The Prince of Midnight (11 page)

She wiped her fingers on the napkin. "I think you put your Englishness on for
me. Like a cloak."

"It's just another language." He massaged the back of his neck. "I don't
belong anywhere particularly. My mother never went back to England. We moved
about." He closed his eyes. "Venice, Paris, Toulouse, Rome . . . wherever she
could find an English gentleman to provide the suitably desperate romantic
entanglement." He paused. "He must be English, you see, so that I should be
brought up a proper little country squire. I can be French or Italian—or as
beefsteak as John Bull. Whatever you like."

"It sounds an unsteady life," she said.

Cushioning his head with his arm, he leaned against the stone column. "It was
rather a lark. Maitland sent money for the fencing and equitation and regular
letters about what a devilish mortification we both were to him, and my mother
lived off her lovers. 'Twas she who charmed Tiepolo for my place." He smiled
into the dark. "We rubbed along well enough,
maman
and I."

He turned and caught her staring at him. Abruptly she drained the silver cup
and gathered up the scraps of her meal in her lap. "Should I feed these to the
wolf?"

"Aye. Save one of the capons for morning. Throw Nemo the other. He won't come
close enough to take it from your hand."

Nemo lifted his head, pounced on the meat that landed in the grass a foot
away, and carried it behind S.T. to eat.

"Why are you here?" she asked.

"Here?" He was deliberately slow to understand. "I came to rescue you."

"Here in hiding. Why did you run
away
! Why are you not in England
still?"

"I didn't 'run away,' " he said indignantly. "I merely . . . emigrated."

"You've a price on your head."

"What of it? I'd a price on my head for thirteen years. 'Robbed on the Monday
last, by a man wearing a black and white mask, with polite manner, speaking
sometime French and riding a tall horse, all black or dark brown.' " He snorted.
"I ask you, where's the awful danger in that? If England rejoiced in a secret
police and a standing army as France does, we gentlemen of the highroad wouldn't
have it so fine, I vow." He looked over his shoulder at her. " 'Tis our great
good fortune that no freeborn Englishman will stomach such a womanish tyranny as
effective law enforcement. A parcel of country magistrates aren't particularly
menacing, provided a man's discreet. Which you may be assured that I am."

"Are you indeed," she murmured dryly.

He crossed his arms. "The real threat's from the thief-takers and fences, and
they're no better than thieves themselves. One had better know how to deal with
them, or be sorry for it. And sometimes from Bow Street, round and about London.
And then, too—'ware the statute of hue and cry. 'Tis raised on occasion, in the
county Hundred where the robbery took place." He tilted his head and winked at
her. "But it wouldn't be half so diverting if it were too easy, would it?"

"Easy no longer, perhaps. They have your description now."

"Oh, aye," he said savagely, "because a plump and pretty little black-eyed
pigeon saw fit to inform upon me." His mouth curbed. "Miss Elizabeth Burford."
He shook his head. "God, I must have been bewitched—I let her meet me where I
was hiding out... I let her take off my mask for sport." He sighed. "I'd never
done that before. I don't know why I did it then, save that..."

Leigh didn't speak into his pause.

S.T. took a deep breath. "Save that it all seemed a shade too tame to be
amusing, at the time."

"So she laid your description with a justice? And you fled to France?"

"Certainly not. Must you have it that I bolted like a frightened hare? No one
knew my name; I may have been somewhat beguiled, but I wasn't that caper witted.
A description's nothing if you move along posthaste and have a persuasive way
with your fabrications. No one's going to be hung on the grounds that they've
peculiar eyebrows."

"Why, then? Why did you run?"

He frowned. "I had reasons."

"What reasons?"

"You're a pushing sort, aren't you?"

She took the rebuff silently. He could feel her gazing at him. The moon hung
low over the mountain, casting long ebony shadows across the silvered grass.

"Why did you become a highwayman?" she asked at last.

He smiled into the darkness. "For mischief. For the thrill of it."

She sat cross-legged, motionless as a statue, still looking at him. S.T.
turned on his shoulder and leaned against the pillar.

