Lady Midnight (41 page)

Kate reached out unconsciously for Michael, swaying with the force of the sadness. He took her hand in his, sliding it into the crook of his elbow, holding her upright with his strength.

"What became of your Juliet, Lizzie?" he asked softly.

Elizabeth turned away from the painting and stared directly into Kate's eyes. "I fear she died. In a boating accident. It was a great tragedy."

"That is sad indeed," Michael said.

"Yes. Too sad for a soiree," Elizabeth answered, a new smile curving the edges of her Madonna mouth. Kate received her message, though; Elizabeth would
not
betray her, even if she suspected her husband's old friend was being deceived. The force of that last summer, when they watched each other across the canal, still bound them. "Come, now, your glasses are empty. And you have not sampled any of the food. I have eggplant tarts, so Italian, and lobster patties, white soup...."

Elizabeth took Michael's other arm and led them off across the room. She procured fresh glasses of champagne, and introduced them to some of the other guests. They were a vivacious, eclectic lot, and Kate soon found herself deep in conversation about poetry and the theater. It was truly turning into a lovely evening. She could become used to society of this sort, people who cared about art and books. And fine champagne! Kate helped herself to another glass from a passing footman's tray, watching with a contented smile as Elizabeth Hollingsworth ushered Christina around, introducing her just as she had Kate. Michael stood with another small group near her, and she could hear snatches of his conversation on Yorkshire farming techniques.

She half turned away from him to answer a question someone posed about Byron's
Don Juan,
and from the corner of her eye she saw the drawing room door opening to admit new arrivals. The lady who appeared there, a tall woman with rich auburn hair dressed with a feathered bandeau, had such a stunning peacock blue gown that Kate had to look up and examine it more closely. The peacock lady smiled at their host, snapping open her blue-and-green-feathered fan as she stepped aside to reveal her escort.

He was a tall, slender man with glossy black hair, godlike in his beauty and in the melancholy of his mien. His dark gaze swept slowly over the assembly, as if he could not quite bear to be among such mortals. To be among the living at all.

As indeed he should not be. He was dead. Drowned.
Julian Kirkwood.

A high-pitched buzzing rang in Kate's ears, and she felt numb, a cold creeping over her like a glacier. Like an ocean wave. Her skin tingled, and the edges of her vision grew suddenly hazy. Her glass slipped from her nerveless fingers and rolled across the carpet beneath her feet. Ladies shrieked and jerked their silken skirt hems away from the splash of the golden liquid, but Kate did not notice. As if from far away, from another planet, she heard Michael call, "Kate? What is wrong? Are you ill?"

She swayed, the cold overwhelming. She couldn't fight it off, couldn't escape it—she would never be warm again. She would die of it.

Even as Michael's arms came around her waist, she heard another voice. A voice from beyond death, wrapping its velvet grip about her soul, dragging her under.

"Katerina! Katerina. You are
alive!
Oh, my Beatrice, my love, you are alive!"

As Kate sank to the floor, the last thing she saw above her was Julian's eyes, wide with wonder and perfect, perfect joy.

Then she felt nothing at all. Only the abyss.

* * *

Michael caught Kate up in his arms as she fainted, her rose-pink skirts spilling over his hands, an elegant mockery of the happiness that had been his only an instant before. Happiness that had been
theirs
as he watched Kate smile at him over her champagne glass and he knew that they would be together. There was nothing that could keep them apart.

Now she lay limp in his arms, her face pale. As white as funeral lilies. Her breathing was shallow, her skin cold. He stared down at her, stunned, afraid—afraid with a fear he had not felt since the day Caroline died in his arms. He was vaguely aware of Christina's panicked cries, of Elizabeth calling for a settee and some water, of Nick ushering the other guests away. There was a babble of confused questions, shocked comments.

One voice rose above them all, a man's tenor tones laced with happiness and amazement. "Katerina! You are alive... my love."

