Prince of Midnight

by Laura Kinsale

  “The constable, ma’am! There was a coach robbed on the Romney road last night, and the culprit rode a horse with four white stockings, so what must they do but send out the town crier, and look out every unfamiliar nag with white stockings in the neighborhood for to interview the owner! As if a poor honest businessman had any notion to go out robbing coaches after a hard day’s work. They’ll be wanting to speak to your husband, too, ma’am.” He bobbed stiffly toward her again. “Since I don’t scruple to say that I told them he was out on my horse, which is nothing but God’s truth, and I hope for yourself sake, ma’am, that he can say where he’s been!”

  Leigh’s heart was beating so hard she felt sure that her voice must shake, but before she could speak, the Seigneur dragged himself up from the depths of the bed and sat looking at Mr. Piper with revulsion. He ran his hand over his face. “What,” he said, holding back his hair, “must I pay to have you thrown bodily from my room?”

  “Thirty guineas,” Mr. Piper said promptly.

  The Seigneur sputtered. “Thirty guineas.” He swung his feet to the floor and sat with the sheet pulled across his lap, leaning on his knees with his face in his hands. The queasy groan that leaked out of him made even Leigh feel a little anxious.

  “That’s the value of my horse,” Mr. Piper said stubbornly. “They’re threatening to impound him.”

  “Don’t even remember… your bloody horse,” the Seigneur mumbled, spreading his hand on his abdomen. “Ah damme, but I’m queer.”

  “I have witnesses, sir. Willing to speak! I must insist on restitution. I’ve no wish to bring a formal charge, but I—”

  “Take it.” The Seigneur swallowed several times.

  “Take it. Take it.” He gulped a deep breath and waved one weak hand. “Just… go away and leave me in peace.”

  He looked toward Leigh with a helpless appeal that was outrageous in its credibility. What an amazing fraud he was! She half believed in his morning-after agony herself. As he sat there, drooping in his misery, she searched in his purse with shaking fingers, right past the incriminating diamond necklace itself, and gave Mr. Piper enough Rye notes to equal thirty-one pounds, then scrupulously counted out four crowns in silver.

  “And keep your damn nag,” the Seigneur muttered. “Don’t want the… spavined beast.”

  “I’m so sorry for the inconvenience, Mr. Piper,” Leigh said, and meant it. “Have. they really taken your horse?” He tucked the notes into his coat. “Not yet, ma’am.

  They’ll want to speak to him first, I warrant.” He gave the Seigneur a lofty glance. “I advise you to do your best to bring him to a rational state in preparation, ma’am, and I hope he hasn’t been out cutting up stupid larks on honest gentlemen’s horses.”

  The Seigneur bent over, with an ominous gagging sound. Leigh moved instinctively toward him, and the other two men moved instinctively away.

  “I’ll have a tonic sent up,” the landlord said hastily. “Come along with me, sir—if you’re satisfied here.”

  “Bring the ferryman—” the Seigneur croaked, barely lifting his head. “I ’member now. Last night—just a little… jollity with the ferryman.”

  “Very good, Mr. Maitland. I’ll have him brought round, then, to vouch for you to the constable—if such a thing proves necessary.”

  The door closed on the pair of them. Leigh stopped, with her hand on the bedpost. All her limbs felt precarious, as if they might give way with her. The Seigneur lay back on the bed, his arms behind his head. His mouth curved with immoral humor.

  “How tiresome,” he murmured. “To choke down a tonic, when I’d far rather have a pork sausage. I don’t suppose you thought to save me one off your tray?”

  She took a deep breath. “Were you drinking with the ferryman?”

  “Sadly, no. I was terrorizing the highroad on a horse with four white stockings all last evening. An unfortunate setback, those stockings. Let us hope my largesse has been well placed.”

  Leigh bent her head. “And if not?”

  “Then they hang me, Sunshine.”

  She pressed her hand to her temple.

  “Don’t concern yourself overmuch,” he said easily. “I’ll attest your innocence to my last breath.”

  Pushing away from the bedpost, she walked to the window. “I find I cannot—take it all so lightly.”

  A moment of silence passed. She stared down into the stable yard. Behind her the bed creaked. .

  “Don’t get up,” she said sharply. “The tonic—what if someone comes?”

