Stealing Midnight

by Tracy MacNish

  Emeline stood and hurried across the room, wrapped her arms around him and hugged him like she’d done when he’d been a boy. She smoothed his hair back from his face and made small shushing sounds before murmuring, “Your father told me what happened. Oh, Aidan. Poor lad, are you handling the shock?”

  To Aidan’s surprise, as his mother comforted him, he felt a pang of sadness so great it nearly brought him to his knees again. It seemed absurd that her gentle hands and compassionate eyes could affect him so. He towered over her, a grown man outweighing her by almost double, and yet her sympathy and caring had fresh tears nipping at his eyes. “I’ll do,” he managed to say.

  “What a horrid thing, and how devastated you must be,” Emeline said as she stroked his cheek. Her hands were soft and loving and smelled like his childhood. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

  He tamped down his emotions and forced his mind to the matter at hand. Taking his mother’s hand away from his cheek, he gave it a squeeze and dropped it before it shattered what remained of his control. “Aye, Mum, there’s something.” Pulling Olwyn in front of him, he thrust her toward Emeline. “You won’t let me lock her up, so you’re going to have to watch her. See to it she doesn’t try to leave.”

  Olwyn gasped and swiveled in his grip. Stormy gray eyes met his, lit with outrage. She raised her left brow into a witchy peak, and he knew he was in for a fight. “I’m not in need of supervision.”

  “Sure you are,” he said easily. “We’ve got a lunatic running around our property who’s murdered my dog, and left him as some sort of sick warning that he’s out there. He’s after you, and will stop at nothing to get you back. So don’t stand before me and say you’re not in need of minding, because if I know you half as well as I’m certain I do, you’re likely to try to settle the matter on your own with nothing more than a dagger and a pistol in your belt.”

  “And apparently, to hear you tell it, without my wits,” Olwyn said acerbically.

  “Get her back?” Emeline interjected. With sapphire eyes that glinted with a sudden sharpness, she cast her gaze upon Olwyn and asked, “How are you acquainted with the person who slaughtered that poor animal?”

  Aidan inwardly groaned; his mother missed nothing.

  “He is my father, Your Grace.” Olwyn spoke the words without equivocation.

  “I see.” To his mother’s credit, any shock Emeline might have felt did not show on her face. “Well then, ’tis no wonder why you left his home and have no desire to return.”

  “Aye,” Aidan said, grateful to his mother for her incredible capacity for compassion. “And so you’ll understand that we’re needing to keep tabs on Miss Gawain, for she might begin to feel ’tis her responsibility to lead him away from here.”

  Aidan noticed that Olwyn had grown stiffer still, her spine rigid, her hands fists. He didn’t have time to indulge her mood. “Mum, will you watch her?”

  Emeline cut to the heart of the matter with her usual gracious forthrightness, and she addressed Olwyn without answering him. “While my son’s discourtesy is inexcusable, I suppose we’ll attribute it to the shock he’s suffered and forgive him. Please, Miss Gawain, take a seat at the table and see if you have any appetite. After all you’ve been through this morning, perhaps a bite to eat would make you feel better.”

  “Why don’t you come sit by me, Miss Gawain?” Mira’s voice fell as sweetly pretty as a rainbow across a sunny sky, and just as unexpected.

  Everyone in the room turned their attention to Mira, who laughed softly and gestured to the chair beside her, indicating that Olwyn could take the seat.

  “My lady?” Aidan said, wondering at her mood. In the morning light Mira looked delicately regal in an ecru gown trimmed with matching lace, her golden hair elegantly swept away from her face. She most definitely did not have the appearance of a woman who’d drugged a man in an effort to seduce him.

  Mira breezily waved her hand in the air. “Let’s not make more of our personal matters than need be, my lord. We are all adults here, and if this morning’s unfortunate discovery has shown us anything, it’s that we’re all in this together. Clearly, with a madman roaming the property—no offense meant to you, Miss Gawain—my father and I are not safe to take to the roads just yet. As we’ll be staying on until the matter is settled, we might as well make the most of the situation, and at the very least, we should all be pleasant with one another.”

