At the Midnight Hour

by Alicia Scott

  Andrew processed this information, his eyes blinking rapidly behind his glasses. “How many minutes does it take to eat your toast?” he demanded to know.

  “Let’s say ten minutes, for simplicity’s sake.” Liz was beginning to get accustomed to Andrew’s ways by now, and sure enough, thirty seconds later he was spitting out the answer to his mental computations.

  “You’re wrong!” he informed her haughtily. “With ten thousand, five hundred and one Americans born each day, that would be an average of roughly seven a minute. Thus, seventy, not fifty, Americans are born by the time you finish your toast.”

  “Either way,” Liz observed, “more Americans are born than die. Perhaps you should spend more time dwelling on that statistic instead.”

  He scowled, stubbornly pushing away his plate and folding his arms in a typical sulk.

  “Come on,” Liz said resolutely, pushing back her own plate. “The weather is beautiful. Let’s go do something outside.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “You haven’t even heard your options yet.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “You don’t want to do anything at all?”

  Andrew shook his head vigorously.

  “How about climbing a tree? Wait, wait, let me guess. You don’t climb trees.”

  Andrew nodded his head.

  “Well, then, maybe we could just go outside and sit on the grass. I could read you a story, or better yet, you could read me a story.”

  “I don’t read stories.”

  “Well you must be reading something because there’s a suspicious glow under your door at night.”

  “I turn out the light,” Andrew declared defensively. “The rule is lights out, and the light is out.”

  “Ah, but lights out includes all lights. Even flashlights.”

  His eyes flickered suspiciously, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Well, you must be doing something with all those books you carry around with you. What was it you had yesterday?”

  “The 1995 Universal Almanac.”

  “You were reading the Almanac?”

  “My father read the phone book when he was three,” Andrew told her proudly.

  “I see,” Liz said, and nodded gravely. “So did you read the phone book, too, or did you decide to start with something that had a little more meat?”

  Andrew looked a little less certain now, but after a bit, he nodded.

  “Well, then,” Liz said abruptly, and stood up, “why don’t we go outside now, and you can tell me about what you read yesterday.”

  “The grass is wet,” Andrew said immediately. “It will stain my suit!”

  “Then wear jeans.”

  “I don’t—”

  “I know, I know, Andy. You don’t wear jeans. Well, I tell you what. Just for today, if you wear your jeans, I will wear my uniform.”

  Obviously, the exchange had potential, for Andrew was now eyeing her crimson and jade skirt with a speculative eye.

  “The whole uniform?” he questioned. “Even the tie?”

  Liz sighed, and wondered how soon she was going to regret this. Still, she really wanted to get the child outside more—for both their sakes. “Even the tie,” she agreed.

  “All right,” Andrew said at last with a decisive nod. “Deal.”

  * * *

  That was how Richard found them an hour later, both sitting on a blanket in the yard. He took in Andrew with an appraising eye, noting the jeans that looked brand-new and the sweater that was still creased from being folded in a box. His sharp blue eyes found Liz sitting straight and formal, with her legs curled primly to one side. Liz, who looked stiff and uncomfortable in her straight gray skirt, short gray jacket, starched white blouse and stranglingly serious black tie. Looking at her in this new restrictive attire, Richard frowned. And unconsciously, as a person might search for signs of familiarity in someone he knows but does not immediately recognize, his eyes scanned up and down her figure. It wasn’t until he noticed the large silver hoops in her ears that his forehead cleared.

  “Hello,” he managed to say, and cleared his throat. They both looked up simultaneously, and it was hard to tell who was the more startled. Andrew’s eyes blinked several times in rapid succession, and Liz’s face registered shock. She, however, was the first to recover, reaching out her hand in welcome.

  She’d told him to spend more time with his son, and now here he was. Even if she did have her doubts about him, even if he did sometimes scare her, she had to at least appreciate that. Besides, Andrew was watching.

