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Authors: Just Before Midnight

Suzanne Robinson

BOOK: Suzanne Robinson
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Cheyne moved closer to Miss Bright, but she sprinted for the door. He spun around and lunged, catching her around the waist and quickly pulling her against him. And then Cheyne realized his mistake in not holding her at arm’s length.

They were pressed against each other like tinned sausages, and he could feel her breasts heave against his chest. Every movement, every squirm and writhe brought curved parts of Miss Bright in contact with his body. The righteousness of his purpose disappeared from his thoughts. Arousal burned away his vexation. It raced to other parts of him as well, making him want to howl with the tension of it. Unable to endure the agony, Cheyne suddenly let go of his partner.

The abruptness of her release caused Miss Bright to lose her balance. She dropped to the floor on her bottom.

“Hey!”

Cheyne retreated to the window, grabbed a handful of velvet curtain in his fist and pressed his forehead against the glass. “Go away.”

JUST BEFORE MIDNIGHT

JUST BEFORE MIDNIGHT
A Bantam Book/March 2000

All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2000 by Lynda S. Robinson
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information address: Bantam Books.

eISBN: 978-0-307-80806-6

Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

v3.1

Contents
 
1
 
London, 1899

If she didn’t escape before dawn, she wouldn’t get away at all. Mattie Bright tiptoed through the darkened house, her boots clutched in one hand, her skirts lifted in the other. If she was discovered, the consequences would be terrible—another morning of lessons in elocution, manners, and the peerage from Mademoiselle Elise; more fittings for her new Worth gowns; and after that, more calls. If she had to sit through another afternoon listening to Society ladies and their daughters gush about gowns and lace, calling them “deevie,” which was their private word for
divine
, she’d squall like a bobcat in a pickle barrel.

“Deevie indeed,” she muttered.

Such affectations irritated her intensely, causing her to slip in her determination to improve her character. For Mattie was engaged in a great endeavor
to reform, to become more tolerant, more even-tempered, calm and, above all, sweet-natured. These were the qualities of the great lady Papa had always wanted her to become. Sadly, she lacked most of them. Closest to her heart was the desire to be like other young women. Other young ladies seemed to glide along with sweet smiles and kind words, never growing angry at things like women not being allowed to vote, never losing their tempers or wishing they could take charge because some man was making an all-fired mess of things.

Mattie hurried down the stairs, through the drawing room and past a table on which were scattered her mother’s books on conduct. Her resolve to improve vanished. Glaring at Mama’s copy of
Titled Americans
, Mattie cursed every girl in it who had married an English lord. Ever since her parents’ efforts to conquer New York society had failed so embarrassingly, their hopes of establishing social preeminence had fastened on their twenty-three-year-old daughter.

Ordinarily she would have refused to have anything to do with such carryings-on, but just before he died, Papa had asked Mattie to do just one thing for him. Marry a titled Englishman. It would make all his hard work, all his efforts to give them a better life, worth it. And he and Mama hadn’t been satisfied with low standards like the Jeromes, whose daughter Jennie married Lord Randolph Churchill. Papa and Mama aimed high, and Mattie must set her cap for the best, like Consuelo Yznaga, who became Duchess of
Manchester, or her goddaughter, Consuelo Vanderbilt, the new Duchess of Marlborough.

The path to gentility had been a rough and long one for Mattie. It had begun as soon as Papa grew wealthy, with many a rebellion along the way. But over the last few years Mattie had come to realize how different she was from most girls, and after a while she’d begun to suspect there was something wrong with her. Otherwise she wouldn’t find inventions and new ideas more fascinating than Paris fashions and marriage offers. Her character was flawed, or she would long to be as sweet, loving, and giving as her mother and her friend Narcissa. Just when she thought she’d turned herself into a lady, she’d forget to control her tongue or her temper, or both.

With a sigh Mattie shut the door to the drawing room. Avoiding the kitchen, where the maids would be starting fires and heating water, Mattie left the house through the conservatory. She stopped to pull on her boots, wiggling her foot into the aged leather. These were her old boots, the ones she wasn’t supposed to wear because they were Texas trail boots rather than fine English riding ones. But why wear anything fancy when no one was going to see her?

Mattie stood and luxuriated for a moment in the soft wrinkled and scratched leather. Then she stamped her boots to settle her feet in them comfortably and set off for the stables. With every step away from the house, her spirits rose. She was wearing her long, loose coat that covered her from neck to boots and fastened
tightly at the cuffs. Her hair was covered by a hat and veil, and goggles hung about her neck. Letting herself out the garden gate, she crossed an alley with eager steps and met Trimble, the coachman, on his way to feed the horses.