  Mira’s father smiled at her indulgently from across the table as he buttered a scone. “Good show, my pet. Trust you to have a level head and wisdom in the face of something so troublesome.”

  “I can’t see the benefit to going about it any other way, Papa.”

  Olwyn stood in front of Aidan, her shoulders back and unyielding, her head held at a proud angle. She turned briefly, long enough to send him a glare that spoke volumes—she was not happy about being ordered about, having motives assigned to her, or with Mira in general.

  “I suppose you’ve taken my choice,” she said to him stiffly.

  “Your protection is more important than your pride.” More important than anything, he thought. Aidan couldn’t imagine what he’d do if something happened to Olwyn, and he wasn’t going to take the smallest gamble with her safety.

  “I know I’ve already warned you, my lord. But I hope this time you will understand that I don’t say the words lightly. He’s more dangerous than you know. His life is a misery, and he has nothing to lose.”

  “I have everything to lose,” Aidan said softly, and not caring who saw, he lifted a shiny black tress from her shoulder and brought it to his lips. “I’ll be careful.”

  She softened a bit, and in her eyes he saw frustration and mounting fear. “What will you do with him?” she whispered. “Will you kill him?”

  “He’s trespassing on my property with intent to cause harm, and he’s killed one of my livestock. ’Tis my right.”

  “Will you?”

  “Do you wish him spared?”

  Olwyn bowed her head. And did not say anything.

  “Enough of these silences. Trust me enough to tell me what you want.”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted on a breath. “He is my father.”

  Aidan tried to imagine what she must be feeling, how torn and confused she had to be. And despite what had been done to Chase, Aidan let his compassion for Olwyn move him. “If at all possible, I will show mercy.”

  She nodded. A tear wobbled on the thick, black fringe of her lashes and fell. “He wasn’t always this way,” she said softly.

  He knew what she was telling him—that the father of her childhood had become a monster, but that she could also remember better times.

  Aidan heard riding boots ringing on the marble floors as the men in his family strode toward the dining room. They were ready.

  Aidan spoke to Olwyn quietly, his voice for her ears alone. “As much as it isn’t your fault, it must be dealt with.”

  She nodded again. “I know.”

  “Mum, will you take Olwyn above stairs so she can get dressed for breakfast?”

  “Of course,” Emeline answered.

  Aidan touched Olwyn’s chin and tilted her face so she would meet his eyes. Something in her expression made him uneasy. Knowing that Olwyn thought the entire matter was her fault, and also that she was not a woman to be underestimated, he said, “You behave.”

  “You be careful,” she answered.

  Without another word, Aidan left Olwyn in his mother’s care, and with Padraig, Rogan, Matteo, and Roman flanking him, the Mullen men went hunting.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The day passed with excruciating slowness. Olwyn followed the example set by the other women, and went along with their routine. By late afternoon her nerves felt as stretched as a harp string, and by the time the ladies sat around the fireplace to attend to their needlework, Olwyn felt sick from swallowing her apprehension.

  Other than the occasional glance to the doorway, no one else showed an
y signs of worry. They chatted about everyday things, gowns and shoes, memories of gatherings they’d all attended, and the recent birth of a foal in the stables.

  Inside Olwyn’s body she boiled like a kettle of water, her mind warning that if she didn’t do something soon, she would explode in a torrent of steam and screams.

  She stood in a flurry of skirts, and Emeline raised her eyes from the tapestry that was stretched on a rack before her. “Are you well, Miss Gawain?”

  “Aye…I mean, yes, Your Grace,” Olwyn stammered. “But if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to lie down for a bit.”

  “Poor dear, you must not have gotten much sleep last night,” Mira said in a tone so sweet it seemed impossible that she was so tactlessly referring to the fact that Olwyn had arrived at the breakfast table in Aidan’s robe.

  “Of course,” Emeline said, ignoring the gilded barb. “I’ll see to it you’re settled.”

  The two women left the drawing room behind.

