After Midnight
Page 26
“That’s all Eloisa ever was to you, wasn’t it?” Adrian said, his gaze flicking ever so briefly to Caroline’s face. “A possession. A pretty trinket to hang on your arm, no different from a shiny new walking stick.”
Obeying Adrian’s unspoken signal, Caroline turned to flee.
Duvalier’s arm snaked around her waist like a band of iron. Jerking her against him, he cupped her chin in his hand, his long nails digging into the tender skin of her throat. Judging by the tensile strength in his hands, he could probably snap her neck with little more than a twitch of his fingers.
“Eloisa was a foolish, empty-headed lamb,” he said. “I like this one much better. I wager she’ll fight like a tiger when I sink my teeth into her.”
“I warned you, Victor,” Adrian said softly, taking one step toward them, then another, “that I was only going to ask you to step away from her one time.”
“What are you going to do? Put a crossbow bolt through my heart? If you destroy me, your brother may never recover his precious soul, and we all know you won’t risk his soul just to save your latest whore. Why don’t you beg him for your life, sweeting?” he hissed in Caroline’s ear. “I do so love it when a woman begs.”
Twisting a fistful of her hair around his hand with enough pressure to nearly tear it from her scalp, Duvalier forced her to her knees. Her eyes smarted with tears of agony; the rough stones bit into her knees through the thin fabric of Eloisa’s gown.
“It’s probably not the first time you’ve been on your knees for him,” Duvalier crooned. “But I can promise you it will be the last.”
Caroline gazed up at Adrian through a veil of tears, knowing that her life was the one thing she couldn’t ask of him. Not when he’d already sacrificed so much to try and save his brother’s soul. Wishing she could tell him how much she loved him with only a glance, she smiled through her tears. “I chose this fate, Adrian. You’re not to blame. No matter what he says or does, always remember that he’s the monster, not you!”
Adrian gazed at her with melting tenderness as Duvalier yanked back her head, exposing the vulnerable underside of her throat. As his gleaming fangs descended, Adrian narrowed his eyes and fired.
The lethal bolt came whizzing straight for Duvalier’s heart. He cried out in outrage, but there was only enough time to catch a glimpse of his stunned expression before the bolt caught him square in the heart and his body dissolved into a whirling maelstrom of dust.
His cloak collapsed, momentarily blinding Caroline. By the time she could sweep it away, Duvalier was gone, the dust of his bones scattered on the wind. The crossbow bolt kept right on going, striking the wall on the opposite side of the bridge, where it clattered harmlessly to the stones.
Hurling the crossbow aside, Adrian rushed to Caroline and tugged her into his arms. She gazed up at him in disbelief, her shock slowly sharpening into comprehension.
Catching the front of his shirt in her hands, she gave him a harsh shake. “Why in the name of God did you fire? With Duvalier destroyed, how are you ever going to find Julian’s soul? After everything you’ve done, everything you’ve sacrificed to protect him, how could you choose me over him?”
Adrian cupped her face tenderly in his hand, stroking a fresh tear from her cheek with his thumb. Gazing deep into her misty gray eyes, he said, “As a very wise man once told me, what value is a man’s soul when compared with the incomparable riches of a woman’s heart?”
As he lowered his lips to hers, Caroline’s heart swelled with love and joy. Their lips met just as the first rays of the sun broke over the eastern horizon, bathing them in the holy light of dawn.
Epilogue
“Who on earth ever heard of a midnight wedding?”
Aunt Marietta fanned herself, her shrill voice drawing curious glances from the guests seated around them in the castle’s great hall. The same guests who had been summarily dismissed from the great hall only a fortnight ago when the viscount’s masquerade ball had erupted in a torrent of gossip and innuendo still being dissected by London’s tawdriest newspapers.
No amount of fanning could dry the beads of sweat trickling down Aunt Marietta’s throat to disappear between her expansive breasts. They were gathering copious amounts of rice powder as they rolled across her doughy flesh, making her look like a pastry topped with melting marzipan. “Not only a midnight wedding, but a midnight wedding not even being held in a church! I don’t know if my own reputation will ever recover from the scandal. Everyone knows a proper wedding should be held on a sunny Saturday morning and followed with a hearty breakfast.”
Portia sank deeper into her chair, thinking that her aunt was probably much more interested in the hearty breakfast than the wedding. “I’ve already pointed out that it’s Friday night, Auntie. Which means that the minute the clock strikes midnight, it will be Saturday morning.”
Aunt Marietta snapped her fan closed and whacked Portia on the thigh with it. “Don’t be a cheeky chit. You don’t want to end up like your sister.”
“Ah, yes—poor, unfortunate Caroline.” Portia sighed. “Forced to spend the rest of her life married to a handsome, wealthy viscount who adores her. I don’t know how she’ll ever manage.”
