The Prince of Midnight

by Laura Kinsale

  “Are you a friend?” asked a feminine voice. Leigh’s head jerked up. The figure on the saddle pushed back a dark veil. Blue eyes, red-rimmed, peeked warily out.

  “Who are you?” Leigh demanded.

  “Are you Mr. Bartlett’s friend?” the other girl asked again. “Can you help me? We escaped, and I’m cold, and I don’t know where we’re going. Is there a house or something nearby?”

  “What happened?” Leigh repeated roughly.

  The girl looked furtive. “Nothing,” she said. “Nothing happened. We’re looking for shelter.”

  Leigh ignored her. She slid off the chestnut and grabbed S.T.’s shoulder, pulling him back. “Tell me what happened!”

  “He can’t hear you,” the girl said.

  S.T.’s jaw worked, as if he were going to speak. He scowled ferociously, and then suddenly flung off Leigh’s hand instead and walked around to the other side of the horse. He pulled a rope from his saddlebag, caught the gray rogue, and looped the lead into a makeshift halter. With an easy spring, he mounted the gray bareback and began to lead the other horse.

  Leigh scrambled onto the chestnut and kicked it around to follow. “What do you mean, he can’t hear!”

  “He can’t.” The girl wriggled herself into the center of the saddle and looked over her shoulder. “He’s deaf.”

  Leigh sucked in a sharp breath. “Completely?”

  The girl nodded. “It wasn’t my fault,” she said.

  “Chilton did it!” Leigh ejaculated.

  “Yes.” The girl bit her lip. “It wasn’t my fault.”

  Leigh would kill the beast. She would rip him apart, tear his heart out, murder everything he loved in front of his eyes.

  “I had enough faith,” the girl mumbled. “Truly I did. But Master Jamie’s a devil. He made me believe in him because he’s a devil, and he made me do the devil’s things, and the devil can’t turn acid into water.”

  “Acid, Leigh whispered in horror. “In his good ear?”

  “I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known. But I couldn’t tell. I thought he was holy and wise, and he’s the devil.”

  “You did it?” Leigh cried. She dug her heel into the chestnut and lunged, grabbing the girl’s hair and dragging at her. “You misbegotten bitch!”

  The girl screamed. Leigh leaned over and hit her so hard that a lock of blonde hair tore free in her gloved hand. She heard S.T. raise his voice, but she wasn’t listening. She backhanded the screeching girl again.

  “Malicious little gutter garbage! Get off his horse!” Leigh drew breath on a furious sob. “Get off!”

  The girl was already toppling, and Leigh shoved with both hands. The horses shied at the girl’s shriek. She landed in the mud, a sprawl of black veil and white legs.

  Leigh circled the chestnut back. She’d have been glad to trample the wretch, but she held the horse and spat on her instead. “I hope you freeze.”

  The girl lay in the slop, crying. Leigh turned her mount and rode up to the Seigneur. She caught his arm. He looked at her with an alarmed expression. “Leigh,” he said, and shook his head. “I’m—”

  She leaned over and stopped the confession with her mouth. She held his shoulders between her hands and kissed him hard, as if she could draw him into her and make him whole again.

  His skin was cold, his back stiff. He lifted his hands as if to push her away. Leigh wouldn’t let him; she gripped his arms and held him as close as the horses would allow.

  “You’re alive,” she whispered against the warmth of his breath. “’Tis all that matters.”

  She put her hands on either side of his face and kissed him again. He made a sound in his throat, halfway between objection and surrender. His hands wavered and came to rest at her waist.

  The gray sidestepped nearer. The Seigneur’s mouth opened to her offer. He responded, tasting her tongue, mixing cold and warmth. His hold grew tight on her body. The wind blew his cloak against her, a heavy dampness that enveloped them together in the falling snow.

  He drew back a little and looked at her from beneath his gold-tipped lashes. “Leigh,” he said uneasily.

  She squeezed his shoulders. “’Twill be all right,” she said. “I’ll—I’ll make a powder.”

  He seemed to understand that: his mouth flattened and he bent his head. Then he looked up with a wry smile, a strange tenderness, and touched her under the chin.