  “Welcome,” she said as casually as she could. “Andrew was just telling me about absolute zero on the Kelvin scale. Would you like to join us?”

  Richard nodded, looking somewhat uncomfortable. He had recognized them from a distance, in fact it was Andrew’s hair that had given them away. In the bright burning light of morning, the boy’s fair locks had glowed like an angel’s halo—that is, if there were any such thing as angels or halos. And from a distance, as Richard had walked toward them, the child had looked so much like his mother, it had made his breath catch in his throat. Even now, up close, the blond, blond hair, the blue, blue eyes—it was Alycia all over again. Grimly he faced yet again the fact that he could spend all day looking for something of himself in the boy, and never find one trace. Not one.

  Already regretting approaching them, Richard moved to the empty place on the blanket and sat down carefully in his brown slacks and long-sleeved oxford shirt. His eyes squinted uncomfortably against the brightness of the sun. It had been a long time since he had been outside on a day like this, something that did not go unnoticed by Liz.

  “Andrew,” she prompted. “Go ahead and continue.”

  The child blinked his eyes several times again, looking first at the rare presence of his father, and then back at Liz. He looked very nervous, Liz thought. Nervous, and not at all the haughty young man he pretended to be.

  “Andrew,” she said again. “It’s okay.”

  “Zero degrees Kelvin,” he said quickly, his round eyes still glued on his father. “That’s...minus 273.15 degrees Celsius, or minus 459.7 degrees Fahrenheit.”

  Richard nodded. “Very good,” he told Andrew, and the boy sat back with a quick, almost shy nod of acknowledgment. “And where did you learn this?”

  But Andrew just sat there, staring with uncertain eyes at the man before him.

  “He read it in the Almanac,” Liz supplied after a bit. “It’s his newest choice in reading material. According to local legend, you, yourself, read the phone book at age three, something Andrew has taken very seriously.”

  Once again Richard nodded his head. “So I did,” he said softly. “So I did.”

  The lapse in conversation became awkward, and Liz searched to fill the void. “Andrew,” she said, “why don’t you ask your father about Geneva.”

  But Andrew merely turned expectant eyes onto Richard, his mouth still tightly shut.

  “I attended a conference of world scientists,” Richard said shortly. “We compared notes on some things, exchanged information on others. Really, it wasn’t anything exciting.”

  Another lapse. Social graces obviously didn’t run in the family, Liz decided.

  “And what project are you working on?” she asked presently.

  “Capacitors.”

  “Oh.” It appeared he wasn’t going to explain, so finally she gave up and asked, “What exactly is a capacitor?”

  “Capacitors store energy in the form of an electric charge,” Andrew said suddenly. Both Richard and Liz looked at him in surprise.

  “That’s right,” Richard said. “Capacitors store energy. For example, things like rechargeable shavers and batteries have them.”

  Now both Richard and Andrew were staring at her with their blinking eyes. Miniatures, Liz thought abruptly. They looked like perfect opposites in their coloring and features, but in actual mannerisms, Andrew was a perfect miniature of his father, right d
own to the rapidly blinking eyes. Lord help her, she thought. She was having enough problems surviving one Keaton, let alone two.

  “Perhaps Andy could visit you at your lab,” she suggested into the silence. Andrew immediately turned to Richard expectantly, and in that instant Liz feared she had made a grave mistake in even mentioning the idea. But then, after a long moment, Richard nodded slowly, and both she and Andrew breathed easier.

  “That could be arranged,” Richard said quietly, and then, as if that was as much as he could take for one afternoon, he stood up quickly and dusted off his pants. “I have to go back to work,” he said curtly. “I will see you both later.”

  “Perhaps for dinner,” Liz said.

  “Perhaps.”

  She nodded, watching him turn and walk away with speculative eyes. He moved gracefully, yet economically for such a large man. And his tailored slacks and shirt revealed a lean, powerful build. Come to think of it, she’d seen calluses on his hands—so how exactly did a man who supposedly locked himself in a lab all day come by such muscular tone and definition?

