The Prince of Midnight (12 page)

A lock of her hair curled between his fingers. He rubbed it, feeling the dark
silk, trying to slow his breathing and bring it under his control. After a
moment, he touched the curve of her ear softly, tracing the shape.

He couldn't look at her, too aware that she made no move to return the
tentative gesture, or even acknowledge it. No tender embrace or gentle hand
against his back. Her breasts rose and fell in quiet rhythm, a mortifying
contrast to his own.

He drew in a long draught, pushed himself up, and rolled off of her. He got
to his feet, fumbled at his breeches, and walked through the cool grass to the
pillars that stood white beneath the moon. On a crumbling foundation stone he
sat down and put his face in his hands.

Some bastard had murdered her family, and all he could do was violate her. He
was angry, and humiliated, and lonelier than he had ever felt in his life.

S.T. slept far away from her, with Nemo curled against him in the grass. In
the morning he woke to the sound and scent of breakfast. The wolf was gone.
Leigh moved about purposefully, without looking at him, even when she brought
him a cup of tea and a chunk of bread toasted over the fire she'd built. He
accepted it wordlessly and watched her through the steam as he sipped.

She loaded her satchel and carefully folded the packet of tea leaves before
she put it back in a pocket of her frock coat. After she'd finished, she walked
over to him and set his boots down at his feet. S.T. stared at them glumly.

"They're not quite dry in the toes," she said. "You should oil them again to
stop the leather cracking across the instep."

"Thanks." He could not lift his face and look at her.

She stood before him a moment. He gazed intently at her feet and rubbed his
morning beard.

"I've been thinking," she said in a quiet voice. "I believe it's best if I
return to England now."

S.T.'s mouth flattened. He looked off into the distance, where the morning
mist hung about the edges of the meadow.

"It isn't because you can't teach me," she said after a pause. "I've thought
about it. I don't doubt you could. But it was an absurd idea, that I thought I
could learn to be what you were. Even if it were within my power, it would take
years, would it not?"

He sipped the tea and leaned on his elbows. "Is that what you came to me for?
To learn to be a highwayman?"

"Not just a highwayman," she said slowly. "The Seigneur du Minuit."

He shook his head and gave a short, dour chuckle.

She stood over him, her face turned at a pensive angle as she watched him.

"You're a legend, monsieur," she said suddenly. "My home is as isolated as
this place; the people are simple; we see little of the outside world. You came
there three times ... on behalf of those ill-used and too weak to stand against
their tormentors. Perhaps you don't even remember, but we do. The people looked
upon you as the final justice, above the sheriff and the magistrates and even
the king—above everyone but God himself." She stopped abruptly and swung away,
frowning at a temple column. "Now they have another authority, and he's the
devil incarnate—but they cannot see it." She took a deep breath. "I thought to
resurrect you. To impersonate the Prince of Midnight and send him against this
other— Thing—" Her voice held a faint tremor. "This monster who's taken over
their hearts and minds. 'Twas all I could contrive, monsieur ... to make them
see again."

He sat back and allowed himself to look at her. She'd put on the waistcoat
and frock coat again, and stood in the morning sunlight like a vision.

"Is this the man you want to kill?" he asked at length. "This man you say is
a monster?"

"Yes. But merely to kill him—I don't know if it will be enough. I'm not given
to flights of fancy. Understand that. Perhaps it's difficult to comprehend, but
he's infected their souls. They'll do anything for him. I'll simply kill him if
I must, but... I don't know . . . what will happen then."

"These are your neighbors you're talking about? You think they might turn on
you?"

"On me, certainly. Even on themselves." She blew a harsh sigh and spread her
hands. "It seems demented, I know! It is—lunacy. Sometimes I wake in the night
and I think it must be no more than ..." Her voice trailed off. She put her fist
to her mouth. "Oh, God . . . how I
wish
I'd only dreamed it all!"

The sun cleared the top of the wooded hills, sending golden light down
through the last of the mist. It shone on her hair and caught the color of her
eyes.

He watched her turn in a sunbeam. "So you thought to pass yourself off as
me?"

