Prince of Midnight Read online

  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 labeled, “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 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.

  The excursion had one success—he took his musket along and managed to poach a brace of royal pheasant, which solved the problem of supplies for the time being. When he returned, Miss Leigh Strachan was sleeping, her dark hair tousled around her face in sable curls, but she woke and struggled up in bed the moment he entered the room.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked abruptly.

  He lifted an eyebrow. “Considerably better than you, I don’t doubt.”

  “Your appetite is regular?”

  “Prodigous,” he said. “You’re keeping me from my breakfast.”

  “No febrile symptoms? Or chilling?”

  He leaned against the wall. “Not unless my daily sojourn in that bloody frigid stream counts.”

  “You’ve been taking a cold bath?” She regarded him with a weak scowl. “That’s something then, at least.”

  “Your orders, mademoiselle.”

  She lay back on the pillows wearily. “Would that you’d followed them all. I told you to go away, too, but you weren’t sensible enough for that. I only pray you won’t suffer the consequences.”

  “I’ve been drowning myself in rosemary and rue. I’m most delightfully aromatic. Have you noticed?”

  She took no regard of the arm he held out for a sniff.

  “That will be helpful-as far as it goes.” Her voice was strained, the natural huskiness pronounced, but she went stubbornly on. “I’ve been considering a further list of herbs you must collect, but you’ll have to bring me a pen and paper to write them down.” She didn’t wait for him to do so, but took a trembling breath and started immediately onto her next point. “In Bedfordshire, they’ve had some success with washing the walls of fever residences in quicklime. Is there any available?”

  S.T. shook his head, watching her closely. He doubted she ought to be exerting herself to this much talking.

  Her fingers moved restlessly. “You’ll have to make some. I can tell you how. But the herbs should be gathered first; you can brew several necessary decoctions for dosing yourself.” She closed her eyes, paused a moment, and then opened them. “You should continue the cold baths. And I’ll want to know instantly if you develop the headache or any other of the signs. I’ll write them down for you. As for the quicklime, you must gather—”

  By the time S.T. had been regaled with the long list of prophylactic measures he was to take for his continuing health, he couldn’t decide if Miss Leigh Strachan was truly concerned for him or simply a born drill sergeant. She had that methodical style of categorizing things in descending, ascending, and elliptical orders of priority that he associated with middle-aged spinsters and tax clerks. He began edging out of the room, finally claiming a pot of garlic was on the boil to hasten his departure, and escaped down the spiral stairs.

  He got to the armory, tried to remember the first thing he was supposed to do, and shook his head in defeat. “God’s blood,” he muttered to Charon’s portrait. “Quicklime. Peruvian bark. Smoking hell.”

  He kicked at a ball of dust and shrugged off his coat, electing to clean the pheasant instead. He didn’t intend to be hanging about gathering herbs and whitewashing walls anyway—as soon as she could fend for herself, he intended to leave her with some supplies and go looking for Nemo.

  When he took her a midday meal of aigo boulido, she was sitting up in his chair, wrapped in a bed sheet. S.T. grunted in annoyance. “You’ll have a relapse, damn you. Get back in bed.”

  She merely looked at him coolly, and then at the chipped bowl, full of bread soaked in a broth of sage, garlic, and olive oil. S.T. ate it all the time; it had kept Provençal peasants alive for centuries. Marc even considered the dish particularly suitable for invalids, S.T. knew, but Miss Leigh Strachan’s nose flared delicately as she turned her face away.

  “I cannot,” she said, turning even paler.

  “You can’t eat it?”

  “Garlic.” The single word held soul-deep loathing.

  He sat down on the bed. “Very well.” He held up the bowl and dug in himself. She watched him with a faint pinch to her mouth. He leaned against the bedpost, savoring the pungent soup. “What would you prefer, mademoiselle?”

  “Perhaps… some plain beef tea?”

  “I heard of a cow in Provence once,” he said. “In Avignon. That’s about thirty leagues from here.” He took another bite. “Lady Harvey had it imported from England.”

  “Oh.”

  “She didn’t care for goat’s milk in her tea.”

  Leigh bit her lip. “I should like my bread plain, then.”

  “As you please.” He shook his head, finishing off the last bite. “I’ll bring some for you bef
ore I go.”

  “Go where?” she asked sharply.

  He set the bowl aside. “First to the village. Maybe farther; I don’t know. I was going to wait a day or two, but if you’re strong enough to complain about the menu, I believe I can leave you to lift your own food to your mouth.”

  “Certainly I can, but you mustn’t leave here now.”

  He frowned down at his feet. “I won’t touch anyone. I’ll keep my distance. I just need to—ask some questions.”

  “Why?”

  He glanced down, fitting one fist inside the other. “My wolf… he’s gone off. I want to look for him.”

  “He’s lost?”

  “Possibly.”

  “How long has he been gone?”

  He didn’t look at her. “A fortnight.”

  There was a long silence. S.T. drew a circle, and then a figure eight in his hand.

  “It’s my fault, then,” she said quietly.

  He took a deep breath. “No. I sent him. To the village with a note. I didn’t have to. You didn’t ask.”

  The bed sheet rustled as she stood up. “Where are my clothes?”

  He looked up at her. She swayed a little and held on to the back of the chair for support. “You don’t need your clothes. You’re going back to bed.”

  “No,” she said. “I’m going with you.”

  Chapter Four

  Lying with her cheek pillowed against her cloak bag, feigning sleep beneath a pine tree, Leigh watched him from under her lashes. If not for the painting of the black horse Charon, she wouldn’t have credited that this man was really the Seigneur.

  It was true enough that he fit the physical description. He sat cross-legged in his shirt sleeves, tricorne tossed negligently aside, looking out over the steep-sided valley and chewing on a sprig of wild thyme. His hair was tied back in a careless queue; the sunlight of the south turned it to that shimmer of gold and deep earthen shadow that had sounded so peculiar by report and turned out to be so extraordinary in reality. The black ribbon tumbled halfway down his back. His easy smile and the strange fiendish curve of his brows gave his face a satiric cast, laughing and wicked at once.