At the Midnight Hour

by Alicia Scott

  The sheer size of everything was overwhelming. It was like being in a museum, she thought vaguely, a huge, badly lit museum. Mrs. Pram just stood in the doorway, watching her with unfriendly eyes.

  What was she supposed to do now? Where was the section in the agency handbook that dealt with this? Swallowing hard, she looked around once more. Toward the right, she could see a long tunnel-looking passage that must lead to the right-hand side of the house. A similar hallway was on the left. Directly in front of her rose the main wall, which towered up the entire three stories. In the middle sat an immense oil painting of what appeared to be some sort of religious scene. But the colors were dark, just as the entranceway was dark. Everything was dark.

  And she was miserable.

  Then she became aware of the man standing on the left-hand stairs.

  He was at the top, his face lost in the shadows, but she could make out what appeared to be black leather shoes and dark gray slacks.

  “Mr. Keaton?” she ventured. Though spoken in a whisper, the name seemed to reverberate through the vaulted ceilings like a roar.

  There was no immediate reply, but abruptly, the man began walking down the steps.

  “Miss Guiness?” his deep voice responded. He must have known something she didn’t for his low baritone barely bounced off the walls.

  She nodded, starting to feel the first glimmer of hope. He would have to be more helpful than Mrs. Pram. “Yes, sir,” she said. “I’m the new nanny.”

  “Are you, indeed?” he said, the words more like a soft aside.

  As he came to the bottom step, the rest of him fell under the scattered light of the entrance. He was a large man, she noted instantly. Tall and solidly built, even under the elegant lines of his white shirt and gray slacks. But it wasn’t so much the man’s size, that made her want to lean back, as the man himself.

  He stood with a kind of complete self-possession very few men could master. His bearing was rigidly straight, giving the appearance of being coldly withdrawn, from the stiffness of his spine to the intense scrutiny of his eyes. Right at the moment, those pale blue eyes were raking her up and down with an indifference that made her shiver. People said that her brother Cagney could stare down the devil himself, but those people had clearly never met this man.

  “You’re too young,” he said flatly.

  For a full minute, she couldn’t find her voice. She could only hear the litany of the little voice inside her head. You’re not ready for this, Liz. You’re too small-town for this, Liz. This isn’t what you’d been expecting.

  No, she’d been expecting someone a bit more...fatherly, she supposed. Not this harsh man with his lean face and powerful build. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to speak.

  “I know that, sir,” she found herself saying in a slightly tremulous voice, her Southern accent growing thicker with her nervousness. “But, given the experiences of the last three nannies, the agency thought perhaps youth would be a better approach.”

  He didn’t say anything, his eyes once more raking her with clinical scrutiny. It wasn’t just that she looked young, he forced himself to acknowledge. It was the fact that she was so damn beautiful. Her eyes looked almost black in the dim light, deep midnight pools of uncertainty and doubt. Combined with the pale hue of her skin and the luxurious fall of her mahogany hair, it was enough to bring any red-blooded man to his knees.

  But he wasn’t a red-blooded man, he reminded himself unemotionally. He was a brilliant scientist, a workaholic inventor, a man who had already learned his lessons from a woman far more beautiful than innocent Miss Guiness.

  Still, her beauty annoyed him. So did the traces of fear in her eyes.

  “How old are you?” he asked, keeping his voice distant.

  “Twenty-five,” she answered.

  “And you think,” he asked crisply, “that you can control a six-year-old boy who has already gone through three nannies in three months?”

  She nodded.

  He turned away without further comment. “You may stay the night,” he said over his shoulder. “In the morning, I will call the Bradford Agency and tell them to send over a more mature alternative. Miss Pram will show you to your room.”

  Already his broad form was disappearing down the dark hallway, his shoulders vanishing from sight. Without giving it another thought, she went after him, leaving her bag abandoned in the foyer.

