A Rose at Midnight

by Anne Stuart

  He might very well end up that way despite his best efforts. It only made sense to enjoy what his hopeful executioner had to offer. Even reluctant, her mouth was very sweet. And the enthusiastic serving maid at the inn a few nights back had only managed to whet his appetite. No substitute would do. It was Ghislaine he wanted writhing beneath him, taking him into her tight, fierce little body. It was Ghislaine he would have.

  Ghislaine knew that her time had run out. She accepted that fact with determined fatalism. So he would take her body. It was only to be expected. If she had any sense at all she’d be glad of it, joyful that he was giving her even more cause for her bitter hatred of him. At a time when that hatred was faltering, she needed all the fury she could muster.

  If only he hadn’t smiled. Today had been a disaster from start to finish, an assault on her determination and her defenses. The dark satyr had disappeared, replaced by a world-weary country gentleman with a dangerous sense of humor and a smile that would melt the heart of a gorgon. While she had done her best to harden her own heart, a part of it was still ominously vulnerable, and his smile had been sunshine to her winter soul.

  But there was no smile on his face now, no lightness. If she hadn’t known otherwise, she would have thought he’d spent the last hours closeted with a brandy bottle. The warmth of the afternoon, the innocence of a country meadow had vanished into something dark and twisted. And she told herself she welcomed the darkness. There would be no danger of succumbing.

  “I’m tired of waiting, ma belle,” he said, and there was faint contempt behind the casual endearment.

  Ghislaine held herself very still. The water surrounding the chicken carcass was too far from boiling to do any lasting damage, and she wasn’t certain of the extent of her strength. How far could she hurl the cast iron? To be sure, if she managed to bring it down over his head, she might very well kill him, but he was a great deal taller than she was, and she didn’t think she could reach that high. And she couldn’t very well ask him to bend down and present a better target, could she?

  There was the butcher knife she’d used on the hapless bird. Despite her bloodthirsty stance, she’d never been overfond of butchering, not even something as stupid and mean and dirty as a chicken. She was still feeling slightly sickened by the feel and smell of the knife slicing into live flesh—she sincerely doubted her ability to perform that act again in the near future. Even on the man staring at her with an infuriating combination of mockery and lust.

  She was not defenseless, she thought. No, she was never defenseless. As long as she had her wits and her tongue, she could still fight him off.

  “No,” she said. “Don’t come any closer.”

  The sheer reasonableness of her statement startled him in the midst of his dangerous progress. If she could just stall him until the water boiled she might have a fighting chance.

  “No?” he echoed. “I don’t think you have any say in the matter.”

  “Is rape one of your many hobbies? I knew you were despicable, but I assumed even you might have some standards.”

  His smile wasn’t reassuring. “I’ve never raped anyone in my life,” he said, advancing slowly. “I decided it was time for a new experience. If it comes to that. I don’t think it will.”

  She wanted to explode with fury. “You think I’ll give in willingly? You think I’m fool enough to be besotted with you, so that all you have to do is touch me and I’ll melt?”

  “No. I think you’re an eminently practical Frenchwoman who knows I’m a great deal stronger than she is. Fighting would be a waste of time. Particularly when I’m coming to the conclusion that your maidenhead isn’t at stake here.”

  She found she could match his mockery. “You mean you doubt my innocence? Lud, sir, how insulting!”

  “You couldn’t have survived in Paris for long without losing your virginity. It’s of no importance to me.”

  “I’m so glad you still find me worthy of your attentions,” she said, her tongue like acid. A stray shimmer was forming in the water in the pot. A few more minutes and it would be a full, rolling boil. “If you’re expecting an array of erotic talents, I fear you’ll be sadly disappointed.”

  “I don’t,” he said, and he was too close. “Obviously your experiences haven’t left you with any particular affection for the sport. You fight your own responses every time I touch you.”

  “I fight you!”

  He shrugged, his smile dark and mocking. “If you insist. You can tell yourself anything that will make you happy. That the soft little sounds you will make are sounds of protest. That the way your body will clench around mine is in revulsion. That you only kiss me because you must. It matters not to me.”

