When Caroline failed to reply, Portia peered around her shoulder. It took her a minute to recognize what Caroline was seeing. Or rather, not seeing.
The sisters slowly turned to look at each other, the truth reflected in each other’s eyes. Although the burled oak of the vanity bore a distinct oval impression, there was no mirror.
There were no mirrors draped in crepe at Trevelyan Castle. There were no mirrors at all. No delicate ovals clutched in the chubby little fingers of gilded cherubs. No tall pier glasses situated between two windows. No handsome plates of mirror-glass hung above the mantel so that a guest might pretend to gaze into the fire while secretly admiring their reflection. No elegant cheval glasses standing at attention in the bedchamber corners, inviting a lady to pose and preen while she tilted the glass to show both her figure and her coiffure to their best advantage.
Caroline and Portia spent most of the afternoon ducking footmen and maidservants so they could slip in and out of the castle’s deserted chambers. Their search failed to yield so much as a tarnished hand mirror tucked away in an armoire drawer.
“Perhaps you’ll be more inclined to believe me the next time I tell you I’m the rightful heir to the throne of England,” Portia said with a smug sniff as they hastened toward the south wing.
“I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation,” Caroline insisted. “Perhaps the mirrors have been taken away so they can be polished before the ball. Or perhaps the Kane family simply isn’t given to vanity.”
Portia sighed wistfully. “If I was as beautiful as Julian, I’d sit in front of the mirror and admire myself all day long.”
“You practically do that now,” Caroline reminded her.
They both started guiltily when Vivienne’s dulcet tones sounded behind them. “Where on earth have you two been all afternoon?”
They turned to find their sister standing beneath the vaulted beams at the far end of the broad flagstone corridor.
“I’ve finished two samplers, hemmed a dozen handkerchiefs, and taken tea all by myself,” she informed them plaintively. “Mr. Wilbury isn’t exactly the most scintillating conversationalist. I’m growing quite weary of my own company.”
“We didn’t mean to abandon you,” Caroline called out. “We’ve just been doing a bit of exploring.” Stealing a glance over her shoulder at the massive mahogany door that stood guard over the south wing, she gave Portia a gentle shove in Vivienne’s direction. “Why don’t you run along and keep Vivienne company, dear? I’ll join the two of you shortly.”
Portia reluctantly obeyed, shooting Caroline a wide-eyed look over her shoulder. “Do take care, won’t you, dear? One never knows what sort of creature will pop up in these musty old rooms.”
Caroline waved away Portia’s warning. Not only had they failed to locate any mirrors. They had also failed to locate any trace of their host. Despite Portia’s fears, Caroline refused to believe that he was napping in a coffin in the family crypt.
As she watched her sisters stroll away, arm in arm, she frowned. It wasn’t like Vivienne to be so querulous. And hadn’t her complexion looked a shade fairer than usual? Caroline shook away the notion. Perhaps it was just the lengthening shadows bleeding the color from her sister’s cheeks. Through the leaded glass panes of the lancet window at the end of the corridor, she could see the lavender haze of twilight creeping toward the castle.
Her sense of urgency inexplicably growing, she turned back to the door and gingerly twisted the knob. The door swung open with an unnerving creak and Caroline found herself gazing down a windowless corridor draped in shadow. She fumbled in the pocket of her skirt, thankful that she had possessed the foresight to tuck a candle stub and tinder box in her pocket.
The candle wick hissed to life beneath her ministrations, casting a flickering glow around her. Slipping into the corridor, she held the candle aloft, only to find herself standing face-to-face with Adrian Kane.
She let out a sharp yelp and stumbled backward, so startled she nearly dropped the candle. It took her several thundering heartbeats to realize that it wasn’t the viscount himself who stood before her, but a full-length portrait mounted in a gilded frame. Fighting to steady her breathing, she swept the candle in a shaky half circle. This was no ordinary corridor, but a portrait gallery, each of its residents frozen in time by a spell cast by an artist’s brush.