  Leigh put her fist over her heart and then laid it against his. “’Tis you and I,” she said, slowly and clearly. “Together.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “You and I?” he repeated. His voice had a husky unevenness in it. She nodded and smiled, because he’d understood.

  Tentatively, he leaned toward her and brushed the corner of her lips with his mouth. It was like a question, and she answered, giving herself fully to the kiss. His hands came up and tangled in her hair. He kissed her cheeks and her eyes, savored her mouth, his touch coaxing and sweetly seductive.

  “Leigh,” he whispered against her temple. He made a peculiar little whuff, like an embarrassed laugh. “I can hear.”

  She turned abruptly, bumping her chin hard against him.

  He sat back and looked at her warily.

  She stared at him, speechless.

  He flicked his gloved fingers against her cheek. His smile was the old smile, kindling mischief and flirtation. “I tried to tell you,” he said. “But you were—” He lifted his hand. “—abstracted.”

  “You lied,” she breathed. “You lied to me.”

  “Well, I didn’t precisely—” He reached out to catch her as she wrenched at the chestnut’s reins. “Leigh—wait; just wait a moment, damn you—ow!”

  He jerked away from her striking hand.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she cried. “Why did you let me think it was true even for a moment?”

  He rubbed his arm over his forehead. “I don’t know.”

  Leigh made a little sob of fury. “You don’t know!” Her voice quavered. “You don’t know!”

  “All right!” he shouted. “I didn’t want to tell you! I don’t want to tell you anything; what the hell are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in Rye.”

  “You surely didn’t think I’d stay in Rye!” Leigh bent forward, shouting herself. “Darning your stockings, I vow!” She pressed her lips together on a surge of tumbled emotions. Behind her, the girl was whimpering. Leigh turned in the saddle and watched her struggle to her feet covered with muck. “There’s a carriers’ inn down there. The Twice Brewed Ale.” Leigh pointed toward the south. “You can walk.”

  But S.T. had dismounted. He started toward the weeping girl and hauled her up off her knees. She fell into his arms, whimpering and clinging. “You can really hear? You’re cured?”

  “I can hear,” he muttered.

  “Oh, thank God,” she wailed. “Thank God, thank God!” She clasped her hands together, as if in prayer.

  “Save it, if you please.” He gave her a little shake and led her to the black horse. “Get up,” he said, offering his cupped hands.

  “Who is this?” Leigh demanded, eyeing the muddied figure.

  He didn’t answer. After the girl had tumbled into the saddle and arranged her skirts as well as she could astride, he led the black over to Leigh. “Dove of Peace,” he said, with a little inclination of his head. “Lady Leigh Strachan.”

  The girl bobbed and sniffed. “I’m pleased to meet you,” she said, as if they were being introduced in some genteel drawing room, and then gave a small gasp. “Strachan? You’re not—not from Silvering?”

  “Silvering belongs to me,” Leigh said. “I intend to have it back.”

  The girl twisted her hands together. “Master Jamie can make you do things you don’t want to do,” she said anxiously. “Terrible things.”

  Leigh gave her a cold stare. “Mayhap he can,” she said, “if you’re so miserable and weak that you allow it.”

  Dove of Peace shuddered and began to cry again. S.T. grabbed a ha
ndful of the gray rogue’s mane and remounted, leading the black.

  Leigh moved the chestnut up beside him. “She’s one of them.” She glanced toward Dove of Peace. “One of his.”

  “Not any longer,” he said.

  Leigh blew out a skeptical breath. “Is that what she claims?”

  “’Tis true!” Dove cried. “I’ve been praying and praying, and the blindness has been lifted from me. Master Jamie couldn’t do the miracle after all; he couldn’t turn the acid into water. Mr. Bartlett knew. He knew it all along. I should have listened to him instead.” Then she frowned suddenly. She looked at S.T. “But now you can hear.”

  His mouth set. He looked out across the landscape.

  “The man’s a charlatan. Can’t you see it, Dove? He planned the whole thing. I’d no mind to give him his convenient ‘miracle.’”

  “But the acid—”

  “For the love of God, ’twas no more than ice water in that pitcher. He’d have had the acid somewhere else—up his sleeve, I don’t doubt.”