  “Wait,” she called out desperately. The word seemed to echo down the hallway, but no reply came. Uncertain, but not willing to give up so quickly, she continued to follow. Her boots rang out on the wooden floor, and even through her overcoat she could feel a draft.

  The darkness was so complete, wrapping around her, caressing her cheek...how could one hallway be so long? she thought dimly. And how could it be so cold?

  Then, abruptly, a light glowed ahead on her left. Her steps quickened as she hastened toward it. There she found another room, a small den. In the center stood a large cherry desk and behind the desk sat the imposing Mr. Keaton, his back to her as his fingers danced over the keyboard of a sophisticated-looking computer.

  She went straight to the desk, clearing her throat. He swung around, his eyes telling her he’d known she was there all along.

  “Is there a problem?” he asked curtly.

  “Yes, sir,” she managed to get out before the words could die completely in her throat. He raised one eyebrow expectantly. She tried to continue, but it had been such a long day and the effects of being, for the first time, so far away from home suddenly hit her. She’d had such great hopes that this would be her calling, her answer to finding a new life after all those horrible months, when her old life had ended with a senseless shoot-out in front of the local movie theater. But now she was here and the house was so big and dark and her employer was so cold and dark, and...

  She realized in that moment that she was probably going to cry.

  Sitting behind his desk, Richard watched it all play out across her face. She really did seem to be a guileless creature, young and fresh and open. In time, she would learn the armor necessary to get through life, but now her face was an open book. And the pain he saw there tore at him.

  Fiercely, he looked away, trying to focus his concentration on some abstract theorem until she got a grip on herself. Chaos theory, Richard. Cite examples of chaos theory.

  It didn’t work. He could still see her midnight eyes filled with pain, and he hated himself for his weakness.

  He found himself motioning her to a chair. “Why don’t you have a seat?” he said quietly, relieved that his voice was still dispassionate.

  She nodded silently, not trusting herself to speak.

  He gave her another minute to compose herself, then probed, “What is it you would like to say, Miss Guiness? And for God’s sake, stop calling me sir.”

  The sting of tears was beginning to fade, and after another long moment, she had control again. She tilted her chin, willing herself to talk to this intimidating man. This was her new life. She had worked hard for this, prayed for this. Besides, she didn’t know what else to do if it didn’t work out.

  “I realize that I’m young and all,” she began, her words slow and not as firm as she would have liked, “but I’ve been thoroughly trained by the agency, and they have the utmost confidence in me, Mr. Keaton. You can be sure they wouldn’t have sent me all the way here if they didn’t think I was up to the challenge. The truth is, Mr. Keaton, your son is, well, precocious, for his age, sir. He’s already caused the resignation of three wonderful and highly qualified nannies. As you can well imagine, nothing like that’s ever happened before—”

  “Miss Guiness,” Richard interrupted. “I believe Andrew is well beyond precocious.”

  She nodded. Yes, in fact it would seem that Andrew was closer to unbridled genius. The boy had taken it upon himself to read all sorts of bizarre statistics, which he recited to anyone who would listen. As she recalled from the file, Andrew Philip Michael Keaton had asked
the first nanny, Ms. Gregory, if she’d known that each day one hundred seventy-eight babies were conceived by artificial insemination. Ninety-six with donations from people they knew, and forty from anonymous sources. Andrew had then gone on to suggest that artificial insemination might be a suitable option for her. When Ms. Gregory had attempted to reprimand him, he had written a formal statement in his defense claiming first amendment rights, not to mention that punishing an individual for issuing true and factual information was unjust censorship. All this from a six-year-old child. Further incidents had followed until Ms. Gregory, an older, very conservative woman, had resigned.

  After that, it would appear that Andrew had become even more literal. During Ms. Haverford’s term, he’d refused to bathe for five weeks on the grounds that, on average, one American drowned in the bathtub a day. Then for three days he had refused to eat because he’d read that ten people choked to death a day in the United States alone. When the little monster finally did start eating again, all he’d wanted was Coca-Cola because nine hundred and fifty thousand Americans drank Coke for breakfast, therefore he should, too. Shortly thereafter, Ms. Haverford had ruled him completely uncontrollable and had resigned her position.

