The Kiss at Midnight

by Sue-Ellen Welfonder

  Her eyes were large, momentarily outraged, and he’d bet anything they’d be the most vivid blue by the light of day. Even now, in the dim glow coming from the lanterns and old houses along the road behind the kirkyard, her eyes held a hint of sapphire that beguiled him, as did the dimple in her right cheek. She had smooth, creamy skin and smelled of summer roses. Her cloak couldn’t hide that she was also possessed of full round breasts, though he tried his utmost not to let his gaze linger there.

  And thanks to her having already presented him with a fine rear view, he knew that the rest of her was equally appealing.

  She didn’t seem as taken with him.

  “You wouldn’t have seen the ghosts, would you?” She set her hands on her hips, her eyes shooting sparks at him. “They dissipated the moment you barged around the monument.”

  “Aye, well…” Greyson glanced about, seeing only drifting mist. Looking back at her, he risked another smile. “Can it no’ be you saw mist?”

  “I know the difference between mist and forming spirits.”

  Greyson lifted a brow. “See ghosts often, do you?”

  “How often do you accost ladies in kirkyards?”

  “Och, at least once in a fortnight,” Greyson returned, trying to keep his mouth from quirking. “More often if the mood strikes me.”

  “You are laughing at me,” she said, her lips tightening.

  “Sweet lass, I cannae help it.” He made her a slight bow. “Greyson Merrick, at your service. The truth is I have ne’er in my life met a lass who visits kirkyards in search of ghosts.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “You do not believe?”

  “I didnae say that.” He’d hoped she’d offer her name.

  “Then what?” She peered at him. “Were you also here to see the spirits?”

  “Nae.” I was walking home after venturing out to dine at an inn so my longsuffering manservant Smithers needn’t spend another evening toiling over cookpots in my kitchen.

  “I was just passing the kirkyard and…” He glanced back at the gate, searching for a better explanation. “I saw you, and worried that a young woman would venture in here at this hour.”

  “It is Samhain Eve.” She looked at him as if that said everything.

  “So?”

  “It’s a magical night,” she said, her expression showing that she held him for daft. “The Samhain lovers appear then. They were just starting to take shape when you frightened them.”

  “I didn’t know it was possible to scare ghosts.”

  “They have every reason to be cautious,” she informed him. “They were murdered here centuries ago when this land was part of the medieval church garden. Legend claims they were star-crossed lovers and met here for their trysts, thinking no one would discover them in such a quiet place, late at night.”

  “They erred?”

  She nodded. “Obviously so, or they wouldn’t have been killed. No one knows exactly what happened, but it is believed robbers fell upon them in the very moment they…” She paused, drew a breath. “In a delicate situation,” she finally said. “It was Samhain Eve, and ever since, they return on this night, seeking one last kiss.”

  “A romantic tale,” Greyson agreed, wishing she hadn’t mentioned kissing.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d kissed a woman, and he felt a ridiculous urge to correct that now, with this outspoken raven-haired beauty.

  Fortunately, she chose that moment to square her shoulders and frown at him, her ire dashing his desire.

  “This is the third year I have hoped to see them.” She brushed at her sleeve, clearly peeved. “You ruined it.”

  I have ruined many things, sweeting.

  Greyson kept that to himself, regret pinching him.

  “My apologies,” he did say. He wasn’t about to regale her with his long list of misdeeds and failures. Nor his hopes that now, with the purchase and restoration of Gannet House, he hoped to achieve some good.

  The gods knew it was time.

  She glanced at the spot she’d been watching and the movement treated him to a tantalizing hint of summer roses.

  “They will not be returning this night,” she said. “The moment is gone.”

  “Chased away the ghosties, have I?” Greyson lifted a brow, wishing he didn’t feel the powerful need to see her glistening, raven-black hair unbound and tumbling to her hips.

  The truth was, he wouldn’t mind seeing much more of her than her glorious tresses. He’d also love to lean in and nuzzle her neck, savoring the scent of her.

  He frowned, not liking what that said about him.