  Almost boiling. She edged closer to the stove, hoping the move seemed natural, a concerned cook checking on the dinner. “If you touch me, I’ll fight you,” she said fiercely, testing the weight of the pot with a surreptitious movement. It was so damnably heavy!

  “If I touch you, you’ll succumb. Shall I demonstrate?” He’d reached her. The bed was just behind him, and she knew he could drag her over there quite easily and take her with all the finesse and speed of the butcher in Paris.

  “Touch me and I’ll kill you.” She could at least tip the pot, splashing the boiling water against his legs. Against hers as well, but the pain would be worth it, and she’d be poised to run while he took the brunt of the boiling stew.

  “So you have said, innumerable times,” he said patiently. “But you know, my sweet murderess, it might just be worth it.”

  She moved with lightning speed, tipping the heavy pot forward. It barely moved, her wrist caught in a bone-crushing grip as he hauled her away from her only weapon. “I’m on to you, love,” he said.

  “It will be rape,” she said in a wild fury.

  “No,” he said. “It won’t.”

  She survived the fierce possession of his kiss. She survived his overpowering strength, as he pulled her to the bed, pushing her down and covering her flailing limbs with his strong body. She survived the touch of his hands on her breasts, the feel of his arousal against her stomach. But she couldn’t survive the sudden gentleness, the slow start of heat in her belly, the warmth in her breasts, the damnable yearning that blossomed in her heart.

  He lifted his head and looked down at her, and his eyes glittered in the dim light. “You see, Ghislaine? No rape at all.”

  He leaned forward to kiss her again, and she knew that if his lips touched hers one more time, she would be lost. She jerked her head away from him, wondering at the unexpected tightness in her throat, the burning at the back of her eyes. “If you do this,” she said, “I won’t worry about killing you.”

  His smile was infuriatingly smug. “I thought not.”

  “I will kill myself.”

  It stopped him, at least for a moment. Her statement was brief, implacable; and at the moment she meant every word of it. He was wise enough to know that.

  “Don’t be melodramatic,” he said, his voice stripped of passion. “We’ve already ascertained this won’t be the first time. What would your Catholic God say?”

  “My Catholic God died on the guillotine. I’m a true child of the revolution—I have no faith. If there is an afterlife, it has to be better than this one. If you continue what you’re doing, I’ll find out.”

  “I can stop you.”

  Slowly she shook her head. “You might be able to stop me from killing you. It would be a great deal harder to stop me from killing myself. There are cliffs, rivers, oceans. I could jump out of a fast-moving carriage. I could kill myself with a knife faster than you could imagine. There are parts of the body where one bleeds freely and quickly, bringing a swift end. You couldn’t stop me.”

  Still he didn’t move. His hands rested against her breasts but they weren’t caressing, and his expression was bleak. “What makes you think I would care?”

  She’d won, and she knew it. She smiled bitterly. “You wouldn’t. But you might have a ca
re for your own limited conscience. Late at night, I would haunt you. I would drive you mad.”

  “My sweet Ghislaine,” he said wearily, “that would be nothing you haven’t already done to me.” He moved his hands from her breasts, running them up her body to cradle her stubborn face. “And I’m not sure that it wouldn’t be worth it.” He put his mouth on hers then, damp, wet, and open, and kissed her, slowly, carefully, using his tongue, and she wanted to cry out in agony and grief. She raised her hands to push at his shoulders, knowing it would be fruitless against his heartless determination. But instead her hands slid around his neck, pulling him closer, and for the first time in her life, she kissed him back.

  It was a wonder. She felt as if she were floating, lost in the feel of his lips on hers, the shocking intimacy of his tongue in her mouth, more intimate than anything she’d endured during her enforced couplings. She wanted to dissolve, to lose herself in the seductive wonder of his mouth possessing hers. She wanted it never to stop, to last forever in a billowing cloud of passion without end.

  “Ahem!” Taverner’s familiar cockney tones broke through the dreamlike haze that surrounded her. “Blackthorne…”

  “Get the hell out here, Tavvy!” Nicholas said in a vicious voice, not bothering to look at his intrusive servant. “Now!”