Katerina.
No,
he wanted to shout.
She is Kate. Bonny Kate, Kate the curst. The prettiest Kate in Christendom...

He glanced up sharply to see a man leaning toward Kate. He was tall, Michael noted absently, and handsome. No scars, no limp, no sun-roughened complexion. He was a man any woman would fall in love with—and he was reaching for Kate.

The man did not even seem to notice Michael holding her. He reached out with his long, elegant hands, cupping Kate's face as if it were the most delicate of rose petals. He traced her nose, her lips, her eyelids, which trembled beneath his fingertips. "Katerina, my love."

Michael had never felt such hatred, such anger, in all his life. Kate was ill, and this man, whoever he was, behaved as if he had discovered a long-lost Botticelli. His face, his entire body, radiated love and joy. Love for Kate.
Michael's
Kate, whom he had vowed to always protect.

Clutching her close to him, Michael stepped back from the man. "Unhand her."

The man's hands fell to his side and he straightened. Rage suffused his face, turning his pale cheeks a hectic red, and the hands that had caressed Kate's face so gently curled into talons. "How dare you? I am Sir Julian Kirkwood, and this woman is mine."

His,
was she? Well, Michael had a few things to say about that—and a few blows to land about this man's perfect face. But right now there were far more important matters to attend to. Matters of life and death.

"I don't care if you are the king of Sweden, you damned knave," Michael ground out. "Kate is ill, and I am taking her to a doctor. I swear by all that's holy, if you touch her again—"

"Michael," Elizabeth Hollingsworth's voice interrupted. "Come with me now. We'll put Mrs. Brown in my own chamber, and Nick will send for the doctor immediately."

Michael gave her a brusque nod and, without even another glance at the man, followed her out of the drawing room and up the stairs.

Kate stirred against his shoulder, but did not open her eyes. Michael held her close, so close he could feel the soft, butterfly flutterings of her breath.

"Everything will be well, Kate," he whispered. "I am with you. I will
always
be with you, I promise."

* * *

Christina stared in utter astonishment at the scene before her. She had expected London to be different, of course—but not
this
different.

The salon had been going along well enough, not so grand as the Royal Botanic Society lecture or the British Museum, but tolerable. The people she met were nice enough, even though they had never even read the
Ars Botanica;
the paintings were interesting, and the food was very fine indeed. She had finally escaped Lady Hollingsworth and found a quiet corner where she could enjoy some of those refreshments in peace. Then, just as she took a bite of a scrumptious lobster patty, the drawing room door opened and
he
appeared.

The gentleman from the theater, right here in front of her! And even more handsome in the brighter lights of the party than he had been in the dimness of the theater. He was tall, slim, dark, and with a tragically sad air worthy of a prince in one of Mrs. Brown's volumes of poetry.

Christina almost choked on her bite of lobster and quickly raised her napkin to her mouth, studying the prince-poet over the white damask folds. That was when everything went to perdition.

"Katerina!" the man cried. His voice, his tone, was unlike anything Christina had ever heard before. So full of anguish and joy, it was like a soaring opera aria. "You are alive!" And then, strangely, he called for someone named Beatrice.

But he rushed toward Mrs. Brown—
Mrs. Brown!—
his arms outstretched, his beautiful face suffused with light.

As Christina watched, frozen, Mrs. Brown turned as white as Christina's napkin. Even her lips were pale, as if all the blood left her and she remained only a hollow stalk. She dropped her champagne glass and collapsed in a heap of rose satin, caught up in Michael's arms.

Michael glared at the beautiful man as if he would kill him then and there, yet the man took no notice whatsoever. All of his attention, dark and intense, was on Mrs. Brown. Mrs. Brown, Katerina.

It was all so very unreal, like watching a scene of high tragedy in the theater. Christina would never have thought such drama could happen in real life, especially not in a London drawing room! Not among a
ton
crowd, where a careful facade was always maintained. Scandals could take place in boudoirs and on dueling fields, and they could be whispered about behind fans and teacups, but they were never
publicly
enacted. Unless one was Caro Lamb, or one of her ilk. Even Christina, buried in the country, knew that.

