After Midnight

by Teresa Medeiros

  “How did you manage to disappear so quickly?” she asked. “I just looked away for an instant and you were gone.”

  He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I never know when Larkin and his men will be trailing me. I learned a long time ago that losing yourself in a crowd is the best way to lose someone else.” He cocked his head to the side. “Is that why you were following me? Has the constable offered you a position on his payroll?”

  Caroline lowered her head to escape his penetrating gaze. It was one thing to stand in a crowded drawing room and laughingly admit that there were those in London who believed him to be a vampire, quite another to stand on a deserted path with his white teeth gleaming in the moonlight and confess that some fanciful corner of your imagination was starting to wonder if they might not be right.

  “There were rumors,” she murmured.

  “There always are, aren’t there?”

  She swallowed hard, desperately wishing she was as accomplished a liar as Portia. “These rumors gave me reason to doubt your fidelity to my sister. I followed you tonight because I believed you might be engaging in an assignation with another woman.”

  “I am engaging in an assignation with another woman.” He tilted her chin up with two fingers, no longer allowing her to avoid his gaze. “With you.”

  The frank challenge in his eyes made her wonder just what might have happened had they met on these dark and secret pathways under other circumstances, in another lifetime.

  She met his gaze boldly, the lies and half-truths flowing more smoothly to her lips. “I realize now how foolish I was to listen to wagging tongues. I should have never doubted your devotion to my sister. And I certainly should have never risked my reputation to spy on you.”

  His expressive mouth hardened to a grim line. “If I hadn’t doubled back to follow you, those black-hearted scoundrels would have seen to it that you lost far more than just your reputation.”

  She could feel the heat rising in her cheeks. “We don’t know that for sure. Given more time, I’m quite certain I could have reasoned with them. After all, they weren’t common thugs, but gentlemen.”

  “Perhaps it’s time you learned, Miss Cabot, that beneath the silk waistcoat of every gentleman beats the heart of a beast.”

  With him looming over her in the moonlight, his voice a smoky growl, that claim wasn’t difficult to believe.

  “Even beneath yours, Lord Trevelyan?”

  He leaned even closer, his brandy-scented breath grazing her lips. “Especially beneath mine.”

  He might have leaned closer yet if a trio of familiar feminine voices hadn’t come drifting through the trees.

  “Must we go on? These cursed slippers have rubbed blisters on both my heels.”

  “Poor Auntie! I just don’t understand. I was quite certain I saw the viscount come this way.”

  “You can’t be right about everything, you know. I tried to tell the both of you that I spotted him near the Hermit’s Walk nearly a quarter of an hour ago.”

  “Why should we trust you? You once swore you saw a crocodile in the attic at Edgeleaf. And what about all of those years you went around insisting you were a changeling left beneath a cabbage leaf in Mama’s garden?”

  “Oh, no!” Caroline whispered in horror. “It’s Aunt Marietta and my sisters!”

  Kane scowled down at her. “Is there anyone else from your family stalking me tonight? A doddering great-uncle or a second cousin thrice removed perhaps?”

  She clutched at his arm without realizing it. “Shhhh…if we’re very quiet, maybe they’ll turn around and go back the way they came.”

  The voices drifted closer, approaching the curve in the path. It seemed there was to be no going back. For any of them.

  “Are you quite sure this is the right walk?” Aunt Marietta’s petulant whine warned them it would only be a matter of seconds before she came teetering around the corner on her satin heels, Caroline’s bickering sisters in tow.

  “Would you like to be the one to explain to your sister why we’re enjoying a rendezvous on the Lover’s Walk?” Kane murmured, his expression grim. “Or shall I?”

  Suddenly Caroline remembered another rendezvous and a sloe-eyed gaze so ripe with pleasure and passion it had sent her scurrying on her way like a frightened rabbit. Just as her aunt’s ruffled bosom appeared, she seized the front of Kane’s coat and urged him backward into the veil of shadows cast by the trees.

  Gazing up at him with pleading eyes, she urgently whispered, “Make love to me!”

  Chapter Seven

  “Pardon me?” Kane muttered hoarsely, fighting Caroline’s frantic grip.

