The Prince of Midnight (5 page)

After he started the soup, he looked in on her again. She was restless and
petulant, drifting from sense to nonsense, taking one sip of water and then
refusing the next. Her forehead and hands felt fiery. He might have thought she
was reaching a crisis, except the past days had seemed nothing but one endless
climax of fever and weakness.

He did what he could for her, bathed her in a decoction of rue and rosemary
he'd been boiling daily, ever since she'd had a moment of lucidity and told him
to rub himself with it to prevent infection. She seemed to be something of an
expert in the matter of physicking, and when he could coax an instruction out of
her, he followed it with alacrity. Afterward, he took a half hour, as he had
daily, to climb carefully down into the canyon and steel himself to bathe in the
icy river that rushed down from mountains.

To strengthen himself, she'd said—and God knew it took backbone to wade in
naked and pour a bucketful of frigid water over his head. He'd never been known
as a coward, but that little task bordered on being more than he could brave.

He did it, though. Mainly because he had no desire to die the way she was
dying.

The sun had cleared the canyon wall by the time he retied his queue and
shivered into his shirt and waistcoat. He walked a little way downstream,
whistling for Nemo, looking for any signs, still clinging to the faint hope that
a female's presence might be keeping the wolf in hiding.

He found nothing to reassure him. At last he took a different path up the
canyon, emerging onto the track from the village. He kept his eyes on the
ground, still looking for fresh signs.

The sign he found wasn't a wolf's. On a limestone ledge above the path, the
scrambling marks of human footprints led him to a little crevice beneath a
juniper bush. In the shadow, a battered cloak bag lay indifferently concealed.
He pulled it out, turned it over, and flipped open the buckles, rifling the
contents with seasoned efficiency and no compunction.

The elegantly lined interior held a crushed silk gown and matching slippers
embroidered in an intricate pattern of Prussian blue birds. Beneath that lay a
set of bone stays in brown twill and a few pieces of muslin worked in elaborate
needlepoint.

He pulled out the clothing, spreading the carelessly wrinkled gown over a
bush to keep it clean of dust while he ransacked the rest of the satchel.
Underneath the layer of twill, there was a leather case that held a collection
of small vials and medicines in tiny glass jars, all neatly lettered with labels
such as, "Carminative Powder" and "Blistering Plaister," and "Lozenges of
Marshmallows."

Stuffed inside a silver cup, wrapped in a handkerchief, he found a fine pearl
choker. A painted fan and a pair of gold shoe buckles in a satin-lined case
marked "Remember the Giver" lay at the bottom. He stuck his hand in an interior
pocket and jerked back, swearing, sucking the cut on his finger. Investigating
more carefully, he found a sterling letter opener engraved "LGS" and sharpened
to a lethal point, along with the stable file that had done it.

There was nothing else but a purse full of small coins and a worn sketchbook
labelled, "Silvering, Northumberland, 1764 to 17—, by Leigh Gail Strachan." S.T.
flipped it open.

As he paged through it, he began to smile wryly. The bright watercolors
inside were enchanting, the humorous and naive figures of a young country lady
painting her family and daily life. Each sketch was carefully titled and
commented upon in ink. "Emily falls off her donkey! (Must work on perspective)";
"Edward N. displays his ingenious electrifying machine to Emily, Anna, and Mum.
Anna swooning. (Staircase shown too wide but expressions good.)"; "Assembly at
Hexham. Captain Perry teaching Anna a graceful step."; "Stuck in deep mud.
Castro barks most rudely at John Coachman. (Study proportions of equine hind
leg)"; "Papa asleep in the library after a difficult day cutting roses with
Mum."; "Wassail, Wassail! Emily, Leigh, and Castro meet Papa and Edward N.
returning with the Yule log."; "The Lord of the Manor curing a sick piglet by
chasing it round the yard. Anna and Leigh looking on." "Emily falls off a
stile."; "Papa preparing Sunday's sermon."; "Emily, Anna, and Leigh save the
kittens! (Dog very poorly done.)"

The sketch of the valiant rescue showed the three girls in their aprons and
bonnets brandishing sticks and brooms at something that resembled a spotted pig
with fangs. S.T. grinned. In the background of a hayrack, five splotches with
feet seemed to represent the threatened kittens.

