Stealing Midnight

by Tracy MacNish

  Sweeping into the dining room, she saw her father was already there, dapper in his riding clothes and taking his tea, toast, and eggs as he did each and every morning. Mira smiled at him, and went to peck him on his cheek with great affection. “Papa, you should eat some fruit,” she scolded lightly.

  “Fie on that. I’ll eat what I like.” Andrew dabbed at the corners of his mouth as his gaze traveled over Mira. “You are ravishing, my pet. Simply stunning.”

  “You do go on.” Mira took her seat across from her father and eyed him with all the love and devotion in her heart. There was no other man who could ever compare to the perfection of Andrew Kimball in Mira’s heart.

  The dining room smelled divine, and though Mira thought the table and chairs quite nice, she would, were it her home, do something about the silk moiré on the walls. Its subtlety lacked substance, in her opinion. She mentally redecorated the room in toile, what with all things French being the rage.

  “Good morning,” Camille said as she entered the dining room.

  Mira spared the older woman only a passing glance. Hussy, she mentally named her. Tramp. Whore to a commoner. “Good day, my lady. Have you taken note of the weather? I think I smell spring in the air.”

  “Yes. ’Tis a beautiful morning. Magnificent.”

  Mira nearly swallowed her tongue, for entering the dining room behind Camille was Olwyn Gawain.

  That striped hag had the audacity to look directly into her eyes and smile. Mira’s surprise quickly turned to indignation and fury. Olwyn had pointedly ignored her directive! And her face, though powdered, was definitely bruised.

  “I thought you’d spoken of traveling, Miss Gawain,” Mira said sweetly, and she congratulated herself on her calm demeanor. Surely no one could guess that inside she was positively murderous.

  She could nearly hear the gossiping cackles of the other girls who would know that Aidan had jilted Mira for that strange and disturbing woman.

  “I had a change of plan,” Olwyn replied, and she took a seat at the table beside Camille.

  Perfect, Mira thought. Two trollops who lacked any respectability, side-by-side and as chummy as childhood friends. Just perfect.

  And then it dawned on Mira that Olwyn might have revealed the existence of the journals and Mira’s threat to make them public.

  The whore. She wouldn’t dare. But Mira’s belly began to flip over, again and again.

  “I’d love to hear about your new plans for adventure,” Mira said. “Why don’t you come with me to the parlor, and you can tell me all about it?”

  “Actually, I’m quite hungry.” Olwyn sat back as a servant set a steaming plate of porridge, eggs, and fruit on the table. She smoothed her napkin across her lap, lifted her fork, and began to eat as if she hadn’t a care in the world.

  Camille did the same, sipping her tea and chatting with Olwyn about the horses and her hopes for certain foals that would most certainly become beauties. Patrick Mullen had come into the room as well, and he joined them in their conversation and the breakfast, as if they had no more concerns other than the weather.

  Mira looked across the table to her father, who ate without concern. She wished the table were not so wide so she could kick him to alertness.

  And then Patrick, Camille, and Olwyn stopped talking and the silence in the room became deafening. It expanded, hummed, and became a living thing that began to smother Mira until she could take it no longer. She quickly stood and splayed her hands on the tabletop. “Miss Gawain, we really must speak at length.”

  “I suppose we should,” Olwyn replied coolly. She fixed her predatory, animalistic gaze on Mira and raised a brow until it formed a tiny peak. “Your man, Harry, is dead, as is your driver. Your efforts to rid yourself of my presence landed them in my father’s trap. I am very sorry for their loss, and for the sadness it will surely cause their families.”

  Mira held her hand to her throat and gasped.

  “Harry?” Andrew said, clearly confused as to whether or not Olwyn was speaking of his manservant.

  “As for me,” Olwyn continued, “I shall be staying on here, at Lady Mullen’s invitation.”

  Mira narrowed her eyes. “I don’t think that’s a viable plan, Miss Gawain. There are those who will have an opinion of your staying on here as a guest without any chaperone.”

  “I don’t give a rat’s arse to what anyone thinks,” Olwyn said.