  “So they’ll see that I’ve made it to my feet, chérie. Cultivate a somewhat more indifferent manner, if you please. You put me all in a flutter.”

  She closed her eyes, listening to him move about the room and dress, resting her closed fists on the windowsill. Her mind played over and over the coming disaster. Would they burst in and take him by force—or come politely, asking sly questions, expecting to trap him in his story? She imagined him in manacles and had a wild thought of throwing the necklace out the window as far as she could hurl it.

  Chains. ’Twould be like the wolf on a leash… wrong, wrong, wrong.

  He came behind her. She whirled on him, flinging his hands away. “Don’t try to touch me! Don’t come and say you did it for me.”

  He went down on one knee with a gallant flourish. “What else am I to say, my love?

  “I don’t understand why!” she cried softly, looking down at his familiar full-sleeved shirt, at the gilded hair retied in black satin. “There was no reason for it.”

  He turned his face up to her, smiling faintly. “I can’t help myself.”

  “Nonsense,” she snapped. “You’re preposterous.”

  The slight, coaxing smile faded. At a scratch on the door, he came to his feet and disposed himself in an affecting slump against the post. As soon as a curtseying housemaid had left his tonic and gone, he opened the window, checked up and down the yard, and poured his morning bracer into the gutter below the sill.

  An hour later, the innkeeper came up in person again. Leigh gripped the arms of her chair. She sat immobile as the Seigneur bade the landlord enter—with the message that Mr. Maitland’s alibi had been quite confirmed by the ferryman, Mr. Piper’s mount released, and a proclamation posted with a reward for any information on the missing horse with white stockings.

  “And a pinch-penny reward it is, Mr. Maitland,” the innkeeper said carelessly. “Five pounds!”

  “Dog cheap, in fact,” the Seigneur said, sitting down in his riding boots and shirt sleeves at the dressing table. He folded a piece of paper around some money and rummaged in the stationery box for wax. “Ask one of your excellent ostlers to carry this to the ferry, will you? Convey my solicitations to the ferryman, and I hope his head doesn’t ache like mine.”

  “With pleasure, Mr. Maitland.” The innkeeper took the fat envelope and bowed out.

  Silence fell. The Seigneur sat looking at himself in the mirror. He met Leigh’s eyes in the glass.

  He smiled at her… a slow, wicked grin that transformed his face into the devil prince of the green forest.

  She stood up. “Iniquitous enough that you’ve got away with it,” she said, not quite able to keep her voice steady. “You needn’t relish it quite so immoderately!”

  “Relish it! That bauble’s costing me a fortune, my girl. Ten pounds to our quick-minded ferryman—and well he deserves ’em—which brings the sum to… let’s see… good God, over fifty. I wonder if you’re worth it.”

  She looked up at him. He appeared to quickly decipher the expression on her face, for his eyes slid away and he turned back to the mirror with a demeanor reminiscent of Nemo sidling cautiously into a corner out of harm’s way.

  “No doubt you are,” he murmured. “Dolce mia. Carissima!”

  “Italian now?” She sat down and laid her head back on the chair. “A fool in three languages.”

  “Che me frega, “he said in a velvet undertone, flicking his fingers against the u
nderside of his chin.

  If her French was shaky, her Italian was nonexistent. The words might have been a gutter curse or a lover’s compliment, but the little mocking gesture of those fingers was as eloquent as any thumbed nose.

  He leaned his elbow on the dressing table, toying with an ivory comb. She frowned at his reflected image, at the gilt eyebrows with their singular curve that was fiendish and cheerful at once. His easy speech in an alien tongue made him seem even more exotic—beyond mere common humanity: something mad and mercurial, able to conjure diamonds out of the dark.

  He’d his full balance back, she was certain. Since they’d left the ship, he’d moved easily, confidently, with a freedom and boldness impossible to disregard. The medical enigma intrigued her. The alchemy of his character fascinated and alarmed her.

  Outside in the stable yard, there was a sudden crash. He turned his head alertly… the wrong way, toward the door.

  It was nothing, an upset hay cart or some such incident.

  Through the open window Leigh could hear voices yelling in irritated retort, but she was watching the Seigneur. He stared expectantly at the door for a moment, and then his mistake dawned on him.

