A Rose at Midnight Page 11

  “Usually,” he agreed, not moving from his spot in the doorway.

  “So that leaves revenge. But it would have been much simpler to turn me over to the local magistrate. If it were your word against mine, they would of course have taken your word.”

  “Perhaps. Unfortunately my reputation is not unknown around Ainsley Hall. They might just possibly have believed you after all. Not that there was much you could have said. You did try to feed me poison, didn’t you?” He sounded no more than casually interested.

  “I did.”

  She half-expected him to react with rage. Instead the narrow smile reached his hypnotic eyes. “I rather thought you’d admit it,” he said. “And I suppose that would have been the honorable thing to do. Hand you over to the local authorities and go on about my merry way. The problem is, the local authorities might very well have decided that anyone who tried to kill me probably had just cause.”

  “If they had any sense,” Ghislaine said flatly.

  “And I couldn’t have that, now could I? Because if they chose to let you go, even treated you as a heroine as certain outraged fathers might, then you’d turn up again, wouldn’t you? You’re not going to simply accept defeat and promise never to come near me again. You’re not going to rest until you manage to stick a knife between my ribs.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I could always shoot you,” she said.

  “That would require a certain knowledge of firearms, which I doubt you possess.”

  Ghislaine said nothing. Her knowledge of weapons was not extensive, but she had no doubt whatsoever that she could manage to blow his head off at twenty paces, given half the chance. “Or there’s always poison,” she added.

  “Indeed,” he said, moving into the room with that graceful indolence. “So I intend to keep you by my side until I figure out a way to render you harmless.”

  “The answer is obvious,” she said, watching him carefully. “You could kill me. Then I wouldn’t trouble you again.”

  He sat down on the foot of the bed, lifting his legs to stretch them out beside her. She didn’t squirm away, much as she longed to, and she could feel the heat of his leg against her body. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he said lazily. “I don’t believe they hang the upper classes, but in my case they’d probably be willing to make an exception.”

  “You might get away with it.”

  He looked at her, and while a smile hovered on his thin, sensual mouth, there was cold bleakness in his midnight-blue eyes. “And then I’d have your ghost to haunt me. No, thank you. I have enough ghosts, enough regrets in my life to last me several centuries. I prefer you alive and brimming with hatred. I prefer watching my back to peace of mind. Particularly since I wouldn’t recognize peace of mind if I were ever so blessed as to receive it.” He leaned forward across the bed, and his long fingers touched her tangled hair. “Besides, ma belle, you don’t really want to die, do you?”

  Ghislaine stared at him, feeling the warmth of his fingers so close to her face. It had been ten years since she stood alone on the small bridge in the heart of the city, ready to hurl herself into the icy, murky depths of the Seine. Ten years since she had turned her back on death, and chosen life instead. Chosen the pain of going on over the sweet oblivion that had beckoned.

  She glanced down at his hand. There would be a certain satisfaction in meeting death at those white, elegant hands. Hands that had been responsible—from a safe, clean distance—for the death of her family, the death of her innocence. It was only right that he learn to bear the final responsibility.

  His hand moved up to her exposed throat, and there was steely strength in his fingers. “I could, of course, change my mind,” he murmured. “It wouldn’t take much to snap your neck. Such a small, frail neck. One that managed to avoid the guillotine, unlike the rest of your family. Tell me, is that your problem? Do you hate me because you somehow managed to survive, and you feel guilty that you didn’t perish with your family? You can’t blame yourself, so you blame me.”

  She didn’t blink, didn’t move as his finger tightened. “Do it,” she said in a fierce voice, waiting for death.

  “I rather think I will,” he said. And he put his mouth on hers, kissing her with a quick brutality that left her stunned and bruised.

  And alone. Before she could gather her scattered wits he was strolling out of the room. Her lips stung, her throat felt raw and painful, and her soul felt lost, shaken. He closed the door behind him, and she sat without moving. As she realized the pain in her throat came from the tightness of unshed tears, not from the strength of his fingers.