  Then had come the interesting case of Mrs. Louis. A middle-aged wonder, Mrs. Louis was rumored to have an angel’s touch with children. Calling her in had been the agency’s equivalent of marshaling the cavalry. There was no child Mrs. Louis couldn’t tame. And, indeed, for the first few weeks, Mrs. Louis had seemed to be doing well with Andrew. Then there’d been a series of tense dark nights. Andrew kept having nightmares, and before long, Mrs. Louis was claiming nightmares, too. One night, she’d simply run screaming out of the house, wearing nothing but her long flannel nightgown. She had refused to go back in the Keaton household, even to retrieve her clothes. When the agency had drilled her on her improper behavior, she had firmly stated there was nothing in the world that would make her return to that house and that was all there was to it. Finally, they had decided that Andrew had set something up to terrify the woman. So they had given her a leave of absence and looked around for a new approach to the “Andrew Dilemma.” They’d decided upon Liz. She was young, fresh and energetic. Perhaps she would have the imagination and creativity necessary to deal with such a difficult charge. Now, if only she could convince the father of that.

  “Mr. Keaton,” she tried again, clearing her throat. “Andrew definitely is beyond precocious. That’s precisely why I was sent. I grew up with four older brothers and I’ve always been around lots of children. I truly do love them, and maybe, just maybe, I can think of a new approach for the little gu—for your son, sir. And honestly,” she rushed out suddenly with a fresh burst, “I really think I can do it. I am young, but I have lots of energy. I even have a degree in English, so perhaps I can keep up with Andrew’s reading. Please, at least give me the chance.”

  Her eyes were so earnest in the shadows of the den. They were beguiling, drawing him in when he already knew better than to be such a fool. Still, it was hard to remember the lessons learned from Alycia, looking at such dark blue eyes and such an open face. Alycia’s beauty had always possessed a fixed, almost porcelain nature—the type of beauty meant for show, not touch. This girl before him, however, exuded a natural freshness, a wholesomeness he hadn’t seen in far too long. Her eyes seemed to care....

  He frowned once again, steepling his hands beneath his chin as he contemplated this newest turn of events. He should just send her back. This arrangement would never work. So Andrew had already gone through three nannies in three months. Surely the agency could still do better than some mere girl. He didn’t want someone this inexperienced. He didn’t want someone this...beautiful, this feminine. No, the older, Mrs. Pram, variety was much better. Beauty, after all, had a way of blinding a man, confusing his senses. He wasn’t interested in such distractions, and he’d already learned his lesson well enough by now. No, he liked his solitary life. He liked his work. He liked the emptiness that surrounded him.

  She really did have such a fresh, earnest face. And those dark blue eyes. A man could dream of such eyes forever.

  Perhaps he should at least give her a chance. Perhaps she really could tame the brilliant monster mascarading as his son. Perhaps...

  He kept his voice neutral, unsteepling his hands from under his chin.

  “All right,” he said firmly, trying not to notice the brilliant light of relief that flashed in her eyes. For one instant, her face broke into such a wide smile that he couldn’t remember his next sentence. Then abruptly she was leaning forward, doing her best to look calm and professional. It was disconcerting. “Let’s just go over a few details,” he said curtly, trying very hard to keep his stern composure. “As I’m sure you know from the agency, the position is full-time, with every other weekend off. You will be staying in the room adjoining Andrew’s, and you will be expected to be available whenever he needs you. While it may seem very demanding, Andrew generally likes to keep to himself so it shouldn’t be as difficult as it may sound. Do you understand?” he said stiffly.

  She nodded, her eyes still burning with a mixture of relief and earnest determination. He’d never had such a hard time keeping his concentration.

