment, acutely conscious of her diamond necklace and diamond-encrusted comb. She was tarted up like the daughter of a rich cit, thrusting herself into company in the hopes of a wealthy husband.

Which, she reminded herself, I am not. My father was the younger son of an earl. An
earl
. And never mind the fact that her father had died without leaving her a dowry, or that he had married a woman of ill repute, or that . . .

Or all the other ways in which her father had disappointed her. Blood is blood. I am an earl’s granddaughter, she told herself.

With that, she raised her chin and straightened her shoulders. The prince was talking to a stout lady on his left, who was discoursing with deep earnestness on . . . something. Kate listened hard, only to realize that the lady was speaking German, and he was responding in French. The gentleman to her right was occupied, so she nibbled her fish and listened to the prince’s French replies.

The lady said something; the prince characterized her comment as a wild guess. The lady replied; the prince broke into German, so Kate watched him under her eyelashes, since she couldn’t understand enough to eavesdrop.

The first thing one noticed about him was that he was a prince. That was stamped on his face. She couldn’t call it simple arrogance, though he was certainly arrogant enough, she thought, cataloguing the harsh line of his jaw.

She thought it had more to do with the way that he looked so easily commanding, as if he’d never seen anything in the world that he couldn’t have for the asking. She considered it for a moment. A prince would never have done any of the things she had found herself doing in the past years. The time she’d helped with the birth of a calf came to mind as a particularly odiferous and unpleasant chore.

A prince would not have three small dogs locked up in her chamber at this very moment.

A prince . . .

She took another bite of fish.

“What are you thinking about?”

His voice was like velvet, accented and deep.

“I am contemplating the fish,” Kate told him, dishonestly.

And he knew it. There was a devil in those eyes, and they registered her fib. “I would guess,” said he, “that you are thinking of me.”

Everything English in her rose up in protest at his effrontery, at the nerve of him saying such a thing.

“If it will make you happy,” she said sweetly, “I was indeed.”

“Now you sound like my majordomo.”

“Ah, Berwick is English, is he?”

That caught his interest. “As it happens, Berwick grew up with me and I’ve known him my whole life. But what would it mean if he were English?”

Kate shrugged. “We never ask people if they are thinking of us.”

“Why not? Since you are unable to inquire, I was thinking of you.”

“Really.” Kate gave the word all the coolness with which she addressed the baker after he overcharged for loaves of bread.

“Your wig,” he said, with another one of those wicked, sideways smiles. “I’ve never seen a purple wig before.”

“You must not often travel to London,” she told him. “Or Paris. Tinted wigs are all the fashion.”

“I think I would prefer you without a wig.”

Kate told herself to be quiet, but she simply couldn’t. “I can’t imagine why you think that your preferences are of any interest when it comes to my hairstyle. That would be as odd as you assuming that I have interest in
your
hair.”

“Do you?”

The effrontery of the man knew no bounds! Kate felt all the irritation of the dispossessed. Just because he was a prince, he apparently assumed that everyone was fascinated by him.

“No,” she said flatly. “Your hair is just—hair.” She glanced at it. “Rather unkempt and slightly long, but one must make allowances for a man who clearly has no interest in fashion, and does not travel to London.”

He laughed, and even his laugh had a slightly exotic sound, like his accent. “I had the impression on our first meeting that you disapproved of it. Having exhausted the subject of our respective hair, Miss Daltry, may I inquire how you are finding Lancashire?”

“It seems quite lovely,” Kate said. And then, before she stopped herself, she asked, “How is it different from your home in Marburg?”

Of course, he smiled. She’d done the expected and turned the conversation to himself. She let a shadow of contempt steal into her eyes, though she doubted he would even catch it. Men like that didn’t recognize scorn directed toward themselves.

“It’s much greener here,” he said. “It occurred to me while I was out riding that the English countryside is the opposite of the English people, really.”

“How so?” Someone had taken her fish while she wasn’t looking and replaced it with another plate, which made her suspect that this was one of those dinners she had only read about, with twenty-four removes, and fifteen sweet things to finish. A royal table indeed.

“The English are so restrained in their fertility,” he said, smiling at her. “Whereas the plants are all bursting with reproductive fervor.”

Kate’s mouth fell open. “You—you shouldn’t speak of such things with me.”

“What an instructive conversation this is for me. Apparently nature falls into the same category as hair: not to be discussed at mealtimes in England.”

“
Do
you discuss fertility with young ladies in Marburg?” she asked, keeping her voice rather low in case the sturdy dowager across from her caught the question.

“Oh, all sorts of fertility,” he said. “A court simply bubbles with passion, you know. Most of it of a very short nature, but all the more intense for its brevity. Though not my brother’s court, at the moment.”

Despite herself, Kate was fascinated. “Why on earth not? Has the Grand Duke suppressed his court somehow? You seem so—” She caught herself once again. It wasn’t for her to characterize men of his stripe.