  He rode outside the carriage that day, and the next. The bedroom he bespoke was for her alone—he didn’t even share her meals. She should have been grateful for the reprieve.

  Instead, her anger grew. He was simply torturing her, putting off the inevitable reckoning. And since she wasn’t sure what that reckoning would be, her nerves were stretched to the limit.

  By the third morning of the journey, she knew she could bear no more. She was tired of waiting for the axe to fall, tired of sitting alone in an ill-sprung carriage, in a shabby inn, staring into the fire, with no company but her memories. She was determined to have it out with him.

  She dressed quickly in the early morning light, in Ellen’s oversized cambric chemise and drawers, in the least offensive of the day gowns Taverner had packed, tucking the loose waist inside itself to shorten it to a manageable length. And she went off in search of her jailer.

  The common room was deserted at that hour. No one was in sight, neither the landlord nor his portly wife, the boots nor the maid nor Blackthorne’s miserable servant. She moved silently through the darkened room, into the kitchen, where at last she found signs of life.

  “Begging your pardon, miss.” The young scullery maid turned from the stove, her face red from exertion. “Would you be wanting something? I can make you breakfast if you’d like—we’ve a ham and a side of beef, fresh biscuits and porter and…”

  “I don’t suppose you have any coffee?” she asked, wistfully, putting her more desperate needs aside for the moment. English establishments were still wary of the continental taste for coffee, and she hadn’t had a taste of it since Nicholas Blackthorne had hauled her away from Ainsley Hall.

  “No, miss. Nice hot tea, I could make you.”

  Gilly shuddered. “Nothing for the moment. I’m looking for…” Her voice trailed off as she wondered what in the world she could call the man who’d absconded with her. She knew for a fact that he’d given a false name at the first inn they stopped at, though she couldn’t imagine why. He couldn’t be afraid someone would come in search of her. No one, apart from an essentially powerless Ellen, would care.

  “Your brother?” the girl filled in helpfully.

  “My brother,” Gilly agreed, secretly aghast at the thought. Though she and Blackthorne were both dark, there all resemblance ended, either physical or spiritual. Nicholas Blackthorne was an amoral, murdering devil. She was an avenging angel.

  Well, perhaps angel was going a bit far, she thought with the first trace of humor she’d felt in days. She managed a wry smile. “Where is he?”

  The girl’s face reddened further, and this time it was from embarrassment as well as from the heat of the fire. “I really can’t say, miss. I can get him for you…”

  “I can find him myself,” she said firmly. “If you’ll tell me where he is.”

  “I can’t…” she said again.

  Ghislaine crossed the small kitchen. She was small, shorter than the buxom serving girl, dressed in ridiculously baggy clothes, but her will was ten times stronger. “Where is he?” she said again, and there was no denying her.

  “He’s in the bedroom down the hall. Second door, miss. But he’s not alone.”

  “I didn’t imagine he was,” she said dryly, following the girl’s directions.

  She didn’t bother knocking on the door. She opened it, fully prepared to discomfit Blackthorn
e as he romped with one of the serving girls, fully prepared to launch into her well-rehearsed speech.

  Instead she stood there, shocked into silence, as a thousand unexpected emotions washed over her.

  He was asleep, the serving girl awake, staring at her with a mixture of wariness and defiance. Nicholas lay with his dark head cradled on the girl’s full, milky breast, and the rose damask cover that must have been borrowed from one of the rooms upstairs barely covered him. She stood in silence, surveying the line of his back, the curve of his flat buttocks, the length of his legs wrapped around the girl’s short, stocky ones.

  His hands were entwined in the wench’s hair, his long fingers threaded through the coarse dark stuff. The room smelled like a bordello: it smelled like cheap perfume and sweat and sex. Ghislaine stood there for a moment longer, remembering those smells, and then she turned on her heel and left, closing the door silently behind her.

  She had no idea where the privy was. Instead she dashed outside, into the chilly morning air, ending on her knees in the kitchen garden, losing what little she had in her stomach.