"They remember you. They remember that you've always been on the side of
truth, and they believe in you. If you were seen to take a stand against
this—this fiend who guides them, I thought they might turn away too."

S.T. bent his head, swirling the tea leaves in his cup. It seemed astonishing
to him that he could have inspired enough faith in anyone for this implausible
plan to occur to her. Oh, he'd known he had a reputation well enough; he'd
relished it in his salad days. He'd lived for it. But when he looked back at
himself, at his reasons for the things he'd done, it all seemed so far from
truth and justice that he hardly knew whether to laugh or to cry.

Truth. They'd supposed him on the side of truth. What if he should tell her
that he'd chosen which supplicant to champion as much by the subtle shape of a
hip and the charming curl of an eyelash as for the justice of the cause? Perhaps
the world had seen only the victimized father or the defrauded brother or the
persecuted cousin as the motive of the Seigneur du Minuit, but there had always
been a woman in it. A woman . . . and the sweet, stinging flame of a gamble.

"You shock me," he said at last. "I'd forgot I was such a paragon."

She ducked her head. "You deserve esteem, for the things you've done," she
murmured, and then her chin lifted. "But my plan—it won't work. I see that now.
'Twould take too much time to learn your skills, even if I could. And
you—monsieur—I fear I'm not a good student for you; already you say that I make
you insane. You want me, and I was willing to make fair payment in that way, but
I see that you truly suffer for it." She regarded him gravely. "I don't wish to
injure your peace of mind."

He ran his forefinger along a crack in the carved stone. "I think the damage
has already been done, Sunshine."

She bent her head again. "I'm sorry for it."

"Are you?" He snorted. "I think you've a cold heart, ma'am, and a devilish
supply of arrogance for a chit your age."

Her head came up. She scowled at him.

"Ah, you don't like to hear that, do you? I'll wager you've had things well
enough your way in life until you ran up against this." He tossed the remainder
of his cold tea into the grass and stood up carefully. "Aye, 'twas a silly idea
that you could play at being me, not least because I've twenty years of hard
cuffs and training behind me—with men who'd laugh till they turned blue if they
got wind of your aspirations to handle a weapon and a horse." His mouth curled.
"You're too old to begin and too weak to succeed and too slight to ever hope to
pass as me—even mounted. Even in the dark. You walk wrong. Your voice is too
soft. Your hands are too small—and a highwayman's quarry sees his hands,
y'know—try slipping a lady's ruby from her finger with leather gauntlets on."

Her lips pursed. "Yes. I said that I was wrong. I didn't think it through."

"Didn't you indeed? You seem an intelligent little witch to me. You mean to
claim you traveled all the way here without thinking it through?" He laughed
caustically. "Oh no, you thought it out, Sunshine. You thought it all out. I'll
wager you had a solution for every one of those problems. You had it all
planned. Until you got here and saw me and realized I wasn't what you'd been led
to expect." He held his arms open and turned his face to the sky. "God, you must
have been appalled. Finding some poor chap can't even walk down a road without
falling flat. Wouldn't reckon he'd be any use at teaching swordplay, would you?
Wouldn't reckon he could get on a horse, much less teach you
haut ecole."
He looked back down at her. "So you're going to leave—after spouting some noble
bosh about it being for my own good and a dim-witted idea anyway."

Her eyes narrowed. "And am I wrong, monsieur?" She took a step away and
looked at him, hands on her hips. "You seem to me like a madman. You talk to the
air. You look off at nothing when I address you, as if there were spirits
speaking. You fight with the wolf over a scrap of meat like an animal. And yes,
you do fall down." Her voice began to shake. She dropped her hands and faced
him. "You've fallen down three times, and barely saved yourself ten times that
many since I've been with you. Do you think I haven't noticed? I came to you for
help. I can't change it if you're unfit to aid me. I wish—" She blinked, and her
mouth tightened. Suddenly she turned away, standing straight and still. "I wish,
I wish, I wish," she said, staring out over the hills. "God help me. I don't
know what to wish."

