A Rose at Midnight

by Anne Stuart

  “I could always shoot you in the front,” she said.

  “A charming offer, but I can just imagine what portion of my anatomy you would choose as your target. I think I’d prefer the back.” He stood over her, looking down. “Are you going to loll about in bed all day, or are you going to fix me some breakfast?”

  Something within her balked. “I’m your hostage, not your servant,” she snapped.

  “If you prefer to stay in bed, then I could always be persuaded to join you. I have other appetites you could fill.”

  She got out of bed, edging away from him.

  “Much better,” he murmured. “I’m certain you’d welcome coffee just as much as I would. And if last night’s dinner was anything to go by, you’ve a rare talent when it comes to eggs. I’ve a powerful hunger, wench.”

  He was simply trying to goad her. Unfortunately, it was working. If she’d had anything handy she would have thrown it at him. He seemed curiously lighthearted in that dark, ramshackle room, the glowing embers from the fire warring with the early-morning light. As if he’d shed a cloak of anger and cynicism during the night, and she had the sudden frightening thought that if he smiled at her, truly smiled at her, she might find him as charming as she had so long ago.

  He must have known that it would demoralize her. He crossed the room with a swift determination that left her no time to run. He didn’t touch her, which in itself was a surprise. He was always touching her, running his hand against her cheek, holding her arm, reminding her of her captivity. And of her strange vulnerability toward him. He was standing too close; he hadn’t buttoned his shirt, and she wasn’t sure which was the least dangerous place to rest her gaze: on his cynical, alarmingly attractive face, or on his smooth bare chest. Or lower still.

  She decided his left shoulder was the safest place to focus her eyes. It was uncomfortably close to his mocking mouth, but far away from other, more seductive dangers. “Why don’t we call a temporary truce, Ghislaine?” he said, and he sounded deceptively reasonable. “It will do you no good to fight me—if you push me too far, I’ll simply tie you to the bed. You wouldn’t like that, even if I found it reasonably entertaining. Why don’t we have one day of peace, before the battle starts again?”

  She wondered whether it would do any good to beg him to release her. She doubted it. He wasn’t a man given to acts of charity or forgiveness, and her indomitable pride was the only weapon she had left to her. If she abased herself, she would be truly defenseless.

  “What do you want with me?” she asked again, unwilling to compromise.

  He shrugged. “I really don’t know, ma mie. Maybe I’ll let you go. Maybe I won’t. I haven’t decided.”

  “And you expect me to be a good little girl until you make up your mind to kill me.”

  “You needn’t sound so incensed about the whole thing. You’re the one who first introduced the notion of murder in our charming relationship.”

  “We don’t have a relationship!” she shot back.

  “Oh, there I disagree. We most definitely do have a relationship. I’m just not sure what kind it is. So what’s your decision, Ghislaine? Are we to have a day of peace, or a day of war?”

  She knew that to give in, even on such a small issue, was the first step to ignominious defeat. But she was also mortally tired of fighting. Her body still felt treacherously warm and rested, and she knew it was simply the closeness of another human being that had wiped out her defenses. Any body would have had the same effect, she told herself. Not just his.

  “One day,” she said. “On one condition.”

  He sighed, running a hand through his long hair. “Trust you to have a condition. What is it?”

  “That you don’t touch me.”

  His mouth twisted in a cynical grin. “Not at all?”

  “Not at all. I don’t like being pawed. Spare me for one day, and I’ll forgo the pleasure of sticking a knife between your ribs.”

  “You don’t have a knife.”

  “If you expect me to get your meals, I’ll need one.”

  “Point well taken. I suppose I can control my animal lusts for one day,” he said, surveying her from beneath hooded eyes, making the very act seem both bored and insulting. “Any woman can lie on her back and lift her skirts. Few of them can cook.”

  She simply stared at him stonily. “You promise?”