"Did you think it was for my high ideals?" He mocked her with his voice. "The
first time was on a wager. I was twenty. I worsted an excellent fencer, won a
thousand pounds and the gratitude of a lady fair. I could see that it was the
life for me."

She tilted her head. The moon poured frozen light across her face.

"And what of you, Miss Strachan?" he asked. "What is your story?"

"Mine's simple enough." She unbuttoned her waistcoat and pulled it off,
kneeling on the ground to arrange it with her frock coat into a pillow. "I'm
going to kill a man," she said. "And I want to learn how to do it."

The breeze rustled in the long grass. Nemo finished his dinner, sighed and
heaved himself into a more comfortable position to lick his paws.

"Any man in particular?" S.T. asked. "Or is it just a grudge against my sex
in general?"

She stretched out on the grass, propped up on one elbow. Without the tight
waistcoat her feminine shape showed clearly, the slender swell of her hips and
breasts unbound. She pulled the ribbon from her queue and shook down her hair.
"One man," she said. "In particular."

S.T. left the pillar and lowered himself beside her, sitting cross-legged. He
leaned toward her. "Why?"

She rested her head back on the makeshift pillow and spread one of her hands,
holding it up and watching as she turned it slowly against the sky. "He murdered
my family. My mother, my father, and my two sisters."

There wasn't a tremor in her voice, not a trace of emotion at all. S.T. gazed
at her cool moon-washed face. She stared back at him, unblinking.

"Sunshine," he whispered.

She lowered her eyes.

He lay down beside her and took her in his arms; held her tight against him
and stroked her shining hair.

"If you're going to do it," she said in his ear, "go on."

His hand stilled. He took a deep breath, rolled onto his back, and blew out a
harsh sigh. "What do you mean by that?"

She didn't move beside him. "I don't object," she said. "I owe it to you."

He stared up at the temple columns, watching the moonlight and shadow. The
slender pillars seemed flawless in the dark: cold-white, beautiful. If they'd
ever had life to them, if they'd ever echoed to the sound of human laughter,
they were silent now. Stone dead and silent.

"I don't want your rotting gratitude," he said.

She lay perfectly still, a mirage of the impersonal moonlight, as lifeless as
the ruins. He couldn't even feel her breathing.

"Then I'm sorry." She spoke suddenly. "Because that's all I have to give."

He heard the roughness in her voice and turned toward her abruptly, pulling
her close against his chest. He buried his face in the curve of her throat. "For
God's sake. Don't build a wall to keep me outside."

"I won't build one," she whispered. "I am the wall."

He cradled her, uncertain of what to answer, how to reach her. "Let me love
you," he repeated. "You're so beautiful."

"How easily you fall in love." Her gaze moved beyond him to the night sky.
"How many times has that happened before?"

He tried to marshal his emotions into reasonable order, but a lock of dark
hair fell across her cheek and defeated common sense entirely. He brushed it
away. She made no resistance as he stroked her skin and kissed her gently.
"Never," he said. "I've had women. Lovers. I've never felt like this. I thought
it was love, but it never lasted."

She smiled, just barely, a grave, mocking curve of her lips.

"I swear it," he said.

"Foolish man. You don't even know what love is."

He stopped his faint caresses. "And you do."

"Oh yes," she said softly. "I know."

He leaned away, resting on his elbow. "Do forgive me. I didn't realize there
was someone else."

Her smile grew drier. "You needn't poker up, monsieur. I'm perfectly free of
that sort of romantic notion." She shook her head, as if she pitied him. "I'm
not in love. Nor married. Nor even a virgin. So you see—you may ease your needs
on me with a clear conscience."

He closed his eyes. He could smell her; warm musky female scent that made his
body hot.

"I know you want to bed me," she said. "Don't talk of love. I've more than
one debt to you that I can repay. Let me. Don't suffer for the sake of
gallantry."

He closed his eyes tighter. "I don't want it like that." All along his body,
he felt her lithe presence, her legs beneath the breeches. "To pay off a debt. I
don't want a whore."

"You want an illusion."

He opened his eyes. "I love you." When he said it, gazing at the perfect
lines of her face, it seemed so true. "From the instant I saw you."

"You want to bed me. I won't forestall you."

