The Prince of Midnight (50 page)

S.T. looked down at his lap. He took one breath, and then another, keeping
them even.

"Can you guard your tongue?" Clarbourne asked.

S.T. lifted his head and met the man's eyes. "Only give me sufficient
reason."

Clarbourne stroked his forefinger across his upper lip. He stared at S.T.
like a huge, sleepy toad staring at a fly. Then he reached inside his coat and
drew out a folded parchment embellished with dangling seals. He trod heavily to
the door, paused, and dropped the thick vellum on a small ebony table. "His
Majesty's full pardon," he said.

"You do not sully my daughter's name by hazarding to speak it."

He opened the door; stalked ponderously out, and closed it behind him.

S.T. stared at the folded parchment. He leaned his head back and rested it on
the chair frame, with a slow, incredulous grin spreading across his face.

A full month he'd been in London. A month he'd known where to find her at her
cousin's house in Brook Street. He had not gone. Every morning he rose and
dressed and called for a chair to take him, and every morning he'd found some
distraction, some trivial errand, some chance-met acquaintance, some reason why
it would be better to wait.

Perhaps he would see her at the new Pantheon or a garden
musicale,
somewhere more romantic than a drawing room crowded with morning callers.
Perhaps he would meet her on the street and take her hand and see her face light
with pleasure. Perhaps she would hear of his pardon, recognize his success;
perhaps she'd write a letter, send a message, do something—anything—oh God.

For a month, S.T. had been the darling of the London social season, the prize
of competing hostesses and an absolute sensation when he'd appeared at a
Vauxhall masquerade in his harlequin mask and silver-studded gauntlets. His
family name had always given him entree into society, and in the past he'd been
welcome as one of those not-entirely-respectable guests who added a bit of spice
to the list . . . but now, revealed as the Prince of Midnight, he found himself
the rage.

He spent his free time rehearsing the words he'd say when he saw her. At
every entertainment he moved restlessly through the crowds, edgy and brooding
until he was sure she wasn't present, and then he could be at ease.

After the first fortnight he began to realize that he wouldn't meet her; she
hadn't been into society at all—no one knew her, no one spoke of her, and the
ladies began to tease him about becoming sadly tame and approachable after all.

He even accepted an invitation to Northumberland's ball. The last time S.T.
had been Hugh and Elizabeth Percy's guest at Syon, he'd spent his days gambling
and sleeping late and his midnights making love beneath a scaffold. Percy had
been a mere earl then; now he rejoiced in a dukedom. Tonight the scaffolding and
the illicit lover were long since gone, and the interiors that Robert Adam had
refitted shone in all their rainbow glory: veined marble of red and green and
gold, patterned floors and gilded statues, carpets specially woven to reflect
every complex detail of the painted and plastered ceilings. Within it all moved
the duke's guests, as bright as exotic birds in a flowering jungle, fluttering
fans and gracefully flicking lace cuffs, smelling of perfume and wine and a
social squeeze on a warm June evening.

"I shall simply
die,
I promise you I shall," Lady Blair simpered to
S.T., "until I make you tell me what became of my pearl tiara with the darling
'ittle-weensy diamond drops."

He lifted his finger and flicked playfully at the emerald that dangled from
her ear, allowing his hand to brush her white throat. "Methinks I gave it to
your second housemaid." Smiling, he brought his hand back to his lips and kissed
it where he'd touched her. "After you dismissed the chit for impertinence. Did
your husband buy you nothing better to replace it,
ma pauvre?"

She gave a delighted shiver, her bared shoulders wriggling and her mouth in a
babyish pout. "Oh—p'rhaps I've been wicked to someone else, an' oo'll steal my
earrings, too."

"Perhaps I shall." He looked into her eyes. "And demand a kiss at sword point
on the open heath."

She laid her closed fan on his sleeve and rubbed it up and down the green
velvet. "How very—violent," she murmured. "I'm certain I should scream."

"But that only makes it all the more interesting." S.T. turned his head. "And
what if your husband should come to the rescue? I see him galloping this
direction now, armed with champagne and a glass of claret."