  “I promise.” He took another step closer to her, so close that she could feel the heat emanating from his body. Close enough to threaten her tenuous self-control, yet he didn’t even brush against her. It was a very effective way of showing her that he didn’t need to lay hands on her to touch her. “What interests me, my pet, is how you manage to withstand my deliberate crudeness without an excess of maidenly blushes. I would have thought your years in a convent would have made you even more prudish than my cousin Ellen.”

  “I’ve never been in a convent in my life.”

  She’d hoped to shock him, to anger him, to startle him into moving away. Instead he simply smiled that small, dangerous smile of his. “I know.”

  And then he turned away, and she would have gladly given the rest of her life to have a knife in her hand. It took a moment, and the memory of her promise, for calm to reach her again. One day. Twenty-four hours. She could last that long, regather her strength and determination. Twenty-four hours to lull him into trusting her.

  And then either she’d be gone or he’d be dead.

  Lord, what a quixotic fool he was, Nicholas thought hours later. He must have been half-shot when he’d decided to cart Ghislaine de Lorgny away with him. No, it wasn’t alcohol he’d been indulging in—it was the aftereffects of rat poison lingering in his system that had blown his common sense to hell and back again.

  Not, of course, that common sense had much to do with the way he usually conducted his life. Jason Hargrove and his bitch of a wife were a good case in point. He should have kept away from Melissa from the very beginning, knowing she possessed both a brutalizing bully of a husband and a perverse taste for inciting him. Instead he’d given in to the desire of the moment, and he’d been paying the consequences ever since.

  Carting his murderous little captive off with him had been another major mistake, just as coming to Scotland had been, and for the same reasons. He found both of them too damned seductive. Oh, not in the usual sense. He’d been truthful when he told Ghislaine that any woman could provide his body the ease it needed—he wasn’t particular whom he took to his bed, as long as she was free of disease and possessed of minimal beauty.

  Ghislaine drew his body as any beauty would. But her fierceness, her courage, her indomitable nature drew his soul. It made him care about her, and he made it a basic tenet of his life never to care about anyone other than himself.

  Scotland was just as bad. He’d forgotten he loved the country, the smell of damp earth and fresh air and sunshine, away from the stinks of London, the smells of overcrowded salons, filled with people who used heavy perfume to cover the odor of underwashed bodies. He’d grown inured to the heat and smells of the place; it had fit well enough with his dark, cynical view of life and society.

  But Scotland was reminding him of light. Reminding him of a childhood not completely devoid of pleasure. And it made him yearn for it again, for the long-lost innocence that he could never regain. For the ability to breathe freely, to smile, to be happy. And his damned common sense told him those things were long gone in the dark turns his life had taken. There was no light, no happiness for the last of the mad Blackthornes.

  He couldn’t even count on Ghislaine for distraction. He’d found it interesting that she’d extracted that promise from him. Not that he had any intention of keeping it. He’d already informed her he broke his promises. He simply wanted to wait long enough to lull her suspicions, so that when he touched her, her reaction would be all the more powerful.

  She was extremely vulnerable to his touch, he knew that. Just as he’d come to the conclusion that of all the place
s she’d been during the intervening years, a convent wasn’t one of them. It was too hard to shock her. She’d trotted out that information in hopes of goading him, and had failed miserably. That wouldn’t keep her from trying. She didn’t realize she was outmatched—no matter what weapons she used, he’d always master her. And one of the surest ways to do so was to touch her.

  She didn’t even recognize her own reaction. When he touched her small, perfect breasts, her nipples hardened in instinctive response. When he took her mouth, she wanted to kiss him back, even as she fought it and him. Her heart thudded, her skin grew flushed, her pulses raced. He’d bedded enough women to be intimately aware of the signs of arousal, but he’d never had a woman so oblivious to her own responses.

  Or maybe she wasn’t oblivious. Maybe she was simply fighting them. As she was busy fighting him.

