Lady Midnight (49 page)

"Can I have a bouquet, too, Mrs. Brown?" Amelia called, not missing a note of her music.

Kate and Michael laughed. "Of course, dearest," Kate answered. "And a new dress. Christina will have something new, as well."

"I don't need a new gown," Christina protested. "I can wear this one."

"No, no," Kate said. "It won't be a splashy London affair, but we
can
all have new clothes. Yes, Michael?"

He kissed her cheek. "You, darling, can have anything you want. Even—"

His words were interrupted by a sudden forking flash of lightning, spreading blue violet light across the infinite blackness of the sky. It was closely trailed by a clap of thunder, echoing loudly through the drawing room. Amelia's song faltered, and she stared toward the window with wide, frightened eyes.

"Another storm," Christina said softly.

"I don't like storms such as this!" Amelia whimpered. She slid down from the piano bench and ran over to throw her arms around Kate's waist, hiding her little face in Kate's blue silk skirt.

Kate did not like storms, either. Not one jot. They reminded her painfully of the day she lost her mother—the thunder and lightning, the driving fall of rain, the creak of timbers and glass. The first drops of water hit the window glass, leaden and cold, as she drew Amelia close. "It is all right,
cara.
Thorn Hill has withstood hundreds of such storms during its lifetime, and we are safe in its walls."

"Come over to the fire, Amelia," Christina said, holding out her hand to her niece. "I will tell you a story that will make you forget about the rain."

Amelia glanced up with a sniffle. "A story about plants?"

"Of course," Christina answered. "I don't know any other kind."

Amelia nodded and allowed herself to be led away to the warmth of the fireside. Their voices rose and fell in gentle unison as Christina began a tale of some intrepid plant hunter in India, and the sound was sweeter to Kate's ears than any music in a London theater could ever be. Kate stayed by the window, Michael's arm about her shoulders, watching the rain lash futilely at the glass.

Yes, they were safe here. Safe together. But for how long?

Somehow the heavy atmosphere in the night sky echoed the heaviness in her heart. Wedding plans and Amelia's music had lightened it for a moment, but still it was there. Waiting.
Knowing.
Would she ever be free of it again?

Another flash of lightning lit the black sky, and for an instant Kate saw something in the tangled underbrush of the garden. A face, a form, lurking there, just outside their refuge.

She gasped, but when the lightning cleared and she peered outside once more, there was nothing. Just the trees and the flowers.

"Kate?" Michael asked in concern, his arm tightening around her shoulders and drawing her closer. "Is something amiss?"

"No," she whispered. "No. I just hate storms."

* * *

It was very late, the household all tucked up in silent sleep as the night's storm raged around them. It was a fierce one; the world outside the windows was turned to all hazy edges and blurry shapes. Thunder cracked and howled overhead.

Only Christina was awake in the midst of it. She huddled over the desk in her chamber, trying to organize her scribbled notes by the light of the candles. She was used to Yorkshire storms, even reveled in the passion and anger of them. The rains sometimes washed free interesting plant specimens that would ordinarily be hard to find. She was also used to being the only person awake so late at night. The quiet of the house was perfect for concentrating on her experiments and specimens without fear of interruption.

Yet tonight she could not concentrate on the fresh valerium she had gathered that afternoon. She could not even read one of the volumes she brought back from London. She could think only of Julian Kirkwood, and the way he bent his handsome head and kissed her wrist.

Christina had been kissed on the hand before, of course. She had even once been kissed on the cheek, by Andrew Price as they studied an example of yellow pimpernel along a pathway. That kiss had been quick, fleeting, and Mr. Price had immediately dashed away, his face all red. Julian Kirkwood had not run away, and Christina doubted he had ever blushed in all his wicked life. No, this had been like a kiss in one of Mrs. Brown's volumes of poetry. His lips caressed her skin, moving softly, gently, enticingly over her racing pulse.

For an instant, she felt a rush of shame at her roughened skin, the dirt around her nails. Then, anger at that shame, and—and something she could not define. Something warm and quick, something she had never felt before.

And
she
was the one who ran away.

Christina tossed down her pencil and pushed herself back from the desk in a fit of irritation. This was a man who caused Mrs. Brown great pain, who followed her across England, across the Continent, from Italy for all Christina knew, to torment her. Christina hated him for disrupting her family, her comfortable world at Thorn Hill. He had
no right
to be here! So how could she respond to his kiss with anything other than disgust?

But it had not been disgust she felt at his touch.

Christina sighed. If she was a Valkyrie in truth, she would find a spear and a chariot and chase him out of Yorkshire altogether. As it was, she had no idea what to do. Human nature was so very unpredictable, and annoying. Plants—that was where true happiness lay.

She stood up and moved out of the circle of candlelight to go to the window. The storm had not abated, and rain poured down, blown sideways by the force of the wind. Christina drew her shawl closer around her shoulders, and shivered as she peered down at the battered garden.

A quick flash of purple lightning illuminated the pathways and flower beds, and that was when she saw it. A quick, furtive movement behind one of the marble statues. It could almost have been a shadow of the statue, but then it slid away, along the path toward the house.

Christina shielded the glare of the window glass with her hands, leaning forward to peer closer. What could it be? A tree, bending in the wind? One of the Yorkshire haunts, wandering free in the storm? She had grown up hearing such tales of phantoms and water sprites. Yet she had never really been able to credit them. Only on nights like this one, eerie, otherworldly, surrounded by the shriek of wind and rain, could she almost believe them.