But here was a scene of high scandal, involving her own Mrs. Brown and a strange man.

Christina gave a panicked cry and dropped her plate and napkin, lurching forward. At last her frozen legs let her move, but it was too late. Michael swept out of the room with Mrs. Brown in his arms, followed by the Hollingsworths. The strange man stood alone in the center of the floor, staring after them as if he saw all promise of heaven slipping beyond his grasp. A tall, auburn-haired lady tugged at his arm, but he seemed not to see her.

All around them, at the edges of the room, a shocked silence hung in the perfumed air, a thick, palpable, living thing. Slowly, whispers and murmurs broke out in slow ripples—ripples that quickly became a gushing tide.

"...is Sir Julian Kirkwood, you know. Bad business. Everyone thought he died in Italy...."

"But who is that woman? She came here with Michael Lindley...."

"...obviously something between her and Sir Julian. Did you see the way he touched her, spoke to her? One would have thought Mr. Lindley would have more sense after what happened with his poor wife."

Furious, Christina whirled toward that last voice, her hands curling into fists. How
dare
they speak about her brother and Mrs. Brown in such a manner? She was stopped from doing battle only by the thickness of the crowd. She had no idea who had spoken, and the whispers were blending and growing. A few feet away stood her sister-in-law, Mary. Mary was almost as pale as Mrs. Brown had been, except for two spots of bright red high on her cheekbones. Her fingers tightened on her fan, almost snapping the delicate ivory sticks.

"Mary," Christina said, taking a step toward her. She feared Mary might faint, too, and that would not be good for the baby.

Mary looked up at Christina, eyes blazing like twin bonfires. "How dare your brother?" she growled. "How dare he bring a woman of low morals into this family! I have had quite enough of that sort of thing. I won't stand for it anymore!"

"Mary!" Christina cried, shocked. "Mrs. Brown is
not
a woman of low morals. She is—is an
angel"

Mary was obviously not listening. She turned away from Christina and disappeared into the crowd.

Christina pushed her way past a knot of people, intent on getting out of that room and finding Michael and Mrs. Brown. She hated London, and these cackling harpies! Only moments before, this was a civilized gathering, and now it resembled nothing so much as a lower circle of Dante's hell in the poem Mrs. Brown made her read.
Beatrice, indeed.
She wanted Thorn Hill, and her studies and plants, and her friend Andrew Price to discuss those studies with her.

She wanted to see Mrs. Brown, to be sure she was well. Christina wanted to weep.

"Get out of my way!" she shouted to three particularly annoying people blocking the doorway. She shoved past them, and crashed into another man. A tall, dark man in a black velvet coat.

The man from the opera—the cause of all this trouble.

"You!" she gasped.

He took her arm in his clasp to steady her but did not even glance down at her. He still watched the door, as if his joy would suddenly reappear there.

Christina shook off his hand. She was so angry she shook with the fury of it. Whether it was from his disregard for the scandal he caused, or his disregard for Christina herself, she could not say, and this made her even more furious. She reached up with her gloved hand and grasped his jaw hard, forcing him to look down at her. He had dark eyes, eyes like a Yorkshire midnight, or the black depths of the Semerwater.

"She is not
your
Katerina," Christina said fiercely. "Not anymore. You should just go away. Whoever you are. Go away, and leave us alone."

His eyes widened slightly, as if he awakened from some long dream. He did not draw away from her.

"And who might you be, little Valkyrie, to tell
me
what to do?" he said softly.

Christina stared at him mutinously. She felt so strange—tingling and light-headed, almost like the time she stole a bottle of cooking brandy from the kitchen and drank some of it behind the stable because she was angry at her mother. She didn't like this feeling, this not-in-control sensation, at all. She dropped her hand and stepped away from him.