  Perhaps that would be the revenge he’d take. Mastery of her body. He was adept at making love. He knew how to pleasure a woman—it was one of his many skills. He could apply those skills to fierce little Ghislaine de Lorgny, strip her of her virginity, her defenses, her ferocious pride as he stripped her of her clothes. The thought was beguiling.

  There was just one troublesome thought, one that didn’t usually disturb his self-destructive absorption. What would he do with her when he finished?

  He wouldn’t think about that. Wouldn’t consider the fact that he’d abandoned her once, and her life had been destroyed. He was responsible for no one but himself, and even that responsibility he took far too lightly.

  The sun had risen, warming the land, and the incessant rain had finally let up. Odd, that. People tended to think of Scotland as a cold, rain-bound land, yet the weather was sweeter, warmer than it had been in England for as long as he could remember.

  Taverner had been wise enough to hide the shotgun, but, unfortunately, Nicholas couldn’t find out where. There’d be no brace of quail or fat rabbits for the pot tonight, a fact which rather pleased him. For some obscure reason he wasn’t in the mood for killing.

  Trout were another matter. Obviously Tavvy had decided Ghislaine couldn’t do much harm with a fish hook, were she to get hold of his fishing tackle. He took himself off in the late morning, heading in the direction of the fast-moving stream he’d first discovered when he was ten years old. And Ghislaine watched him go.

  She looked absurd, with those canary-bright, oversized clothes belted around her small body He hadn’t considered the difference in size between the women when he had had Tavvy pack some of Ellen’s clothes. He simply hadn’t wanted to see his little captive dressed in her drab cook’s clothes.

  She had to roll the sleeves up over her arms, belt the trailing skirts around her narrow waist. At least the colors suited her better than they did his cousin. Perhaps he might take Ghislaine to London with him, dress her as she ought to be dressed. In rich silks that skimmed her narrow, boyish body. And in jewels. She was a woman made for diamonds, he thought, tramping through the thick growth.

  Unfortunately, he wasn’t a man to provide them. Even if he had the money, he wouldn’t spend it on a woman. But that might be the answer to her future. He could initiate her in the delights of the flesh, take her to London, and then pass her on to someone willing and able to keep her in a more luxurious style. All in all, it seemed like an eminently practical solution to the problem, one that would assuage what passed for his conscience.

  Of course, leading the only daughter of the Comte de Lorgny into the life of a demimonde might not be considered quite the thing in most quarters. But her father was dead, the family estates long since eaten up by the hydra-headed monster of the revolution, and it surely would be a better life than that of a cook. At least she wouldn’t have to remain belowstairs.

  He found he didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t even want to think about whether she’d keep her word and be waiting at the derelict remains of the old hunting lodge. There were too many concomitant emotions, guilt and regret among them, to distract him from the beauty of the day. And he wasn’t a man to waste his time on guilt and regret.

  Right now the trout and salmon were a great deal more important than the future of one murderous little Frenchwoman. He’d deal with her, present or absent, when he returned.

  The land around the small river had grown up in the twenty-some years since he’d gone fishing there. It took him a while to find just the right spot, and even then he wasn’t certain. Mastering the intricacies of the old equipment Tavvy had found was another challenge, one he met, and in no time at all he was stretched beneath a tree, the sun beating down, warming his citified bones, his line in the water, awaiting the first tug.

  For now all he had to do was empty his mind and concentrate on the fish. The rest would come in time.

  He dozed in the bright sunlight. It was several hours later when she came to him. She wasn’t particularly silent in her approach. He heard her from far off, moving stealthily through the thick undergrowth, and he allowed himself a wry smile. Doubtless she thought she was being extremely circumspect.

  He didn’t move, stretched out lazily in the sunlight as he considered the options. Had she decided to ignore their truce? He’d never known a woman with a sense of honor before; it would be unlikely that one harboring such murderous tendencies would be the first. Besides, he’d informed her point-blank that he didn’t honor his own promises. Why should she consider herself honor-bound when he didn’t?

