Carolyn Jewel (14 page)

Carolyn Jewel was born on a moonless night. That darkness was seared into her soul and she became an award-winning author of historical and paranormal romance. She has a very dusty car and a Master’s degree in English that proves useful at the oddest times. An avid fan of fine chocolate, finer heroines, Bollywood films, and heroism in all forms, she has three cats and two dogs. Also a son. One of the cats is his.

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“John.” She shut her eyes.

“Swear to me that you don’t know where he is.”

Like everyone else, he was thinking only of her father. But unlike the others, at least he believed her. For now. Mary’s thoughts went to her trunk, to the ache in her arms.

“If I had to guess,” she told him gravely, “I would say that he went straight to hell. He left me—” All that angry fury raged within her for a moment, startling in its heat. No place to put it now; she had too much to do.

“Did he tell you where the money was?”

“Not a word.”

“What are your plans? Is that your trunk over there?” His tone was curiously flat as he spoke to her—not devoid of emotion, but withdrawn, as if he’d turned away from his own feelings.

She hadn’t dared to look at the massive steamer trunk where it lay. It had followed her from Southampton to Vienna, and then back for more holidays than she could count. It was large enough to fit all the many components of a lady’s wardrobe, and that made it very large indeed. The rope she’d used to lower it was still fastened to one handle; the brass fittings dented where it had banged against the ground when it had gotten away from her. She glanced over, bit her lip, and nodded.

He didn’t rush over and open it. Thank God.

“Do you have anywhere to go?”

“My father’s second cousin lives in Basingstoke. He’ll take me in.” The lies came easier now.

“And you have a plan.” He nodded. “I wish…” His voice was still flat, but his lips pressed together.

She turned away. “Don’t wish. You’ll only say something that we’ll both regret. After last night, anything more is impossible.”

And yet the possibility of that
more
kept intruding on her. Was it so little, then, that they’d had between them? She had liked the look of him, the way that he laughed. He’d liked the look of her. That was all. A few months’ acquaintance.

A few kisses, a few conversations—not much, but enough to spark a lifetime of hope. Enough that she’d chosen the possibility of him and family over…

No. She couldn’t let herself think that way any longer. Those memories belonged to another woman entirely—Miss Mary Chartley, the daughter of a respected member of the community. She wasn’t sure who she was in this skin any longer, but she’d ceased to be that person. No matter what she and John might once have been to one another, it wasn’t enough to survive the cataclysm of discovering that her father had taken thousands of pounds from their partnership.

She took off one glove, removed the ring from her finger, and held it out to him.

His flat façade finally cracked. His hand slapped against his trousers, and he turned his head from her. “God damn it.”

“Set it against my father’s debt.”

His jaw worked. It took him a few breaths to regain his composure, but when he turned back, he didn’t take the ring from her. “You’ll need help getting to the station.” Before she knew what was happening, he was reaching for the handle of her trunk.

She couldn’t let him touch that. If he tried to lift it, he might wonder what made her luggage so heavy.

“Really, John,” she said sharply, stepping in front of him. “I should think you’ve done enough.”

“It doesn’t have to be this way.”

“Doesn’t it? Say you love me, that you would marry me without any fortune, with my father in disgrace. Say your sister would welcome me into the family, knowing that my father stole her son’s future.”

He met her eyes. She wasn’t sure what she saw reflected there. Regret? Anger? “You’re right,” he finally said. “I can’t say anything of the sort. But—”

“I don’t love you, either. If I did…” She slipped the ring into his hand. “If I did, surely I could not give you this with my head held high.”

If he’d put her in mind of thunder before, that flashing look in his eyes was the lightning, spearing her through in one instant. For one second, she thought he was actually going to grab hold of her. But he didn’t move. He didn’t even frown. He simply took a deep breath and shoved the ring into his pocket.

“Well, then.” Another breath, and he looked away. “Good riddance.”

More about
What Happened at Midnight
by Courtney Milan

Summer 1896, Somerset, a few miles south of the Exmoor hills

T
HE WOMAN WAS BACK.

Ralston Fitzwilliam had seen her once before, two days ago. He had been on the tail-end of a fourteen mile walk, up and down hills so gentle they were barely bumps in the ground, across rain-swollen streams, and alongside green, sheep-dotted pastures.