  She dug her fingernails into his coat. “If they think we’re lovers, there’s a chance they might rush past without recognizing us. You have to pretend to make love to me!”

  He shook his head, his breath coming hard and fast. “Miss Cabot, I really don’t think this is the wisest—”

  Knowing that there was no more time for either of them to think, Caroline took a deep breath for courage, rose up on her tiptoes and pressed her lips against his. For several heartbeats he stood as rigid as stone, resisting her clumsy embrace. Then he muttered an oath and his arms went around her. The forbidding line of his mouth softened against hers, curving to embrace the plump swell of her lips. Suddenly, neither one of them was pretending.

  Through a haze of delicious sensation, she heard Vivienne blurt out, “Oh, my!” and her aunt snap, “Portia, cover your eyes immediately! And stop peeking through your fingers!”

  Portia’s startled gasp was followed by the distinct thwack of a fan striking tender flesh.

  “Ow!” Portia wailed. “Don’t tug my hood over my eyes! I can’t see to walk!”

  Then Kane’s tongue flicked gently over Caroline’s lips, coaxing them open, and the rushing in her ears drowned out everything but the pulse of pleasure thrumming deep in her veins and the erratic drumbeat of her heart.

  When Cousin Cecil had sought to penetrate the defenses of her tightly clamped lips, she had felt only revulsion. But Kane stormed the same gates with irresistible tenderness, seducing her into surrender. She might not know how to kiss, but he was a more than willing tutor. He brushed his lips back and forth across hers, creating a tingling spark of friction that threatened to ignite them both. His tongue delved deeper into the virgin sweetness of her mouth, swirling and stroking and entreating her own tongue to sample a taste of him.

  When she obliged him, his arms tightened, gathering her against him until the aching softness of her breasts was crushed against his chest. He deepened his kiss, drinking of her lips as if he wouldn’t be satisfied until he’d consumed the very essence of her. Caroline clung to him, growing light-headed with longing.

  Everyone had leaned on her for so long that it felt absolutely wonderful to lean on him, to lean into him and simply melt into his heat and his strength. Without even realizing it, she sighed into his mouth—a sweet, helpless sound of abandon.

  With a shuddering groan, he tore his mouth from hers. As he gazed down at her, his eyes gleaming with primitive hunger, she realized that her aunt and sisters were long gone, leaving the two of them all alone in this moonlit paradise.

  For the first time in her life she understood why a man and woman might seek such a haven. Understood the desire to escape society’s prying eyes, to hide in the shadows and explore the tantalizing lure of the forbidden. She had surrendered her will for a mere kiss. What would she be willing to sacrifice for other, even more provocative, pleasures? Her self-respect? Her sister’s happiness? If she remained in this man’s arms much longer, she was afraid she just might find out.

  Lowering her eyes, she pushed at his chest. “I believe they’re gone now. We can stop pretending.”

  At first he didn’t budge, letting her know just how ineffective her struggles could be when matched against his strength. But then he slowly lowered his arms, freeing her from his embrace.

  As he stepped away from her, a gust of ra
in-scented wind stirred his hair and lifted the shoulder-cape of his coat. His gaze was even more inscrutable than before. “That was a very convincing performance, Miss Cabot. Have you ever considered a career on the stage?”

  “Since you’ve assured me I’m not fit for the rigors of espionage, perhaps I should.” She straightened her mask, hoping the shadows would hide the nervous fluttering of her hands. “If I’m not tucked soundly in my bed by the time Aunt Marietta arrives home, I may very well end up selling Banbury cakes on some street corner.”

  “I hope that won’t be—”

  Kane’s words were cut off by the sharp crack of a nearby branch. Caroline started, fearing that perhaps her aunt and sisters had returned. Moving with lightning quick speed and soundless grace, Kane retrieved his walking stick and tucked her behind him in a motion that warned he would brook no disobedience. Shielding her with his body, he scanned the moon-dappled shadows, his wariness seemingly out of proportion to the harmless sound.