A folded clipping from the
London Gazette
lay between the last page
and the backing. He smoothed it open.

By Proclamation of His Majesty the King,
it read in grandiose
lettering, above a long list of declared outlaws. S.T. found himself two-thirds
down the page.
"Styled the Prince of Midnight, betimes in French, le
Seigneur du Minuit. Passing Six Feet in height, Green Eye 'd his Brown Hair Gold
Favour'd, a Gentlemanly Air, Excellent Address and Brows of Uncommon upward
Curl. Mounted upon a Fine Black Stud, Sixteen hands, no Markings. Whoever can
discover the Person aforesaid to His Majesty's magistrates shall have three
pounds reward.

"Three pounds?" S.T. said in shock. "Only three bloody pounds?"

It had been two hundred in his glory days, and he'd been at the top of the
list when last he'd seen one of these thieftakers' handbills. No wonder he'd
never been disturbed in his lair at Col du Noir.

Three pounds. What a melancholy thought.

He slid the sketchbook back inside and stood up. Still nursing his cut
finger, he folded the dress, stuffed it in, and shouldered the valise, shaking
his head at the wonder of this gently bred young girl making it across most of
England and all of France. Alive. Alone. In search of him.

By nightfall, he'd spooned two bowls of soup into her. After a little rally,
in which she'd cursed him feebly and called for both her parents, she seemed to
grow worse, weaker and more lethargic. Sometimes he had to stare at the bed for
long moments to make sure she was breathing.

He wished she'd just die and get it done with. In the dim firelight, he sat
in his chair with his head resting against the stone wall, waiting. It came to
him that he would have to bury her. He tried to think of where he ought to do
it—God, some place that he'd not have to pass every day—he wouldn't be able to
bear that. He thought of what it would be like, alone in the castle, without
Nemo, and felt a deep black well of despair open inside him.

He got up and bathed her forehead. She didn't wake, didn't even move, and he
stared down at her in silent panic until he saw at last the faint rise and fall
of her breasts.

Asleep, warmed by the faint firelight, her face seemed softer. More human. He
could imagine her smiling. He thought of the silk dress and slippers; envisioned
a fine withdrawing room and a silver tea set, tried to put her in the setting .
. .

S.T. knew those drawing rooms. He knew those ladies. Intimately. Their
courage might extend to a rendezvous in the garden at midnight, an affair in the
dressing room or the shadows of the back stairs: he'd conducted an intensely
dangerous and passionate congress beneath a scaffold once in some state room
under renovation in the Percy's great house at Syon, and the smell of sawdust
and plaster was mingled ever after with sweetly scented powder and soft skin in
his mind. The lady would have left her noble husband for him, she'd claimed that
much valor for herself, but S.T. could not imagine she'd have walked alone from
the north of England to Provence. In the end, she hadn't even left a message for
him when that selfsame husband had arrived to put an end to her daring and take
her home.

Women.

S.T. sat brooding on the past. There was something about Leigh Strachan that
brought it back in all the glory and agony: what a splendid fool he'd been—but
so alive, so electric, every step a gamble, every stake a fortune; even the
memory seemed more real than the present. . . .

Charon in the moonless dark, a shadow with silver hooves, shouts and the
yellow gold flash of pistol fire . . .

He closed his eyes. He could feel his heart beat faster, taste the sweat and
excitement; he knew what the mask felt like on his face, how the black cloak
weighted his shoulders and the gloves smelled of saddle soap and steel. His
throat burned with cold air, with the effort of using his sword, of keeping
Charon between bit and heel: a dance to the left or right, a
pirouette
or a
capriole
with those silvered hooves to distract and confuse in the
night: a ghost horse that could ride the air.

It had consumed him, the cool art and hot thrill of it, moving in a twilight
between wealth and dirt poverty, where the morality of what he did seemed
fitting in the face of such consummate injustice. He was deliberate in whom he
chose to champion and whom to torment. He'd studied his marks, gliding with them
through the polite salons, the green parks and shimmering masquerades; a
gentleman like the rest, unsuspected, shielded by the august and ancient name of
Maitland—singling out the blindest, the most smug and self-concerned for his
prey.