“How I’d love to know what I seem to be. But fearing you will cut me off, I’ll just say that last year my brother welcomed a desperately pious preacher to the court, and within a matter of a week or two, the man had convinced most of the court to give up any frolicking not approved by the church.”

“I suppose you were the exception,” she said. And then realized she’d given him an opportunity to talk about himself
again
. It must be a gift given to princes: to draw all conversation into their own orbit.

“I turned out to be impervious to Friar Prance’s rhetoric,” he said, grinning. “It was rather unfortunate, particularly when it became clear that my brother Augustus thought that the friar’s ideas were, shall we say, divinely inspired.”

“What precisely did Friar Prance recommend in place of frolicking?”

“He was particularly disturbed by what he called ‘smock treason,’ which was essentially anything that women and men might choose to do together. So he established a board in the drawing room with a sort of point system. The reward, naturally enough, was life everlasting.”

Kate thought about that as she ate her venison. “I’ve heard rhetoric of that sort from the pulpit.”

“Yes, but priests tend to be so vague . . . a reference here or there to Pearly Gates and perhaps clouds. Friar Prance had the courage of his convictions; his promises were quite explicit. Furthermore, his point system allowed one to earn little rewards for memorizing parts of the Bible.”

“And those awards would be?”

“The right to wear robes of spun silver rather than plain white was a particular favorite among the ladies. In fact, the question of fashion was an irresistible temptation for those who might otherwise be inclined to disbelief. It became quite a competition around the court, only exacerbated when he agreed to give extra points to those who recited their verses in public.”

“I’m training my dogs with a system quite like that,” Kate said. “Of course I’m using cheese instead of heaven as the ultimate reward, but for them, it’s likely the same thing.”

“Well, that’s probably why I was such a failure. I dislike cheese.”

Back to himself, Kate thought. She ate another bite rather than return to his favorite subject.

“Aren’t you curious about my particular failures?” he persisted.

“I haven’t got all night,” she said, favoring him with a smile. “If you wouldn’t mind terribly, I’d rather hear more about your brother’s court. Did everyone eagerly submit to the system?”

“They tried, after Augustus indicated a keen interest. That’s the nature of a court.”

“It sounds tiresome.”

“Augustus’s newly acquired piety was a blow, I’ll admit. But you see how well it turned out: He pitched everyone out of his court who couldn’t drum up the necessary enthusiasm for the scheme, and that’s how I ended up here.”

“Does your court operate on the same principle?”

“Mine? I don’t have a court.”

She looked around. “Tall stone walls, and tapestries that must go back to the days of Queen Elizabeth herself. Lovely courtyard. Loads of servants. Why, I do believe I’m in a castle!” Considering her point made, she smiled at the footman standing to her right. “Yes, I am finished with this venison, thank you.”

“A castle is not the same thing as a court,” the prince said.

“Dear me,
Your Highness
,” she said sweetly. “Of course you’re right,
Your Highness
.” It was actually quite fun to see his jaw go a little rigid. The poor prince . . . obviously so used to people kissing his toes that he couldn’t even be playful.

“A court serves a useful purpose,” he pointed out. “The king or grand duke, as in my brother’s case, rules his lands. I rule no one, Miss Daltry. Therefore, this is no court.”

“Then you are doubly lucky. You needn’t worry at all about whether you are useful or not,” she replied.

“I suppose you would say that I am not?”

“You yourself said that you were a prince without subjects. Of course you are not useful, but that is hardly your failure. It’s a matter of birth, and your birth, Your Highness, means that you need never be useful. Or question the market value of anything, which I would consider an even better inheritance.”

“You believe a prince is someone who knows the price of nothing?” There was something in his smile, something a little dark and sardonic that made Kate suddenly wonder if she was over her head, being too clever.

“I expect,” she said more delicately, “that you know the value of a great many things, if not their prices.”

He stared at her for a moment, and then leaned just a trifle closer. “I did hear somewhere that the price of a woman, my dear Miss Daltry, is above that of rubies. Or was that the price of a
good
woman? How unfortunate that Friar Prance is not here to settle the question.”

“It was indeed a good woman,” she told him.

The prince smiled at her, the calculated, tigerish smile that he probably used to seduce wayward ladies. “And are you a good woman?”

She returned the favor, giving him the gentle smile one gives to a deluded infant. And in case he didn’t entirely understand, she patted his arm. “If you don’t mind a word of advice, one never asks a lady to set her own price. If you have to ask, the answer will always be more than you can afford.”

The elderly man on her right turned his head at that moment. “Do tell me more about your war museum,” Kate said to him. “I’ve always thought that milk bottles were remarkably versatile. No, no, you’re not interrupting anything. His Highness and I are boring each other silly.”

G
abriel felt like laughing aloud as he blinked at the back of Miss Daltry’s head. It served him right for jumping to the conclusion that all women wanted to be princesses. Or that any Englishwoman would like him simply because he
was
a prince.