A Kiss at Midnight

by Eloisa James

  “I know,” Kate said.

  “Men come and men go,” Henry continued. “They’re like icicles.”

  “Icicles,” Kate said stupidly, turning back to watch the men in the gardens bustling about. Their shapes were black outlines against the dark blue sky.

  “They hang beautifully, and look all shiny and new, but then they break off with a crash and the really bad ones melt,” Henry said with a sigh. “What on earth are those people doing in the gardens? It looks as if they’re setting a Guy Fawkes bonfire. Is it Guy Fawkes Day?”

  “Isn’t that November?” Kate asked. Mariana had hardly been one for honoring public holidays.

  Henry gave her a last squeeze. “We’ll go out to the theater tonight and you can lap up some lovely attention from Ormskirk. His notes are getting more and more frantic. I think he believes you to be wasting away. You’ve lost Dante as a prospect. I had a letter from Effie’s mother just now, and she accepted him.”

  “Good for her,” Kate said. “I’m so glad Lord Hathaway fought off all those young men and won her hand.”

  “So it’s time for you to disprove Ormskirk’s fears of your imminent death,” Henry insisted.

  “I am certainly robust,” Kate said. The shadows under her eyes and the hollows in her cheeks were gone. It wasn’t fair that pain in the heart should feel so much more debilitating than mere exhaustion.

  “I’m going to send a footman over there to inquire what on earth is going on,” Henry said, stepping closer to the window frame. “Look at all the birds. They look as if they’re having a proper gossip.”

  The trees were full of blackbirds, flying up in little groups and landing again in clusters.

  “Maybe they’re having a roast of some sort,” Kate suggested, “and the birds are waiting for them to break out the bread.”

  “A roast?” Henry said. “In this neighborhood? I highly doubt it. Look, they’re lighting the bonfire. It’s a big one, I must say.”

  At that moment there was a scratch at the door and Henry’s new butler entered with a silver salver. “My lady,” he said, “a note has arrived.”

  “Has arrived,” Henry asked. “From whom? Do you have any idea what’s going on in the park, Cherryderry?”

  “This note comes from the gentlemen in the park,” he said. “But no, I am not certain of the nature of the activity.”

  “Would you mind asking Mrs. Swallow to send more tea, Cherryderry?” Kate asked.

  He bowed and departed; Henry tapped the note against her chin consideringly.

  “Aren’t you going to open it?” Kate inquired.

  “Of course I am. I’m just wondering if I should send a footman for the Watch. I wish Leo was home; he would know what to do. Look how those sparks are going up into the trees. What if it all catches on fire?”

  “Open up the note and see what on earth is going on,” Kate said.

  “I can’t,” Henry said.

  “What?”

  “It’s addressed to you.”

  Forty

  I would prefer not to throw myself on a funeral pyre.

  Please come back to me.

  The note fell from Kate’s fingers and she took a step toward the glass, straining her eyes through the gathering darkness.

  And now she could see . . . a man. A tall man with wide shoulders standing before the bonfire. He had his arms crossed.

  He was waiting.

  Henry was picking up the note from the carpet, but Kate didn’t pause.

  She ran, ran down the stair, across the marble entrance hall, through the front door, and across the street. There she fetched up short at the iron railing, her hands curling instinctively around the icy metal.

  “Gabriel,” she breathed.

  “Hello, love,” he said, not moving. “Are you coming to save me?”

  “What are you doing? Here? The fire?”

  “You left me, as Aeneas left Dido,” he said. “I thought this would get your attention.”

  “I didn’t leave you. We couldn’t—you have to—”

  “You left me.”

  It was typical male foolishness, so she asked the only question that mattered: “Are you still betrothed? Are you married?”

  “No.”

  She released the railing and ran to the door to the garden, caught herself about to dash through like Freddie responding to an offer of cheese, slowed down. She managed to walk until she was close enough to see his face, and then he was running and she was running . . .