  He’d left her with a knife. A dull one, to be sure, but she’d had enough time to sharpen it. He’d been gone several hours at least, and his empty stomach told him it was getting past time to eat. Or maybe she’d had more luck in searching for the firearms than he had.

  That thought gave him pause. He had no doubt about his ability to fend off a knife-wielding gamine. He was more than a foot taller and a great deal heavier, as she’d already learned in their previous encounters.

  A gun was a different matter. She could blow his head off at twenty paces if she found his old shotgun. The thought was only slightly unnerving.

  She would be unlikely to be able to master the intricacies of loading and preparing a gun. If she managed that, she would still be unlikely to hit even as large a target as he. And then again, he had the advantage of hearing her approach. With the most lethal intentions in the world, she would still have a hard time finding her intended victim easy to kill.

  She was panting slightly from exertion—he could hear the soft little sounds of her breathing over the rustle of the grass. Which meant she must be carrying something fairly heavy. It was rough going to the edge of the river, but he’d already trod the path down, and she was a strong, resilient young woman. Maybe she’d found the rifle after all.

  She was closer than he’d realized, moving in his direction with a kind of reckless determination. He’d been a fool to leave such a well-marked path, he thought lazily, not bothering to open his eyes. He’d been a fool to think he could even begin to trust her. His incipient demise was just as much the fault of his own stupidity as of her murderous intentions.

  She was too close for him to hide, and somehow he didn’t fancy scurrying into the bushes to get away from her. It wasn’t that he particularly valued his dignity, he thought, sighing. He just didn’t think his life was worth the bother.

  The brightness of the sun beyond his eyelids darkened, and he knew she was standing over him. He could feel her presence, smell the faint trace of flowers and lye soap. He didn’t move, waiting for the shotgun blast.

  “Nicholas,” she said, after a long pause.

  He opened his eyes, expecting to confront the barrel of a gun. Instead he saw Ghislaine, standing there like a shepherdess, a heavy basket in her hand, no weapon in sight.

  He sat up, staring at her. She’d managed a bath. Her chestnut hair was wet and spiky around her face, just beginning to curl as it dried, and she’d done something about her clothes. She was wearing one of the day dresses they’d brought along, but she’d shortened the sleeves and hem
with what he could only assume was the knife he’d left behind. The top two buttons were open at her throat, and those few inches of damp, pink skin had to be the most erotic thing he’d seen in his life.

  “You try my resolve, my pet,” he said slowly. “If I’m not allowed to touch you, you might at least make an effort not to look so delectable.”

  She blushed. It astonished him. He wouldn’t have thought her capable of such a thing. The color faded as quickly as it appeared, and once more she had a stern expression that subdued the piquant beauty of her face. “I brought you some luncheon.”

  “Did you, indeed? How very thoughtful. What summoned up this excess of Christian charity in your bleak little soul?” He reached out his hand for the basket.

  She made no move to give it to him. “I wouldn’t be passing judgment on the state of my soul if I were you. Your own isn’t in any too spotless a condition.”

  “True enough. You’ve never actually killed anyone, much as you’d like to, while I managed to accomplish that act. At least this time my victim appears to have recovered.” He gave up waiting for her to pass the basket to him, pulling it from her hand and delving through it. “This is a lot of food for one man. Would I be too brashly optimistic to hope you might be planning to share it with me?”

  She looked uncomfortable. “I didn’t know I had any choice in the matter. Would you trust my cooking?”

  “Not in the slightest,” he said. “Are you going to continue to loom over me, or are you going to sit?”

  She sat. She probably assumed she was out of his reach, and he forbore to inform her that she would never be out of his reach for long. He could move faster than she could, if he so desired. He was merely biding his time.

  “I didn’t have much to work with,” she said defensively, as he pulled out warm bread and butter and cheese. She’d included one of the bottles of wine from the case Tavvy had packed, and he wondered whether she hoped to get him drunk. It would take more than one bottle to put him under the table.