  “Begging yer pardon, but that’s something I’m not prepared to do. We’ve got trouble, and there’s no time for dallying.”

  For a moment Nicholas dropped his head beside hers, burying his face in her hair, and she could hear his labored breathing as he struggled to bring himself back under control. And then he bounded from the bed, abandoning her swiftly, and she wanted to curl up in a tiny ball of shame and misery.

  “This had better be damned good!” he snarled, and from her vantage point on the bed Gilly recognized the fury that had possessed him when he’d come after her.

  Taverner was unimpressed. “It’s damned bad!” he said frankly. “Jason Hargrove died a little over a week ago. Bad enough, considering, but apparently his lady wife has felt the public disgrace to be a little more than she fancies, and she’s been telling a story wherein you figure mightily as a villain.”

  Ghislaine sat up, reaching to pull her clothes back around her, when she realized with shock that they were still decently fastened. She’d only felt naked in his arms. “Nicholas Blackthorne a villain?” she said, managing to make hex voice light and mocking. “Who could ever believe such a thing?”

  He spared her a glance. “You recover quickly, ma belle,” he murmured, and she wondered if she regretted her rashness.

  “She’s saying you raped her,” Taverner continued, undaunted. “And that instead of fighting a fair duel, you shot her husband in the back.”

  “I’ve never raped a woman in my life,” Nicholas drawled, unmoved by this catalogue of his crimes. “Yet.” He spared a meaningful glance at Ghislaine as she slid off the bed and moved over to the fire. “You and I both know the truth of my encounter with her husband, not to mention our seconds. I don’t suppose anyone has bothered to speak in my defense?”

  “Not that I know of. They’re after you, and that’s a fact. Word’s been put out, and the local magistrate is just waiting for a chance to make himself a hero. And that’s not all.”

  Nicholas sighed. “It was too much to hope for.”

  “Her mistress is after you.” He jerked his head in Ghislaine’s direction.

  “Ellen?” Gilly murmured, horrified.

  “I don’t believe you!” Nicholas said. “My prim cousin would hardly go haring off after a servant. But then, Mamzelle is more than a servant, isn’t she? Still, I can’t imagine her brother would sit still for that.”

  “I doubt her brother knows. She’s not alone. She’s traveling with someone by the name of Wilton-Greening, and they’re probably less than a day away from us.”

  “God help us,” Nicholas said faintly, reaching for the bottle of brandy. Ghislaine watched in fascination as he tipped a generous portion down his throat. “How’d you find this out?”

  “Apparently this gent sent word ahead to bespeak rooms at the inn. And the stuff with the merry widow is the latest on-dit.” The French term sat oddly on Taverner’s rough accent. “I’ve taken the liberty of seeing to transport.”

  “I knew I could count on you,” Nicholas said, moving toward the fire. Ghislaine scuttled back, out of his reach, and his reaction was to shoot her a wry, knowing smile. “What have you got?”

  “Two ships, leaving from Dunster. One for France, with decent accommodations. The second for Holland. That one’s an older ship, a harder crossing, and why should you want to go to Holland? I bespoke passage on the French ship.”

  “For the three of us, I trust?” Nicholas said in a silken voice.

  “Aye.”

  Taverner’s word of assent was drowned out by Ghislaine’s cry of horror. “No!” she cried.

  Nicholas glanced at her. “You don’t like ocean voyages, my pet? You suffer from mal de mer, perhaps? Don’t worry, I’ll hold your head.”

  “I won’t go back to France.”

  “Holland is owned by France at the moment. I can’t see why it should make any difference to you.”

  “I can’t,” she said, hearing the desperation in her voice and hating it. “Please. Anything is preferable to France.”

  “Please, Ghislaine? Do I hear you begging? You’ve threatened, you’ve asked, but I haven’t heard you beg yet,” he murmured. “Let me savor the experience.”

