The Prince of Midnight (3 page)

The glisten in her eyes was gone as quickly as it had come. Her jaw grew
stiff and belligerent. She shook back her head and gave him a cold stare. "When
did you realize?"

"That you're a girl?" He shrugged. "Yesterday." He held up one broken stem of
rockrose and examined it ruefully. "When you smiled."

She scowled. "I'll take care to frown."

He flicked the rose into the dirt. "That ought to answer. You certainly
unnerve Nemo and me."

She glanced past him at the wolf. S.T. imagined running his finger along the
smooth plane of her cheek, warming to the color that burned there.

"That's Nemo?" She gave a little decisive jerk of her head. "You've trained
him well. I never saw you call him off."

S.T. turned toward the wolf. "Did you hear that? Well-trained. Come here and
prove it, then." He whistled a command.

Nemo bounded forward. He stopped a yard away.

"Come along." S.T. whistled again, pointing at his feet.

The wolf trotted to one side, then turned and loped to the other, making an
arc around them. When S.T. called him a third time, he crouched down and began
to whine.

"I shouldn't wonder if you were quivering in terror at this spectacle," S.T.
said.

She seemed slow to understand, watching Nemo with her back stiff and her
lower lip set in a vaguely scandalized fullness. "He's really afraid?"

"It's women. Females petrify him." He nudged his boot at one of the flowers
in the dirt. "No doubt he has his reasons."

A faint curve appeared at the corner of her mouth. She stared at Nemo with
that little half smile but said nothing. On his side, S.T. stared at her. Her
lips, her skin, the curve of her throat. He felt somewhat scarce of breath.

"I thought it was a test," she said.

He lifted his eyes to hers with a wrench of focus. "What?"

"I thought—you meant to test me. To see how I would face him."

"Oh, quite. And you passed. You're heroically stupid, I can see that. God
knows I wouldn't have had the pluck to walk up to the snarling brute." He tilted
his head, lost in the amazing depth of her eyes. "Of course, he'd tear the
throat out of a man who made that mistake."

Nemo gave a long moan and rolled over in the dirt, wriggling and snorting as
he tried to scratch his back. Then he relaxed belly-up, paws limp, looking
toward S.T. with his tongue lolling in a canine grin.

"Well, you would, y'know." S.T. flicked his hand, signaling abruptly. "Get
up, you great boor; there's a lady present. Go on with you. Hunt us up a
pheasant."

Instantly, Nemo flipped over and scrambled to his feet. He sprang into his
long lope and headed for the gate, already lowering his nose to cast for scent.
As he disappeared, the ducks outside broke into a raucous quacking and then
subsided. Nemo knew better than to raid them without permission.

"That's truly wonderful," she said, looking after the wolf. "The way you've
schooled him."

S.T. rubbed behind his ear. "Well, most probably he won't get a pheasant," he
admitted. "Perhaps a hare." He glanced at her sideways. "Will you . . . could I
ask you—to stay? For dinner?"

Her brows drew together, and he felt something inside him sink. But she said
stiffly, "Yes."

He let out a breath, trying to keep his smile from growing too inanely
pleased. He felt as tentative as Nemo with her. It had been a long time ... a
very long time. It wouldn't be so remarkable to find he'd lost his touch
entirely.

If only she weren't so damnably gorgeous. It made the base of his throat feel
hot and funny just to look at her.

"You're not at all what I expected," she said suddenly. The scowl became a
suspicious arch. "You
are
really the Seigneur?"

S.T.'s smile flattened. He didn't answer, but simply turned away ťŤd went
back to his easel, setting the canvas carefully against a rock while he took
down the framework and gathered his jars of pigment. He carried them inside and
came back for the canvas, not looking at her. As he passed inside the door, he
saw her long afternoon shadow trail slowly behind him.

She stopped in the armory. S.T. went on to the kitchen alone. He kicked an
empty barley sack under the table, set the painting down, and stoked the fire to
warm the chill stone walls. When he went back to the armory, she was standing in
front of the portrait of Charon.

S.T. crossed his arms, leaning back against the door-jamb. He looked at her
and then at the toe of his boot.

