A Midnight Clear

by Lynn Kerstan

  “No. Well, yes, if not in so many words. Dammit, Jane, I thought I’d worked out a proper speech, but now I can’t seem to think.” Color rose on his face. “Well, she did tell me that much.”

  “Eudora said you cannot think?”

  “Something to the effect, yes. She scrolled through a litany of my faults along the way, but that seemed to be the most significant. And she was right, of course, for I am everything she said and more. Above all the rest, I have been monumentally stupid. Which can come as no surprise to you, I warrant.”

  “I have never thought so, my lord.”

  He smiled faintly. “Now who is lying through her teeth? Confess it, Jane. You thought me a clodpole every time I behaved as one, which I’ve done on a regular basis since first we met.”

  Oh, no, she told him with her heart. I thought you quite splendid. I still do. I always will. But she could only gaze mutely into his eyes, unable to speak the words aloud.

  “Well, then,” he said, “I take your silence for consent. But I am glad of it. If Lady Swann was correct in her judgment of my character, she must know yours equally well. I can only hope, please God, that the rest of what she told me was true. She came to see me this afternoon, you know. In a hackney cab.”

  Jane’s heart settled somewhere between her toes. “To inform you I have decided to remove to the country next week,” she murmured. “She had promised me she would not, until after I was gone.”

  “I expect Lady Swann makes promises when they seem called for and keeps them when it suits her.” His fingers tightened on her shoulders. “I had a right to know, Jane. Why did you feel a need to steal away from me?” He shook her gently. “There are limits even to my own monstrous stupidity. Be sure of this, my dear. Whatever happens now between us, I will never take Nan from you.”

  Relief washed over her. “Truly, I never believed you would. But I feared it all the same.” She nibbled at her lower lip, wondering how to explain. “There was a big yellow barn cat where I lived once, and she was friendly enough unless she’d just littered kittens. Then, whenever I found where she was nesting, she would wait until I’d gone and move the kittens to another place. It was purely instinct for the cat, my lord, and much the same with me.”

  “I understand,” he said quietly. “If you wish to go off to Bibury with Nan, then you must do so. Our agreement stands, and I shall honor it in every way, including my promise to contact you only through my solicitors. Which I have just broken, to be sure, but I’ll not do so again if you insist. Do you, Jane? Dare I beg you to change your mind?”

  She stared at him, afraid to hope, knowing that what she hoped for could never be. “T-to what purpose?”

  “Marriage.” His gaze lifted to a spot over her head. “Lady Swann said that you are, unaccountably, in love with me. Is it true?”

  She thought fleetingly of lying to him, for both their sakes, but could not bring herself to do it. “Yes,” she said simply. “Yes.”

  Instantly she was enveloped in his arms again. “You will not be sorry,” he whispered shakily. “I swear it.”

  “I know.” How could she ever regret loving him? “But it changes nothing, my lord.”

  “The hell it doesn’t!” He lifted her chin with a gloved finger. “You love me, but you don’t want to marry me? Why the devil not?”

  It was time to put space between them, she knew, reluctantly slipping from his arms and moving to the other side of the table. She looked back at him across six feet or so of polished mahogany, resting her hands on the back of a chair for support. “You know the reasons very well, sir. I have told you who I am, what I am, and the Marquess of Fallon cannot—”

  “Enough! If you mean to fling at me all my own nonsense about restoring the Fallon name to social prominence and wedding some twit because she comes with impeccable credentials and—God, I can scarcely bear to think on it.” His voice softened. “That’s all done with, Jane.”

  Only put aside for the moment, she knew, because he had discovered that someone loved him. She suspected that no one ever had, except possibly his grandmother. And he desired her, she knew. But desire was a long way from love, and even love could not bridge the chasm between them.

  “You are an impetuous man,” she began carefully. “You’ve a tendency to leap into action before considering what you are about, and you never think at all of the possible consequences.”

  He looked amused. “What you mean is, I charge in like a rhinoceros. But now and again, Jane, even a man blinded by his own preconceptions may stumble in the direction he ought to go. Or, in my case, be pushed there by a devious old woman.”

  “Lady Swann can be most convincing,” Jane admitted. “But she is rarely practical, especially when it comes to matters of the heart. You have become caught up in one of her romantical plots, sir. You chanced to arrive on the scene when she no longer required a secretary and was casting about for something to do with me. I’m afraid that her affection for me has led her to forget who and what I am.”

  “Trust me, she has done nothing of the sort. But she put me in mind of who I am, just in time to prevent me from making myself into the even more repellent creature I was determined to become. The paragon of a marquess would have been a damnably unhappy man, Jane. I find myself unwilling to accept a dreary life for the sake of some fool notion an adolescent boy got into his head twenty years ago.”

