A Kiss at Midnight

“Please, Kate.”

The sad truth was that his please was irresistible. “I suppose I would like to see the little pot. I could visit you for an hour. At the most,” she added.

He held out the veil. “If you please, love.”

“Don’t call me that,” she said, shaking down the veil so that a muffling layer of black lace stood between her and the world. “I’m not your love. I’m merely—I’m merely—”

“Do tell,” he said, taking her arm. “To ask my earlier question a different way, what are you? Wick wanted to know the same thing and threatened to lay me out cold when I said that to my mind you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever dream of seducing, not that I plan to.”

“I almost wish he had laid you out,” Kate said. “I’m sure this will all end badly.”

“Well, just think of this: Everyone would think that I was trifling with Miss Victoria Daltry, not with you,” Gabriel said.

“They already think that,” Kate said gloomily. “Victoria will be furious with me.”

“Because you’ve marred her reputation?”

“She didn’t even have the fun of the flirtation,” she pointed out. “Not to mention the fact that Victoria is truly in love with Algie.”

“I find that hard to imagine,” Gabriel said. “He was with us last night, you know. He told me that he would have gone to Oxford, but he judged it a waste of time.”

“Yes, that’s Algie,” she said, resigned. “I’m sorry.”

“A sharp right turn ahead, and we haven’t seen a soul yet. Why are you sorry? He’s apparently a sprig from my family tree.”

To her horror, at that very moment she heard a cheerful, familiar voice somewhere in the vicinity.

And that voice was singing. “ That very morning to the spring I came ,” Algie sang, rather tunefully. To her horror, he sounded a bit tipsy. “ Where finding beauty culling nakedness —” He broke off, obviously seeing them.

Kate tried to peer through the veil but all she could see were people-shaped mounds that looked like moving piles of coal.

“Princess Maria-Therese, may I present Lord Dewberry and Lord Dimsdale,” Gabriel said. She sank into a tottering curtsy, mumbling something.

“It’s a great pleasure to meet you,” Lord Dewberry said.

Algie was undoubtedly engaged in one of his floor-scraping bows.

“Step back, for God’s sake, man,” Dewberry said. “You’re going to topple over if you bow forward like that.”

Kate’s heart was pounding so hard that she felt as if they must hear it. If Algie discovered her, it would be one thing, but Lord Dewberry . . .

“I hope you are in good health, Your Highness?” Algie said cheerfully.

“My aunt is undoubtedly shocked by your song,” Gabriel said before she could say anything. “Have you imbibed of the grape, Viscount?” He sounded more pompous than she could have imagined.

“We’ve been on a tour of the wine cellars with Berwick,” Algie said. Yes, he was definitely tipsy, if not three sheets to the wind. “Lovely wine collection you have, Your Highness.”

“I am escorting my aunt to her chambers,” Gabriel said. “If you gentlemen would please excuse us.”

“I suppose she’s my aunt as well, in some degree,” Algie said. “Shall I take your other arm, Your Highness?”

Kate shrank back against Gabriel and shook her head violently.

“The princess is quite particular about those with whom she associates,” Gabriel said. His voice rang with authority, as if he were the Grand Duke himself.

“Of course,” Algie said hastily. “I meant no disrespect, Your Highness.”

With huge relief, she heard the clatter of their heels as they continued down the corridor. And then, just as the sound died out, she heard Algie say, “Woman looks like an awful goat in that get-up. Someone should tell her we don’t hold with nuns over here.”

There was a murmur from Dewberry and a last word from Algie. “All I’m saying is that she reminds me of the Grim Reaper. Could use her to frighten children at night.”

The hand on her arm was shaking. “Stop laughing!” Kate hissed.

“Can’t,” Gabriel said, his voice choked. “One shouldn’t ever know one’s relatives socially. It’s so lowering to one’s amour propre .”

“What does that mean?” Kate asked. “Are we almost there?”

“Just the stairs left,” he said, taking a firmer grip on her elbow. “ Amour propre is a man’s sense of himself. The very idea of Algernon gracing my family tree takes the edge off my self-esteem.”

“Good,” Kate said firmly. “It’s likely the first time in his life that Algie’s been so useful.”

Thirty

G reat stone steps curved up the inside wall of the turret. Kate concentrated on not tripping over her floor-length veil, trying not to think about the foolish mistake she was making even climbing those steps.

Gabriel meant to seduce her. She knew it in her bones. So why, why was she taking step after step into his lair, so to speak? Was she to be the second of her father’s daughters to disgrace his memory by finding herself unmarried and with child?

Not that her father’s memory could be disgraced, she reminded herself. What disgracing there was to do, he had done himself. The very memory of her father and his philandering made her jaw set.

She would see Gabriel’s little pot. And she would let him kiss her. But nothing further, and that much only because—it would be stupid to deny it to herself—she had the most terrible infatuation with the man.

Which probably happened to the prince at least every other Tuesday, and unless she wanted simply to be grist for the mill of his arrogance, she would never let him know. So, as she threw off the veil, she put a nonchalant look on her face, as if she visited gentlemen’s chambers on a regular basis.

As if those same gentlemen planned to kiss her into a wanton frenzy, and the only thing standing between them and her virtue was the strength of her will.

Unfortunately for Gabriel’s plans, her will had gotten her through seven years of hard labor, humiliation, and grief. It would get her through this encounter unscathed.

“What a lovely room!” she cried, turning around. From the outside, the castle’s two turrets looked squat and round, like baker’s hats. But the rooms inside were high-ceilinged and airy. “You’ve put in glass windows,” she said appreciatively, going over to look.

“They were here when I arrived,” Gabriel said, coming to stand at her shoulder.

“And what a view,” she exclaimed. The castle stood at the top of a slight hill. The window at which she stood looked to the back of the castle, and manicured lawns stretched before her, edged at the far end with a stand of beeches.

“The maze looks so simple from above,” she murmured, putting her fingers against the cool glass. “Yet Henry and I failed to make it through and were dumped out there, by the ostrich’s cage.”

“It is simple, but clever. I’ll show you how to get to the center.” He was leaning against the wall, looking at her, not at the maze. His eyes touched her like a caress, sending a prickle of warning down her spine. At the same time, warmth drifted to her more intimate parts.