  Namely that he’d gone entirely too long without enjoying pleasant, deliciously unrestrained feminine company.

  Worse, that he’d sunk so low he couldn’t stave off lustful thoughts about a young woman who was likely an innocent, her starry eyes and maidenly heart keen on nothing more salacious than catching a glimpse of phantom lovers.

  Of course, he could invite her to Gannet House, though the only spectral entertainment he could offer, to his current knowledge, amounted to no more than odd knockings, phantom footsteps, the occasional cold spot, and the echoing howls of Jericho, Arbuckle Priddy’s beastly, red-eyed hell-hound. If he really stretched matters, a band of marauding, see-through Vikings.

  Somehow his home’s supposed hauntings didn’t seem as romantic as her long-ago, ill-fated lovers.

  Annoyed by how easily she stirred him, he strove to ignore his ungentlemanly response to her, and block his senses to her feminine allure. He had no business noticing any woman’s charms. For sure, he shouldn’t dwell on the off-limits temptations of a rose-scented, dewy-skinned virgin.

  So he gave her another smile, one he hoped would make him appear older and wiser. Anything but the dangerous, hot-blooded, nothing-to-offer her wretch that he was.

  A far-traveling adventurer who’d reaped not fame and riches, but failure and regrets.

  A drafty echo-filled house and a bristly, sometimes cantankerous manservant, comprising his world, his affection for both already marking him in Aberdeen society as a man as prone to eccentricities as poor Arbuckle Priddy.

  Not that he cared.

  He had his own views about what mattered in life.

  “Yes, you banished them,” the young beauty said then, frowning at him. “The ghostly pair, I mean. They were almost visible, just reaching out for each other.” She closed her eyes for a moment, as if seeing them again in her mind. “I came here with such high hopes. Conditions were perfect.

  “Now…” She shook her head. “Who knows where they’ve retreated to, what heartbreaking corner of the Otherworld-”

  “Ah, well, lassie, all is no’ lost.” He aimed to sound encouraging. “You shall just have to try again next year. Samhain comes around annually.”

  “But I do not.”

  “Why?” He didn’t care for the finality of her tone. “Are you leaving Aberdeen?”

  She looked up at him, the stars gone from her eyes. “I will not have another chance to look for the ghosts.”

  Guilt stabbed him.

  “I am sorry.” He was.

  “It doesn’t matter. Not now.” She glanced at the gate which was just creaking open, admitting a small group of women. “Oh, no!” she gasped, clapping a hand to her cheek as she nipped around behind him. “They will see me.”

  “Thon ladies?” Greyson peered at the fast approaching women, matrons by their girth and determined strides. “You know them? Are they family?”

  “Shhh…” She pinched his arm. “The housekeeper, cook, and head laundress,” she whispered, flattening herself against the side of the mausoleum. “The others are from neighboring houses. Stay before me, please. I can’t let them see me.”

  “Too late.” Greyson spoke true. “The path comes this way and if we leave, they’ll notice for sure.”

  Gravel crunched on the walkway, confirming his words.

  He turned to face her. “You’ll no’ want to slink off through the g
raves either. They might fear you’re a ghost and swoon dead away. You’ll no’ want that on your bonnie shoulders.”

  “Of course, not.” She swayed, looking ill. “Oh, sweet mercy.”

  “They’re almost here,” Greyson declared, rather unnecessarily.

  More crunching, closer this time.

  Her eyes flared. “Do something. Anything.”

  Greyson threw a look at the approaching women, and then turned back to the lass. Wicked thoughts whirled through his mind. Yet how could they not when less than a breath of air stood between them? She was fetching. Her rose scent enchanted him. And – he couldn’t deny it – he found himself desiring her, and badly.

  Still…

  One thing he did possess was honor.

  “Please…” She leaned into him, her breasts brushing him. “Don’t let them catch me.”

  “Dinnae you-” Press your bosom against me.

  “They willnae bother you,” he said aloud, his heart sinking for he knew only one way to shield her.

  Crunch, crunch, crunch, the sound now accompanied by the swishing of skirts.

