Mistress by Midnight

by Maggie Robinson

  “You did the right thing. The perfect thing, Laurie. I love you.”

  She looked right at him, shadows from the lantern flickering across her face. “I love you, too.”

  Chapter 22

  There. She’d said it aloud. She hadn’t uttered those words in twelve years, just kept them locked in a chilly corner of her heart while she distracted herself with life. But she did love Con, always had, always would. How she was going to live out the next forty years or so she hadn’t a clue, but now was not the time to hammer out the details. For the time being, she was done with hammering. She brushed Con’s startled mouth with her own. “Get him out, Con. Now.”

  Con lurched up as if he were drunk. She had shocked him, with words and touch. Listening as he explained what to do to James, she admired his patient tone. He was meant to be a father, had the requisite mix of humor and strength that so many men lacked. Her father, for example. She could have benefitted from some adult supervision. But then she might not have grown up to run around the countryside in the dark, wearing men’s breeches. Or hang upside down like a spider for what felt like hours, chiseling away at sedimentary rock.

  She felt every muscle inside her scream for a hot bath and a soft bed. She wasn’t sure how she could possibly climb that benighted cliff and walk all the way home, and knew James couldn’t. Con had brought her horse, though, if the creature was still somewhere up there waiting.

  He’d urged her to give it a name, but she had refused. She was not going to get attached to an animal for a week, and she had been so very determined to stay only a week, and not a minute more. Those plans were by the wayside now. She wouldn’t leave until she knew James had recovered from his ordeal. She wasn’t sure but that he might need stitches on an ugly gash on his shoulder. The blood had seeped through his wet shirt and showed bright red. She pulled the watch from her pocket. Just two hours left until dawn. The sun rose early and set late in summer in Yorkshire. She wondered if Con would wait until it was light before they left the cave.

  “Cinch yourself tight, James, as tight as you can,” Con urged. “There’s no rush. Take all the time you need. Just tell me when you’re ready for me to reel you in like a fish. I had the lake stocked for us, you know. When you’re up to it, we’ll go fishing.”

  Prosaic words to alleviate anxiety. Con was chatting as though they were around the breakfast table planning their day. James said little as he struggled to get the slipknot over his chest. Laurette had tried to brush off most of the dirt from his face and neck with his handkerchief, but he’d been so pale. She counted off the minutes as Con leaned over the shaft, biting her tongue from speaking. The sooner James was free, the happier she’d be. She would never, ever step foot in a cave again in this lifetime, and would absolutely forbid Beatrix from ever going caving again.

  At last James said he was ready. Con braced himself, a look of concentration on his face. Laurette stood up and placed a hand on his cheek, rubbing the black bristles with her thumb. “I can help, too.”

  “You’ve done quite enough for one night, my darling. But thank you.”

  He’d removed his shirt after he pulled her up and wiped her face with the fine linen, so he looked like a half-naked god to her. Staying at his side, she watched his muscles cord as he worked the rope, his lips set in a grim line. The dark cross on his shoulder gleamed as he strained backward, sweat pouring off him. The cold of the cave danced across her skin, or perhaps it was simply desire. Her nipples puckering, she quickly covered herself with Con’s jacket right before he tugged James up over the edge.

  “I’ve got you, I’ve got you.” Con hooked his hands under James’s armpits and dragged him onto the bumpy surface. James lay limp, his eyes blinking against the light.

  “The water bottle, Laurie.”

  It was still attached to her makeshift strapping, and nearly empty, but she passed it to Con as he positioned James in his lap. James spluttered a bit as he drank it all.

  “I’ll get more.”

  Con nodded. “Take the lantern.”

  She wouldn’t leave James in the dark after all he’d been through. “I’ll navigate by starlight. Be right back.”

  She stood outside the entrance for a moment, gulping air. It was almost over. The stars overhead winked with promise. Bowing her head, she gave thanks that her prayer was answered.

  The gentle spill of the water reminded her she had at least one more job to do. She cupped her hands and drank in the sharp taste of the wild, then filled the bottle for James and Con.

