Midnight Secrets

by Jennifer St Giles

  “A s-s-seashell pw-w-womis-se.” Rebecca held up the shell

  “That’s right. A thousand-shell promise.”

  Rebecca smiled. “T-h-h-housand.”

  Just as soon as Prudence and Rebecca left, Bridget pulled on her blue shawl. “I’ll have Stuart ready the shopping buggy and I’ll ride with you to the inn, if it is all right. It’ll give me time to speak to him about his mum and his brother. I was wrong, you know, about him not knowing what it was like to have his mother and brother hurting and not be able to help. He’s lived his whole life that way, and I didn’t realize it. All I could see was the privileges he’d gotten in life.”

  “I’m glad you can see differently now.”

  “We’ve been good friends for each other.” Bridget was teary eyed again.

  I gave her a big hug. “The best of friends. And I expect you to keep your promise to come to Oxford.”

  “I will. In the meantime, I’m making Stuart continue with the classes we started. I want to learn and the others do too.”

  “You will learn.” I drew a deep breath, realizing there were so many other things that I’d be leaving undone here. How could I bear it? It was almost as if my life in Oxford never existed. So much of my heart belonged here.

  Bridget nodded and started to leave. At the door she turned back toward me. “If you love him, why are you leaving?”

  “Sometimes loving means you have to leave. Both people have to want the same thing, and be willing to sacrifice for it, or they can never be together.”

  “Like queen and Draco?”

  “Yes.”

  “I wish we could write this differently.”

  “I do too.”

  Bridget sighed then left, leaving me with no more excuses. I gathered the pen and paper and prayed for strength. I had to force myself to do the impossible, which was to tell Sean goodbye.

  Dear Sean,

  Forgive me for fleeing, for leaving this letter to say what I must. But I knew I wouldn’t be able to say goodbye any other way. I came here looking for the truth behind Mary’s death and somehow found a different truth as well: the truth I’ve been hiding from in my own life. In coming here to Killdaren’s Castle and seeing the struggles of those who live in its shadowed walls, I learned that the advice I’d been giving to so many isn’t wholly true. There are more important things in life than etiquette and propriety, and they are not found in the dictates of society. Those things are compassion, love and hope, and are found within the heart. Knowing you has brought them painfully, and beautifully, into my life and into my heart.

  I have compassion for your pain, and in the depths of the night my spirit will reach out to comfort you in your darkness. You’ll feel me in the wind rushing in from the sea.

  My love for you will endure as long as the stars fill the heavens, for it is not bound by even the frailty of my own heart. Even though you do not hold the same depth of affection for me as I do for you, I know you felt the beauty of our union.

  So this is my hope for you, which fills my heart. Don’t spend your life forever beneath the shadow of a curse. Find the courage and the strength to love and to dance beneath the stars.

  Eternally yours,

  Cassie

  I slipped silently from Killdaren’s Castle, with my belongings and Mary’s letters in an old potato sack. It was an hour before midnight, and a light fog had eased in from the sea. Its misty fingers wrapped around me, tightening the pain in my heart.

  The castle loomed behind me its gray walls dim and its corridors still haunted with silence, as if I’d never been there. The gardens and maze stood before me, dark reminders of things I didn’t want to remember, but would never forget. I didn’t dare look at the gargoyle guarded observatory or think of the stars and what had lain beyond them in Sean’s arms. The tangy salt of sea air mingled with my falling tears, and the moon, a big bright ball of it, shone brightly down, trying to show me that all was not dark with the world at the moment. I didn’t want to see. The stars would never the same as before, for in a twinkling, my life had changed and Sean would be forever imprinted in the heavens as surely as if he were a constellation as large as the universe.

  I gave the maze’s dark hedges a wide berth, and shuddered as I passed on my way to where Bridget and Stuart waited for me at the stable. I was so absorbed in my own troubles that I had almost entered the stable before I heard the raised voices.

  “I refuse to walk away from you. You have to let me help,” Bridget yelled.

  “No, I bloody don’t, Bridget. You know what the villagers are like. They’re a superstitious mob. Once word of what Jamie and my mother have done gets out, I’ll be reviled, and so will anyone associated with me.”