She crept toward Kane’s portrait, knowing she might never have such an unguarded opportunity to study him in the flesh. He stood silhouetted against a backdrop of stormy sky, one hand resting on his hip, the other curled around the silver head of a walking stick. A pair of bored spaniels reclined on the grass at his booted feet.
Caroline studied his face, dismayed to discover how very familiar it had become to her in so short a time. She knew exactly how the faint crinkles around his eyes would deepen when he laughed. How the furrow would appear between the tawny arches of his brows whenever she perplexed or challenged him. How his expressive mouth could tighten into a forbidding line, then soften whenever he fixed those luminous eyes on her.
She touched a fingertip to the plump swell of her own lips, remembering how that mouth had curved so tenderly over her own. Warned by the wistful pang in her heart, she tore her gaze away from his face. Only then did she realize that his clothing was all wrong.
Puzzled, she held the candle closer to the canvas. The man in the portrait wore a midnight blue satin coat with a flared skirt trimmed in gold braid. Elaborate falls of lace framed his muscular throat and powerful hands. He wore knee-breeches and gartered hose that tapered into a pair of black, buckled shoes—a style that had lost favor over a generation ago.
Perhaps he’d been painted by one of those eccentric artists who chose to costume his subjects in the garments of another era. Only a decade ago, everything Grecian had been the rage, resulting in an alarming number of family portraits depicting plump, toga-clad matrons fleeing bewigged centaurs who looked suspiciously like their gout-ridden husbands.
Stealing one last longing look at the canvas, Caroline drifted to the next portrait. Her mouth fell open in surprise. It was Kane again, this time garbed in a feathered hat and an Elizabethan ruff with a pleated cape swinging from his broad shoulders. His hair fell just past those shoulders, and a curling mustache and pointed goatee made him look even more devilish than usual. She might have doubted her eyes were it not for the wry twist of his mouth and the bold tilt of his head.
To her shock, the next frame also contained a likeness of Kane. In this one, he wore a mocking smirk, a short, fur-trimmed doublet and a clinging pair of dark green hose. Caroline averted her eyes, trying not to notice how remarkably well he filled out the hose.
“Must be wearing a padded codpiece,” she muttered.
Shaking her head in bemusement, she lifted the candle to the next portrait. The breath whooshed out of her lungs. A warrior towered over her in full armor, a gleaming broadsword gripped in one fist. There was no mistaking the rusty stains on his blade—all that was left of the last person who had been fool enough to stand between this man and what he wanted.
He swaggered without moving a muscle, his heavy-lidded gaze daring the world to accept his challenge. This was a Kane stripped of the veneer of civility forced on him by society. This was the man Caroline had glimpsed at Vauxhall Gardens. The man who had dispatched her attackers without so much as breaking a sweat. His raw masculinity was both terrifying and irresistible.
A fierce hunger glittered in his eyes—an appetite for life that refused to be denied. She recognized that hunger because she had felt it when he crushed her against him on the Lover’s Walk, tasted it when his kiss had deepened and his tongue boldly claimed her mouth, demanding a surrender she had been only too willing to give. She reached up to brush her fingertips over his cheek, wondering if it was possible to tame such a wild creature with only a touch.
Despite the muted colors and crackled paint, he looked as if he was perfectly capable of stepping right out of that ta
rnished frame and sweeping her into his arms.
Which was why Caroline barely jumped when his voice came out of the darkness behind her. “A remarkable resemblance, is it not?”
Chapter Eleven
Caroline snatched her hand back from the painting as if it had scorched her fingertips, then slowly pivoted to find Kane leaning against the wall behind her, his arms folded over his chest. She could hardly accuse him of sneaking up on her this time. She had been so engrossed in his portrait, she doubted she would have heard an entire regiment of bleating bagpipers march into the gallery.