  It was an eternity later when she finally sat back, still and shaken, both by her bout of nausea and by her shame. She hadn’t expected to be vulnerable, ever again. But the smell of the room, the sight of Nicholas Blackthorne’s beautiful back, the pile of gold coins on the rough table beside the bed, had come together to undo her completely. It brought back a past she thought she’d managed to bury. Other rooms. A pile of coins. But it had never been Nicholas Blackthorne’s body beside hers, his long fingers entwined in her hair.

  So distraught was she that she didn’t hear the noise in the inn yard. The sounds of voices, the stamp of horses, the jingle of the bridles and the calls to make haste. It wasn’t until she stumbled back into the suddenly lively kitchen that she realized the inn was awake, awash with new customers.

  She moved through the kitchen, half-afraid Blackthorne would suddenly appear, but clearly he slept on, oblivious to his unhappy witness. The common room was filled with half a dozen weary travelers, doing their best to cram in a hearty breakfast before the public coach continued northward. Ghislaine paused in the door of the common room as the first tendrils of hope washed over her. At the blackest moment of her life, there was suddenly a chance of rescue.

  It was arranged in a matter of moments. There was room in the coach heading north to Newcastle—if miss were set to travel and if she came equipped with the ready.

  She knew real terror as she raced upstairs to her room, half-expecting to find Blackthorne waiting for her. There was no sign of him. No sign of any money either.

  She threw a few of the least offensive clothes in a valise, then headed back downstairs and out into the inn yard. She couldn’t very well go back to the maid’s room and rifle through Blackthorne’s discarded breeches for the requisite shillings. Therefore, Taverner was her obvious answer.

  He was asleep in the carriage, an old blanket pulled up around his thick neck. For a moment she hoped he slept soundly, dulled by whiskey and porter, but when she opened the carriage door he was awake, staring at her in sleepy surprise.

  She took advantage of his momentary disorientation. “It’s half past nine,” she said sternly. “His lordship’s ready to leave.”

  Taverner stumbled forward, out of the carriage, before he had time to realize that it was much too dark for half-past nine, and that Ghislaine would hardly be passing messages. By the time he turned, realizing his mistake, she’d brought the empty wooden bucket down over his head, shattering it into pieces on the ground.

  Taverner lay in a heap, and she wondered briefly whether she’d managed to kill him. She hoped not. For all that he was her enemy, he was merely doing his master’s bidding. Her hatred and murderous intent were still reserved for Blackthorne.

  Ten minutes later she was tucked into the middle seat on the overfull coach. They started with a jerk, taking off into the early-morning light, and Gilly held her breath, listening for the cries of rage when someone discovered Taverner’s body hidden behind a clump of bushes, or when Blackthorne roused himself from the woman’s bed. But there was nothing but the sound of the carriage, the jingle of the reins, the pounding of the hooves, as she was carried away from her last hope of vengeance. And leaning back, she closed her eyes, wishing she had a god to pray to for her deliverance. But the god of her childhood had been long silent, outlawed by the revolutionary government of France. As always, she had only herself to rely on. Only herself to pray to.

  She could only hope it was enough.

  Chapter 9

  Nicholas Blackthorne had always prided himself on his truly ugly temper. He had no compunctions about inflicting it on anyone when the rages came upon him, and he gained a certain measure of satisfaction at seeing strong men flinch and move back a step or two.

  He didn’t even mind frightening women, which just went to prove how far from being a gentleman he really was, he thought, lying in the servant’s bed and watching the animal wariness in her somewhat vacant eyes. She was probably used to being struck, but the fact was, he had no intention of hitting her. He might be foul-tempered, but he was seldom a bully, at least not physically. He merely stared at the woman whose bed he’d been drunk enough and frustrated enough to share last night, and she slunk from the room, no longer even considering a renewal of their strenuous nighttime activities.