  Gripping the back of his coat with one hand, Caroline peered around his shoulder, remembering the overwhelming sense of menace she had experienced earlier. She had assumed that Kane was the one following her, but what if she had been wrong? What if there was something else out there in the darkness, watching and waiting? Something dangerous? Something hungry?

  She shivered, wondering where such a wayward thought had come from. “What is it?” she whispered. “You don’t think those ruffians have returned, do you?”

  Instead of answering, Kane startled her by drawing her back into the shadows of the trees and clamping a hand firmly over her mouth. Her eyes widened as a man came striding around a bend in the path. Her squirming and squeaking subsided as she recognized Constable Larkin’s ill-fitting coat and loose-limbed stride. He was followed by a quartet of men in nondescript hats and coats. At Larkin’s discreet signal, they melted into the woods in different directions, one of them passing within a few feet of Caroline and Kane.

  When they were all safely out of earshot, Kane released his grip on her. It might have been her overwrought imagination, but his hand seemed to linger against the softness of her lips for a heartbeat longer than necessary.

  “What are Larkin and his men doing here?” she whispered.

  “Apparently, the same thing everyone else at Vauxhall is doing tonight,” Kane murmured, shooting her a wry glance. “Looking for me.”

  Claiming her hand in a possessive grip, he urged her down the path in the opposite direction, glancing over his shoulder as they went. Caroline had to scramble to keep up with his long strides.

  Still wondering if she’d simply leapt from frying pan to fire, she blurted out, “Where are you taking me?”

  “Why, where else, Miss Cabot?” He stole a sidelong glance at her, allowing himself only the faintest hint of a smirk. “To bed.”

  “Are you awake? Caro, wake up! Pssssst!”

  Ignoring the frantic hissing just as she’d ignored the creak of the door opening and the telltale groan of the floorboards, Caroline dragged her pillow over her head and burrowed deeper beneath the covers. It had always been useless to feign sleep around Portia. She would start out by poking you in the ribs, then pluck a feather from the nearest hat and begin tickling your toes. Once, in a frenzy to share her latest theories regarding the mermaid she’d spotted splashing around in the bottom of the garden well, she dumped the entire contents of the wash basin over Caroline’s head. Caroline had come up swinging, boxing Portia’s ears so hard she would whine about their ringing for a week.

  But this time Portia chose a strategy that was far more diabolical.

  She tugged away a corner of the blanket and put her mouth next to Caroline’s ear. Lowering her voice to a mock baritone, she crooned, “Don’t be so shy, Miss Cabot. Come on—give us a kiss.”

  Caroline sat up so fast they nearly bumped heads. “Why, you wretched little brat! You recognized us, didn’t you?”

  Portia scrambled backward, curling up against the narrow iron footboard like a smug little cat. Aunt Marietta had tucked the both of them into a room beneath the eaves that was little more than an attic. The chamber was furnished with two iron bedsteads and several nicked and scratched cast-offs deemed too unfashionable to be seen belowstairs. A tallow candle burned on the washstand, illuminating the impish twinkle in Portia’s eyes.

  She kicked off her slippers and wiggled her stocking-clad toes. “Believe me—it wasn’t easy to recognize you with Aunt Marietta jerking my hood down over my eyes and smacking me with her fan every five seconds. I stumbled into a tree and nearly knocked myself insensible.”

  Caroline settled back against the pillows, glaring at her sister. “It’s a pity you didn’t. At least then I might have been able to get a decent night’s rest.”

  Tugging off her gloves one finger at a time, Portia leaned forward and confided, “At first I thought the viscount was biting you. I couldn’t understand why you weren’t trying to fight him off. I was getting ready to scream my fool head off when suddenly I realized he was…kissing you.” She whispered the last as if it were some sort of ancient carnal rite, dark and forbidden and far more lascivious than any act a vampire might commit.

  “He was only pretending to kiss me,” Caroline insisted, trying not to remember the intoxicating taste of his lips against her own, the tender sweep of his tongue through her mouth.

  Portia’s skeptical snort was less than ladylike. “Then he must have a very vivid imagination indeed because he was certainly going about it with a great deal of enthusiasm.”

  “He had no choice,” Caroline retorted, only too aware that her own enthusiasm had been even more damning. “If Aunt Marietta had recognized the two of us, it would have spelled disaster for everyone—especially Vivienne.”