  And what had brought the man who, just yesterday, had said he wanted nothing to do with his son, out here to join them on the blanket? She frowned, her eyes narrowing in thought. She had four brothers, she thought she knew a thing or two about the male species. And right now, she was sure there was more to Richard Keaton than met the eye. A lot more.

  She would get to know him better, she thought determinedly, her head nodding unconsciously. Not for her sake, she told herself. But for Andrew’s.

  Chapter 3

  The opportunity came as the clock struck midnight and she was curled in her favorite chair in the library. As the cavernous room had a habit of growing chilly at night, she had lit a small fire in the fireplace and pulled the chair closer to the welcoming warmth of the flames. Once more she was lost in the burning love of the Yorkshire moors, and once more she knew instantly the moment that he entered the room.

  Neither acknowledged the other right away. She remained with her head in the book, even though she was no longer following the words. And he remained in the doorway, watching the way the firelight reflected off the long gleaming strands of her hair and accentuated the delicate planes of her face. She was wearing another flowing skirt, this one covered with fall leaves. Over it, she sported a long, cream-colored knit sweater. This outfit suited her better, he thought. For some reason, he hadn’t liked her in the uniform. She looked more comfortable now—comfortable, natural, fresh. And lovely, oh, so lovely.

  He frowned to himself and entered the room.

  “Would you like a drink?” he asked her as he crossed the room to the brandy decanter for his habitual fare. She still hadn’t looked up from the book, but he could feel her awareness even across the distance that separated them. It filled him with a primitive satisfaction.

  “All right,” she agreed, surprising them both.

  “Brandy?”

  “That would be fine.”

  He poured the two snifters, feeling the unwanted tension build in his stomach. He’d come down from his tower tonight knowing she would be here. He’d come down sooner than he should have, and much faster than his normal steady steps took him. Because he wanted to see her. He wanted to watch her hair glow by the firelight, he wanted to feel the probing of her midnight eyes on him. He wanted...

  His face grew dark, and his eyes grew cold as he pushed the thoughts away. She was his son’s nanny, he told himself—nothing more. But he still wasn’t quite thinking in those terms when he took the glass over to her. And he certainly wasn’t thinking of her as a nanny when her hand brushed against his to take the glass. Instead, the muscles of his stomach tightened reflexively as a bolt of pure desire rocked through him.

  He willed the response away with unrelenting determination, retreating to the opposite chair.

  Liz didn’t say anything, hiding her own thoughts by taking a sip of the brandy and letting it blaze a fiery trail down her throat. She’d only had brandy once before, and the strength of it startled her. She could already feel it, a low, curling burn deep in her stomach. But it didn’t seem to quite calm her nerves.

  The atmosphere of the room had changed radically upon Richard’s entering, she realized with a start. Suddenly the quiet coziness of the room seemed to spark, smoldering now with an unrelenting awareness. All at once she felt self-conscious, wondering if her hair was too unruly, the sweater too bulky. When she lifted the glass for a second sip, her hands were trembling slightly.

  She shook her head against the sensations. It was just nerves, the usual awkwardness of being around an unfamiliar person, she told herself. After all, though she had lived in this house for nearly two weeks now, she’d hardly exchanged half a dozen words with the man across from her.

  It looked as if he’d had a rough day, too. His hair lay dark and tousled across his forehead, and his usual pristine dress shirt had the top two buttons undone. She found her gaze resting on the tantalizing glimpse of black, curly chest hair, strong and virile against the white of his shirt. When she realized she was staring, a low blush infused her cheeks as she glanced sharply away. What in the world was the matter with her?

  The silence was becoming unbearable.

  “So how was your day?” she asked finally, the question sounding unbelievably inane to her. He looked almost tired, but the grim set of his features made it impossible to believe he possessed such a human weakness.

  He didn’t answer, his eyes seemingly intent on the dancing flames. He shrugged, maintaining his remote composure.