  Then…

  “Hester!” a sharp female voice rose above the shifting gravel and skirt rustles. “We came with you to see the phantom lovers, not common bawdry.”

  “Lewd harlot,” another scolded.

  “Ignore them,” a calmer voice admonished, presumably Hester. “We’ll be past them in a moment – if the lot of you don’t fall over your feet gawping at the pair.”

  “Gah!” The lass gripped Greyson’s arms, her breasts no longer just brushing him, but squashed against his chest. “Do something,” she pleaded, panic in her voice. “Now.”

  “Damnation.” Greyson felt a fierce need to plow his hands through his hair.

  Instead, he did the only thing he could and whipped his arms around the lass, yanking her to him – even though he knew he’d regret it all his days.

  And that wasn’t all, for his foolish ‘gallantry’ caused the gravel-crunches and skirt-rustlings to cease.

  The pious biddies froze as one, their scandalized stares almost scorching him.

  More drastic measures were needed.

  The lass knew it. “Hurry,” she gasped.

  “Indeed,” Greyson agreed.

  Lowering his head, he kissed her.

  But it wasn’t just any kiss. Rather, he gripped her face with his hands – all the better to shield her from spying eyes – and then he ravished her lips, giving her just the kind of long, deep, and devouring kiss that would shock the spluttering women and send them scurrying on their way down the path.

  Some might say they ran. Greyson didn’t care to lift his head and look. But when at last he did, he had worse matters to worry about than his daring. He was stunned by how boldly he’d thrust his tongue into the beauty’s sweet mouth.

  Just as worrisome, she’d softened against him, melting into him and seeming to awaken in his arms. She’d clung to him, even opening her mouth beneath his, then twirling her tongue with his, enticing him so thoroughly he nearly forgot the reason he’d crushed her to him. Why he’d swooped his mouth down onto hers, kissing her so passionately.

  Yet now shock filled her eyes as she stared up at him. She also looked furious, making him doubt her startling reaction to his kiss. Greyson started to apologize, but she leapt away, her hands raised as her gaze flashed to his loins.

  “You, sir, are no gentleman,” she scolded. “I felt you nudging me, your indecency poking me!”

  “My what-” Greyson broke off, horror sluicing him. “You err, sweet,” he tried to explain. “That wasn’t me. It was Wiggle, my-”

  “You call it wiggle?” Her eyes rounded as she took backward steps, her arms still outstretched against him. “You’re mad!” she accused, then spun and hitched her skirts to race through the kirkyard, making for the back wall.

  If she fell and hurt herself, he’d never forgive himself.

  “Nae, lass!” Greyson sprinted after her, one hand clutched to his ‘indecency’ as he ran past tilting tombstones and jumped over fallen ones. “Wait!”

  Of course, she didn’t.

  Fear puts wings on heels and hers were no exception. She reached the wall with amazing speed and scrambled over it before he could even blink.

  He did curse, drawing up before the wall just in time to see her disappear into the deep shadows at the end of the dimly-lit road behind the kirkyard.

  Feeling like a greater arse than ever in his life, he bent forward and braced his hands on his thighs. He was panting, his heart racing. Not so much from his sprint through the tombstones, but from the aftereffects of their kiss. Also annoyance because he’d been so taken with her, he’d forgotten Wiggle.

  He now felt the pokings himself, so looked down at his sporran and reached to undo its specially-designed fastenings.

  At once, his pet squirrel’s little red head popped up through the opening. The beastie knew no shame, his round eyes bright in the moonlight, and perhaps a bit accusatory.

  They should have been home by now.

  It was well past Wiggle’s dinner hour.

  “Ach, laddie, what have you done?” Greyson stroked a finger over the squirrel’s head, rubbed his small shoulders. “Thon lassie thinks I’m a scourge.

  “A depraved ravager of innocents,” he finished, drawing a few nuts from a pouch at his belt and giving them to his pet.

  That done, he refastened the closing on Wiggle’s travel-sporran and made his way out of the kirkyard, sure he’d never felt more miserable.