  Her conscience quailed before the thought of her sister. She almost wished she could believe Kane had cast some sort of spell over her. Then she would have an excuse for behaving like such a shameless wanton in his arms. For being willing to abandon everything she’d always held dear—including Vivienne’s trust—for a pleasure as fleeting as a kiss.

  “You needn’t worry about Vivienne,” Portia assured her. “She hadn’t an inkling of suspicion. Aunt Marietta was too busy hurrying us along and denouncing your character. Well, not your character, but the character of the brazen doxy in the viscount’s arms. Of course, she didn’t know you were the brazen doxy in the viscount’s arms. And she didn’t know they were the viscount’s arms. She thought—” Portia waved away her own hastily spun web of confusion. “Oh, never mind all that. How on earth did you get home? Was the hack still waiting for you?”

  “Lord Trevelyan sent me home in his own chaise.”

  He had bundled her into the vehicle’s luxurious interior with nothing more than a curt command to the driver, instructing the man to deliver her to her aunt’s door. Directly to her aunt’s door.

  “He didn’t accompany you?”

  Caroline shook her head, grateful that they hadn’t had to share the close confines of the carriage. “I doubt he wanted to spend another minute in my company after I made such a cake of myself.”

  Portia listened raptly while Caroline told her all about the two young bucks who had accosted her and the viscount’s dashing rescue.

  When she had finished, Portia leaned against the footboard with a puzzled sigh. “How very odd. I wonder why a vampire would spend his evenings wandering around Vauxhall Gardens rescuing maidens in distress?”

  “If it weren’t so impossible, I’d almost be tempted to believe he was a vampire. You should have seen how he dispatched those two ruffians. I’ve never seen a man exhibit such astonishing speed and power.” Caroline shook her head, shivering at the memory. “There was something almost…supernatural about it.”

  Portia studied her face for a moment before softly asking, “What about his kiss? Was there something supernatural about it as well?”

  Caroline inclined her head, cursing her fair complexion. “It’s not as if I hav
e anything to compare it with,” she lied stiffly, feeling a flush creep into her cheeks. “I’m sure it was a perfectly ordinary kiss.”

  A perfectly ordinary kiss that had made her dizzy with longing. A perfectly ordinary kiss that had melted her every misgiving and sent every practical thought fleeing from her head—including the fact that the man kissing her belonged to her sister.

  No longer able to bear Portia’s knowing scrutiny, Caroline slid back down in the bed and rolled over, facing the wall. “Why don’t you take yourself off to your own bed and leave me in peace so I can get back to my perfectly ordinary dreams?”

  The bells were chiming midnight.

  She stood with her feet rooted to the cobblestones as he came striding out of the mist, his hair glowing in the moonlight, his cape swirling around his ankles. She knew he was coming for her, yet she couldn’t force a scream from her paralyzed throat, couldn’t move so much as a muscle.

  The moonlight vanished, leaving her lost in his shadow. He drew her into his arms, his gentleness as irresistible as his strength.

  His teeth gleamed as they descended toward her. Too late, she realized that it was not her lips he sought, but her throat. Even so, she could not stop herself from tilting her head to the side and inviting him—no, begging him—to partake of her, to drink his fill of the current of life pulsing just beneath the smooth silk of her skin.

  He was only offering her what she wanted, what she had always secretly craved.

  Surrender.

  As his teeth pierced that fragile veil, sending a rush of unholy ecstasy through her soul, the bells kept ringing, heralding the arrival of some eternal midnight where she would forever belong to him.

  Caroline sat bolt upright in the iron bedstead, fighting the crushing pressure in her throat. It took her a panicked moment to realize it was her own hand wrapped around the slender column. Her pulse was racing madly beneath her fingertips. She slowly lowered her hand, gazing at her trembling fingers as if they belonged to someone else.

  Even more disconcerting than her panic was the inexplicable flush that seemed to have seized the rest of her body. Her mouth was dry, her skin tingled with awareness, and there was a tender ache in her breasts and between her legs that was more pleasurable than painful.