  The door closed behind her. He glanced over at her bedside table. She’d managed to palm the coins he’d dumped there, and he’d probably find his breeches considerably lighter as well. He sat up in bed, disdaining the rose coverlet, and tried to ignore the pounding in his head, a sure sign of overindulgence and guilt.

  Though why he should feel guilty was a complete mystery. Just as mysterious was his sudden hatred for the buxom serving girl who’d entertained him so enthusiastically the night before. Nicholas was a man who despised introspection, but he despised stupidity even more. And he knew perfectly well it wasn’t the woman he hated, but himself.

  The washbasin and pitcher were of a higher quality than was usually found in a serving girl’s bedroom, just as the damask coverlet was. Clearly she’d been expecting his company At least he was able to wash the traces of last night from his body with the cool water and rose-scented soap. He wished he could cleanse his mind as easily.

  The kitchens were in an uproar when he strolled through, the servants cleaning up the remnants of a large breakfast, but the common room was blissfully deserted. He sank down in front of the fire, accepting the mug of porter from the landlord’s hands and staring into the bright flames.

  “Er… chilly morning, yer lordship,” the landlord announced uneasily.

  Nicholas ignored him. The man probably wanted something for the serving girl’s favors, but Nicholas wasn’t in the mood to pay for it twice. Particularly since he regretted indulging in the first place.

  “The mail coach just came through,” the little man continued, undaunted, and Nicholas took a meditative sip of the warm brew, wishing it were coffee. He’d have to have the resourceful Taverner make him some if he had any hope of surviving the next few hours.

  “It weren’t full this time of year,” the landlord pushed doggedly onward, and finally Nicholas turned to stare at him out of hooded, unnerving eyes. Why did all landlords seem the same, no matter what the size of their inn, the class of their clientele, the area of the country? He’d met the same nervous, obsequious little man a dozen times over during the last few years. It made it damned hard to remember where he was.

  “How fascinating,” Nicholas finally responded in withering tones. “Is there a reason behind this discourse?”

  If the man had been wearing a hat he would have snatched it off his head and crushed it beneath his small, nervous hands. As it was, he had to make do with simply wringing those none-too-clean appendages. “Yes, my lord.”

  Nicholas waited. He was too tired, too angry, and still a bit cupshot to make the obvious mental leap. And then it was m
ore than clear. “The mail coach,” he said blankly.

  “Yes, my lord. It was full when it left here, about half an hour ago.”

  He surged upward, knocking the half-finished mug of porter into the fireplace with a roar of fury. He took the steps three at a time, but there was no doubt that he’d find an empty room.

  He stood in the middle of the room, cursing viciously. He heard the unsteady footsteps mount the stairs, and a distant part of his mind decided that his current innkeeper must be a different breed of man, to have so little regard for his own safety. Nicholas Blackthorne was a very dangerous man at that moment.

  “She got away, did she?” Instead it was Tavvy’s voice intruding on his bloody-minded rage. Nicholas turned to lash into him, and then stopped, as a reluctant trace of amusement lightened his fury.

  “I never thought I’d live to see the day that a woman got the better of you,” he said, surveying his valet’s bruised and bleeding head and disheveled appearance.

  “Me neither,” Tavvy said grimly. “She’s no ordinary woman. She bashed me on the head with something, then must have dragged me into the bushes. I don’t know how long I lay there. She’s strong for such a little bit of a thing.”

  Nicholas remembered their full-blown battle in Ellen’s salon, just after he’d begun to recover from the effects of the poison she’d administered to him. He still bore the bruises.

  “She is, indeed. She’s got a half-hour head start on us, Tavvy. Have you put the horses to?”

  “They’re ready and waiting,” he said grimly.

  “Then pay off our incompetent innkeeper and gather up our luggage. I’ll handle the ribbons. The day won’t come when I can’t catch up with a mail coach.” He glanced once more at the deserted bedchamber. “Damn her eyes,” he said. “And damn the rest of her, as well.”

  “You aren’t going to be sick, are you?” the large, red-faced woman smelling of goose-fat inquired in a distinctly unsympathetic tone of voice.