  “You can’t stop me,” Bridget said, her voice growing louder. She stormed from the stables and nearly ran into me. Her red hair curled wildly about her face and her blue eyes were fiercely determined. “Bloody stubborn man. Can’t see past his idiotic opinions, that’s what. Who is he to decide what’s best for me?”

  I stopped and stared at Bridget a moment, wishing a little shouting could set my world aright.

  Bridget smiled at me, dashing at the tears on her lashes. “Blimey, ladies don’t say bloody.”

  I laughed a little. “Sometimes no other word will bloody well do.”

  Reaching Seafarer’s Inn, I went up the stairs to the apartments only to find them alarmingly empty. All of my sisters and aunt’s belongings were there, but they weren’t. I immediately went down to the proprietor. A contrast of mussed hair and impeccably neat dress, he stood at the front desk, polishing its surface.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Lloyd. Would you be able to tell me where my aunt and my sisters are at this evening? I seemed to have missed a communication with them.”

  “Why certainly, Miss Andrews. They are in the dining room. Viscount Blackmoor is having a private party.” He looked down at my dress and cleared his throat. “Would you like for me to escort you in once you’ve, uh, refreshed your appearance?”

  I blinked with surprise at his rudeness. Then I realized I still wore a maid’s uniform. At least I didn’t have on a mob cap, but I didn’t dare delay to see what this private party was about. It was highly unseemly for them to be at a gentleman’s private party this late. It was nearly midnight.

  “No. I would like for you to escort me now.”

  I’m not sure what debacle I expected to intrude upon, but it wasn’t a gaming den. Everyone looked up at my gasp of outrage, and there was a dead silence. I never in my life expected to see the Earl of Dartraven and Sir Warwick there with Sean’s two friends, the viscount, my aunt and my sisters.

  “What’s your son’s wench doing here?” Sir Warwick said to the earl, smiling nastily.

  “So, that’s the beauty Sean seduced—” Lord Ashton’s sentence was cut by a jab to the ribs by Mr. Drayson.

  “That’s my sister,” Andromeda declared, her cheeks flushed and her eyes over bright.

  The blood drained from my face as the axe of a scandal fell on my head. From the shocked looks bouncing about the room, my reputation had been felled.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Go ahead and spoil the surprise, Ashton.” The deep voice came from behind me. Sean’s luring lilt set my heart to racing, he wrapped his arm around my shoulders, ushering me into the room, as his scent and warmth washed over me. “This is the beauty I’m going to marry.”

  I turned toward him, shocked to have his dark and vibrant countenance truly beside me. Without the backdrop of the castle’s large rooms, he cut a more imposing figure than ever. His black riding pants tapered sleekly down to leather boots. His white shirt lay casually open at the neck, and he’d flung his ebony cape across a broad shoulder. My knees shook. Seeing him set my heart to racing until I realized why he’d announced to the world that he was marrying a woman whom he’d told that he didn’t love and couldn’t marry.

  If I hadn’t already been on the verge of fainting before, I was sure that I now would,
just as soon as I informed a bloody stubborn male that I refused to be his noble sacrifice on the altar of propriety. I’d rather live with the scandal than marry without love.

  The room erupted in noise. My sisters squealed, hurrying toward me, their walk just a tad bit unsteady. The earl winked. Sir Warwick shook his head as if he were not seeing and hearing right. Sean’s friends burst into laughter, and Aunt Lavinia, her cheeks scarlet, kept looking between Sean and the viscount, fanning herself.

  “No,” I whispered to Sean, gritting my teeth against the yes my heart wanted to shout.

  “Yes,” he whispered back, iron determination lacing his hiss, and narrowing his green gaze. “Since you didn’t bloody stick around for me to ask you properly, you’re just going to have to wait.” He nudged me toward my sisters, and I pushed back.

  How did the man have the audacity to sound peeved at me! “This is…”

  “The way it is,” he said firmly. “Talk to your family. I have some business to attend to.”

  Moving away from me, his hitched gait more pronounced, Sean strode determinedly toward the viscount, who, looking grim, quickly stood. Silence descended like a death knell as all eyes riveted to the two men who were mirror images of each other—except Sean was pale and the viscount as tan as a sailor might be.