Goose bumps prickled her skin as she stared down at the garden, half fearing she would find a wild, hairy elemental spirit there. What she
did
see was even worse.

"The bloody bastard," she whispered, in a fit of deepest profanity that would have horrified her mother. She could think of no other words to describe what she was feeling. Describe
that man.

It was Julian Kirkwood, skulking around Thorn Hill, creeping about like a vampire in that black coat of his. As another split-second flash of lightning lit the air, she saw him clearly if fleetingly. His black hair was plastered to his head by the rain, the collar of his coat drawn up over his neck and jaw. Yes, it was him.

Christina could not even begin to fathom what had driven him here on such an ungodly night. Not even love seemed sufficient excuse for such lunatic behavior. But then, she thought, she had never been a
romantic
creature at all. Perhaps if she were, if she had read more poetry instead of botanical tracts, she could understand such ridiculously Byronic behavior.

As it was, she understood only one thing. Julian Kirkwood upset Mrs. Brown, made her cry, and made Michael threaten duels. He upset their precious peace at Thorn Hill, and interrupted Christina's work. Now it looked as if he was about to break into her house, while her family slept peacefully just down the corridor, and cause who knew what kind of havoc. That, Christina would not allow.

She had not yet undressed for the night, and it took only a moment for her to put on her boots and find a cloak to cover her muslin gown. The house was still silent as she slipped from her room, the slumbering quiet broken only by the crashes of thunder, the creaks and wheezes of the old walls and floors. Christina needed no light except the lightning flickering across the windows; she knew these stairs, these doors, like her own hand—she had slipped out of them at night so many times. The house was a part of her, and she would let no one invade it. If she had her way, Julian Kirkwood would leave with no one the wiser that he had ever been here at all.

In the library, displayed with Michael's other Italian treasures, was a dagger from Renaissance Florence. Gorgeous, with its jeweled handle and the etched steel along its blade; lethal in its sharpness. Christina snatched it from its case, tucking it in the pocket of her cloak before pushing open one of the tall windows leading to the garden. She felt the dagger's weight there, hefty and comforting as it settled among the dried herbs and dirt.

For a second, the force of the rain blinded her, drove her back a step. She had been out in the Yorkshire rain many times, of course—the wet soil so often yielded up hidden treasures. Yet never had she braved a rain quite like this. It was almost a living being, coldly malevolent, driving like a primeval force. Its sharp droplets stung as they hit her skin.

Christina drew her hood closer about her face, struggling forward against the storm and against her own fear. She
had
to go on—her only other choice was to turn back, to run to Michael and tell him what she saw. Then Michael would duel with Julian Kirkwood, might even be killed. The thought of that was far worse than any rain could be.

She ducked her head and lurched on, leaning into the wind as she made her way around the side of the house where she had last glimpsed Kirkwood. Her gown and boots were quickly soaked to the core, and her cloak billowed behind her, caught by the mischievous hands of the wind.

"I am a Valkyrie," she muttered. "I control nature, I am—" Something hard and cold, freezing, deathly cold, caught her arm, and Christina screamed. It was the ghost of Robert de Botteby, come to drag her away! Just as her nursemaid had always said it would!

Her hood fell back with the force of her screams, even as the cries themselves melted away in the thunder. Christina yanked back on her arm, but it was held fast, and her vision was beaded with rain and nightmares.

A face swam into her view, peering closely down at her. It did not have the hideously deformed visage of de Botteby, or the canine fangs of the gytrash. It was the diabolically handsome face of Julian Kirkwood, lean and determined, death-pale in the lightning.

Christina's screams strangled in her throat. She scrambled for her pocket, for the dagger, but his other hand closed on her arm like an iron manacle. He dragged her close to him, so close she could feel the fever heat of him despite the chill that froze her very bones.

"Lady Christina," he said, his deep voice one with the storm. "So kind of you to meet me halfway like this. You are the final piece of my plan."

Chapter 27

"No!" Kate sat straight up in bed, disoriented and frightened. What woke her? Something in her chamber? The storm, still raging outside the window?

She rubbed at her aching eyes, taking deep, cleansing breaths. It must have been a dream, a bad dream brought on by the thunder and rain. She hated storms so very much, it was a wonder she had fallen asleep at all. This was not like
that
storm, she told herself. She was not adrift at sea, but safe in a warm, solid house.

She tried to remember her dream, yet it was gone. Only a vague, hazy sense of colors and emotions remained, floating like airy wisps at the edges of her mind. Even that was vanishing quickly as she became more awake. "It was only a dream," she whispered. "Brought on by the thunder."

Her heartbeat slowed in her breast, and she was finally able to open her eyes and see that the room around her was unchanged. Her trunk sat by the wardrobe, half unpacked from the London journey. Her books were stacked on the bedside table, her cloak draped over a chair like some lurking beast. But the fire had died down to mere embers, and there was a damp chill in the air.

Kate rubbed at her arms through the thin batiste of her night rail. The wind sounded like screams outside, human, female screams. It made Kate want to cry out again, to howl at the storm clouds until they vanished.

Perhaps that was what had awakened her, the cries of the spirits.

And if
she
was awake, surely Amelia was, too, and twice as scared. Kate slid out of bed and reached for her dressing gown. She would go look in on the child, and perhaps they could huddle together under the blankets until the rain ceased! Or at least Kate could forget her own haunts in comforting Amelia.