  “God, I’ve missed you so much.” He growled it and then he found her mouth. He tasted like wood burning in the outdoors, like winter air, like love.

  Time, minutes, hours passed as they stood in front that bonfire locked in each other’s arms, not talking. Just kissing, forty-one days’ worth of kisses, nights’ worth of kisses, morning kisses, luncheon kisses, twilight kisses.

  “I love you,” he said finally, drawing back.

  Kate felt her lips, bee-stung, ripe like a peach. She wanted more of him. Her hands skated over his broad shoulders, buried themselves in his hair, drew his head to hers again. “I do too,” she whispered. “I do too.”

  He fell back a step, and her arms uncurled from his neck. He took off his hat, and the fire cast dancing lights on his hair. Then with a simple gesture he fell on one knee before her.

  “Will you, Katherine Daltry, do me the great honor of becoming my wife?”

  Kate had been dimly aware that there were men in the garden, that Henry had crossed the street, that servants and bystanders and likely most of London were gawking through the railings. She heard a little rumble from them now, like the sound of laughter infecting a whole city.

  She put out a hand. “You do me too much honor,” she said.

  He stayed where he was.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, yes, yes!”

  He bounded up and swung her in a circle, and the golden sparks flying away through black boughs swung crazily in the air as she laughed. Henry was laughing, and Leo was in the park too now, and last of all, Gabriel was laughing. A deep, joyful laugh with an edge of triumph and possession that made her heart beat quickly.

  “I have,” he said a moment later, “a special license.” And he drew it out of his pocket.

  Then Henry was there, hugging Kate, and Leo too, smelling like spicy brandy.

  “Tomorrow morning,” Henry dictated. So it was to be.

  To her shame, Kate didn’t even remember to ask what would support the castle; they were all seated around the supper table when Henry broached the subject. Kate was trying to ignore the fact that Gabriel was rubbing his leg against hers.

  “So, prince,” Henry said, “how do you plan to keep my goddaughter, not to mention that castle of yours, in the manner to which she has a right to expect? Now that you’re not marrying for money,” she added, throwing Kate a wicked glance.

  But Kate had her own ideas about when she would inform Gabriel of her dowry.

  “I sold a book,” Gabriel said calmly. “I got a whopping advance, enough to support the castle and Kate for well over a year, even if she indulges in glass slippers. By that point, the surrounding estate should be profitable enough to support the castle in plain fashion, if not a princely one.”

  Kate’s mouth fell open. “A book about archaeology?”

  “About the archaeological excavation of Carthage,” he said. “With plentiful details about the life of daily people at the time.”

  “That is Gabriel’s particular interest,” Kate said to Henry and Leo. “He is one of the very few archaeologists who thinks that an ordinary man’s life is as interesting as that of a king.”

  “It depends on the man,” Henry said. But her eyes were fascinated. “I didn’t realize publishers even paid people to write books. I thought they just did it”—she waved her hand—“for the love of it, or something.”

  “Even I know that!” Kate said, laughing at her.

  “I haven’t read a book in years,” Henry replied,
unperturbed. “But I’ll make an exception.”

  “Gold lettering in a three-volume set,” Gabriel said. “By subscription only.”

  “In that case I will definitely read it,” Henry said. “I will buy it in duplicate. And so will everyone else I know,” she assured him.

  “You’re brilliant,” Kate said, beaming at him. “I’m just so—I’m so proud.”

  “What on earth happened to that little Russian girl?” Leo asked.

  “Fobbed her off on Toloose,” Gabriel said proudly. “It took me two weeks of throwing them together. After all that, he came to me and said he had to return to London, because he couldn’t bear it any longer, so I yanked him into the maze and told him to do his damnedest. A day later Tatiana’s uncle pulled me aside with all sorts of lavish apologies.”

  A hand slid onto her thigh, under the tablecloth.

  “You’re practically my wife,” Gabriel said in her ear. “That means groping is allowed.”