  In truth, he shouldn’t care what the lass thought of him.

  He’d never see her again.

  He didn’t even know her name.

  What a pity that made him feel even worse.

  A short while after Greyson left the kirkyard, sure this was the worst Samhain he’d ever known, someone else decided otherwise. An ancient soul who found the evening’s events most interesting.

  She was a tiny, black-garbed woman – some might say crone – and on such a bright moonlit night, had any passersby cared to look her way, they might have seen the twinkle in her eye and the gleam of her small black boots, tied with red plaid laces. The more observant might’ve also noticed that the laces glowed. Indeed, it’s possible they even gave off a sparkle or two.

  That happened now and then, when something pleased her.

  In truth, she made it her business to please others.

  She’d been doing so for longer than memory, not that her great age bothered her.

  Years brought wisdom.

  And now that the lass had fled and the tall man with his dark good looks was also gone, she drew a deep breath and rubbed her hands together. Only then did she step out from behind one of the kirkyard’s largest trees. She’d stood there because she, too, had come to St. Nicholas in the hope of catching a glimpse of the legendary phantom lovers.

  The crone was a romantic, after all.

  If the ghostly pair hadn’t manifested, a flesh-and-blood couple pleased her more. Especially as they’d clearly just met, and were so obviously well suited.

  She even knew the man – who wouldn’t for his reputation went before him, famous adventurer that he was. Or had been. No matter. Either way, she hadn’t let him see her. It wouldn’t have done to disrupt the magic of the pair’s first meeting.

  As for her magic…

  Devorgilla of Doon, Highland cailleach of incomparable skill, would ply her talent soon enough. This night she’d glory in the anticipation of a bit of meddlesome matchmaking.

  Something she did with glee.

  And she was about to do so here in Aberdeen, beginning with a visit to Gannet House. An undertaking she’d embrace with relish, for her visit to the royal burgh had turned boring.

  She much preferred to stay busy.

  So she, too, made her way past the rows of mossy and tilted tombstones and then let herself out of the kirkyard. But unlike Greyson Merrick’s departure, when she latched the gate behind h
er, she was smiling.

  Chapter 2

  Later that night Kettle House, Flourmill Lane, Aberdeen

  Ophelia Raines crept as quietly as she could up the backstairs of Nettle House, as she secretly called her aunt and uncle’s home. Moving about the house often felt like maneuvering through stinging nettle, so the name fit. Fortunately, her favorite escape route, the original servants’ stairs usually proved nettle-free. Deemed unsafe ages ago, the stairwell began gathering dust after a more modern stair was built for the household staff.

  The expenditure was justified because her uncle, Irwin Russell, held that servants shouldn’t be seen or heard.

  Leastways, as infrequently as possible.

  Fortunately, the old stone house was large enough to allow such a luxury. Dating from the 16th century, Kettle House gained fame as the dower house for the nearby and equally ancient provost’s mansion. In medieval times, one of the provost-widows living there had been a good-hearted soul, always keeping huge kettles of soup and fresh-baked bread ready to serve the needy – whenever such unfortunates called at her kitchen door. And so the house earned its name, along with the reputation of aiding the poor.

  Ophelia frowned as she climbed the musty-smelling stairs, blessedly lit well enough thanks to the moonlight slanting through the air slits cut into the house’s thick stone walls.

  She wouldn’t exactly call herself poor, though some would surely disagree.

  But she was in need of a roof over her head, food in her belly, and so she imagined Kettle House was still deserving of its name.

  Even so, she wasn’t a servant – however much she was expected to help where and when needed.

  She did so gladly, was even grateful when, after a regrettable and disastrous scandal, her too-pious-for-her-taste aunt and uncle opened their home to her. Still, she was her own good self, and found it difficult to ignore her passions. To her, harmless but fascinating pursuits, mostly her interest in anything odd or otherworldly.

  So she hadn’t complained when she’d been offered a cell-like room on the top floor. The true servants might also sleep there, but most slumbered like stones, their snores assuring her privacy to access the seemingly forgotten backstairs.