Lady Midnight (19 page)

She
was
attracted to Michael—that was undeniable. He was handsome, young, strong, with the most enticing smile she had ever seen. And she knew he found
her
attractive, too. If she had ever had any doubts on that subject, they were erased by the stirring of his body when he held her against him. But that instant in his arms, when she clung to his neck and felt the rough silk of his hair on her cheek, had been sweet beyond all measure.

She had seen many good-looking men in her life. Venice was filled with them: dark-eyed Italians, English officers in their red coats, tall Prussians, passionate artists. And most of them flowed through her mother's drawing room, ballroom, and boudoir, courting the famous Lucrezia Bruni and flirting with her young daughter. Julian Kirkwood, Kate's own lost, almost lover, had been as glorious as a young Mycenaean from a fresco, black-haired, intense.

Michael Lindley was a man who was more than handsome. He was a man who had obviously been through great pain and hardships—his injuries, the loss of his wife, the removal from some ungentlemanlike past into a quiet life on a Yorkshire manor.

He was a man to be trusted—she sensed that. A man who obviously took care of the people around him, faced his responsibilities, and was not even afraid of some hard, honest work. Most of the men she met in Venice were running
away
from their lives, their families, preferring to exist in the hedonistic unreality of La Serenissima rather than face their wives and estates in England, Austria, Padua, wherever. Perhaps Michael had once been like those men, as his sister implied, but no more.

Yes. A man to be trusted. So why could Kate not tell him the truth about her mother last night when she had the chance? Why could she not unlock that tiny secret part of her soul she had vowed to hide away forever? She wanted to—oh, San Marco, but she wanted to tell him! She wanted to unburden herself of
the past, to
be free of it, to rest at last in the arms of a man she could trust.

Yet she knew she never could, precisely because of that honor Michael Lindley possessed. He loved his family, his daughter, and Kate sensed,
knew,
that he would always protect them and their place in this insular English aristocracy. A woman like Katerina Bruni, even if she called herself any other name, could never truly belong here. Could never be worthy of this fine, honest life. This clean country existence, free from the rank corruption of Venice.

If she was
truly
good now, truly self-sacrificing and worthy, she would leave Thorn Hill this very day, would seek another position. Before things went any further here, before her heart grew any more entangled with this house and its inhabitants.

She looked up from her needle to watch Amelia. The little girl was absorbed in her map, her face creased in fierce concentration. One perfect fat blond ringlet drooped over her brow, and she tugged at it, letting it spring back into place. Kate's heart ached at the adorable picture. And she knew she was a selfish, weak creature, but she could not leave. Could not turn her back on this haven she had discovered.

Not yet.

"Mrs. Brown," Christina said, her bemused voice breaking into Kate's wistful, longing thoughts.

Kate blinked up at Christina, somewhat amazed to find herself still in the prosaic environs of the schoolroom. "Yes, Christina?"

"Did you know you sewed the sides of your stocking together?"

Kate glanced back down to see that she had indeed sewn the edges of the black stocking together, blocking the opening so that her foot would never fit through. She laughed helplessly and dropped the mess into her workbox. "Oh, dear! What a bumble broth I am today," she said. "I cannot seem to concentrate."

Christina laughed, too, and shook her head sympathetically. "Me, neither. Though, I must say, Italian vocabulary is far more interesting than curtsies and titles. It's an unseasonably warm day outside. Perhaps that has us distracted, Mrs. Brown."

"Perhaps so." Kate gazed out the window and saw that the grayness of the morning was burning off into pale sunshine. "I have an idea. Let us go for a walk."

"A walk!" Christina cried eagerly, slamming shut her book. Amelia looked up from her map with wide, interested eyes. "To the river again? I need to collect some fresh samples."

Kate remembered too well the last time they ventured to the river, and encountered Michael laboring at his wall on the way home. She firmly shook her head. "No. To the village, I think. Suddley, is it called? It seems to be not too far away, and I obviously need new stockings."