  “Amazing how even a prince can take on the look of a naughty curate,” Henry said to her husband.

  But Kate wasn’t listening.

  At midnight Kate told herself again that Gabriel was a gentleman. A prince. Of course he wasn’t going to sneak along the corridor of Henry’s house, as if he were indeed a naughty curate.

  She was the one with the depraved imagination, clearly.

  There was a noise.

  But it wasn’t from her door.

  She ran over to the window and pulled open the sash. “Thank God,” Gabriel said, hauling himself up and swinging a leg over. “I nearly toppled into the garden.”

  “Hush,” Kate whispered, pulling him into the room. “I’m not sure Henry and Leo are asleep yet.”

  “They aren’t,” Gabriel said. “They’re down there in the library, and we really should tell them tomorrow that disporting themselves on the hearth rug ought to be done with drawn curtains.”

  Kate started giggling madly. “No!”

  Gabriel’s mouth quirked too, but there was an intent wildness to his gaze that didn’t leave much room for laughter. Without saying another word he began to untie his cravat.

  “Oh,” Kate said nervously. And then, “Aren’t you going to tell me more about the book?”

  “No.”

  “Did Tatiana mind losing you?”

  “She saw my mad dash when you left. I think she had doubts about the happiness of the marriage, and rightly so. Plus Toloose is so much more elegant than I am. They’re pretty as paint together.”

  “You ran after me?”

  His face took on a drawn ferocity. “Don’t ever leave me again, Kate. I couldn’t take it.”

  “I didn’t leave you,” she protested. “That is, I had no choice. Are you taking off your coat?”

  “I’m taking everything off. And unless you’d like me to undress you, you might consider doing the same.”

  “Shouldn’t we wait until tomorrow?” she asked, feeling an unaccountable burst of shyness.

  “No.”

  He was down to his smalls.

  “Oh,” she said faintly. “I forgot . . .”

  “I didn’t forget anything,” he said with satisfaction, reaching out and pulling free the tie to her negligée. He pushed it off her shoulders, and she saw a glint of appreciation in his eyes. When Kate hadn’t felt like going in society, Henry had ordered half the modistes in London to attend her at home.

  She was wearing a creation so delicate and yet erotic that it could only be made for a princess. Gabriel swallowed visibly. “That’s a wicked, wicked gown.” There was a ring of admiration in his voice.

  Kate reached for the simple little tie that kept the whole confection of lace and transparent silk floating around her body. He didn’t say a word, so she untied it, and then, very simply, stepped forward, letting it fall in a cloud around her toes.

  Gabriel picked her up and carried her to the bed, putting her down as delicately as one of his broken pottery shards. “I didn’t forget anything, not a detail, about the times we made love,” he told her. “But there was one thing that I never had the chance to do during those times.”

  “What?” Kate asked, hearing her voice catch.

  “This,” he said. And with that he ran his hands down her body and without hesitation took full possession of her most intimate parts.

  “What are you doing?” Kate cried, rearing up. But as his mouth followed his hands, she stopped asking, because all she could do was gasp. And then cry aloud. And finally, shriek.

  It wasn’t until hours later that she remembered what it was she had to tell him. By then she was lying half across him, her hair spread across his chest, his hand absent-mindedly playing with her curls.

  They were both drugged and drunk on love and pleasure, and yet neither of them wanted to sleep yet.

  “I have to tell you something,” she whispered.

  He was winding her curls around his finger. “Your hair is like spun gold,” he said. “Like the stuff Rumpelstiltskin wove from straw.”

  “I have a dowry,” she said, raising her head so that she could see his face.

  “That’s nice,” he said, winding more around his finger. “Did you know that the Greeks used to leave a little pile of hair in the burial—”

  “Gabriel.”

  “—tombs,” he finished. “You have a dowry. That’s wonderful. Wick and I worked everything out, but every little bit helps. Do you know how much everyone in the castle wanted me to pick you over Tatiana?”

  “No,” she said, smiling.