  The tension filling the room gripped me, made me feel that at any second Sean and his brother were going to explode. The men were so charismatic that there honestly wasn’t room for the both of them in the small den. It was easy to see how their countenances had perpetuated the rumors of the curse. They were like warrior gods of legendary lore, preparing to battle for the world.

  “I’m dissolving the pact.” Sean voice was tight and sharp.

  “I see,” the viscount drawled, matching Sean’s antagonism with a deceptive ease. “It wasn’t my idea, so I am glad to see it end.”

  “As soon as I can arrange my affairs, I’ll be leaving here with Cassie. If you and I never see each other, and live a country apart, perhaps we can change fate.”

  The viscount looked as if he flinched then nodded. “As you wish.”

  Sean turned to me, his gaze burning with a mixture of anger and desire. “I’ll wait for you in the inn’s parlor.” He left the room, sucking all of the air from my lungs.

  “Dear me.” Aunt Lavinia fanned her flushed cheeks as she approached me. “Do you think it’s safe to go? He looked a bit upset, dear.”

  “Oh, Cassie, this is wonderful!” Gemini clapped her hands. “We’ll have a wedding fit for a queen!”

  “My word, Cassie, he’s exactly like the viscount, only more, more…dangerous. I think you had better stay here.” Andromeda reached for my hand. The moment she touched me, her eyes widened and a hot blush rushed to her cheeks. “You love him.”

  I pulled my hand away before she could discern anything else, especially about Mary. It wasn’t the time or the place to tell them about Mary tonight, and Sean and I had a great deal to discuss at the moment. “I’ll be back in the morning and we’ll talk about everything. I have much to tell you,” I said. “Meanwhile, I suggest you ladies retire before everyone’s reputation is ruined. You aren’t drinking cocktails again?” I asked, studying their flushed states a little closer.

  “Certainly not.” Aunt Lavinia huffed out her generous bosom. “I’m chaperoning this venture. Surely that is acceptable.”

  “It’s almost midnight and this looks to be as close to a gentleman’s gaming hell as you will find outside of London. There are no other guests from the village present, and the men are all bachelors.”

  “Yes, I know dear,” Aunt Lavinia blinked, as if agog at the thought. “Such manly ones too,” she whispered. “But I wonder how it became so late? Why, we we’re just having dinner a short time ago, then decided to play cards. It must have been the viscount’s spiced wine that made me lose track of time.”

  “Spiced wine,” I choked out. Good Lord. They were all slightly inebriated with an aphrodisiac!

  “Yes, a most invigorating beverage you simply must try. Mustn’t she, my lord?”

  Turning, I found the viscount studying me very intently. “So, you’re the absent sister who’s been conducting an important investigation? On my brother, it would seem.”

  “I haven’t time for explanations now. I’m sorry to be rude, but everything will have to be said later. For now, I must go. And my aunt and my sisters shall immediately retire to our apartment without any more spiced wine to guide their way.”

  After giving my aunt a pointed look, I ducked from the room with my sisters and my aunt gasping at my rudeness, to a viscount no less. But I had to call a halt to the evening’s shenanigans and I couldn’t wait another minute to see Sean, whom the viscount was not, no matter how much they looked alike.

  I entered the parlor ready for battle. It was empty. “Sean.” I searched the shadowed corners. Feeling a breeze, I saw the French doors stood ajar and I moved that way.

  He stood in the moonlight at the end of the terrace, gazing out at the sea. The wind brushed his dark hair and ruffled his cape. He had one boot planted on a low stone wall, his hand resting on his bent knee, looking so haunted, so handsome, so alone. My heart tumbled over itself, reaching out to him before I could rein it in. My love for this man of shadows and the night ruled my every day.

  “We have to talk, Sean.” I moved to him. He kept his gaze on the sea, drawing mine to it as well.

  “Yes, lass, we do. I received your note.”

  “You weren’t supposed to until morning. I’ve barely left the castle. How?”