“Good morning, miss.”

“Mornin’, Trimble. You haven’t seen me.”

“No, miss. I never do.”

Trimble opened the stable doors, and Mattie went to a canvas-covered mound opposite the stalls. The coach horses stuck their heads out and nickered at her. Mattie waved at them as she hauled the canvas off her new motorcar. The gray hue of dawn lit the black metal body and polished brass headlamps of the Panhard-Levassor. A shiver of excitement whipped through her as she reached over and flipped the lever on the steering wheel to retard the spark. Hurrying to the front, she gripped the crank and turned it once. The engine burst to life with a steady metallic hum. It was unlike anything else heard on the road, those tiny, muffled, rapid-fire explosions that blurred into one continuous purr. The brass carriage lamps rattled against their glass. Mattie grinned over her shoulder at the horses, who had become used to the noise of the car.

“One crank every time, fellas. It’s a caution.” Equine ears pricked. One of them snorted and kicked his stall.

“Dang, Trimble. I think they’re jealous.”

The coachman was filling a bucket with oats.
“More like they wish that foul machine to perdition, begging your pardon, miss.”

Pulling her goggles into place, Mattie jumped into the Panhard and released the brake. “Don’t worry, we’re leaving. Come on, Pannie, before the poor creatures have conniption fits.”

Mattie drove out of the alley at a sedate pace. No sense in waking Mama with engine noise. These drives served as a refuge from the trials of being in Society and trying to catch a titled husband. Essentially American in her outlook, Mattie had trouble giving up her ideals regarding men, women, and marriage. She didn’t want to get married at all, but if she was going to do it, she wanted to marry someone she loved. Of course, that was no longer an option. Among the English aristocracy, marriage was an alliance between families for financial and social advantage. Love had nothing to do with it. Love was what happened after an heir had been provided—then the partners went their separate ways to find it, the husband sometimes getting a head start on his search.

“Mattie Bright,” she said to herself as she turned a corner, “you got as much chance of finding a lovable man in Society as an armadillo does of going to a tea party.”

Besides, how was she ever going to know for sure whether a man valued her or her money? If she married the kind of man she’d promised Papa she would, the answer would be obvious. Sighing, she reminded
herself that she’d given up on finding someone who would love her for herself. She liked all the wrong things, like motorcars and finding ways of employing her money for the good of others. English ladies weren’t supposed to finance the education of the poor or advocate the vote for women.

Of course, she’d had to leave all of that—except the motorcars—behind in America. Which meant she was bored when not corresponding with friends like Mr. Roosevelt or the administrators of her various projects. And she wasn’t going to fool herself. A beauty she wasn’t, so her greatest asset was her money. It would be at home as well as in England.

“So there’s no point in not doing as Papa asked,” she muttered.

Practical, that’s what she was. Finding true love, like in Mama’s old bedtime stories, was a dream. But every time she reminded herself of this, something inside her ached. Usually she could distract herself by recalling how much Papa had wanted her to succeed and how desperately she wanted to make him proud. Papa had died ashamed of his inability to conquer high society, and now he was depending on her to do what he couldn’t.

“Don’t get all blubbery. Pay attention to your driving.”

Mattie watched carefully for early pedestrians as she entered St. James’s Street and stopped at Piccadilly. Then she positioned herself in the middle of the deserted street. A passing flower seller eyed her with alarm when she pressed the gas. The Panhard’s engine
whirred, and the car jumped into motion. Wind hit Mattie’s face, taking her breath away. Her worries vanished as the brick pavement blurred and the Georgian and Regency buildings on either side sped by.

Exhilaration pumped through Mattie’s veins with the speed of fuel through the engine. She laughed and whooped, keeping her eyes on the road. Ahead loomed Hyde Park Corner and Wellington Arch. Slowing only a bit, she turned the wheel and accelerated into the curve. The Panhard hugged the pavement and spun onto Park Lane, startling a chimney sweep and a maid cleaning a wrought-iron gate. The maid shrieked and covered her ears, but Mattie zoomed by, her eye on Marble Arch at the end of Park Lane. She would race around the arch, down Bayswater and into Hyde Park by the Ring. There she could circle the park via Rotten Row.

BOOK: Suzanne Robinson
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