  “Are you making much progress?” she tried again. Her cheeks still felt flushed. She should probably slow down on the brandy; the room was really becoming warm and her hands were shaking.

  “A little,” Richard said shortly, taking another sip from his snifter.

  “Enough to start getting more sleep soon?”

  “I don’t sleep much,” he said simply. No, he didn’t like to sleep. He didn’t like to close his eyes, and see all the pictures that came to his mind—like her blond hair, and brittle blue eyes. Like her scorning laughter, her porcelain face twisted in petty rage.

  A muscle in his jaw clenched, but then he forced himself to relax. It was all over. The wicked witch was dead.

  He almost smiled at the dark humor, but his lips no longer remembered the motion.

  “Are these capacitor things really so important?” Liz asked. Up this close, she could see the clean line of his jaw, the way it clenched and unclenched as he unconsciously rolled the brandy glass between his hands. He had a strong face, highlighted by sharp, penetrating eyes. There was nothing awkward about his features, nor anything soft. He certainly didn’t look like any scientist she’d ever known. In fact, he didn’t look like any man she had ever known, not even tall, dark and handsome Garret, who made all the girls swoon. Richard was too removed, too distant, too controlled. He looked like a man carved from granite, but for some unfathomable reason, she wanted to lean closer to him.

  Her hands trembled even more as she glanced down at the amber drink gently swooshing in the confines of the heavy crystal glass.

  Had he really killed his wife? whispered her inner voice. Was he really that cold?

  She had no answer but the shiver that crept along her spine.

  As she watched, Richard gave a dismissing shrug in response to her question and took another sip from his glass.

  The silence reverberated through the room, straining her nerves. She found herself watching his hands, the way they rotated the glass around and around and around. He had long, lean fingers and wide palms. His hands could probably hold a basketball quite easily. They were strong, too, she would bet. Capable hands that could manipulate delicate wires as easily as they could crush a tin can—

  What about someone’s neck? that tiny voice piped in again insistently. What if they had curled around the delicate curve of a woman’s neck, and—

  She cut off the thought with a horrified mental shake
. She had no business thinking such things. She hardly knew the man at all, let alone what had happened to his late wife. Surely Liz knew better than to base judgments on mere gossip.

  She dredged up a neutral topic. It seemed far better to keep talking.

  “It was nice of you to stop by this afternoon,” she said after a moment. “Andy has done nothing but talk about you since then.” She stopped, but he didn’t say anything, so after a while, she continued, determined to develop a conversation. “What made you stop by? After our conversation last night, I didn’t expect to see you.”

  He had no answer, watching the firelight. He had never intended to visit them. He had only done so because he had come downstairs and Mrs. Pram had informed him in her highest and mightiest voice that “that woman” had “Master Andrew” wearing “jeans.” That in itself hadn’t concerned him, but it had tempted him into glancing outside as he was about to climb the stairs to his tower. And then... How did a logical man like himself rationalize the rest? They had simply looked so...so... right out there. The bright blue of the blanket against the lush green of the yard, the glowing blond of Andrew’s hair shimmering against the deep darkness of her own as she had leaned over to hear him better. He had looked outside, and his feet had done the rest.

  Like now. Just like now. He shouldn’t even be in here, he thought abruptly. What was he doing, sipping brandy with this woman, sitting in front of a fire with her? As if the cozy, domestic scene were natural. How long had it been since he had sat in this library with another person? How long since he had tried to carry on a casual conversation?

  Who was he trying to kid?

  The silence had dragged on so long, Liz had given up hope for an answer.

  “Will you really arrange for Andy to come to your lab?” she prodded. “It would mean the world to him.”

  Richard nodded. “I told him I would,” he said tautly, keeping his eyes on the flames, his hands once more absently twirling the glass in his hand. The child had seemed so eager. It would have been unnecessarily cruel, even for him, to have told Andrew no.