  She bent to enter the cave, then stepped back unseen. They wouldn’t need the water quite yet. They were wrapped in each other’s arms, clinging fast. Both were crying, their sobs muffled by ragged clothes and bare skin. Tears of reconciliation and relief. Laurette’s heart lifted.

  She waited a few minutes. Clearing her raw throat as a warning, she ducked under the rockface. Con was putting his ruined shirt back on as James toyed with the rope that was still coiled around him.

  Their moment was over. Men, in her experience, were odd creatures, keeping their vulnerability secret as though it were a crime. Boys were even worse, victims of their pride.

  “James tells me he’s game to get back tonight. This morn ing, rather.” Con took the water from her, took a quick sip, and handed it off to James. Con reattached the other end of the rope to his waist and snapped it.

  Laurette was not feeling game at all. “Isn’t there any other way?”

  “The other side is just as steep. And your faithful steed awaits us, my lady.” He scooped James up as if he didn’t weigh a thing. “When I can’t carry you anymore, you can climb up after me. I won’t let you fall.”

  James made no objection.

  “What about the saddlebag? The tools?” Laurette asked.

  “Leave them for the next unfortunate soul who wanders this way. Even though we’re not on Stanbury property anymore, I have half a mind to put up a danger sign. Just carry the lantern for me, Laurie. We won’t need it much longer anyhow.”

  She led the way across the stream, and started up the rise, dreading every step. Her back and legs stiffened in protest each time she raised her knees. If only she could climb up on her bottom—well, why couldn’t she? She’d kissed her dignity good-bye some time ago.

  She put the lantern down, where it promptly rolled down the incline and went out. Wonderful. It could get together with its mate and have a merry old time. “Sorry. You two go on ahead. I’m going to scuttle up the hill like a crab.”

  She thought she heard James laugh, but it was too dark to see his face.

  “I’ll come back for you if you get stuck. Just let me get James settled.”

  “Of course.”

  They trudged by her as she sat in the damp grass. She made fair progress going backward until the angle changed and she thought she’d be more efficient crawling on her hands and knees. Every so often Con would shout down to her and she’d shout back. The stars were fading in a pearlgray sky. This night was almost over.

  The household had finally quieted down again, just when it should be coming to life. Con had bathed James himself, trusting Nadia to sew up the slash on his shoulder and Sadie to rub an herbal concoction on his scrapes and bruises. James had eaten a little—and vomited it all up, and was now sleeping, mummified in his sheets and just as white. A dozing Beatrix kept him company in an armchair in the corner of his room. She had pleaded with Con to let her sit with him, wanting to do her part in his rescue and recovery. Laurette had disappeared upstairs to clean up. To spare the servants any more work, he’d gone to the lake with a bar of soap and swum with near violence, as though he hadn’t been up all night and was a decade younger. The physical challenge was a punishment.

  He’d come so close to losing his son.

  James had once been a bit of an abstract concept. At birth he’d been red, wrinkled and hungry, belonging entirely to Marianna and her breast. Con felt like a rather useless appendage, forbidden even from holding his so
n. He had been shut out, including when it came to choosing the child’s name. His father-in-law had pranced about Ryland Grove as if the child were his, crowing to the countryside how he’d set his grandson up for life. The next Marquess of Conover seemed more Berryman than Ryland to Con’s twenty-year-old self, one more figure moved to the Berryman side of the ledger in the Berryman accounts book. The first week of James’s existence showed Con all too clearly how the next years would enfold, and he couldn’t stomach it.

  He had a son, but did not feel like a father. So he left, wondering if he would be missed. He thought not. One thing led to another until it was too late to return. But now he was here, his son a flesh-and-blood boy who needed him, who perhaps could love him in time. That would have to be enough for now.