  Olwyn’s crudity shouldn’t have surprised Mira, given the source and her vulgar commonality. But a blush burned Mira’s cheeks. “I hardly think that appropriate talk for the breakfast table.”

  “Yes, you’re correct. Perhaps we should, instead, speak about the journals you’ve threatened to publish.”

  The flipping nerves in Mira’s belly became full on churning.

  “Yes, let’s,” Camille agreed happily. She gave her attention to Andrew Kimball, who now listened with rapt attention. “The journals Miss Gawain refers to were the work of your uncle, Bret Kimball. In them, he documents various happenings from our shared past, in which he has chronicled his betrothal to me, my travails with my mother, Amelia, and most of all, of my love affair with the man who is now my husband, and the pregnancy that resulted.” Camille cast a hard look to Mira, a shimmer in her verdant eyes that suggested she wasn’t the least bit pleased. “Did I cover all the basics, dear?”

  “Yes,” Mira said faintly, her mind spinning.

  Never had she thought Olwyn would go to Camille. And when Mira dared to glance at her father, she saw that he, too, was surprised and dismayed. Whatever happened, he must not think her less than perfect, Mira thought suddenly. Her father’s opinion of her superseded anyone else’s.

  She rushed to speak, desperately trying to take control of the situation. “As you know, Papa, I’m the keeper of our family’s history. I may have mentioned the content of the journals to Miss Gawain, which as I reflect on it now, was rather indiscreet of me.”

  “You’re straying from the point,” Camille said pleasantly. “You told Miss Gawain that she was to leave England, or you would publish the journals, page by page, in your father’s newspaper.”

  Andrew’s face grew dark. “Mira?”

  Not my pet, or darling, or even my child. Mira clutched the tabletop to keep her balance.

  And then, to make matters worse, Aidan strode into the room. He was wind-tousled and handsome, roguishly dressed all in black. Mira’s heart pounded a little harder, and for an instant she could recall the precise feel of his hands on her body, and his tongue on her neck.

  Aidan stopped when he saw Olwyn, and Mira watched them appraise one another. Olwyn’s expression softened, became nakedly intimate, and Aidan’s eyes did not move from hers. The look of him was such that Mira’s heart became a bitter ache in her chest. No one, and most especially not Aidan Mullen, her former betrothed, had ever looked at her that way. Yet there he stood, staring at that awful Welsh peasant with love burning in his eyes.

  “Mira,” Andrew’s voice snapped her back to attention. “What’s this about printing private family journals in my newspaper?”

  Mira’s bluffing had backfired in the worst way, and she had no idea how to bring it all around and get her own way. She could just see all the girls laughing behind her back, and could virtually hear their sharp jabs pointed at Mira’s inability to keep Aidan Mullen’s attention.

  Why couldn’t Olwyn just have gotten on the ship? she mentally whined.

  Camille interjected, “Before we go further, my lord, indulge me a moment.”

  Reaching into a pouch, Camille withdrew folded letters and laid them on the table. Facing Mira, she said, “These are letters written from your great-uncle Bret to my mother. Herein, he speaks rather openly about many things, including having committed murder to escape paying a gambling debt.” Camille’s voice grew quiet and very serious. “He also speaks of raping me.”

  Mira gasped, certain she hadn’t heard Camille correctly.

  “He raped me,” Camille
said softly. “As a result, the child inside me died. Your uncle was not a good man, Mira. He was my mother’s pawn in a game he never had a chance of winning.”

  Bret Kimball, a murderer and a rapist? Mira shuddered to think that someone of her ancestry could be so repugnant. Surely the letters were forged.

  “Why did you never tell me, Grandmum?” Aidan asked gently. “It must have stirred old feelings to have me betrothed to a Kimball. A word from you, and I would have called it off that instant.”

  Mira had never wanted to hurt someone physically in her entire life as she did in that moment. How dare Aidan Mullen speak so casually of tossing her aside?