  “Traditionally,” he continued quietly, “Andrew likes to eat breakfast at seven, lunch at noon, and following the custom of his grandparents, tea at four. Dinner is served at eight. Currently, he has no tutor or formal schooling arrangements, although he has been studying on his own. I expect you’ll find him filling most hours by reading. I will leave it to your own judgment as to how to manage his time. If there is ever an emergency, you can find me in the left-hand tower.” His face grew very serious and grim. “That is where I work,” he warned darkly. “And I am a very busy man. I do not want to be disturbed. Any unnecessary interruptions, Miss Guiness, and your stay with us will be a short one. Is that clear?”

  His voice was so ominous, all she could do was nod with large round eyes. At least he was letting her stay, she consoled herself. But even then, she could feel a slight uneasiness in her stomach. This was her new life now, but it certainly wasn’t going the way she’d imagined.

  “Good,” Richard was saying curtly. He turned away to buzz a small intercom on the corner of his desk. “Mrs. Pram will be here shortly to take you to your room and to introduce you to Andrew. Any last questions?”

  She shook her head. She’d never met a man quite so efficient, quite so completely impersonal. No, this definitely wasn’t how she’d pictured things. How could one man seem so distant? And what really went on behind those shuttered blue eyes of his?

  For a moment, she was almost tempted to pry. For a moment, she wanted to stand up and touch his arm, just to see what he would do. She was accustomed to warm, caring people. She was accustomed to the easy laughter and casual interaction of her large family, the indulgence of her solid, teasing brothers. She didn’t know how to handle a man so completely remote.

  Did he ever laugh? Did he ever, even for a minute, let go of his stern composure? She found herself guessing no, but didn’t think she had the courage to ask.

  “Good,” he was saying briskly from behind the desk. “Then that will be all.”

  With that, he turned away completely, his attention returning to the computer in front of him. Feeling rather awkward, she rose from the chair. She wrung her hands in front of her nervously. Should she just walk away? What?

  Abruptly, one last question came to her. The dossier the agency had shown her contained a full bio on Mr. Keaton. But Mrs. Keaton was a blank, leaving Liz to believe they must have divorced, with Andrew obviously living with his wealthy father. But she had to know about visitation rights. Should she be prepared to turn over Andrew to Mrs. Keaton whenever the boy’s mother came?

  “Excuse me,” Liz ventured. “I have just one last question.”

  Richard turned enough to pin her with one sharply raised eyebrow.

  “When does Andrew’s mother visit? Is i
t on the weekends when I’ll be gone, or does she ever come during the week, or...”

  She let the rest of her sentence trail off, waiting for an answer.

  She never expected how dark and cold his face became.

  “Alycia Keaton is dead,” he told her flatly. “Do not speak of her again.”

  “Oh,” she said, that one statement taking her completely off guard. Abruptly, she felt its impact in her gut. Her eyes began to swim, a dozen pictures suddenly flooding her mind. Nick, picking her up in his shiny black Mustang. Nick, standing beside her at the altar, his young face so serious and strong as he looked into her eyes. Nick, jumping in front of her at the first sound of the gunfire. Nick, down on the sidewalk, his blood on her hands as she tried so hard to make it stop. Nick, handsome, strong Nick dying in front of a stupid, small-town movie theater. Nick. Even here, she could still see his face. Why couldn’t it have been her, instead?

  The thought was so strong, it almost overwhelmed her. With sudden effort, she dragged it in. It had been a year now—she was supposed to be getting better. She was supposed to be moving on with her life.

  Swallowing resolutely, she turned and headed for the door.

  Behind her, Richard Keaton watched her with intense concentration. He’d looked up just in time to see that look in her eyes, that look of absolute pain, of agonizing emptiness. He knew the expression well, for so many times he had seen it in his own. But he’d never thought to see it in a girl so young.

  Just for a moment, he wanted to call her back. Just for a moment, he wanted her to turn around so he could see her eyes, and see if what he’d seen had really been there at all.