The echo of her voice died away against the pillars. He let the silver cup
fall from his fingers and laid his hands on her shoulders. Beneath his palms he
could feel her stiffness, feel the taut shift of her whole body as she
swallowed.

"Sunshine," he said softly. "Did you never once think of a different plan?"
He reached out and touched her chin, drew her back to face him. "Did you never
think that I'd go with you if you needed me?"

She kept her eyes lowered. "There's a price on your head if you return. I
wouldn't have asked it of you; I decided that from the first." She bit her lip.
"And now . . . forgive me, I don't desire to offend you, but—"

He cupped her face in his hands. "Now you see that I'm useless on all
counts."

"No." She strained a little against him. "No, I don't doubt you could teach
me as much as I was capable of learning, given enough time. But I haven't the
time, monsieur—I've taken too much already—"

"You won't need the time." He leaned forward and pressed his lips against her
forehead.

"It's hopeless," she whispered.

"Hopeless causes are my calling."

"
You're
hopeless," she said, more coldly. "And mad."

"Not at all. It's just my pride. I can't bear to think of you out there
tarnishing my legend with your soft hands and smooth face and puny female
efforts with a sword." He stood back. "If my reputation's doomed, mademoiselle,
I'd just as soon muck it up myself."

It was harder to leave Col du Noir than S.T. had ever expected. The biggest
part of him wanted to stay, to paint and be prudent, the way he'd been since the
explosion that had taken his hearing and balance. He'd walked cautiously, moved
slowly, taking care to keep himself well within the safe limits of activity that
his unstable equilibrium proscribed. On fete days in the village, he never
danced or played at
boules,
and he wouldn't have tried to ride even if
he'd had the heart to keep another horse after Charon.

Until Leigh had arrived, he hadn't realized how instinctively careful and
inhibited his motion had become. He was suddenly aware of himself, not only of
the vertigo and ensuing stumbles, but the way he calculated and held back in
self-protection.

He had yet to admit his deafness to her. Though he knew she'd noticed some of
the signs, she didn't seem to have fathomed the cause. She just thought he was
crazy, because he stared at things she couldn't see. So he went on trying to
hide it, for reasons he couldn't even explain to himself, the same way he
pretended it meant nothing to him to pack up his paintings and his tools and
store them under dustcovers and straw.

Col du Noir was his cocoon, and he found he didn't want to leave it.

But there were other passions moving inside him. He kept thinking of Sade and
his gold crowns, and the expression on the marquis's face when he'd looked up
and seen S.T. and Nemo in the doorway. He thought of Leigh's white body in the
moonlight. While he sat by the kitchen fire and worked the blade of his
long-forsaken broadsword against a whetstone, he remembered the dark highway and
the scent of a hard frost at midnight, and his blood beat harder through his
veins.

He would have to mount a horse again. That was the first test. If he couldn't
pass that one, she was right and it was all for naught. She tolerated his
intention to go with her as a parent would tolerate a child's preposterous
fantasy, with grave nods and calm, enraging little smiles whenever he offered an
explanation of his preparations. The thought of failure was galling. He ached to
stay in his safe cocoon and burned to show her he was still the master of his
midnight art.

He wished she'd start wearing skirts. Slender calves, round buttocks that
showed beneath her coattails whenever she bent, damn her; she was turning him
into a walking bombshell and she knew it. She used it. He wanted love, he wanted
excitement and romance; she offered herself with chilly deliberation, as if that
somehow protected her from him.

And it did. It was a barrier more effective than stone. He understood the
message. He could take her body; he'd never touch her soul.

She read him that well. She offered terms she knew he wouldn't accept. She
offered that travesty at the Roman temple. She mimicked a whore on purpose,
talked of payments and what she owed him, knowing that the more she debased what
he wanted, the safer she was.

In the end, all the power was hers. And they both recognized it.

As he sat honing the spadroon's glittering blade, his eyes drifted to her
body. He tried to keep his lashes lowered, his attention centered on the blue
gleam of fine steel, but his glance kept returning to the outline of her legs
propped on the fender.