“No, it doesn’t.” The ferocity of her love for him stole her breath. “Trying to reform my uncle won’t make for a very peaceful life for you, I daresay.”
“Probably not.” His eyes glittered with mischief. “But I’d never accept a life as tepid as that. I want the passion, the drama, the thrill of knowing my relations intimately enough to quarrel with them over the important things.”
As she laughed, he sobered. “I want love. And from what I hear, love isn’t always peaceful.”
“No, it isn’t.” Sometimes it was a briar bush. And sometimes no matter how long you looked, you couldn’t see the roses in the briars. But if you’d done your looking, and your instincts served you well, sometimes it was all right to leap.
“But fortunately for you, my love,” she said as she lifted her mouth to his, “I think peace is vastly over-rated.”
After Midnight
Liz Carlyle
To Claudia Dain with thanks for all the years of friendship, commiseration, and wise counsel.
Prologue
The End
The heavytock-tock-tock of the schoolroom clock was deafening in the expectant silence. It was over at last. The books, the tennis racquets, the ribbons and the sketchpads; all the bits of flotsam from a moderately happy girlhood had been carefully packed away. Her trunks sat now in the carriage drive. Waiting.
The woman who stood by the window studying the traveling coach below turned abruptly, a muted smile upon her face. “You came to me a hellion, Martinique,” said Mrs. Harris, her hands extended. “May I trust you do not leave me the same way?”
Martinique dropped her gaze.“Oui, madame,” she answered. “I am the perfect English miss now.”
Mrs. Harris slipped a long, flawlessly manicured finger beneath Martinique’s chin. “Liar,” she said with a glint of humor in her eye. “Ah, but a lovely liar, all the same.”
Returning her gaze to the woolen roses on Mrs. Harris’s carpet, Martinique tried not to grin. “Perhaps Lord Rothewell will be well served if I am both a hellion and a liar,” she observed. “Perhaps he shall soon rethink his notion of carting me away, and marrying me off to the first willing suitor he can find.”
“Martinique!” said Mrs. Harris in a voice of gentle admonishment. “You cannot stay at school forever, much as we both might prefer it. Your uncle merely wishes you to be happy.”
“He wishes me off his hands,” Martinique returned. “Which is the reason he sent me to you in the first place,madame. In the West Indies, I was not wanted. Nor am I wanted now.”
Mrs. Harris shook her head. “I cannot believe that true, my dear,” she said quietly. “Baron Rothewell has provided a life of luxury for you.”
Martinique’s eyes flared wide. “It is quite true,” she answered. “He is ashamed of me. And whatever he has done, it was done out of guilt.”
Mrs. Harris took Martinique’s hand and gave it an encouraging squeeze. “Were that so, my dear, he would hardly journey four thousand miles merely to marry you off,” she said. “No, he is coming to see the job properly done. And, given the tone of the many letters he has written me over the years, there is no one better suited to look after your interests.”
Martinique tried not to smile. “Was he an ogre to you, too,madame ?”
Mrs. Harris hesitated an instant too long.
Martinique did smile then. “Yes, you took the razor’s edge of Lord Rothewell’s tongue once or twice, I do not doubt,” she said. “I am sorry,madame, if he was cruel to you.”
“Cruel is too harsh a word, Martinique,” she replied. “And I beg you to have a care with your own little razor. One marvels that you and Baron Rothewell share no blood.”
Martinique’s face fell. “My apologies,madame. ”
“Martinique, my dear, you have been with me longer than any of my other girls,” Mrs. Harris gently pressed. “And you have stayed past an age when most of them are long gone and well-married. This past year, you have shown yourself a fine young teacher, too. And yet in all this time, you have learnt to govern neither your tongue nor your temper.”
“Alas, I have been a trial to you,madame. ” Martinique heaved a theatrical sigh. “I shall unburden you forthwith, and fling myself into the bed of some dull, decrepit old nobleman.”
At that, Mrs. Harris laughed. “I rather pity England’s population of dull, decrepit noblemen,” she remarked. “I am not at all sure they are expecting you. And proper young ladies do not speak of gentlemen’s beds, my dear. But you knew that, did you not? You are tormenting me again.”