  “I had to see you. I went to your room and found you and Bridget gone, and nearly leveled the castle with my fear that something had happened to you. Prudence enlightened me as to the letter and to your flight.” He turned to me, a man who’d lured my heart into his darkness, and left me there alone. “I don’t suppose you’ve been able to tell your family about Mary yet. Do you need to go see them before we talk?”

  “No. I’ve decided to wait until morning. A few hours won’t change anything and given their state of mind at the moment, it would be crueler to tell them now than to wait. They think I’ve returned to the castle, and those at the castle think I’m at the inn.”

  “Good. We have some time to be together, then. To talk. If you are well enough to do so?” His gaze searched mine as he reached out and brushed a strand of hair from my face. “I’m sorry about Mary. I know your heart grieves,” he said softly

  I drew a deep breath of the sea air. “She was a beautiful, giving woman. I cared for her deeply and shall miss her. But my heart is more at peace now than in great sorrow. Since dreaming of her death, I’ve had time to accept that she’s gone. Staying so busy at the castle, becoming involved with everyone there that Mary cared about, has taken away a lot of the pain. I fear my aunt and sisters haven’t fared as well.”

  “They didn’t appear stricken this evening.”

  “No. I think they are inside, though, and are desperately latching on to any reason not to think about Mary. Your friends and your brother are giving them ample fodder to fuel their escape. Both times that I’ve seen my sisters in the gentlemen’s company, they’ve been in their cups so to speak, cocktails at breakfast and spiced wine for dinner.”

  “Spiced wine for all of them?” Sean’s chest heaved a little as he choked back a laugh.

  “It’s not amusing,” I said. “Considering its…its stimulating properties, I would think you’d be outraged on my behalf that men in your association are practically seducing my entire family.”

  “I fear I have a confession to make. The wine is no more stimulating than gingerbread cookies or flavored candy. In fact, it is even less inebriating than regular wine. You only feel its effects because it is sweeter and you tend to drink more.”

  Surely not, I thought. Just the memory of that night, the flushed warmth and tingling need stealing through me, captured my senses again. “Then why did you infer otherwise?”

  Leaning clo
ser, he whispered in my ear. “The power of suggestion has a tremendous effect on the mind and the senses, and I was bent on seducing you. Kissing you. Touching you. Making love to you.”

  My breath caught, my breasts grew heavy, my flesh damp. “Why?” I whispered, wanting to know his heart, wanting to hear him say that he loved me, just as I had told him.

  He cupped my cheek then slid his hand down to press against my breast, over my thudding heart. “Can you honestly not know? Lord woman. What you have done to my life!” He brushed his lips over mine, lightly, so unexpectedly that I didn’t have time to respond before he pulled me into his tight embrace, speaking softly into my ear. “I want to dance beneath the stars now, and nothing less will do. You’ve turned my world upside down, taken everything I believed to be irrevocable and ripped it apart. You came to me last night, gave me your heart and soul, and though I selfishly took that moment, I knew I had no right to more. No right to bring you into the darkness of my world. I still don’t have the right.”

  “Yes, you do.” I lifted my head from the solid warmth of his chest to gaze into the moonlit sea of his eyes. “I—”

  He brushed another kiss to my lips. “Shh, let me finish.”

  “After you left me in the library earlier, I went back to my rooms, determined that my life would go on as before. I’d built a world over the past eight years in which I could content myself, to some measure, until my days in this godforsaken life should end. But there you were, in my bed. You were in my study. You were in the music room. You were in the castle, so I went outside to escape you and walked to the edge of the sea and you were there as well, in the stars, in the caressing wind. In my mind. I once told you that I would give up this life in a heartbeat. That is no longer true. I cling to every heartbeat now, Cassie, because you are in my heart as well.”

  “You mean, you weren’t just being noble and trying to save me from scandal?”

  He grabbed my shoulders. “God no. Noble would be to send you away. Noble would be to never let you decide if you wish to live your life during the hours of the night. Noble would be never to subject you and future generations to the Dragon’s Curse. I am being wholly selfish in wanting you with me, wanting you to share my life, such as it is. I will do everything in my power to escape fate, yet I can’t demand that you share it. I love you. I want you to marry me, but I won’t accept your answer until morning.”