He was once again garbed in the guise of a proper gentleman. Although he wore no coat, his waistcoat of burgundy-and-gold-striped silk was fully buttoned. Its deep V revealed nothing more than the frilled front of his shirt. His starched wing collar and neatly tied cravat ensured that she wouldn’t catch so much as a glimpse of the crisp hair that furred his chest. Ignoring a pang of disappointment, she wondered just how long he had been standing there, watching her. Wondered if he had seen her touch that fierce warrior in the portrait as she would never have the right to touch him.
“A remarkable likeness, don’t you mean, my lord?” she replied, nodding toward the glowering knight. “I was just admiring the extraordinary brushstrokes. I can’t imagine where you found such a skilled artist. The man rivals Reynolds or Gainsborough.”
Kane straightened, his effortless grace reminding her that no artist, no matter how skilled, could completely capture his raw vitality in the flesh. “I’m afraid that artist is long dead. As is his subject. This portrait is all that remains of either of them.”
As he drew nearer to her, Caroline sought to escape his penetrating gaze by turning back to the portrait. “I don’t understand. Isn’t he you?” She gestured to the wall. “I thought they were all you.”
“You thought that I’d commissioned multiple portraits of myself, garbed in various costumes from ages long past?” His smoky chuckle stirred the tiny hairs at her nape. “I can assure you, Miss Cabot, that while I’m a man of many vices, vanity is not among them.”
She shrugged, wondering just what those other vices might include. “Some might call it vanity. Others simply a yearning for immortality.”
Even though he was behind her, she could feel his sudden stillness to the depths of his soul. “Not every man is willing to pay the price for immortality. It can be a very costly boon indeed.”
Reaching around to gently pluck the candle from her hand, he swept it toward the tarnished brass plate fastened at the bottom of the frame. Accepting his unspoken invitation, Caroline leaned closer, squinting to read the numbers carved there.
“Thirteen ninety-five,” she whispered, slowly straightening to turn her disbelieving gaze on Kane.
He swept a hand toward the portrait. “Allow me to introduce you to Sir Robert Kane, Miss Cabot. He built this castle in thirteen ninety-three after lopping off a lot of French heads in the Hundred Years War. He conveniently neglected to apply for a crenellating license from King Richard II, but was granted a pardon soon afterward. I’m afraid we Kanes have always excelled at asking for forgiveness rather than a polite by-your-leave. That’s why most of the men you see on this wall were considered both reprobates and scoundrels.” Just like myself. Although the words were not spoken, they might as well have been.
Caroline stole another look at the warrior’s steely eyes. “I would have sworn he was you. The similarities are extraordinary.”
Surveying the rugged row of Kanes, her host sighed. “There is a rather inescapable family resemblance, isn’t there? I suppose my sons will be cursed with it, too, the poor devils.”
His sons. The sons he would give Vivienne. Tall, strapping boys with blue-green eyes and honey-colored hair who would call her Aunt Caro, put crickets in her bed, and secretly pity her for having no babes of her own. Although Caroline didn’t even blink, she felt as if the warrior in the portrait had just rammed the point of his sword through her heart.
“How did Julian escape this terrible fate?” she asked, keeping her voice deliberately light.
“He had the good sense to take after our mother.” Kane turned, the sweep of the candle revealing the portraits on the opposite wall for the first time. Caroline followed its glow to an oval portrait of a petite woman with hair the color of mink and laughing dark eyes.
Her merriment was so infectious Caroline could not help smiling, too. “She’s quite lovely. Is she still living?”
Kane nodded. “She’s been abroad since my father’s heart gave out nearly six years ago. She suffered from a severe fever as a girl, and the climate of Italy is much kinder to her scarred lungs than the air in this damp and drafty old place. I was just finishing up at Oxford when she sent Julian to live with me.”
“Ah, so you know what it’s like to become a parent before your time?”
“Indeed. Although I’d say you were much more of a success at it than I was. When he first came to Oxford, Julian desperately wanted to tag along wherever I went, but I thought he was too young so I patted him on the head and tried to send him on his way. To spite me, I’m afraid he fell in with a rather unsavory pack of young bloods.”
“He seems to have turned out all right,” Caroline offered.
“As well as can be expected, I suppose.”