  Dove stared at him. “But then… you were never hurt at all!” His forehead wrinkled. “All that time, you could hear! Whilst Chastity and Sweet Harmony and I took such care of you. That was five days, and you never told us. ’Twas unkind, not to tell me! I thought it was my failing. I thought I hadn’t faith enough for the miracle.”

  “Unkind!” Leigh cried fiercely. “Unkind? Who could blame him if he didn’t tell you? Why should he trust you?”

  “He could have trusted me!”

  “With his life? You silly, selfish chit—’twas no nursery game to thwart that pious madman in his den. Do you think your precious Master Jamie didn’t know full well that he could hear? That it was a pretense, and only to discredit him! Do you suppose he can let that pass unanswered? He lives off just your sort. Fatuous ninnies, the lot of you!”

  Dove stuck out her lower lip mulishly.

  “Do you deny it?” Leigh snapped.

  “I’d not do anything to hurt Mr. Bartlett.”

  “Only pour acid in his ear!”

  “That was before,” Dove cried. “Master Jamie had me in a spell! Besides, it wasn’t acid, was it? ’Twas only water. Perhaps my miracle worked after all!”

  Leigh turned her head, beyond the power of speech. She would have happily pushed Dove of Peace right back into the mud, for the good it would have done.

  The Seigneur was watching her, with a faint curve to his mouth.

  “You got out of there unharmed,” she muttered. “’Tis all that’s important.”

  He grinned at her, his face shadowed by the gathering darkness. “Oh, no,” he said softly. “I’m going to destroy the bastard. That’s what’s important.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Heavenly Sanctuary slept, the men in their single dormitory, the women on their mats in the parlors and dining rooms of all the houses along the street. Some of them sat up praying late into the night for the soul of Dove of Peace, who had gone away. Master Jamie had preached a sermon every day on her behalf, and wept, and told them all to forgive her for her weakness. He never mentioned Mr. Bartlett, so they all knew they were not to think of him or of the way his rebellious spirit had been taught to submit.

  If some of them disobeyed and spent the midnight hours recalling his face and the way he moved, his outsider’s confidence—arrogance, Master Jamie would call it—that had died with his hearing and been replaced by silence, then they had Master Jamie’s extra prayers to say.

  Sweet Harmony knelt on her mat beside Chastity; they both prayed very hard to be given the strength to forget Dove and Mr. Bartlett, even though it had been their task to help Dove care for him. Sweet Harmony had brought him meals and Chastity had shaved him and kept him neat, and sometimes, as he sat listlessly in the chair staring at nothing, their eyes had met over his head and Harmony had almost cried.

  She tried not to blame Dove. Master Jamie had said they must forgive, and certainly Dove herself was distraught. She had wept constantly for the whole time, and never left Mr. Bartlett, and said over and over that she was sure she had enough faith, and there was something wrong, and once she’d even said she wished that Master Jamie hadn’t made her do it.

  It was the next day that they were gone. Harmony and Chastity had climbed up to the attic room and found it empty. They ran to tell Master Jamie, but he’d only smiled and said it was his will; Dove had suffered enough for her small faith. He didn’t say where Dove had gone or what had become of Mr. Bartlett.

  Somewhere down in the depth of her heart, where she tried to cover it up with prayers and habits and the old sense of safety and happiness, Sweet Harmony was afraid.

  She looked at Chastity hunched on her mat in the dim moonlight through the window and knew that Chastity was afraid, too.

  Sweet Harmony moistened her cold lips and lifted her head just enough to see outside the unshuttered glass. In the two days since Dove and Mr. Bartlett had been gone, a hard frost had frozen the mud that swamped the unpaved edges of High Street. The church bell started suddenly, pealed out a loud clamor, ringing on and on in the frigid air. On the mats around her, other girls rustled and dragged themselves out of sleep for the hour of midnight prayer.

  A few figures walked quickly and silently down the cobbled center of the road, penitents who’d been required to kneel in the church all evening and pray with Master Jamie. One of them would be his special disciple, Divine Angel, who always did penance, even though she was never obligated by making the little mistakes and failures that haunted the rest of them. Once Angel returned to the house, there would be no sneaking looks out the window during prayers, or somehow Master Jamie would be calling out one’s name in the next noonday service and asking for confession.