  He glanced at her. A dull flush crept up his neck to his hair.

  “Oh, yes,” she agreed softly. “You’re a sham, aren’t you?”

  His mouth grew hard. He stared at the tip of his boot without answering.

  “’Twas not your prowess—’twas nothing but devil’s luck got you through this silly trick, was it?”

  He brushed his finger back and forth over the feathered tip of the quill in the inkstand.

  “I’m not deceived,” she said. “’Twas luck.”

  “I understand a horse fair begins today at the market,” he said stiffly. “Perhaps you would like me to help mount you, mademoiselle.”

  It felt strange to be female again, to be led around puddles and supported up steps. Between the skirts and borrowed muff and high-heeled shoes and steep, cobbled hills, Leigh found she had to lean on the Seigneur in spite of herself.

  She submitted to a sedan chair, more to save herself the threat of a sprained ankle than to avoid the foggy chill. They had shut an unhappy Nemo in the room, and the Seigneur walked beside her, carrying his hat and acting icily polite. Misty sunlight gave his coat and hair a soft gleam, made him a golden idol amid so many dusty chimney sweeps.

  One of the ancient fortified gates loomed up like a black cave in the vapor. They passed by it, then wound through the narrow streets into the market square. She lowered the window. The horse fair was in full voice and pungent odor, the square crowded with animals standing in uneven lines for inspection or being trotted out by hand to show their soundness.

  “Do you like anything?” he asked, as they moved slowly among the horses.

  She tapped the front glass on the chair, and the attendants stopped in front of a pretty bay mare. The Seigneur opened the door, bowing with an excess of formality. One of the chairmen rushed to help her forth.

  Several shirt-sleeved men had been eyeing Leigh and the Seigneur as they passed; instantly one of them took the mare’s halter and led her out. Her snowy white stockings flashed as she trotted quietly up and down amid the confusion, away from them and back again. She came to a smart halt and stood still under the man’s light hold. The Seigneur looked her over critically.

  “First rate,” he said, bending slightly to speak into Leigh’s ear. “Fine points, adequate bone, superb manners. You won’t get her for under fifty.”

  She frowned.

  He gave her a sideways glance. “Insufficient funds, Sunshine?”

  “As you are quite aware,” she said stiffly.

  “Pity,” he said. “She’s a nice little piece.”

  “I shall sell this dress,” she said, keeping her voice low.

  “That’s won’t bring much, I’m afraid.”

  “You said yourself it was worth four guineas. That will get me to Northumberland. And there are my pearls.”

  “I said everything in your satchel might bring four,” he murmured. “You could get—perhaps fifteen shillings, if you pawned the shoe buckles with the dress, and a good three pounds for the pearl choker. Shall I put ’em on the shelf for you?” he asked ruthlessly. “There’s a broker just along the street.”

  She said nothing, but her eyes dropped.

  “You could trade your diamond necklace,” he said in a normal tone. “That ought to suffice.”

  Her head came up sharply. “Are you mad?” she hissed beneath her breath. “Don’t speak of that!”

  He smiled. “Oh, do you care for it so much?” He took her hand over his arm and patted it. “Never mind, my dear. I can get you another where that one came from.”

  “No!” she said, digging her fingers into his arm. “Stop it!”

  He glanced at the man holding the horse, gave the faintest shake of his head, and walked on. The disappointed horse coper bowed and led the mare back into position.

  The Seigneur dismissed the sedan chair and kept her arm. He stopped several more times, causing other animals to be paraded with merely a glance. In velvet and silk, Leigh knew that she and her escort were by far the most expensively dressed of the shoppers. The copers began to go to lengths to attract their attention and jockey potential purchases into good view. The circus atmosphere of the fair heightened in their vicinity, with horses wheeling in circles and being forced hurriedly into their best paces like troops of jugglers preceding a king and queen.

  At least one animal registered violent objections to this sudden activity. A few yards ahead of them, just beyond a tall black gelding, a handler was swearing at a big gray with a coat pale enough to be almost milky. The horse lashed out with its forefeet as soon as it was asked to move forward. The Seigneur stopped, applying a light pressure to her arm.