  He slicked his long hair back, dried off and dressed, watching the pale yellow sun shimmer up over the distant mountains in the east. After the exercise in frigid water, he was as weary as he’d ever been, his arms aching from retrieving Laurette and James from what James had dubbed “the pit of despair.” The lad would have a story to dine out on all his life, and a scar to prove it. Con kneaded his own sore shoulder, the cross-covered scar tissue courtesy of Monsieur Bonaparte’s troops rough beneath his fingers.

  He’d sent everyone back to bed, so was not surprised to enter an empty kitchen, save for Sam, who wagged his tail from under the table. A loaf studded with raisins and currants had been left on the sideboard. He was not really hungry, although he should be. Cutting off the heel, he took the backstairs to his room. The door was shut, which was surprising. What—who—was inside surprised him even more. Laurette lay beneath the woven coverlet, tendrils of wet hair tangled on his pillow. Her lips were parted, her golden lashes fluttering as she dreamed.

  It seemed criminal to wake her. It seemed criminal not to. Con warred with his instant erection. Perhaps she had just come to talk and had fallen asleep waiting for him to swim himself into sanity.

  “Laurette.”

  She sighed and turned, exposing a very naked back.

  Not to talk then.

  Con undressed quickly, wondering why God was so good to him today. He sank into the feather ticking, drawing her to him. Her breast was in his palm, his lips at her ear, her bottom cushioning his manhood. If he never moved for the rest of his life, he would be perfectly content, although it seemed Laurette had other ideas. She reached behind and cupped his balls, her fingers cool. Each pad tantalized his skin. All thoughts of sleep and bread vanished.

  They made love without a sound, slow, languorous, their exhausted bodies taking turns gentling and teasing each other. No one was master. No one was mistress. They fit to gether in a seamless whole, just the way Con had dreamed for so many years, only better. This was real. Her velvet skin was against him, the floral scent of her in his nose, and the sweet taste of her in his mouth. Laurette loved him as he loved her, and somehow he would make this work for everyone.

  Beatrix shook James’s elbow gingerly. She didn’t dare to be too bold because of his injuries, but his cries were alarming. He was smack in the middle of a bad dream and no wonder. After the time he’d had, he’d probably have lots of bad dreams for the rest of his life. She shivered to think of being wet and trapped and hurt, with no light and no hope and bats.

  Well, he’d gotten his wish to spend the night in a cave, only not exactly how he wanted to.

  “Wake up, James. It’s only a dream.”

  His pale blue eyes jerked open. He stared at her as if he’d never seen her before and not spent the past two weeks tormenting her in his James-way. It was all because he was shorter than she was, Sadie said. And that would change. Gentlemen were almost always taller than ladies.

  He wasn’t really mean, but moody sometimes. Bea felt sorry for him because of his parents. Lady Conover had been very nice to her when she visited Cousin Laurette in Dorset, but very managing. Everything had to be done just her way. Or else. Of course, now she was dead and James had a stranger for a father. Bea hoped they’d made up their fight and things would be better between them now that Lord Conover had saved James’s life. Well, Lord Conover had said it was Cousin Laurette who was the heroine. Bea was just happy that James was alive to stare at her, cross as a bear, no matter who was responsible.

  “What are you doing here?” he croaked.

  “Playing nurse. Sadie and Nadia have other things to do.” They had fixed up the chair for her so it was quite comfort able, with some pillows and an afghan throw. She had not slept much last night, waiting to hear from the search party. She was still in her nightgown, barefoot.

  “Where is my father?”

  “Asleep, I would think. Are you hungry? I can go downstairs and get you something.”

  James wrinkled his nose. “Sadie gave me oatmeal. It was vile.”

  “I rather like oatmeal. With cream and plenty of sugar.”

  “Glue,” James mumbled. “Go away.”

  Bea felt a stab of hurt. “Are you ill?”

  “I’m all right. I just don’t want to talk to you.”

  The way he said “you” was very odd, as though he’d be happy to blab to everyone else in the world except her. She stood up, the knitted blanket falling on the floor. “Very well, then. I don’t wish to be where I’m not wanted.” She gave him her most supercilious look, hoping to make him squirm, the worm. To think she’d lost sleep over this rude little—

  James struggled to sit up. “I promised I wouldn’t.”