  Sweet Harmony didn’t think anyone else in their house had guessed that Angel spied on them. Harmony herself had only been certain of it lately, since Mr. Bartlett and Dove had been locked in the attic and Divine Angel had been so assiduous in her concern and fondness for those whose duty it was to care for the rebellious sinner. Before, Harmony had only been awed that Master Jamie could see so clearly into her heart and mind that he knew of all her frailties.

  She resented Angel a little. It seemed to tarnish what had been glowing and bright. Not that it was her place to question. She loved Master Jamie, just as he loved her, but she would rather think that he didn’t need spies. Once the suspicion had come into her head, though, it just wouldn’t go away. And the very fact that she carefully didn’t betray it to Divine Angel and Master Jamie never called upon her to confess her lack of faith, made it seem all the more real and upsetting.

  The church bell fell silent. As the echoes died away against the side of the hill, Harmony became aware of another sound: the slow, even strike of a horse’s iron-shod hooves against the cobbles.

  She lifted her head openly, peering out the window. It was certainly late for Old Pap—who never answered to the name “Saving Grace” anyway—to be bringing the wagon back from Hexham. She didn’t think he’d gone to town at all today, but she’d been kept busy with bleaching the floors in the new Sunday school that was to open next month for the country children.

  The brilliant, steady ring of metal against stone grew louder. She saw two of the penitents pause in the street. She forgot her prayers and craned her neck to see. Out of the moon shadows along the road, a pale horse came into view, moving leisurely, its mane and tail like a fall of silver in the night.

  Harmony drew in her breath. The rider wore a dark cloak that spread over his mount’s back; he and his horse made the somber shapes of the penitent members in the street look small. As he walked slowly past, he turned his face up toward her window, and beneath the rakish shadow of his tricorne Harmony saw the mask.

  It was silver and black, painted in jester’s patterns, the angles and diamonds and distorted geometry of a midnight Harlequin. There was a luminescence to it, a glow in the tessellated pattern that made the eyes only empty space, only blankness set in the cra
zy designs that formed half a face: a forehead, a nose, the shape of human cheekbones and the rest lost in shadow. It was as if the night had incarnated itself, moonlight and darkness rode a horse of living alabaster and stared up at her window.

  It seemed to beckon, that patterned mask; it seemed to laugh silently, the more terrifying for the humor in the whimsical design. She felt as if she were mocked all the way to her heart, every conviction she lived by laid open to those deep eyes. She clutched her hands together, unable to draw back until the eerie gaze turned from her window and the horse walked past.

  “Lord bless us!” breathed Chastity, who’d craned over her shoulder without Harmony even realizing it. “Lord God bless us, ’tis the Prince! That do be the Prince hisself, knock me down if it don’t.”

  “What?” Harmony could hardly seem to get enough air in her lungs to speak. The other girls were shuffling and pushing her back, trying to get a view out of the window. “Are you mad?” Her voice quivered upward. “That’s never the Prince of Wales!”

  “The Midnight Prince! The French sin-yoor. Old Pap, ’ee said ’ee seen ’im once—’e told me—in that heathen mask, on a horse all black as pitch!”

  “’Tis a white horse,” Harmony said.

  “What’s it for, eh?” Chastity’s fingers suddenly dug into her arm. She dragged Harmony back from the window and toward the door. “What an’ if ’tis over Mr. Bartlett?” she hissed against Harmony’s ear. “What an’ if the Prince do want revenge fer that what Dove done?”

  The Prince. Harmony suddenly understood who Chastity meant; she remembered newspapers and stories and lessons in French. Le Seigneur… le Seigneur du Minuit—of course, of course! Her throat tightened with terror and a new excitement. She grabbed at her shawl and fumbled in the dark to find her shoes, stuffing her bare feet inside. Chastity was already stumbling out the door, bumping into the stair rail in the dark.

  They ran into the street with the other girls clattering behind them. As if their emergence had broken a spell, from every dormitory came others, some with their skirts pulled hastily over their heads, some still barefoot on the frozen ground. No one spoke; they all trotted quickly toward the church, where the pale horse stood still facing the steps.