Christina seemed disappointed to be deprived of her river plants, but she nodded anyway, obviously happy for any excuse to be outdoors. "No, it is not far. Even Amelia can walk it. May we visit the bookshop while we're there, Mrs. Brown?"

"Of course," Kate agreed. Perhaps she could buy herself some new volumes of poetry, or maybe a novel or two. Then she would never have to pay a dangerous midnight visit to the library again.

* * *

Suddley wasn't terribly crowded in the middle of the afternoon, so Kate was able to more closely examine the place than she had the day she arrived. It seemed a typical country village, with structures of Tudor half-timbering and mullioned windows jostling next to newer buildings of red brick. The streets were wide and tidy, with plenty of room for carriages, carts, and horses to pass without splashing pedestrians on the narrow walkways. The shops boasted spacious windows displaying all manner of enticing goods—bonnets and gloves, swaths of delicately colored fabrics, shawls, fans, slippers, books, boxes of sweets.

Amelia clung to Kate's hand, tugging in excitement, as they strolled along. Her feet in their tiny half boots fairly danced over the cobblestones, and she exclaimed over everything they saw.

"Look, Mrs. Brown!" she cried, gesturing toward a passing horse.
"Le chevaI."

"Oui, tres bien,"
Kate agreed. She stopped next to an overflowing window box and said, "And this?"

Amelia's little face crinkled in concentration. "
La fleur. La fleur est rouge."

"C'est bon!"
Kate squeezed Amelia's hand, and paused as they came level with a sweetshop. A box of glistening lemon drops shone like bits of sunshine in the window, next to candied ginger and cones of sugared almonds. "Such scholarship deserves a sweet, I think. Do you like lemon drops?"

Amelia gasped, and if it was at all possible, her blue eyes opened even wider. "Truly, Mrs. Brown? A sweet in the middle of the day? And we may go into the shop to choose?"

Kate laughed at her wonder. How utterly delightful to find such joy in the prospect of a lemon drop, to see each moment as some new, fresh, never-before-encountered adventure. It made her own heart feel light. "Of course!"

As Amelia tugged her toward the door, Kate glanced back at Christina and whispered, "Has Amelia never been to Suddley before?"

"Oh, yes," Christina answered. "Of course she has. We go to church at St. Anne's every Sunday, and we buy all our goods here. But she usually passes through in the carriage with my mother, and the shopkeepers bring items out to show them. And Mrs. Jenkins takes care of the marketing, of course. I don't think Amelia has ever been
in
a shop before."

"I see." Kate watched, bemused, as Amelia shyly approached a display case, standing up on tiptoe to peer at rows of toffees. Then it
was
all new to her.

Just as it was to Kate.

"May I go to the bookshop now, Mrs. Brown?" Christina asked. "It is just three doors down."

"Yes, certainly. We will meet you there in a few moments."

After Amelia finished selecting her treats, Kate walked with her along the street. She could see Christina through the bookshop's window, and she seemed so absorbed in the volume she perused that Kate was loath to disturb her. So they continued on, Amelia holding tightly to Kate's fingers with one hand and consuming her sweets with the other. Kate stopped at what was obviously a milliner and peered inside at the enticing display. The window was draped with creamy moire silk, and tall stands held bonnets of pearly pink satin and forest green taffeta trimmed with striped ribbons and silk rosettes. A wide straw hat with white and red streamers promised summertime still to come, and a plaid tam-o'-shanter warned that winter's chill was not entirely banished.

Kate sighed as she examined these riches, and reached up to touch the narrow brim of her plain, dark blue bonnet. How would she appear in that pink creation? Would it make her hair seem darker, bring out a becoming blush in her cheeks? Cheeks that had been so pale of late, drained of color by all the tragedy of her world.

Would Michael Lindley look at her twice then, his sky-colored eyes kindling with that fire of admiration she so secretly enjoyed?

She had a vision of the two of them strolling through a flower-dotted meadow, hand in hand. She wore the pink bonnet in this daydream, and a gauzy white gown. They laughed as he twirled her about, all troubles, all the past, forgotten....

