Lady Midnight (29 page)

"I—no, of course not," she answered, feeling suddenly exhausted and deeply foolish. She had come running all this way, leaving her warm chamber for the vagaries of a night on the moors, and for no good reason at all. She couldn't explain her bizarre compulsion even to herself. She felt the full coldness of the rain at last, and shivered. It was almost as if she jolted awake after a long spell of somnambulism. "I don't know."

Michael shook his head. "Oh, my dear Kate," he said, with an odd, humorless bark of laughter. "The only thing
I
know is that you must get inside this very moment, before you catch the ague."

He bent down and caught her under her knees, swinging her up into his arms. Kate was so surprised by the sudden movement, so overcome by the pounding of the rain, the chill, the glimpse of
something
by the river, that she made no protest at all. His body was warm and alive under the wet layers of his clothes, and she slid herself close, as close as she could possibly get. She wished she could just disappear inside of his heat, never to be seen again.

"Back to Thorn Hill?" she murmured, clinging to his shoulders.

"It's too far back now," he said, as he turned back onto the pathway she had abandoned to chase the river. She noticed that he was limping a bit, his footsteps uneven over the soaked ground. She nearly insisted on being set down, but one glimpse of his grimly determined face silenced her. She subsided wearily back against his shoulder.

"There is a cottage, or rather a hut of sorts, not far," he continued, still following his course. "It's used sometimes in sheep-shearing season. Not large, but there's a fireplace. You can warm yourself there."

"And you?"

He glanced down at her, a strange glowing light in his eyes, turning the sky blue a silvery color in the dark. Like the eyes of a lethal jungle cat. "I assure you,
I
am already
warm
enough, Kate the curst."

Kate lapsed back into silence, and very soon they came upon the tiny cottage. It was a square, stone dwelling set back among a grove of trees. There was only one window, but firewood was piled under a small shelter outside. Michael pushed open the stout, rough wood door with his shoulder and slipped inside.

For a moment, the sudden silence was deafening to her ears. The stone walls were obviously thick, muffling the thunder and the bullet sharpness of the rain.

"It's not much," Michael muttered, lowering her to her feet. "But it's home. For now, anyway." He held her arm for a moment longer, making sure she was steady on her feet before he went to kneel down by the hearth and take out a hidden tinder to start a fire.

The building was really far too small to be a
cottage,
Kate saw as she leaned back against the door, shivering in her soaked clothes. It was truly more of a hut, one room with the stone hearth at one end and an old, dusty table and chairs at the other. There was just the one window to let the outside in, but rows of shelves rose up along one wall, holding rough woolen blankets, pillows, a few jars of food, and pottery jugs that surely held cheap drink.

Kate wrapped her arms around herself, watching Michael as he knelt by the grate, coaxing the first, faint embers of the fire into stronger flames. They leaped high, casting his skin and wet hair in a gold light that made him appear an angel in truth.

An angel who had saved her from—who knew what? From herself, probably. She still was not sure what had driven her out alone into the night. A desperation to escape from herself, to escape the sticky web of lies she had woven, perhaps. All her life she was taught that to lie, to hide her true self away, was essential to self-preservation, was practically a requirement of life and nature. And she had done what she needed to do to obtain her new life here.

But at Thorn Hill, life was
not
mere existence, not an endless vista of snatching at what one could get without a thought to the Tightness of it, or to the other people it might harm. Here, life had a texture, a purity, she could never have imagined before. People sometimes did what was best for others, despite the fact that it might not be the easy thing, the desirable thing. It was better than anything she could have envisioned. She wanted it for herself, this life, in a way she once might have wanted a jewel or a house. She lusted for it.

But it was not hers, and it never would be.
That
was what had driven her from the house tonight, she realized now, to stumble blindly away from the glittering lure of all she desired. That was probably what her mother was trying to tell her now. And Kate would have been lost when the heavens opened and the cold rain poured down on her. Lost—if Michael had not come to her rescue. Her knight. Her angel.