  “The French ship’s a better choice,” Taverner said in a neutral voice. “She’s newer, the route’s more direct, and she leaves a day earlier. That gives you one less day to risk getting caught by those who are after your blood.”

  Nicholas glanced at her, almost casually. She’d given him incontestable power over her, and there was no way she could pretend otherwise. Now that he knew what most terrified her, he would have his revenge, at his leisure, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  “We’ll take the later ship,” he said, turning away. He was in no particular hurry to humble her, now that he had the key to her greatest fears. These things were better savored. “I’ve a longing to see Holland. You know what a passion I have for… cheese. Besides, I fancy we might travel down to Venice. I don’t imagine Ghislaine has ever seen the Grand Canal. Have you, my pet?”

  She felt weak with relief. All she could do was shake her head as she turned to stare down at the stew. Her eyes were hot, stinging, and she knew it had to be because of the steam.

  “As you wish,” Taverner said. “If I were you I wouldn’t plan on spending any more time here. People know you own this place—it’s the logical spot to look for you if someone has a mind to find you.”

  “Obviously Tony Wilton-Greening does,” Nicholas murmured. “Though it’s difficult to imagine him bestirring himself to do anything quite so energetic. He must be in love with my shy cousin Ellen.” His face darkened for a moment. “Or is he in love with you, ma belle? Has Tony been trifling belowstairs?”

  “Don’t be disgusting,” she roused herself to say, anger burning away that strange, achy feeling.

  Nicholas’s smile was faint and dangerous. “I wouldn’t blame him. But for everyone’s sake I agree with Taverner. As soon as we eat Ghislaine’s no-doubt delectable dinner, we’ll get back on the road again. I don’t fancy having to kill someone else, and if Tony hasn’t changed since I knew him at Cambridge, I imagine he won’t take no for an answer. Besides, I don’t want to risk losing my prize.”

  “It’ll take us the better part of a day to reach Dunster as it is,” Taverner agreed. “That carriage doesn’t have the speed of a single horse.”

  “Don’t look so distraught,” Nicholas said, his long fingers lightly caressing Ghislaine’s cheek before she jerked away. “We’ll find a bed soon enough.”

  She’d been granted a reprieve. Somewhere between this deserted place and boarding the ship for Holland, she’d find a way to escape. All sh
e had to do was slip away and hide, waiting for Ellen to come. If she could hide from all the marauding evil in Paris, she could hide from one determined man, even one who knew her far too well.

  She might almost have thought he’d taken pity on her when he’d told Tavvy they’d take the ship to Holland. She shouldn’t have betrayed her panic. He could go to France if he wished, because there was no chance in hell she’d be on that ship. Even if he managed to drag her on board, she wouldn’t last long enough to reach France.

  She would never set foot on French soil again. She had sworn it, a fierce promise to herself that overruled everything, including her vow to avenge herself.

  But it had simply been a quixotic gesture on his part. Her fear of France would only have increased his determination to take her there. Why did she keep forgetting he was the enemy, the agent of her past tragedies, the instrument of her destruction?

  God help her, why had she kissed him back?

  Chapter 15

  Sir Antony Wilton-Greening had never thought of himself as being particularly ruthless. To be sure, he usually knew what he wanted, and he managed to get it with the minimum of fuss. He hadn’t thought of himself as the sort to simply ride roughshod over obstacles in his path. Therefore, his plan to incapacitate the estimable Miss Binnerston both surprised and amused him.

  She didn’t trust him around her helpless little lamb. Not that Ellen was the slightest bit helpless—in the three days on the road, he’d come to the conclusion that she was far more capable and determined than he had ever guessed. But Miss Binnerston knew her livelihood depended on Ellen being both on the shelf and biddable, and she was doing her best to ensure that unhappy state continued, up to and including sharing Ellen’s bed when there was absolutely no need of it.

  He should be flattered that Binnie considered him enough of a dishonorable, marauding male that he might breach the fastness of Ellen’s virginal bedchamber, but instead he was profoundly irritated. Who did she think he was, Nicholas Blackthorne? Antony Wilton-Greening had never done a shabby, dishonorable thing in his life.