"I like that one, Mrs. Brown," Amelia's little voice piped up, pulling Kate back down to earth from her romantic fancies. "The pink one."

She smiled down at the child and saw that Amelia's chin was sticky from her lemon drops. "Do you,
ma petite mademoiselle
? I am sure you will have one just like it when you are older." She drew a handkerchief from her reticule and bent down to wipe at Amelia's chin.

Amelia stood still for the ministrations, but clutched tightly at her bag of sweets as if she feared they might be taken away. "No," she said decisively. "I think it would be pretty on
you,
Mrs. Brown."

"Do you,
bambina?"

"Yes. You're so pretty, Mrs. Brown, but your clothes are so plain. Not like my mama's were."

Kate almost laughed aloud at Amelia's solemn pronouncement. "All governesses dress plainly, Amelia. I'm sure it must be written in a governess rule book someplace."

"That doesn't matter. All ladies should look pretty. My mama wore
beautiful
clothes. All floaty, with lace and ribbons. And jewels, too."

Kate peered solemnly into Amelia's eyes, searching for any hint of the sudden burst of fear and sorrow she displayed when Kate cut her hand. But there was only certainty there, a certain matter-of-factness. "As you will one day, Amelia. And everyone will say you are every bit as beautiful as your mother was."

Kate straightened and was tucking the handkerchief away when she felt a strange, prickling tingle at the nape of her neck. She stiffened, reaching up to touch that spot with her fingertips.

Someone was watching her.

She knew that sensation well, though it had not come upon her since she had left Venice. On one of her last days there, before the accident, she had been shopping on the Rialto with her maid when she felt that strange tingle. When she turned then, she saw Julian Kirkwood watching her from a distance, his gaze burning with a disconcerting, intense light. He said nothing to her, did not even approach her. He just kept staring, watching her until she hurried away.

She turned now toward the street, half expecting to see Julian's ghost hovering there. But there were no specters—just an open carriage containing three ladies. A merchant stood beside the vehicle, holding up bolts of cloth for their inspection. The ladies did not look at the wares, though. They stared directly at Kate.

Kate examined them in return, with a dawning fear that perhaps she had once met them in her old life. But they were unfamiliar. An older woman, in a stylish bronze-colored pelisse and a tall-crowned bonnet trimmed in gold and green feathers that complimented her faded red hair, and two younger ladies, obviously her daughters to judge by their matching ruddy curls. They were also fashionably dressed, in pale green and bright blue.

They did not smile or acknowledge Kate, yet they continued to stare.

"That is Lady Ross and her daughters," Amelia commented, lifting her hand to point at them with her bag of sweets.

"A lady must never point, Amelia," Kate murmured automatically. So
this
was Lady Darcy's rival for social supremacy in the neighborhood. Lady Ross and two of her daughters, pretty, perfectly turned-out girls as unlike Christina as chalk was to cheese.

Kate far preferred Christina—she knew that already. Christina never stared so rudely.

"Lady Ross is Grandmama's friend," Amelia said. "And Louisa, in the green dress, is engaged to Mr. Haigh-Wood. And Emmeline is in love with Papa. Grandmama says he should marry her, but he says she's a silly goose who never reads a book except for
The Curse of the Haunted Castle."

Kate laughed aloud at this frank appraisal of the situation. It was no more than what the maid Sarah had hinted at, so it should not have surprised Kate in the least. But it
did
give her a twinge, and she peered closer at Emmeline Ross. She was pretty enough, small and dainty with a kittenish face and clouds of that tawny hair.

But she was obviously ill brought-up to stare so.

Kate nodded at the Ross trio and turned to walk off down the street, drawing Amelia with her.

"Amelia, dear," she whispered, "a lady shouldn't spread gossip about."

"Was that gossip?" Amelia asked, her tone deeply shocked.

"I fear it was." Kate glanced down to see the child frowning in perplexity.