Her pupil winked. “Oui, madame.I know. Indeed, I know many things a young English lady ought not.”
“And I thank you for not sharing them with your classmates,” said Mrs. Harris with a sigh. “Martinique, dear child, you are an old soul, and wise beyond your years—or perhaps experienced is the word I want? No, that is not quite right, either.”
Martinique laughed. “It is my shady past, is it not,madame ?” she said. “I have seen just a little too much of the world, perhaps?”
Mrs. Harris sighed again, but did not correct her. “Well, on to more wholesome topics, my dear. Where do you go from here? Will you be staying in London?”
“For a time,” she answered. “Aunt Xanthia and I are to have new wardrobes.”
“How lovely,” said Mrs. Harris. “Your uncle’s letter did say you were to go away for the holidays.”
Martinique wrinkled her nose. “We are to spend December in Lincolnshire with Rothewell’s cousin,” she confessed. “Lady Sharpe. Do you know her?”
Mrs. Harris shook her head.
Martinique shrugged. “Nor do I,” she said. “But it does not signify. After the new year, we’ll return to London to await the Season. Rothewell and Aunt Xanthia have bought a house—in Berkeley Square, of course. Sugar and shipping must turn pretty profits nowadays.”
“Martinique.” Mrs. Harris frowned. “A lady never discusses her family’s finances in public.”
Martinique grinned. “But we are not in public,madame, ” she returned. “And it is hardly a secret that my family is made of new money.”
Mrs. Harris’s frown deepened.
Martinique looked suitably chastised.“Oui, madame,” she said gravely. “You may trust me to be on my best behavior when I enter society. I should sooner die than reflect badly on your school. For six years, this place has been my home, and you, my family. I am ever mindful of that.”
Mrs. Harris clasped both her hands, and squeezed them reassuringly. “Thank you, my dear,” she said. “It has been a joy to have you here, and to see you grow into such a lovely young lady. The other girls have come to value you, Martinique. And now, my last lesson to you is:learn to value yourself. ”
Martinique held her gaze steadily. “What do you mean,madame ?”
Mrs. Harris looked quite serious now. “No more jests about your family,” she answered. “No more self-abasing humor. Unscrupulous men will seek to take advantage if they sense even a hint of uncertainty. Hold up your head, and always act the wellborn lady, no matter—”
“Butmadame, I am not wellborn,” said Martinique stridently. “I am just the daughter of a beautiful French courtes—”
Mrs. Harris laid a finger to Martinique’s lips. “You are the adopted daughter of the late Baron Rothewell,” she said. “And you are the ward of the current baron. It is an old and very noble title. Be certain of your worth, and everyone else will follow. Dear child, your exotic beauty will turn heads, and your pretty French accent will charm every man you meet. Moreover, your family is rich, and you are a great heiress, so—”
“Madame,you just told me I mustn’t speak of money,” Martinique interjected.
“Oh, you shan’t need to,” said Mrs. Harris a little grimly. “All of society will know it within two days of your arrival in London.”
“How can they, if one dares not speak of it?”
Mrs. Harris gave a wry smile. “Martinique, pray do not play the naïve youn
g miss with me,” she said. “You are nineteen now, and as you so recently pointed out, far more worldly than a lady of that age ought to be. Now, before we go down, tell me about your aunt. Shall I like her? Is she like her brother, Lord Rothewell?”
Martinique blinked uncertainly. “I—I hardly know,” she confessed. “I remember Aunt Xanthia as being very slender, and quite pretty. And she was always kind toMaman. ”
“She has written you faithfully every month,” Mrs. Harris reminded her. “In all that time, has she said nothing to hint at her feelings or interests? She is young, is she not?”
“I daresay.” Martinique shrugged. “But she has never seemed so to me.”
“My dear, she cannot be above thirty,” said Mrs. Harris. “A good deal less, I imagine. Perhaps she, too, has come from Barbados to marry?”
Martinique laughed. “Oh, I do not think so,” she answered. “In that regard, sheis like her brother. They think only of work and of business and of—well, of that dreadful thing we mustn’t speak of—money.Mais oui, I shall be quite happy to see her again.”