  She was glad enough to stay at a safe distance from the battle that suddenly erupted. The gray tossed its head savagely, hauling the handler right off his feet. A circle opened around them. The horse fought, alternately trying to bite and rear, while the handler hung on, yanking at the halter with what Leigh thought was rather foolhardy enthusiasm, until she realized that there was a chain looped over the horse’s nose and through its mouth. Traces of blood speckled the animal’s lips and chest.

  The handler danced out of the way of the well-aimed snap, and just at that moment another man brought a bat down across the horse’s nose. It squealed and jerked around, eyes wild. Its head snaked out, and its teeth clamped with deadly ferocity on the culprit’s shoulder.

  The man screamed and dropped the bat. Amid shouts and bedlam, the horse shook its attacker as if he were a rat in a terrier’s mouth. The man staggered as the animal let him go, gobbling incoherently and clutching his shoulder while he stumbled to safety. The handler had managed to knot the lead around an iron ring in the wall and scramble out of range while the horse was occupied. As soon as everyone cleared back, the gray horse stood still, sweating and swishing its tail angrily. Bright blood ran down its nose.

  The Seigneur moved forward, walking slowly around the horse in the open circle that had formed surrounding it. The gray swiveled its ears back, following his movement and breathing gustily, blowing cloudy vapors in the cold air. It swerved away from him and cocked a hind leg dangerously as he bent to examine its underside from a yard’s distance.

  “Recently cut?” He looked at a coper who was standing impassively by.

  “Aye. Ye can see why. Rogue stallion—Spanish, if I was to judge.” He turned his head and spat. “Dunno where he come from, but he’s made the rounds of every stable in the countryside. Wasn’t a stall that would hold him, and he ain’t never been backed. Tossed ’em all what tried.” He nodded toward the man who’d been bitten. “Poor old Hopkins there’s trying to fob him off now—fool thought maybe gelding would take care of it, but as you can see, it ain’t. He’ll be off to the knacker’s yard—nowhere else to go after Hopkins. Nice pair with that black, though, ain
’t he? They been the rounds together.”

  “Very pretty,” the Seigneur said, looking at the second horse. “Perhaps Mr. Hopkins will speak to me when he recovers.”

  The coper spat again and chuckled. “Oh, he’ll recover quick enough when ’e hears that. Jobson, say! Tell yer master to get on his feet and wait on me lord!”

  Poor Hopkins obeyed with as much alacrity as he could muster; his rather bull-like face was chalky as he made his way toward them.

  “I’m interested in the black,” the Seigneur said, nodding toward the second horse of the pair. “You will kindly show me his teeth.”

  Hopkins snapped at a hostler, and the Seigneur was given the opportunity to view the horse’s teeth, to run a hand down each of its legs and watch the handler pick up its feet, to view it trotting away and back on a long lead, to see it take a bridle calmly over its ears, and in short, have most of his commands fulfilled with delight.

  “I would like to see him ridden,” the Seigneur announced.

  “Surely, m’lord. I’ll get a saddle fetched an’ you like, m’lord. But I’m an honest man, by the Bible, and I’d be lyin’ an’ I didn’t tell you that this ’ere animal, I’ve schooled ’im to be driven to a carriage. If it’s a riding ’oss your lordship be desirous of, I’ve got—”

  “Never mind. I’ll give you ten for him as he stands.”

  “Oh, sir, m’lord—” Hopkins began to swing his broad shoulders reluctantly. “I didn’t never think you ’us a man to be wastin’ me time, m’lord. You’re a ’orseman, sir, so’s I see. You know ’e’s worth a century an’ ’e’s worth a groat.”

  The Seigneur smiled gently. “Nothing of the sort. Particularly since I’ll have to take that evil beast that savaged you along with him.”

  A general chuckle broke out at this. Hopkins scowled around at the rest. “I can see no need for that m’lord. By goles, I tol’ ye I do be the honest ’un, ’oo stands up by his mis-culculations. You could not give me no amount o’ money, no sir, to let some poor innocent creature take on that rogue. I’ll be seein’ to ’im, never fear.”

  “No doubt you will.” The Seigneur shrugged. “Very well—I’ll give you a hundred for this one, then… on the condition that I see you take him out of the square alone. Without the rogue, my good man.”