  “Wouldn’t what?” He was making no sense, gawping up at the ceiling as if there were words written on it. Perhaps Cousin Laurette had hit his head with that hammer as well as the rock.

  “Talk,” he said at last. “It’s—it’s my throat, you see. Damaged from the screaming.”

  “Oh.” She sat down again, folding her hands. “I could read to you.”

  He shook his head, his gaze wandering everywhere around the room but on her. He seemed very uncomfortable. Almost—guilty.

  He should be, remembering the way he teased her yesterday when they found that painting. He had made her cry and then called her a girl, as if it were a curse word. Gypsies and trolls, indeed. Maybe his brush with death would be good for him, if it taught him to be kinder.

  “Your father has given me the portrait we found in the attic, you know.”

  If possible, James grew even paler.

  “Are you feverish?” Bea got up and felt his forehead. He was warm, but only from sleep.

  “Um.”

  “You were rather a beast about it yesterday.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He did indeed look stricken. Maybe she should leave him alone, or send Nico or Tom in.

  “You’re not my sister!” His voice cracked on the last syllable.

  “Of course I’m not. Although I wouldn’t mind, even if you are a boy and quite impossible sometimes. Having a brother might come in handy some day.”

  James didn’t seem to appreciate her joke. He looked truly wild now, his face turning crimson and back to snow. “James, you are ill. Let me get your father.”

  “No! He’ll think I broke my word. To talk. Vow of silence.” His lips snapped shut and he lay back down on the pillow.

  “Let me get you some tea with honey for your throat.”

  He nodded, looking vastly relieved that she was leaving. She wondered when she would be leaving for good. Last night had made today’s departure out of the question, for which she was secretly glad. She loved it here, with Sam and the sheep, the bright green of the dales and the gentle mist in the morning. She had learned to swim in the calm lake and had bested James in a rainy-day card game. Altogether it had been a wonderful holiday.

  The voices in the kitchen told her the quest for tea would be successful, although she was perfectly capable of boiling water. Sadie and Cousin Laurette had taught her all sorts of useful things when she visited. She stopped just outside the doorway to listen. If Nico or Tom were in there, she really should not turn up in her nightrai
l. Bad enough they saw her last night, although they had been too busy eating and worrying to notice her impropriety. Last night had been an emergency, but this morning was not. Her mother would have a fit to think Bea was such a hoyden.

  “It’s about bloody time.” That was Sadie. She sounded gleeful. Bea’s mama would not approve of such language from a servant. Or from anyone, for that matter.

  “So you think Lord Conover’s plan has worked?” The gentle, accented voice of Nadia.

  “Well, she’s in his bed again, and that’s a start. Now, if she can just get up the courage to tell Bea the truth, last night will be worth all the fuss. Laurette’s a stubborn lass, always has been. But she loves her daughter. The marquess has plenty of money to buy her back from those cousins. The poor mite can have a proper life with her real parents. People at home might talk at first, but they like Conover. And they love Laurette.”

  Bea flattened herself against the wall, heart racing. Her mama had always told her it was wicked to eavesdrop. You heard just what you deserved. Her mama was right.

  Her mama. If she understood Sadie correctly, her mama wasn’t her mama at all.

  She bit the inside of her cheek, hard, just to check if she could feel anything. She tasted blood. James knew. That’s why he was so nervous around her. He lied to her too. She was the bastard child of Lord Conover and her cousin. Not her cousin. No wonder her papa and mama looked at her the way they did sometimes, like she was dirty.

  She went upstairs to her room, forgetting the tea. But she could not forget what she had heard.

  Chapter 23

  Laurette lay in his arms, right where she should be. He supposed he should get up and check on James before too long. It was late morning already, time to start the day and a new life. Con wasn’t quite sure how it happened, but Laurette seemed altered as well. She was his. She would marry him. She hadn’t said so yet, but he knew in his heart.