She rolled her eyes meaningfully, but S.T. only smiled and inclined his head
in a polite bow to the ruddy-faced man who wove toward them through the crowd.
"Lord Blair," he said. "Well met."

The man returned a cold nod. "Maitland," he said shortly. He handed his wife
her champagne and pulled out a lace handkerchief, dabbing at the perspiration
that beaded at the hairline of his powdered wig.

"We were reminiscing," S.T. said. "I was just about to complain to Lady Blair
that I carry the scar from your sword to this day."

"Eh?" Lord Blaire's scowl lightened. "Good God, that must have been ten years
ago!" He squinted at S.T. "I thought mayhap I'd pinked you, but I wasn't certain
of it."

"I was laid in my bed for a month," S.T. lied cheerfully, and then perjured
himself beyond redemption by adding, "You've a wicked twist to the left in
quinte.
Caught me entirely by surprise."

"Did it so?" Lord Blair's color heightened. He glanced left and right and
then leaned toward S.T. "I've said nothing in public about crossing swords with
you," he muttered. "Didn't really think—that is—one doesn't wish to puff off
one's bravado, you see."

"Certainly not." S.T. winked. "But you won't take it amiss if I should warn
anyone off from a quarrel with you."

Blair cleared his throat, turning very bright red. He grinned and clapped
S.T. on the shoulder. "Well, shall we let bygones be bygones, eh? You'll allow
you were a bit misguided to be lying out for Lady Blair and myself— but I don't
doubt the most of your victims got their just deserts."

"I like to think so," S.T. murmured kindly, and took his chance to move away.
The second housemaid, if he remembered aright, had been dismissed for the
impertinence of allowing herself to be raped and impregnated by the heroic Lord
Blair. S.T. left the champion expounding to his wife upon a fight that had never
taken place beyond his hopeful imagination and one halfhearted sally with a
smallsword. No Englishman but Luton could truly claim to have put a cut on the
Seigneur du Minuit. Luton, however, was not here to assert the honor, having
apparently been persuaded that it was in his interests to take an extended tour
of the continent.

Perhaps the Duke of Clarbourne had paid for his passage.

"You're perfectly shameless," a female voice said in his left ear. S.T.
turned around and bowed to his hostess, lifting her hand to kiss.

"But not boring, I hope," he said. "What misdeed do you intend to tax me
with? I'm certain I never robbed a duchess."

"Oh, too timid for that by half, I don't doubt. I'm not made of such paltry
stuff as Blair." She tilted her chin and looked down her patrician nose at him.

"Certainly better with a sword, I'd wager."

The duchess tossed her dark curls. "There—I said you were shameless. Poor
Blair is trying to convince anyone who will listen that he had the wherewithal
to wound you!"

S.T. smiled.

"Did he?" She lifted her eyebrows.

"I'm not at liberty to say, madame."

"Which means that he did not," she said in a satisfied voice. "I thought as
much—and so I'll reply to anyone who asks. I'll give that little smile, just the
way that you do, and whisper: 'He told me he wasn't at liberty to say'. 'Twill
drive Blair mad, won't it?"

"What a diverting thought. How does your charming niece go on?"

The duchess fluttered her fan. "Oh, she dines at eight, goes to bed at three,
and lies there until four in the afternoon; she bathes, she rides, she dances .
. . you may see for yourself—if you can make your way through the flocks of
languishing gentlemen."

S.T. didn't need to look to envision the young lady in question surrounded by
a ring of enthusiastic admirers. "I believe I'll conserve my strength."

"She's saving the first polonaise for you, if you believe you can dodder
through it, my poor weakling."

He bowed. "But perhaps you have this set free yourself, duchess? While I
still maintain some slight degree of vigor—will you honor me?'

She smiled and held up her hand. S.T. led her past the fluted columns to the
white and gold ballroom, where the crowd coalesced into an elegant group at the
first stately strains of music.

At the head of the set, he bowed as his partner curtsied. He moved through
the familiar steps, making the sort of light conversation that he'd learned at
his mother's knee. Not for nothing had Mrs. Robert Maitland been the toast of
London and Paris and Rome in her day. S.T. reckoned that he had idle party chat
bred in his blood.