The fire was full of roaring life now, the orange flames leaping high, crackling like the snaps of demons' whips. Sweet-acrid smoke scented the cold, damp air of the hut, curling around her as if to entice her away from the door. Michael glanced back over his shoulder at her. There was no smile on his lips, no pirate grin to make her melt. He was frowning, his face shadowed with concern.

He ran his hands through his wet hair, pushing the strands straight back from his face. The firelight danced over the planes and angles of his face, the sharpness of his cheekbones and nose, the strong line of his jaw. He looked so austere in the flickering light, like an ascetic monk from centuries long past. Austere—and more beautiful than she had ever seen him.

"Kate," he said quietly, gently, as if he spoke to a madwoman. "I ask you again, why in blazes were you abroad on such a night?"

"I could not sleep," she answered weakly. "I needed some air."

He frowned skeptically. "With rain threatening?"

Kate shrugged. "I did not know if it would rain or not. I don't know this strange Yorkshire weather."

He smiled at last, but not his usual merry grin. It was a more rueful half smile, barely touching the edges of his lips. But it was enough—for now. "And I do not understand you strange Venetian women." He pushed to his feet, and grabbed one of the blankets from the shelves before crossing the room to her side. He swirled the rough gray wool over her shoulders, tucking it close about her throat. "Come closer to the fire before you catch a terrible chill."

She let him slip his arm around her shoulders and lead her to the warm, welcoming circle of the flames, and sat down without a protest on a cushion he laid there for her.

"You are still shivering," he said.

Yes, she was. But not merely from the rain. He was so near to her she was intoxicated by it, overcome by the longing to touch him, to feel his strong reality, his heat, and know that he was no dream. Without waiting for an answer, he knelt beside her and reached for her foot. He placed it against his thigh, his strong fingers unfastening the buttons of her half boot from the stiffened leather. Then he reached for her other foot and did the same.

"Your clothes are wet through," he muttered roughly. "You should take them off, wrap up in more of these blankets. Otherwise you will never get warm."

Take off her clothes?
How could she, in front of him? She had never been naked in front of a man. Once, she had been prepared to bare herself before Julian Kirkwood, but his opinion had never mattered. Michael's did. Her shivers increased, coming from a core of emotion and need deep inside of her. She had fantasized before, in her most secret dreams, of taking her gown off for him, watching his body rouse to hers. She had imagined what
he
would look like, stripped for her gaze, her touch. Somehow, it had never been like this. They had never been nude together in her fantasies because they might catch a chill!

Still—she shivered. And not from cold.

"What of you?" she murmured. "You are also wet through."

"I am used to it," he answered briefly. "I am a hardy Yorkshireman now, you know."

"I don't care. I would hate it if you caught the ague because you came out in the rain to rescue me," she said. He opened his mouth as if to protest, but she held her hand up in an imperious gesture that said she would brook no arguments. "No. I insist. We will
both
remove our wet garments. It seems foolish to sit around in them when we are both widowed adults who should have better sense. Here, I will turn my back if you will turn yours. All very proper."

He laughed, but the sound was not humorous. It was unreadable, full of mingled bitterness, disbelief, self-scorn. "Oh, yes. Very proper."

Kate couldn't look at him any longer. If she did, she would surely snap with the tension that had her strung as taut as a violin string. She turned away, shaking with the cold and the uncertainty. She eased the sleeves of her dress down her arms, pulling at the gathered neckline until her torso was free of the wet, clinging muslin. The rest of the fabric slithered down her body until it lay in a sodden pool around her feet.

Kate stood there in only her chemise and stockings, her bare arms and throat exposed to the warming air, prickling with goose bumps. She again wrapped her arms around herself, as if that could offer her some protection. Behind her, she heard the slide and rustle of Michael's garments as he shed himself of them. She closed her eyes tightly, and in that darkness she envisioned it all—the thin, wet shirt sliding away from his body, leaving his muscled chest bare to the night. Visions of his strong, elegant hands loosening his dark breeches, easing them off his hips, shimmered temptingly in her mind. The black cloth slid lower and lower....