"I want your heart—to hold and cherish."

She looked away from him. "You've been wasted as a highwayman. I believe you
might have made quite a torrid troubadour."

Damn
her. It wasn't going properly. She wasn't responding the way
she ought at all. He wanted to drag her down into the grass and kiss her until
she was beyond mockery. Until she was soft and eager and helpless in her
passion, the way a love ought to be.

He set his jaw, staring into the dark. "I'm not a mindless buck, anyway. I
don't care to be serviced like one."

She lifted her hand and touched his cheek, drew her finger slowly down his
jaw and across his lips. He tasted her and his breath grew quicker.

"Don't deny yourself," she whispered. "Not waiting for some sentiment I can't
give you."

Her finger slipped downward, traced a cool path on his throat and chest,
drifting to her own neckline. She toyed with the tie on her shirt and pulled it
free, exposing her throat in the deep open V.

"Damn." He made a soft, wretched sound. "Damn you." In the moonlight her skin
was as cool and white as the stone columns. He ached to kiss it, to press his
face in the curve between her breasts and inhale the erotic scent of her.

She tugged upward, slowly pulling the shirt. It was deliberate, a harlot's
tease, and he knew it. It made him angry, and it made him desperate. The linen
slipped from the smooth swell of her breast. A queer heat seemed to radiate from
the back of his throat through his chest and his loins.

She slid her arms above her head. The languid move lifted her, showed him her
body like an offering: a delicious waist, the delicate bounce of her breasts as
she stretched. He gazed at their tender, curving underside in fascination.
Moonlight made her nipples exotic, the color of shadow.

He made a rough sound. "I said I don't want you like this." He felt taut and
helpless, refusing to touch her, unable to turn away. "Don't do this to us."

She merely lay still, eyes closed, prostituting herself. Her body gleamed
with the pale fire of the moon, as if she were a pagan goddess caught asleep
among the ruins. As if in a moment she might wake and rise to dance with
Dionysus, to seduce the reckless god and sink beneath him, entwined in leaves
and heathen laughter.

She opened her eyes and stared into his. He felt his soul slipping away, his
reason dim in the rising hunger. In the night, amid the fallen columns, he could
not think beyond her body. He felt the satyr in him, the elemental power of
lust—so aroused he was trembling for her. He'd not had this for too long. He had
no sanity left to master it.

She watched him coolly, ice-beautiful and exciting. With a sudden groan he
reached for her, slid his palms beneath her breasts and around her. The move
made him dizzy. She was warm to touch, as if alabaster had come to life beneath
his hands. He pulled her breeches free and felt her legs spread submissively
beneath him. She seemed smaller then, so female, fragile and vulnerable and
overpowering, swamping him with her compliance.

He kissed her breasts, touched her naked hips and the soft, soft curls
between her legs. He spread his hands against the earth and buried himself in
her.

He felt as if he'd lost his humanity and gone to the wild god that ruled this
place. He saw it as if it were a painting: he saw himself taking her, in the
dark grass beneath the moon, two nameless bodies framed by the ancient pillars.
He wanted to stop; he wanted to court her and lure her and beguile her into
loving him, but it was all lost in this animal burn; the exquisite dance of love
reduced to a savage, glorious rut upon the ground. She moved beneath him,
yielding to his urgent thrusts, driving him past coherent thought. When her
hands came up to touch his shoulders and her legs lifted around his, he
exploded.

The deep sound of ecstasy echoed among the stones. His body arched in
sensation. He held himself pressed hard within her, panting, feeling his blood
beat violently through his limbs. She brushed her ankle along his leg. He cried
out, jerked and shuddered in fervent reaction.

Beneath him she lay still. His shoulders trembled.

He let himself sag against her. With his eyes closed, he felt her belly,
smooth and soft on his. He pulled his arms in around her and held himself
inside. He knew he was breathing harshly, and that she wasn't. He knew that
she'd won—she'd only accommodated him, relieved his brute hunger to settle a
debt, and he'd been so miserably desperate that he'd taken what was offered as
if he were a beggar.

He rested his head on her shoulder, furious and ashamed, and still he didn't
want to let go of her.