"I'm sorry," she said, with a trace of defiance.

"What for? I don't blame you for wondering. I don't much resemble Robin Hood
these days, do I?"

Those blue eyes raked him coolly. She turned back to the painting of Charon.
"Is he stabled here?"

"He's dead." S.T. hiked himself away from the door and left her. He went back
to the kitchen, shoved aside some paint rags and books on the table, grabbed an
onion, and started to hack at it with a dull cleaver.

He heard her come in; his good ear was to the door. He glanced up at her and
wanted bitterly to see something less alluring. But she was beautiful, slim and
straight, black lashes and fine, high cheekbones, running her fingers over a
plaster cast and slanting a look toward him that held all the old fatal power of
destruction.

And she didn't even mean it, that was obvious enough. She was dissatisfied;
she thought he was a disappointment, not living up to his own legend. The other,
the ache in his chest and his loins and his heart . . . that was his own
affliction. His weakness.

Women. He whacked at the onion. No wonder they terrified Nemo.

Three bloody years alone. He wanted to go down on his knees and press his
face against her body and beg her to let him make love to her.

He thought of Charon, of dumb animal devotion: a warm blow in his ear, when
he could still hear with both of them; the reassuring thud of a hoof while S.T.
slept on the damp English ground, all safe, all quiet, the watch kept by senses
sharper than his own had ever been—by an honest, simple mind that knew no better
than to trust in human wisdom.

The onion made his eyes blur. He set his jaw and tossed the ragged pieces
into a pot. He could feel her, though he didn't look; she was like a bright
flame in the cold clutter of his life. He wondered what blind folly this
particular temptress might beguile him to commit, what he had left that she
could take away.

His painting. Nemo. His life.

The list was longer than he would have thought.

"What do you want with me?" he demanded abruptly.

She looked up from a half-finished painting tilted against the bread chest.
"I told you."

"You want lessons in swordsmanship?"

She nodded.

He gestured toward a corner with the cleaver. "There's a sword. A pair of
pistols. You're welcome to 'em." He drove the cleaver into the table. "That's
all I've got to teach you."

She regarded him steadily. S.T. decided to ignore her. He took the leather
bucket outside, filled it at the stone well, came back and hefted it over the
pot. Water rang inside the iron kettle with a crystalline splatter.

"Is it because I'm not a man?"

He didn't answer. He was busy peeling garlic. The papery skin crackled in his
fingers; the familiar smell filled his nose. He concentrated on that. On simple
things. He could see her feet from the corner of his eye, the buckled shoes worn
down at the heels, the stockings darned meticulously with mismatched thread. Her
legs were slender and strong, her calves delicately shaped. Female. He bit down
on his tongue.

"That's going to taste terrible," she said.

He laid his hand over his heart. "And to think I was so confident that I gave
my chef the afternoon free."

"I could prepare it better."

He set the garlic down. "How?"

She shrugged. "I know how."

"Do tell me."

She looked at him beneath her lashes. Her hands worked, open and closed, very
slowly. "Will you teach me?"

He snorted. "I'm always interested in a new recipe for boiled onion, but
frankly, no."

"I've a talent for cooking. And extensive training. I'm an accomplished
housekeeper." She flicked an aloof glance around the chaotic cavern of his
kitchen. "I can organize all your business affairs—keep your accounts. By next
spring, I could have your garden producing enough to set an excellent table,
with plenty left over to sell. I could outfit you properly ... I have a gift for
design and sewing."

"And so modest."

"I could make this place into a decent home for you."

He tilted his head, glancing sideways at her. She stood very straight,
clearly prepared to launch into a list of further accomplishments should he
prove stubborn. With a little ironic smile, he said, "Don't suppose you know how
to make wine?"

"Certainly. I've been used to put up berry wine every year. And mint
cordials. And beer."

Her voice was cultured, her manner high-bred, but it sounded as if she'd been
a household servant. The borrowed male clothes she wore had belonged to an
aristocrat, that was certain. He allowed himself the indulgence of imagining her
young body, slim and lithe and naked, and blew out a soft, private breath of
desire.