Mrs. Harris had drifted back to the window. Her head was bent, her eyes again fixed on the glossy black traveling coach below. “Well, it is time, Martinique,” she said quietly. “All of your things have been loaded.”
“Have they?” Martinique’s voice was deceptively calm.
Mrs. Harris crossed the room again, her steps swift, and enfolded Martinique in her arms. “Ah, my dear child!” she whispered against her cheek. “Go, and be happy. Be happy, but be wise. Remember all that I have taught you—especially that part about valuing yourself.” She set the girl away and stared hard into her eyes.
“Oui, madame,”whispered Martinique, choking back a little wave of fear. “I can put this off no longer, can I?”
Mrs. Harris shook her head sadly. “No, my dear. We dare not keep Lord Rothewell waiting.”
“Très bien,”said Martinique. “Let us go,madame, and beard the lion in your den.”
Lady Sharpe was a diligent, dutiful sort of woman who, after twelve years of marriage, had learnt the value of the Bard’s good advice to assume a virtue, if you have it not. Fortunately for Lady Sharpe—and his lordship—she possessed most wifely qualities in abundance. Charity, honesty, humility and thrift; all came to her quite naturally. Patience, however…oh, well. Lady Sharpe consoled herself that no one was perfect.
Unlike most wives, it was not her husband who tried her temper. Now, hisfamily …well, her many virtues forbade her to speak openly in that regard. Nonetheless, after so many years of having her invented patience sorely pressed, she had almost acquired the virtue in truth—thus proving the wisdom of Shakespeare’s adage. Sometimes, life was just a matter of faking it.
On this particular day, the October sun was bright over Lincolnshire, the afternoon quite unseasonably warm; the perfect occasion for a long, solitary ride in the country. Regrettably, Lady Sharpe was obliged to spend her afternoon entertaining her husband’s self-indulgent half-sister, who suffered from a perpetual case of the sulks, complicated by a recent outbreak of terminal ennui. Christine was, as she complained to anyone who would listen, being Slowly Bored to Death.
With a swift glance over her shoulder, Lady Sharpe nudged her mount around a puddle, keeping to the grassy verge of the bridle path. Zeus had already thrown up mud once this afternoon, spattering Christine’s hems and setting her to screeching.
“Lud, another puddle,” complained her sister-inlaw from behind. “Pamela,do please mind the mud. Jenks scolds so when she has to brush it from my habit.”
Lady Sharpe glanced back again. Christine’s maid dared not raise so much as a peep of protest, and they both knew it. But her sister-in-law was smiling that tight, perfect smile again, and batting her beautiful eyes almost innocently.
Patience. Patience. Patience.
“Would you care to take the lead, Christine?” Lady Sharpe sweetly suggested. “I should be pleased to rein Zeus back.”
Christine’s mouth made a little pout. “You know how I get lost in the country,” she said, shifting uncomfortably in her sidesaddle. “Really, Pamela, do you not think it perfectly odious to be stuck in Lincolnshire? Why can’t Reggie take us to Town?”
Lady Sharpe suppressed her sigh of exasperation. Her husband stayed in the country because he was needed. The last of the harvest was but a few weeks in, and the coming month had to be spent preparing the estate for winter. But Reggie’s sister had no conception of duty. Her late husband had been a pampered younger son who lived on an allowance—or at least his creditors’ expectation of one.
“There is no onein Town this time of year, Christine,” said Lady Sharpe soothingly. “Really, my dear, I think you must find something with which to amuse yourself.”
They had reached the foot of the hill now. Lady Sharpe eyed the roiling brook, which was swollen by the unseasonable rain, and wondered how best to cross it.
Christine was oblivious. “A dinner party, then, Pamela?” she wheedled, sounding less than half of her thirty-odd years. “Or a ball? Do let’s have a littlesomething before I go raving mad.”
Lady Sharpe pursed her lips. “Perhaps when Rothewell arrives in a few weeks’ time.”
“Yes, speaking of raving mad,” said Christine in a sour undertone.
Lady Sharpe ignored her, and gently urged her mount into the water.