  “I didn’t think it appropriate that Mira should bear Bret’s stigma,” Camille said. She looked pointedly at Mira. “People’s truest colors always show themselves eventually.” Camille pushed the papers in Mira’s direction. “Go on ahead, and publish Bret’s journals. You can publish these side by side, for all I care. I am no more afraid of the truth now than I was when I was a young woman. I made my choices, some good, some bad, and I lived with all the consequences. But I never forgot that my greatest sin in other’s eyes was loving the man who they deemed wrong for me.” Camille reached to her side and covered Patrick’s hand with her own, adding, “When in fact, he was more the right man than anyone else ever could have dreamed.”

  With all eyes on her, Mira had never felt so small nor so angry. How dare Olwyn go to Camille, and how dare Camille draft fake letters in an effort to sully her uncle’s name?

  “He gave you a ring, a Kimball family heirloom, and you had no right to keep it!” she blurted, unable to keep silent any longer. “You stole it! Nine generations passed that ring along, and it ended with you, a Bradburn who married a commoner. What did you do with it? Did you sell it to finance your common husband’s shipping business? Or did you toss it in a drawer to be kept as some sort of memento?”

  Camille laughed at her accusations. “Hardly. I sent it back to your grandfather. According to your family’s tradition, your father should have been given that ring for his wife, and it should have then passed to you, when you became betrothed.” Camille turned to Andrew, who’d grown redder still. “My lord? Do you recall the ring?”

  Andrew stammered something, cleared his throat, and then shrugged as he met Mira’s eyes. “I lost it in a card game, shortly after your mother died,” he confessed lamely.

  “What?!” Mira shrieked. “You gambled away a piece of our history? That was my ring! Intended for me, and then my sons! How dare you lose it as if it meant nothing?!”

  “’Twas a piece a jewelry. A bauble. If you’re that upset about it, I’ll have another made for you just like it.”

  “You cannot replace such a thing,” Mira gritted out distinctly. “’Tis an heirloom.”

  “Then I’ll see if I can buy it back for you,” Andrew said, obviously growing annoyed.

  “Is that what you were looking for when you were snooping in my grandmother’s rooms?” Aidan asked.

  Mira felt her face, already red and hot, reach scalding proportions. “I’m certain I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She stared at Aidan across the room. He raised a brow and her belly churned even as her heart ached. She didn’t know what she was more upset about—his rejection, or the possibility that he would reveal her secret about the Spanish fly.

  To her relief, he remained silent.

  Drawing herself up to her fullest height, Mira looked down her nose at all of them, her jilted fiancé, his tramp, her own father. And Camille Bradburn, the slattern who’d started all the trouble. “I shan’t discuss this matter further.”

  Mira turned on her heel and left the room stiffly, but stopped at the sound of Camille’s voice.

  “The journals.”

  “I’ll give them to you. You can burn them for all I care.”

  “Get them now.”

  “Fine,” Mira said, and she picked up her gown and prepared to flounce away.

  “And then leave Beauport,” Camille said flatly. “You’re no longer welcome here.”

  “As you wish.” Mira tried to hold back the tears. She’d never been thrown out of anyone’s home before, and though she despised the Mullens’, it still stung.

  “I am sorry for my daughter’s actions,” Andrew said, and Mira found that her tears were gone.

  She whirled around, confronting her father. “How dare you apologize to these people when you’ve not even bothered to do so to me?”

  “Mira,” he said, a warning heavy in his tone.

  “I thought you were different,” she said frigidly. “I see now you’re just like any other man, tossing away what a woman values without a care, or even the decency to consider how she might feel about it. And when she dares to confront you? ‘Oh, well, ’tis just jewelry,’” she mocked. “‘A bauble. I’ll buy you a new one.’”

  She narrowed her eyes, more deeply betrayed than she’d ever felt in her life. “I thought you were better than any other man. I thought you were perfect.”

  “We can have this discussion privately,” Andrew said, but his tone revealed his own hurt at his daughter’s disappointment. He glanced over at the others, and his face reddened once again. “No one is perfect.”

  “I’ll not ride with you,” Mira pouted.

  Andrew crossed the room, turned to Camille, and bowed. “So sorry,” he said again. And then he took his daughter by the arm, and steered her from the rooms.