His glance traveled upward. He met her eyes. She didn't blink.

"I'll do anything," she said. "I'll sleep with you."

S.T. brought the cleaver down with a savage chop, sending garlic flying in
two directions.

Curse her.

Curse her, curse her, curse her, the perceptive little bitch.

He wanted to say something vicious, something that would hurt her as much as
that flat business offer injured him. But when he looked up at her, the high
flush on her cheeks and rigid set of her mouth made her seem so young and
mock-tough and defenseless that his words stuck in his throat.

All he said was: "No thanks."

Just perceptibly, her shoulders relaxed. S.T. busied himself with another
garlic clove. He could feel blood mounting in his own neck at that tiny
indication of her vast relief. He tossed the garlic in the pot, parchment and
all, spread his hands on the table, and looked down at them. Ten fingers,
slightly paint stained. Two arms, one face. . . had he changed so much? No
female had ever complained of him, looks or performance either. He'd never,
never had to buy one.

He asked himself if he'd sunk that low, that he would do it now. He stood
there, insulted and aroused, painfully aware of her presence in his kitchen,
though he didn't dare look at her. For three years he'd put this into his art:
when the urge for a woman came on him, he worked, painting thunderstorms and
sleek greyhounds, nudes and horses, shaping curves in lumps of clay until he
could stand on his feet no longer and fell asleep in a chair with the modeling
knife still in his hand.

He never finished them. He could never decide if they were his best work or
his worst.

"May I sit down?" she asked in a queer voice.

"For God's sake, of course you can—" S.T. turned . . . and she was falling,
before he could gather his wits enough to lift his hand or take a step—she'd
collapsed, sinking from the knees into a boneless sprawl on the dirt floor.

For an instant he just stood there, astonished. Then he moved, his body
making the decision before his mind. She opened her eyes as he threw himself
onto his knees beside her. The deep blue was hazy with stress, the burning flush
on her cheeks gone to paleness. She tried to push herself up.

"I'm all right," she said huskily, trying to evade his support.

His heart was pounding. "The devil you are." He disregarded her feeble
attempt to get away. She burned with fever; he could feel the heat without even
touching her forehead.

"I am." She took a breath. "I am. I'm not sick."

S.T. didn't bother to argue further. He slid his arm underneath her
shoulders, ready to carry her, but she fought free. With a grip that surprised
him, she clung to his arm, trying to pull herself up.

"I'm all right," she insisted, holding herself in a sitting position against
him. "I haven't . . . eaten. That's all."

He hesitated, allowing her to lean on him, her forehead against his shoulder,
her blazing temperature refuting her own words. He smoothed his hand over her
temple and felt her head droop as she passed out again in the circle of his
arms.

S.T. panicked. Her skin looked pale as death, faintly tinged with an
unhealthy sallowness. He couldn't feel her breathing. He grabbed her hand and
chafed it, realized that was useless, and gathered her limp body into his arms.
He staggered to his feet under the burden, his uneasy balance reeling.

She came to just as he passed through the armory on his way to the bedroom.
"I have to get up,' she mumbled. "I can't be sick." Her head tilted back and her
white, slender throat vibrated with a low moan. "I can't . . . be."

He mounted the spiral stairs and gripped her tighter as she struggled weakly.
By the time he reached the first floor, he was cursing the castle's builders to
Gehenna, what with their uneven stairs and tight curves and narrow passage,
devised to make the ascent as difficult as possible for any enemy. The nervous
bastards must have been anticipating an army of midgets capable of twisting
themselves into Gordian knots. When at last he put his shoulder to the bedroom
door and swung her through, the rotation completely overcame his precarious
stability. His back hit the door; he had to pause to find his equilibrium before
he took a breath and crossed the room in a straight and unconfusing line to the
bed.

Her body sank into the feather mattress. His nose filled with dust—it had
never occurred to him until this moment to air the sheets, but at least the
bedclothes were cool and dry, and smelled mostly of lavender and linseed and
himself. She looked up at him, tried once more to rise, and then lapsed back
under his hands on her shoulders.