But he'd never been a true crusader. He'd never had an honest mission. 'Twas
the sheer joy of the game, the risk and rebellion. He'd simply grown up an
anarchist at heart: an agent on the side of chaos. Until chaos had turned on
him.

He sighed deeply and rubbed his palms over his face. Then he glanced at the
bed and sat up straight.

Her eyes were open. When he stood, she looked toward him. For a moment there
was a trace of a smile on her lips, and then a look of slow realization changed
her face, as if she'd woken from a good dream into a bad one. She turned away
from him with a sullen move.

"I told you not to stay with me," she said hoarsely.

He frowned at her, at the thin sheen of perspiration on her pale skin. The
feverish color seemed to have subsided, but it was hard to tell in the
firelight. He reached out and touched her forehead. "It's broken, hasn't it?"
she murmured indifferently. "I shall survive." She was warm beneath his hand,
but not burning.

He observed her narrowly. "God willing," he said.

"What has God to say to it?" Her voice was weak, but it held a faint sneer.
"There isn't any God. The fever's broken. By tomorrow 'twill be quite . . .
normal." She closed her eyes and turned her face away. "Nothing will kill me, it
seems."

He poured water for her. "Something's come damned close."

She stared at the cup he held out. For a long moment, she made no move. Then,
with a weary sound of acquiescence, she lifted her hand. S.T. saw it tremble. He
put the cup down and plumped the pillows while she levered herself into a
half-sitting position.

She sipped at the water, holding the cup in both hands. Her eyes drifted over
the room in a lackluster inspection. They came to rest on him. "You've been
stupid to stay."

He rubbed his ear. She watched him over the cup rim. After a silent moment,
he took the water before she could spill it in her shaking fingers. "What else
was I to do?" he asked.

Her eyelashes lifted. The look she gave him said she didn't believe anyone
could be so dim-witted.

He set the cup down and gave her a dry smile. "I live here," he said. "I
don't have anywhere else to go."

She closed her eyes and rested her head back on the pillow. "The village,"
she said weakly.

"And take the fever there?"

She shook her head without opening her eyes. "Stupid man . . . stupid man. If
you'd left . . . when first I told you to go. It takes intimate contact to ...
infect."

He watched her without speaking, trying to decide if she was truly coherent
and on the way to recovery.

"I hope," she said, "that you didn't stay out of some foolish romantical
notion."

He looked down, staring at the tumbled bedclothes. "Such as?"

"Saving my life."

He looked up again with a grimace. "Naturally not. I usually throw my
houseguests off the cliff."

One corner of her mouth curved faintly. "Then I wish you would ... do me the
favor." The curve turned into a quiver. She pressed her lips together.

He sat down on the edge of the bed and smoothed her forehead, brushing her
skin with his thumb. "Sunshine," he whispered. "What have they done to you?"

She bit her lip and shook her head. "Don't be kind to me. Don't."

He cradled her face in his palms. "I was afraid you would die."

"I want to." Her voice shook. "Oh, I want to. Why didn't you let me?"

He traced her cheekbones and the curve of her eyebrows with his thumbs.
"You're too lovely. Dear God, you're too beautiful to die."

She turned her face away. He stroked her skin, feeling the unnatural warmth
that still lingered. "Damn you." Her whisper broke upward precariously. "I'm
crying."

Hot moisture tumbled down across his fingers. He smoothed the tears away,
felt her convulsive, shuddering breath as she fought to control it. She lifted
her hands and pushed feebly at his, trying to evade his touch.

He moved away, to quiet her. This might be recovery, or it might only be that
last strange moment of lucid strength before the finish. He'd seen it happen.
Standing there looking down at her pale, finely etched features and the lifeless
desolation in her eyes, he could believe she didn't have far to go to slip over
to the other side.

She was alive in the morning, though. Most definitely alive, if not more
cheerful. Four days later she sat up in bed, frowning, and refused to allow him
to nurse her, but ate and drank with her own wobbly hands and insisted that he
leave her in private for her toilette.

So he did. He went out hunting for Nemo again and came back alone.