  As Mira tried to pull from his grasp, her father’s grip tightened. “I have spoiled you, pampered and petted you, and this is how you repay me? All this fuss over a ring you’ve never even seen.”

  And Mira smiled inwardly even as she pouted and pulled her arm away, knowing that soon enough she’d have her father begging to take her shopping for rings that very afternoon.

  He’d all but forgotten about the journals and her threats to publish them. He’d not even mentioned her efforts to coerce Olwyn into leaving England, she thought victoriously.

  The rooms she’d devoted to showcasing her family’s venerable history were better off without Bret Kimball’s vile journals, she decided as she made faux struggles against her father’s discipline.

  And Mira decided that she would buy a ring with a diamond the size of her father’s thumbnail, and would have it surrounded by yet more fiery gems. If her father were to disappoint her as any other man would, then let him make it up to her as a man should, with presents and apologies.

  Surely with a ring such as that on her finger, no one would be gossiping about Mira’s dissolved engagement.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Camille tapped her papers together and slid them back into their pouch. “Poor Bret,” she murmured. She sighed, long and deep, and added, “His life was never his own.”

  “He hurt you, my lady, and took the life of your child. Forgive me if I do not pity his lack of choices,” Olwyn said, her own heart aching for Camille and all she’d endured for the love of her husband.

  “He did those things, ’tis true.” Camille glanced beside her to where Patrick sat, silent and still, willing to allow his wife to handle the matter as she’d seen fit. But he’d been there, Olwyn thought, ready to fight for her, if she needed him.

  Camille smiled wistfully, her eyes on her husband, and added, “But here I am, and he is long dead.”

  Patrick stood and extended his hand to Camille. He inclined his head toward Olwyn and Aidan. “Come, love. I think these two have much to discuss, aye?”

  Camille rose from her chair. With her eyes on Olwyn, she said, “I’m grateful.”

  “For what, my lady?”

  “For everything,” Camille answered simply.

  She patted Olwyn’s hand before leaving the room with Patrick. They closed the French doors behind them, leaving Olwyn and Aidan alone in the dining room.

  Olwyn lifted her eyes to meet his. His expression had become inscrutable.

  “It wasn’t so many hours ago that y
ou said you loved me,” she said, feigning a boldness she didn’t at all feel.

  “Aye, and a few hours ago you said the same. And then you left.” His eyes were as hard as his voice. “You could have told me what Mira had threatened. I would’ve seen to it.”

  She wanted to say something, anything. No, she corrected herself. She wanted to say the right thing, the words that would make Aidan understand the truths of her heart the way only he could. She longed to speak the words that would have him forgiving her, pulling her into the shelter of his body, and speaking words of love in her ear.

  But she stood before him, mute. If there were words that could make all those things come true, she did not know them.

  She could fake boldness, but she couldn’t seem to manage the trick of pretending to know the answers.

  Aidan frowned and glanced away from her. “I let you go, Olwyn. If it isn’t the threat of your father, or a person like Mira, it’ll be something else. Nothing can make you leave if you truly want to be with me, so go. Be free.”

  The morning light streamed in through the windows and cast Aidan in its radiance, but despite it, he looked cold and remote, a wealthy, well-dressed lord who appeared to be angry, annoyed, and impatient to be on his way.

  He brought his hard sapphire eyes back to hers. “Do you hear me? I think ’tis best if you leave.”

  The floor felt as if it were made of sand, and she was sinking, sinking.

  “My affection can only be pushed so far, Olwyn. I can’t spend the rest of my life trying to convince you of what exists between us, and most of all, I can’t make you feel worthy. If I thought it would have any value, I’d say let’s move into the cottage and live simply, but there’s the matter of my wealth, my heritage, and aye, my future. I may be duke one day. Could you be my duchess, Olwyn? And barring that, at the very least, you’re looking at being my lady, bearing titles of your own, and becoming part of my life as ’tis. Do you want that?”

  The insecurity his words caused must have shown on her face, for Aidan said, “Aye, I thought not.”