Given that dark rain clouds, so low he could almost touch them, had crowded the sky from horizon to horizon, he should have gone straight home to Stanton House, set at his disposal by the Duke of Perrin for the few weeks a year Ralston spent in England. But the walk had not been sufficiently tiring for a man who wanted his limbs aching and his mind blank, so he had traversed Beauregard’s farm and headed up the slope at the top of which sat Viscount Northword’s country seat.

Only to have the rain come down hard halfway uphill. He veered toward Doyle’s Grange, a smaller property of the Northword estate. It was vacant at present, and he could take shelter under its ivy-covered portico without being fussed over and lectured about the foolishness of being abroad in such weather, without even an umbrella. As he approached the garden gate behind the house, she had appeared on the garden path, a young widow all in black.

She was beautiful—tall, regal, her hair as dark as the beads of jet that trimmed her hat. But what had truly caught his eye was the story of her life that had been written on her otherwise exquisite face.

It had not been the easiest of lives. There was an air of fragility to her—not an inborn timidity, but the residual fear of someone who had been burnt by the vagaries of fate.

He recognized himself—as he had been for many years, and perhaps even as he was now.

She hurried into the house without noticing him. But he thought of her as he waited out the rain beneath the eaves of the garden shed, for the entirety of his walk home, and when he extinguished his light at night.

He called on Doyle’s Grange the next day, but the front gate was locked, the house shut tight.

And now here she was again, a lovely, somber silhouette in the waning light of a summer evening, stepping down from a hansom cab, a satchel in hand. His heart leaped until he realized that the hansom cab, parked on the country lane before the blooming rhododendron hedge, did not leave. It was waiting for her to come out from the house and would ferry her elsewhere.

He hesitated. But before long, he found himself slipping into the front gate and walking up the drive. A movement of an upstairs curtain caught his eye—he had been sighted. Under the portico, as he raised his hand toward the bell pull, the door flung open, and she launched herself into his arms.

He was over six feet in height and sturdy of build. But she was at least five foot nine and no skeleton. He stumbled back a step.

Before he could quite recover from his surprise, she gripped his face and kissed him.

He’d kissed women to whom he hadn’t been properly introduced, but never before he’d uttered so much as a greeting. She was ravenous, almost barbarous, as if she wanted to level him to the ground and lay waste to him.

The next moment her kiss turned tender. Now she was kissing her beloved, thought to be lost on the battlefield, but found alive and well, needing only to be cared for and cherished. Her fingers, which had been digging hard into the sides of his head, relaxed. Her body fitted itself to his. And he, who’d until now been largely stunned, wondering how to disentangle himself without giving offense, was suddenly caught in the kiss.

She smelled of roses. Not the smothering scent he’d encountered at times, as if he’d been stuffed inside a perfume bottle, but light and fresh, like a single petal held beneath the nostrils. Her cheek beneath his hand was wondrously soft. And her body was all velvet—her mourning gown was made of the stuff—plush, smooth, sensational.

“Oh, Fitz,” she murmured, her arms banding tighter about him. “My darling Fitz.”

His nickname at school had been Bosh—he liked to roll his eyes and say “bosh” when his mates sprouted nonsense. But he supposed one could call him Fitz, short for Fitzwilliam. Which raised the question, who was she? Where had he met her before that she considered their acquaintance to merit such a passionate kiss at this reunion? And if indeed they knew each other so well, how was it that he did not have the least recollection of her?

But that was for later. For now, he pulled her closer and kissed her back.

More about
A Dance in Moonlight
by Sherry Thomas

No. 25 Upper Brook Street, London, October 1817.

Grenville Foxman Talbot, Marquess of Fenris and eldest and only son of the Duke of Camber, always slept the sleep of the innocent.

As a child, he’d never had nightmares, because even then he’d possessed the power to stop any terrifying developments that appeared in his dreams. If there were dragons about to roast him in flames, he slew them. He vanquished monsters with one stony glare, sprouted wings and flew off high cliffs, and conjured swords or other weapons when faced with threat of attack. He transformed enemies into slugs or simply stopped an unpleasant dream entirely.