“Really, Pamela, you know nothing of these so-called cousins, save for Rothewell’s reputation,” Christine went on. “You have not seen them since you were children. And then there isthat girl. ” This last was said in a tone which implied Lord Rothewell was bringing along a festering case of the plague. “She is no relation to you at all. The chit was adopted by Rothewell’s brother—and thenhe had the audacity to die! It is not at all the same thing as blood kin.”
“It is quite the same thing,” said Lady Sharpe calmly. “She was just a child when Cousin Luke married her mother. And if he thought enough of the girl to give her his name, then that is the end of it.”
“Well,” said Christine, dropping her tone to one of dark suggestion. “I have heardthings. ”
“Have you indeed?” asked Lady Sharpe sternly. “Then I beg you will not repeat them.”
They had crossed the rushing stream, water up to their horses’ knees, without a shriek of complaint from Christine. “Reggie cannot be pleased that they are to spend a month beneath his roof,” she remarked instead.
“Reggie is perfectly happy to share his home,” countered Lady Sharpe, nudging her horse left so that they might follow the stream to the old millpond below. “Like me, Reggie knows his family duty, and he does it regardless of his personal wishes.”
“Well!” The subtle jab was not lost on Christine. “I am sorry to be a burden to y—”
Behind her, Lady Sharpe heard a sharp intake of breath. She turned around to see Christine’s gloved fingers pressed to her lips, her eyes wide as she stared down the course of the rushing stream. Lady Sharpe let her gaze follow, all the way down the brook, to the millpond below.
Good Lord in heaven!
In a patch of autumn sun lay a man; a very young, very handsome man in a shocking state of dishabille. Well, that was not quite accurate. He was naked. Almost. He lay back, reclining onto his elbows, bare to the waist, with the fall of his trousers flopped open to reveal a trail of fine, dark hair which disappeared into…well, somewhere. His feet were bare, and if the brazen scoundrel possessed a pair of drawers, one could see no evidence of them.
For an instant, Lady Sharpe squeezed her eyes shut. Then, unable to stop herself, she opened one eye, and let it run over the half-naked specimen of raw masculine beauty. She took in the broad, bare shoulders, the high, aristocratic forehead, the arms layered with muscle and taut with tendons, and the eyes, so suggestively closed, as if his upturned face soaked up pure ecstasy instead of warm autumn sunlight.
“Suddenly,” said Christine in a low, throaty voice, “I am not nearly so bored in the country.�
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Lady Sharpe well knew that tone. “Christine!” she warned. “Christine, do not youdare. ”
But of course, Christine dared. “I beg your pardon!” she cried, nudging her horse toward him. “Sir, I do beg your pardon!”
“Shout a bit louder, Christine,” suggested Lady Sharpe sourly. “He cannot hear you over the rushing water.”
Christine’s head whipped around for an instant, a dark, daring look in her eyes. “Why, I daresay you are right, Pam,” she agreed. “Sir! Sir! I fear you are trespassing.”
The young man must have caught a flash of Christine’s red habit through the bare branches. He turned to watch her approach, a shock of heavy black hair falling forward to shadow his face as his mouth curled into a lazy, almost suggestive smile. Then he rose with a languid grace, hitched up his trousers, and padded barefoot across the clearing to snatch a white linen shirt which dangled from a nearby branch.
Lady Sharpe followed her sister-in-law, half-afraid of what might happen should she not.
Christine reined her horse in along the edge of the clearing, and stared down at the dark young man as he dragged the shirt over his head. “Sir, I fear you are trespassing,” she said in her husky voice. “I must warn you that the penalties for such a thing can be quite…stiff.”
“Ah,” he said, his shameless grin intact. “Are you the local constable come to mete out my punishment?”
Christine leaned forward in the saddle, and smiled. “I am Mrs. Ambrose,” she said. “But since you appear to be a very forward young man, you may call me Christine.”
The grin deepened, but it did not reach his eyes, which were still flat and dark. He was not, Lady Sharpe realized, so very young after all. His body looked to be a very virile twenty-five, yes. But his eyes, oh, they were old. The shirt was clinging damply to his flesh now, and his dark, heavy hair looked rather unnaturally so. Lady Sharpe realized in some shock that the man had been swimming—swimming!—in October. He must be quite mad.
The School for Heiresses Page 9