  “It wasn’t a fool notion,” she protested. “It was your dream.”

  “It was my nightmare. But I’m wide awake now. And if it matters, I relinquish nothing of any value whatever. This was always about family, about being ashamed of the one I came from and wanting to create a new one. And with little idea what a family ought to be, I aimed instead for what I could measure. Mind you, I still mean to restore Wolvercote and sire a generation of Fallons who will do credit to themselves. With you as their mother, they cannot fail.” He held out his hands. “Come here, Jane.”

  She wrapped her arms around her waist to keep herself in one piece. One of them had to be strong, after all. But oh Lord, to bear his children! Lead me not into temptation, she prayed.

  “Has that yellow barn cat got your tongue, Miss Jane-who-is-determined-to-protect-Lord-Fallon-from-himself Ryder? And need I remind you that patience is not among my questionable stock of virtues? I want you always to come to me freely, to be sure. But if you will not, be even more sure that I’ll come after you. Must I jump this table?”

  “L-Lord Fallon—”

  “My name is Charles,” he interrupted softly. “Can you . . . will you . . . just for a moment, forget titles and obstacles and whatever else is stampeding through your beautiful head and listen? This is between Charles and Jane, my love. Only the two of us.”

  My love.

  She might have rushed around the table, or perhaps she soared directly over it. But he was there to catch her, and suddenly she was in his arms, lost in another of his earth-shattering kisses.

  “All will be well,” he murmured when he finally lifted his head and brushed a tear from her cheek with his fingertip.

  “I’m not usually such a watering pot,” she said, sniffling as he wiped away another tear. “Truly.”

  Smiling, he located his handkerchief and put it into her hand. “I choose to believe those are tears of joy, my dear, but would rather Lady Swann not see them and conclude that I bullied you into marrying me.”

  To her own horror, Jane emitted a giggle. Good heavens, she really must pull herself together before he changed his mind about spending the rest of his life in company with such a widgeon. But she giggled again at the very idea of it. Plain Miss Ryder and the Marquess of Fallon. Who could have imagined such a thing?

  Eudora. Bless her heart, Eudora had imagined it, and set the wheels in motion, and gone in person to browbeat Lord Fal—Charles—when her plot ran onto rocky ground. Thank God
she was even more pigheaded than her stubborn protégés.

  “I expect that Lady Swann is waiting for an announcement,” she said. “Or does she know you are here at all? Have you been into the parlor?”

  “Not yet. A young man let me into the house, and when I asked for you, a maid said that she’d seen you go into the dining room. I came directly here. But you may be sure that witch-woman knows we are together. Shall we go put her mind at rest?”

  He stole one more kiss in the entrance hall before opening the parlor door. It hit the opposite wall with a bang.

  Laughter and conversation faded as he took her hand and led her into the room and past the gauntlet of curious eyes to the chair where Eudora sat proudly erect, a satisfied smile curling her lips.

  Fallon bowed. “Your servant, Lady Swann. I am profoundly in your debt.”

  “So you are, rascal. When is the wedding to be?”

  “Unless Jane wishes otherwise, as soon as I have procured a special license.” He grinned. “Or have you already seen to that?”

  “I might have done, had I been more certain the prospective groom would come to his senses. I’ll give you one thing, Fallon. You have put me to more trouble than any man in memory, including all six of m’spouses, God rest ’em. I only regret failing to entice you to my bed. It’s not too late, you know. I could teach you any number of ways to please your new wife.”

  Jane felt the roots of her hair go on fire from embarrassment as Charles dissolved in laughter.

  “Ah, well,” Eudora said with a heavy sigh. “Young men these days don’t know what’s good for them. I warrant every other man in this room would leap at the invitation.” There was a sound of general agreement from the fascinated onlookers as she turned to Lord Mumblethorpe. “Have you the item I told you to fetch from the desk?”

  Mumblethorpe located a thick stack of papers under his chair and placed it on her lap.

  Jane recognized the nearly completed manuscript of Scandalbroth. She watched Eudora run her hand affectionately over the book they had worked on for more than a year and knew that she was saying good-bye. Then she beckoned to Fallon. Jane squeezed his hand before releasing it and stood aside.

  “My wedding gift to you,” Eudora said tartly. “This is the only copy, although I should warn you that Jane can reproduce it from memory if you give her cause. You may do with it what you will, of course, but I notice that the fire could use a good stirring.”

  Nodding, he took the manuscript from her lap and immediately consigned it to the flames.