It needed only casual attention to make himself pleasant and execute the
changes to the strains of flute and hautboys and harpsichord. He cast a glance
down the set as he lifted the duchess's hand and circled.

He saw Leigh.

Only pure instinct kept him moving. He finished the circle and went down the
set in mechanical response to the duchess's steps, not hearing the music, not
seeing the dancers, aware only of the monumental disaster that was about to put
him across from her in the set.

He couldn't tell if she'd seen him. Her face was composed, utterly gorgeous,
all her hair piled and powdered on her head and that tiny black patch at the
corner of her lips. He couldn't seem to draw his breath quite deep enough in his
chest; when he reached her end and paused at his place opposite her in the
pattern, his body just took its own course, independent of his mind. He didn't
even look at her; he only lifted her hand, circled, and passed on up the set.

After he'd done it, he began to breathe too fast. Idiot! Bleeding
blockhead!
Of all the things he'd meant to do when he saw her, of all he'd
planned to say, composing the words over and over in his mind until he got them
right—oh lord, oh Jesus, oh sweet bloody
hell
... he could not believe
what he'd just done.

He'd just cut her. He'd given her the cut direct. Perhaps she hadn't realized
it—maybe she'd done the same thing to him. Maybe somehow, in some perfect world,
she'd managed to overlook six feet and one inch of ex-highwayman, and after this
interminable dance he could go to her and make his speech and she would
understand.

But he looked at her and his heart froze in his chest, and all the pretty
words just vanished.

The music lifted and came to an end. S.T. offered his arm to the duchess. For
an awful instant, she seemed inclined to turn toward the foot of the set, but
then someone called to her from the ladies' anteroom. S.T. took his chance and
squeezed her arm, guiding her in the safe direction.

Leigh pressed her cheek against the carved oak paneling of the passage where
she'd come to hide herself after the dance. Impossible to stay amid the music
and laughter, unthinkable to see him again and have him look past her as if she
weren't there.

She didn't know what she had expected. A declaration? The Seigneur on his
knees at her feet? A chance to tell him what she thought of him?

Liar! Hypocrite! Treacherous, preening cockerel, all dressed in his green and
gold with his remarkable hair tied casually at his nape, not even powdered for
decency, gleaming in the candlelight.

Oh, all the nights she'd lain in her bed, afraid for him, wondering where he
was and how safe. All the mornings her heart had pounded in her throat as she
tried to speak casually of the papers to her Cousin Clara. Any news of note? Any
weddings, births, broken engagements? No highwaymen arrested? Oh, yes, what a
sad bore. No, please, she didn't think she felt up to going to the theater
tonight.

And then, in one day, the announcement of his imprisonment and pardon and
arrival in London.

She'd waited.

Why, why did she let it hurt like this?

She hadn't expected love, oh, no; she hadn't believed in him for one instant.
She'd known him for what he was. And yet she'd turned around with Silvering and
everything left of her life burning down before her eyes, and laid her heart and
being at his feet.

Why hadn't he come?

She truly hated him. Hate seemed to fill up her life; she still hated Jamie
Chilton in his grave, and Dove of Peace, and all the silly girls who'd come to
Leigh and said Mr. Maitland had sent them to her because she would know what to
do.

Of course she knew. It was easy enough to browbeat Dove into admitting her
real name, easy enough to predict that the powerful Clarbourne would take back
an heiress of Lady Sophia's substance no matter where she'd run away to. Sweet
Harmony, too, had a family anxious to have her back, willing to go to any length
to cover up the scandal. Leigh had settled Chastity; she'd made certain all of
them made homeless by her revenge on Chilton had somewhere to go—but she didn't
forgive. She hated every one of them.

Mostly she hated S.T. Maitland. And herself, because she was a great fool to
hurt, and hurt, and hurt.

She should not have come out to this affair. Of course he would be here,
basking in his legend. She'd heard about Vauxhall—attending in his mask, the
puffed-up coxcomb; he'd even had poor Nemo along and terrified all the ladies.
Never mind that the wolf must have been more frightened than any squealing
courtesan. S.T. knew how Nemo was with females. Leigh should have stayed home at
her cousin's the way she had for months—waiting, hoping, hating.