Surprised by the unmistakable note of bitterness in his tone, she cast him a startled glance. A shutter had fallen over his face, closing the window to the past.
Noting a curious omission among the portraits, she asked, “Why are there no portraits of you and your brother?”
He shrugged. “My mother always claimed she couldn’t get us to sit still long enough.”
Caroline returned to the very first portrait. The man with the walking stick and the spaniels could only be Kane’s father. The bold grace of his stance and the wicked sparkle in his eyes made it far too easy to understand why Kane’s mother had fallen in love with him. She envied her the joy of loving such a man. But not the anguish of losing him.
Unable to resist the commanding pull of his gaze, she drifted back to the portrait of the medieval warrior. She stole a furtive glance at Kane, then leaned closer to the portrait, an impossible suspicion beginning to niggle at the back of her mind. “The resemblance is absolutely uncanny. One would almost swear it was you. Why, you even have the exact same mole right there above your left—” The candle went out, casting them into inky blackness.
“My lord?” Caroline whispered uncertainly.
Kane muttered a husky oath. “You’ll have to forgive my clumsiness. I seem to have dropped the candle.”
The door at the end of the corridor failed to beckon in so much as a sliver of light, warning Caroline that outside the castle, full night had fallen. The velvety cloak of darkness brought her other senses to aching awareness. She could hear the uneven rasp of Kane’s breathing, smell the bay rum cologne perfuming the freshly shaven curve of his jaw, feel the heat radiating from his flesh.
Although she was so disoriented she doubted she could have located her own nose, his hand unerringly found hers in the darkness. He laced his big warm fingers through hers, gently tugging her toward him. Her first instinct was to resist, but some more primitive impulse compelled her to obey, to go willingly into his arms or anywhere else he cared to lead her.
“Follow me,” he murmured. “I’ll look after you.”
At that moment, she feared she would have followed him into hell itself. But her feet betrayed her and she stumbled. His arms went around her to steady her, the whisper of his breath against her cheek warning her just how dangerously close his lips were to hers.
Her tongue darted out to wet those lips. They felt alien to her somehow—swollen, tender, aching for a kiss that must never come.
Light blazed. She caught just a glimpse of Kane’s eyes, smoky with an emotion that might have been desire, before she realized they had an audience.
They turned as one to find Julian leaning against the door frame, an art
fully tousled forelock tumbling over his brow and a branch of candles in one hand. “If you’re going to show Miss Cabot the skeletons in our family closet, dear brother,” he drawled, “you really should remember to bring a candle.”
Adrian knew he ought to be blessing Julian for his timely intervention, but instead he wanted to strangle him. It was hardly the first time he’d wanted to choke the life from his little brother. Nor would it be the last, he suspected.
Caroline had stiffened in his arms. She was no longer soft and yielding, but prickly with suspicion, her lips set in a rigid line. It was hard to believe that only seconds before, those lips had been parted in invitation, glistening with nectar, begging without words for his kiss.
When she had come into his arms without hesitation, it had nearly been his undoing. Her trust, both unearned and undeserved, had unleashed a hunger deeper than mere want. I’ll look after you, he had said. Uttering those careless words aloud had only made him realize just how impossible their promise would be to fulfill. He was still haunted by the ghost of the last woman who had been foolish enough to believe them.
Striding forward, he wrested the branch of candles from his brother’s hand. “Your timing, as always, is impeccable. I’m afraid Miss Cabot was an innocent victim of my clumsiness. I dropped our only candle.”
“How tragic for you both,” Julian said, a smirk playing around his lips. “Had I not come along when I did, I shudder to think what might have happened.”
“As do I,” Constable Larkin said, emerging from the shadows behind Julian.
Adrian gaped at Larkin in disbelief, then turned his glare on his brother. “What in the devil is he doing here?”
Crossing his long legs at the ankle, Julian sighed. “If you must know, I invited him.”
Keenly aware of Caroline still hovering behind him, Adrian struggled to keep his voice somewhere below a roar. “You what?”
After Midnight Page 11