  “Ferdinand told me that he would sell his gun collection. Sophonisba said she would give up her brandy, though I’m bound to tell you that she later reneged.”

  Kate was laughing delightedly.

  “And Wick,” Gabriel said.

  “Wick?”

  “Wick said that he would hire himself out as a butler.”

  Kate felt her smile wobble. “Oh, Gabriel, that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever offered to do for me. Or for you, in this case.”

  “For us,” he said, gathering her against him so that he could brush her mouth.

  “The wonderful thing is,” Kate managed, “that I have a dowry.”

  Her breasts were rubbing against Gabriel’s chest and he seemed to have stopped listening, so she pulled herself up and suddenly found herself sitting on his chest.

  “Mmmm,” he said, pushing her back so she slid lower on his body.

  “No!” she said, blinking.

  “Oh, yes,” he said, his voice a silky promise.

  “Listen to me first.”

  “Anything.”

  But he wasn’t listening. She bent over, feeling bold and beautiful, and said, “Gabriel, I am . . .” But bending over had put her in a vulnerable position. His hands deftly nudged her this way and that, and a second later she clutched at his shoulders for balance, a cry breaking from her lips.

  “No shrieking this time,” he said, thrusting up.

  “No,” she gasped.

  “I heard Henry and Leo make their way to a much-deserved bed a few minutes ago.”

  “No, I won’t,” she gasped. “Please don’t stop, Gabriel.”

  He was grinning. “I think we should have that conversation. Weren’t you about to tell me something, darling?”

  Kate narrowed her eyes at him and experimentally tried a few moves of her own. She rose up on her knees.

  His eyes took on a wild sheen.

  “Don’t you want to hear what I have to say?” she asked, rotating gently, just enough to make his face clench with something like agony.

  It was his turn to gasp. “Not at the moment. Could you just . . . yes . . . like that.”

  “I am—”

  She sank onto him, deeply, greedily and then rose on her knees again. “I am one of the richest—”

  He wasn’t listening. His hips arched but she avoided him. “Tsk, tsk,” she said.

  “Kate!”

  “I am one of the richest women in Londo
n,” she told him, sinking down, letting the pleasure of it flood her body.

  He moved so suddenly that she squeaked, flipping her over, pounding into her in a thirsty, deep convulsion that swallowed both of them in a rich, warm darkness where there were only the two of them, wanting, loving, possessing.

  Sometime later they slumped beside each other, boneless and happy.

  Silence.

  “Did you say what I thought you said?” Gabriel suddenly demanded.

  She pretended to be asleep but he managed to wake her.

  And his celebration woke up Henry and Leo.

  Forty-one

  Four years later

  It was the fifth year of the excavation of Carthage. Despite the fact that Professor Biggitstiff claimed to find evidence of Dido’s city at least three times a month, to this point no solid proof had been found.

  Biggitstiff had not given up. He was determined to find that evidence, and failure only solidified his resolve. “It’s as if he expects to find a big sign some day,” Gabriel groaned, lying back and putting his arms behind his head. “A plaque: Dido Slept Here.”

  His wife gave a consoling little murmur. She was drifting into an afternoon nap.

  Much more important than Biggitstiff’s failures, from Gabriel’s point of view, was that the dig had painstakingly brought to light fascinating facts about the inhabitants of ancient Carthage, about everything from their toiletries to their burial practices, from their betrothal gifts to their birthday celebrations.

  Even though he and Kate attended the dig in person for only four or five months each year, during the winter, his methods had prevailed. Though Biggitstiff had fought him at first, the overwhelming success of his book, with both a scholarly and popular audience, had made Gabriel’s techniques for approaching an archaeological site the rule. Thus the Carthage dig was proceeding with painstaking carefulness and full attention to every scholarly question.

  Though nothing was happening at the moment. It was the hot and lazy part of the afternoon, when every sane man was lounging under a canvas, sipping a cool drink, and fanning himself.