  “I am very sorry, Your Grace,” Olwyn said softly, grateful to have a moment alone with Emeline so she could say what had been eating at her all day.

  “Whatever for?”

  “Your husband, your sons, and the rest of your men-folk are in danger, and it is because of my presence here.”

  “Nonsense. You cannot control your father’s actions. He put my family in danger. Not you.”

  “If not for me, none of this would have happened.”

  “If not for you, my son would not be alive,” Emeline countered succinctly.

  “If something happens to one of them…”

  Emeline cut her off with a delicate interruption. “I learned long ago not to entertain such thoughts. Whatever happens will be dealt with as it comes. Until then, we carry on as best we can. ‘What if’ is an endless cycle.”

  Olwyn remembered Aidan’s words: Worrying is just praying for what you don’t want.

  And so she fell silent and promised herself that she would only pray for good things, such as wisdom and strength and courage, for she felt in desperate need of all three.

  As they walked through the corridors of the manse, Olwyn snuck a glance at Emeline’s bearing, noticing how regally she carried herself, like a queen. She wore a gown of pale bronze velvet and a simple necklace that suspended an enormous sapphire pendant. Her golden hair was sleekly coiled and had been secured with carved ivory combs.

  Emeline must have caught a few of Olwyn’s furtive sidelong glances, for she said, “It may take some time before you feel more settled here. I speak from experience, you see. Years passed before I grew accustomed to my husband’s way of life.”

  Olwyn managed a small nod, unable to reply. Emeline spoke as Aidan did, of a future that included Olwyn.

  They continued on for a while, their heels tapping on the marble floors. They took to the wide curving staircase, and as they mounted the steps, Emeline added thoughtfully, “My son is a good man, and stubborn when he wants something. I ought to know, as we’ve butted heads in the past. He is much like me, for better and worse.” Emeline laughed. “Isn’t that the way? We cannot help but pass along our faults with our finer traits.”

  Olwyn nodded shyly, wishing that she could feel more comfortable with Aidan’s mother. But Emeline had a smoothly confident and self-possessed air about her that awed Olwyn.

  “I am much like my mother was, I think,” Olwyn told her softly. “She was terrible with a needle and thread, but could grow a flourishing garden in even the rockiest soil.”

  “That’s the good.”

  It was Olwyn’s turn to laugh. “She was also stubborn and full of grand dreams and notions of splendor.”

  “I don’t think it so terrible, to want to find splendor amongst the shadows,” Emeline said. Emeline had stopped in the long corridor. Her sapphire eyes, so like Aidan’s, were full of compassion. “Did you lose your mother when you were young?”

  “She left me.” The blunt admission startled Olwyn; she hadn’t meant to say that. She quickly corrected the statement. “I mean, she left us. My father and I. The splendor of her dreams must have seemed real enough to her after all, and I suppose the shadows felt more like gloom.”

  “I’m sorry,” Emeline said, her tone rich with empathy. “It must have hurt you deeply to be abandoned by her.”

  “Aye,” Olwyn breathed, remembering the nights she’d lain in bed, wondering what she had done that had been so bad that her mother hadn’t wanted her anymore.

  She could recall Talfryn’s soft voice telling her their story, the one she and Olwyn made up as they went along. Each time they told their tale, it grew and became a bit grander, but also stayed essentially the same. It was the story of the sad little girl who sought out the English king and asked him for shelter from the dragon of Cymru.

  “I got through it,” Olwyn added, hoping to not sound morose.

  “We all do.” Emeline smiled, and laid a gentle hand on Olwyn’s shoulder. Something about the expression in her eyes made Olwyn think that perhaps the Duchess of Eton knew something about enduring hard times. “My son is a good man,” Emeline repeated. “He’ll be the dream come true for the right woman.”

  “I do not dare to dream for much,” Olwyn confessed. “Some things seem dangerous to want.”

  “I know of what you speak.” Emeline’s smile grew mysterious, and her expression became faraway. “But there is a certain magic that makes such dreams possible.”

  There was no fighting or hiding Olwyn’s earnest desire to know the secret to such happiness. “What is the magic, Your Grace?”