  “Well, that’s that,” she declared, raising her lorgnette to survey the rapt spectators. “Shall we go into the dining room, gentlemen? Mumblethorpe, you may push my chair.”

  The guests lined up in procession behind Lady Swann as Jane went to join her betrothed by the fireplace.

  “Fallon, that’s a kissing bough over your head,” Eudora called from the doorway. “But don’t be too long about it. We’ll soon be toasting your happiness with Lord Roedale’s excellent champagne.”

  Even before Sir Liston had limped from the room on his crutch, Jane was caught up in a pair of strong arms. At her back she felt a rush of heat as the fire consumed the last bits of Scandalbroth and turned the disreputable Fallon history into ashes. And then, lost in Charles’s ardent kiss, she forgot the fire and the book and her own name.

  When he finally released her, she was certain this man had no need whatever of Eudora’s lessons in how to please a woman.

  “Wonderful tradition,” he said, pointing to the kissing bough. “I mean to have one of these permanently installed in every room at Wolvercote.”

  She brushed a vagrant lock of hair from his forehead. “I imagine the footmen and chambermaids will make very good use of them. Shall we join the others now, before Eudora comes scooting after us?”

  “Not yet, love. First, I wish to call on Mistress Nan and see if she remembers me.”

  Jane led him to the bedchamber and used the single candle burning there to light an oil lamp while he dropped to one knee beside the cradle.

  Nan lay sleeping on her back, hands curled alongside her ears. Her little bald head gleamed in the lamplight. She must have tugged off her nightcap again, Jane thought, and played with it awhile before tossing it to the floor.

  “How tiny she is,” Charles whispered. “A breeze could lift her up and blow her away.”

  “You won’t think so when you come to know her,” Jane said, her heart pounding to see the unguarded affection on his face. “She is unmistakably a Fallon, I am persuaded—obstinate, impatient, and determined to have her own way.”

  “Excellent. We shall deal together famously.” He grazed her plump cheek with his forefinger. “Won’t we, Nan?”

  At the touch, her eyes shot open. She looked first to the lamp Jane was holding over the cradle, trying to focus, and then to Jane, and finally to the dark-haired man leaning over her. Her mouth split in a toothless grin.

  “Ga!” she pronounced. “Aga goo ga.”

  “A bit lacking in the conversational department,” he said, grinning back at her. “How soon before she learns to talk, Jane?”

  “Oh, months and months.”

  “Nonsense. This one will be jabbering away within a fortnight. May I pick her up?”

  “Certainly. Don’t forget to support her head.”

  He slipped one gloved hand behind her head and the other around her back, standing as he lifted her carefully and cradled her against his chest. “Hullo there,” he said. “What a little beauty you are. Will you mind very much if I steal a kiss?”

  Nan studied him intently for a moment. Then her right hand shot up and grappled his nose.

  “Thee rememberth me,” he said to Jane, looking excessively pleased.

  “There can be no doubt,” she assured him. “I have never seen her do that with anyone else, not even the wet nurse, and Mrs. Gillis has a nose the size of a cucumber.”

  Chuckling, he gazed with unconcealed love into the infant’s wide blue eyes. “Now pay attenthion, Nan, becauth thith ith import’nt. I am going to teath you your vewy firth word.”

  Jane wrapped her arm around his waist. “Good heavens, Charles. Do you want the child to grow up with a lisp?”

  “Never you minthe her,” he instructed the child. “Are you lithening?”

  Nan smacked him on the cheek with her free hand. “Ga!”

  “Ecthelenth. An’ now, my prethiouth—can you thay Papa?”

  (Please continue reading for more information about Lynn Kerstan)

  About the Author

  Lynn Kerstan, former college professor, folksinger, professional bridge player, and nun, is the author of sixteen romance novels and four novellas, all set in Regency England.

  A five-time RITA Finalist (one win), she is regularly featured on awards lists. Since Romantic Times launched its Top Picks feature, every Kerstan novel has been a Top Pick. The Golden Leopard and Heart of the Tiger were selected by Library Journal for its Best Books of the Year list (2002 and 2003), and Dangerous Passions was named to Booklist’s Top Ten Romances of 2005 list.

  Formerly a teacher of English literature and writing at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. and the University of San Diego, Kerstan now conducts online popular-fiction workshops for writers groups and speaks at conferences. An internet junkie, she blogs about life, books and travel at StoryBroads.com, where her cat’s posts are far more popular than her own.

  When not roaming the world, Kerstan lives an exemplary life in Coronado, California, where she plots her stories while riding her boogie board, walking on the beach, and watching Navy SEALs jog by.

  Visit Lynn at lynnkerstan.com.

 

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