Kate groaned, and covered her eyes with her hands, pressing hard, even though her back was turned. Even that would not eradicate the alluring picture of Michael undressing.

"Kate? What is wrong? Are you all right?" Michael said. She heard a whisper of sound, a rustle, then felt the warm embrace of a blanket easing over her shoulders.

His hands just barely brushed the skin of her throat as he wrapped the cloth snugly around her. Then the light caress dropped away, leaving her strangely bereft.

"You are shaking," he said quietly, deeply.

"The rain," she managed to whisper.

She felt him step back from her, moving away into the room. "Yes, of course. After you are—finished, come and sit by the fire. A good blaze has taken hold at last."

Kate nodded, and under the shelter of the blanket she wriggled out of her chemise and unfastened the ribbon garters to roll down her stockings. With those garments kicked away to join the coil of her gown, she stood there completely naked, with only the cover of the rough blanket.

It was such a bizarre situation she almost laughed aloud, a hysterical giggle bubbling up to her lips. She pressed one hand hard to her mouth, holding the sound in. The blanket started to slip, and she yanked it back up. What would it have been like to find herself in such a position in Venice, with Julian Kirk wood or one of the other men who flocked to her mother's house?

For a moment, she allowed herself to imagine it. Being isolated in the midst of a rainstorm with a man like Kirkwood, both of them naked, all alone. She almost shrank away physically at the thought, at the memory of how his black eyes would kindle and heat when he watched her. Of how he would often claim she was
meant
for him, when in reality he did not know her at all.

She would not be safe with someone like that. She would be as the hunted fox, unable to find a safe place to go to earth. Here, the only danger was that
she
might attack
Michael
, leaping on him to tear the covering cloth away from his flesh so she could devour it, lose all her ugliness in his angelic beauty.

"Kate," he called. "Come and sit by the fire. You are shaking like an autumn leaf in the wind. I promise you that despite my behavior in the library the other night, you have nothing to fear from me."

"I know that," she answered. "I have always known that you could not hurt me." And that was true—physically. Michael was a strongly muscled man from working on his estate, but she was quite certain his strength would never be used against someone weaker than he. Her heart, on the other hand...

She turned and padded toward the crackling, inviting lure of the flames. Michael had taken the remaining blankets and the pillows and fashioned a nest of sorts by the hearth, a low settee she could sit on. As she settled herself there, adjusting the heavy fabric so that no bare skin could be seen, Michael picked up her discarded gown and spread it out neatly on the hearthstones beside his shirt and breeches.

"Hopefully, they will be somewhat dry by the time we leave," he muttered, dropping down to sit beside her. Close, close enough for her to feel the heat of his body mingling with that of the fire. But not so close that she could touch him without stretching her arm, wriggling across the improvised sofa. His hair was beginning to dry, curling into damp waves against his brow and the nape of his neck. His own blanket slid a bit off of one sun-bronzed shoulder, revealing a delicate tracery of white scars that echoed the ones on his cheek.

Kate sucked in a sharp breath. She longed to lean over, to press her mouth to those scars and feel their roughness under her lips. Her heart ached at the pain he must have suffered, the terrible reminder every time he looked in the mirror. If only her kiss could erase those marks, erase every hurt for him, as it healed her own soul just to be near him.

But kissing him would be sheer folly, for she knew she could not stop with a mere kiss. She would have to touch, caress,
feel
every inch of him, until she was every bit the wanton her mother had been. The wanton Kate feared had always lurked in her own heart, just waiting for the right man to unlock it. Her body screamed out that Michael
was
the right man, but her mind—at least the corner of it that was still sane—told her that could not be.