  “Love is most of it,” Emeline said simply. “But that’s the easy part, for it usually happens beyond our control.”

  Olwyn said nothing, relying once again on the silence that Aidan despised. In the face of Emeline’s gentle words, Olwyn had none of her own.

  “The difficult part is the believing,” Emeline added. “Do you believe in fairy tales, Miss Gawain?”

  “Some of them.” Olwyn heard her own faltering tone, but she was unable to keep her voice strong when inside she felt as fragile as the last leaf in autumn, ready to disintegrate at the slightest touch.

  Emeline resumed walking toward Olwyn’s rooms, and as she did she said, “Believe in the ones that make you happy, Miss Gawain, and then dare to dream and dare to love. Most of all, dare to believe that the very best things are not only possible, but that you are worthy of them. If you can manage all three, magic happens. Trust me. I know.”

  Olwyn had been wrong. Lying in bed alone in the encroaching darkness did not make waiting less arduous, but in fact, had her nearly coming out of her skin. Only one solution made any sense at all, and so when Molly and Alice came to dress her for dinner, she asked them to send her regrets.

  Aidan had seen fit to provide her with a full bottle of his whiskey. Mentally thanking him, she poured herself a drink and went out to the balcony.

  She shivered as she looked to the woods, for no moon shone through the complete darkness.

  How long would they search for her father, she wondered. And to what lengths would Rhys go to see that he wasn’t caught?

  Olwyn’s imagination had become sharply honed after years of solitude; in many ways it had become her refuge, for she could disappear into a dream and forget her reality.

  Now, her ability to produce vast, detailed scenarios became torture, as her mind provided her with rich tapestries of evils that could have befallen Aidan. She saw him strung up in a trap, or garroted as he rode beneath a taut rope.

  The whiskey slid down her throat and burned in her belly. Olwyn sipped again, deeply.

  Courage, wisdom, and strength, she thought, repeating them in her mind. Belief, dreams, and love.

  Why, she wondered, were positive thoughts so much more difficult to attain?

  From the interior of her rooms she heard a noise that sounded like a tap on her door, and Olwyn rushed inside, hoping it was either news of Aidan or even better, him in the flesh, coming to tell her that all was
well.

  She flung open the door and her heart sank.

  “May I come in?” Mira asked as she crossed the threshold.

  “No.”

  “Too late.” Mira leaned toward Olwyn, sniffed the air, and then tittered with laughter. “Drinking spirits, Miss Gawain? Do you also smoke cigars?”

  “I would, if I wanted to. Unlike you, I don’t pretend to be someone I’m not.”

  “You don’t know anything about me.”

  Olwyn raised her brow and looked Mira up and down, taking in her sumptuous evening gown, the sparkling jewels she wore around her neck and on her earlobes, and the tiny, glittering tiara perched atop her golden head. “I know enough. Truth be told, I know more than I care to.”

  Mira swept across the room in the manner of someone on a mission. She turned when she reached the fireplace, and posed herself as if she were a princess addressing a sea of commoners. She pursed her pretty lips, and though she stood several inches shorter than Olwyn, held her head in a way that had her looking down her nose. “Your accent is coarsely vulgar, isn’t it? You really ought to seek elocution lessons, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

  “You could guard your ears by leaving.”

  “I came for a purpose. Despite how your appearance, and dare I say, existence, offends my sensibilities, I’ll see it through.”

  “How brave of you.”

  Mira smiled, but it had more to do with the baring of teeth than actual joy. “Yes, I do have business here,” she murmured.

  “Get on with it, then.”

  The clock on the mantel behind Mira chimed, signaling the hour had reached eight. Where, Olwyn wondered, was Aidan?

  “I want you gone,” Mira said simply, and then she continued with the demeanor of an impatient parent lecturing a wayward child. “You will leave here, and you will never come back. I will give you funds with which to support yourself, as it is quite obvious you cannot return to your vile, awful father. I have made arrangements for you to be transported to an inn for the night and for your transportation to the Americas, departing tomorrow on the morning tide.”