“I was speaking of your other sister.” Aunt Marietta drew a crumpled handkerchief out of her cleavage and dabbed at her eyes. “My dear, sweet Vivienne. I had such high hopes for the girl. I never dreamed she’d sink so low as to elope to Gretna Green with a constable.” She spat out the word as if it was the foulest of epithets.
“He’s a policeman, Auntie, not an ax murderer. And they wouldn’t have eloped if Caroline hadn’t given them her blessing. She said she was tired of watching them make calf’s eyes at each other over the dinner table.” Portia glanced behind them to find Vivienne and her new husband making calf’s eyes at each other over an arrangement of fresh cut posies.
“Oh, look, there’s your father’s cousin!” The handkerchief disappeared back into Aunt Marietta’s bodice. “Oh, Cecil! Cecil!” she trilled, wiggling her gloved fingers at the new arrival before leaning over and whispering to Portia, “I’ve often wondered why such a handsome fellow never took a bride.”
Portia craned her neck, unable to bite back an impish grin. “Perhaps that’s just what Lord Trevelyan is going over to ask him.”
“Ah, you must be Caroline’s cousin Cecil!” Adrian exclaimed, his shadow dwarfing the squat man. “She’s told me so very much about you.”
“She has?” Plainly torn between being flattered and frightened, Cousin Cecil ducked his heavily pomaded head, his beady eyes darting over the crowd as if looking for an escape. “I’ve always thought very highly of the gel, I have. Not more highly than I should have, mind you,” he added, tittering nervously.
Adrian gave him an encouraging smile. “She had much to say about the kindness and generosity you’ve shown her and her sisters over the years.”
“Has she now?” His confidence increasing, Cousin Cecil plumped out his chest like a preening partridge. “I was hoping I might call on you sometime in the near future, m’lord. It has occurred to me that you’ll probably be eager to get the youngest Cabot chit off your hands. If the dowry is generous enough, I just might be willing to help. Young Portia has a rather headstrong and impertinent nature, but with a firm hand, I think I can beat that out of the gel.”
Adrian’s smile never wavered. He simply threw one brawny arm around Cousin Cecil’s neck, placing him in an impromptu headlock. “That’s a marvelous idea,” he said, dragging him toward the door. “Why don’t we step out into the garden to discuss it?”
When Adrian returned to the great hall a few minutes later, he was all alone. He dusted off the front of his coat, jerked his waistcoat straight, then ruefully studied his skinned knuckles, hoping his bride wouldn’t mind them.
“Surely you can’t be planning on getting married with your cravat looking like that,” Julian said, appearing out of nowhere to give the crooked scrap of linen a stern tweak.
/> Adrian jumped. “Bloody hell! I wish you’d stop doing that! You’re going to give me an apoplexy.”
Julian grinned at him. “I’ve been practicing. I decided Duvalier was right about one thing. Maybe it is time for me to embrace some of my gifts—at least the more useful ones.”
Adrian clapped a hand on his brother’s shoulder, giving it an affectionate squeeze. “That suits me just fine as long as I don’t catch you turning into a bat and flitting about the chandelier any time soon.”
“Caroline told me you were going away.”
The brothers turned as one to find Portia standing just behind them. Her dark curls were piled high on her head and the tall collar of her white dimity gown was not so out of fashion as to generate curiosity or comment among the guests.
Shooting his brother a pointed look, Adrian drew his pocket watch out of his waistcoat and snapped it open. “It’s nearly midnight. I should go. I wouldn’t want to keep my bride waiting.” Giving Portia’s cheek a fond tweak, he headed for the huge hearth that was to double as an altar, leaving Julian all alone to face Portia.
She glanced around to make sure no one was eavesdropping before saying, “My sister told me you were going to Paris to search for the vampire who may have sired Duvalier.”
Julian nodded. “With Duvalier vanquished for good and Adrian getting married, I thought maybe it was time I started fighting my own battles. I may not be able to grow old, but that doesn’t mean I can’t grow up. Ah, here comes the vicar,” he said, visibly relieved to have found a distraction. “I really should head for the back of the hall. I appreciate Adrian and Caroline not holding their wedding in a church—hallowed ground and all that rot—but all of these robes and candles still make me want to jump right out the nearest window.”
He turned to go, then swore softly beneath his breath and turned back. Closing his hands over Portia’s upper arms, he drew her close and kissed her gently on the brow, his lips lingering against the warm satin of her skin. “Don’t ever forget me, bright eyes,” he whispered.
“How could I?” As he drew away from her, Portia touched a hand to her collar, her eyes no longer sparkling with a child’s innocence, but a woman’s wisdom. “I’ll always have the scars to remember you by.”
“Portia!” Aunt Marietta barked. “You need to take your seat! It’s three minutes until midnight!”
“I’ll be right there,” Portia called, glancing over her shoulder. When she turned back, Julian was gone. Frowning, she scanned the milling guests, but his lean, elegant form was nowhere to be found.
She sighed wistfully and headed back across the hall, never seeing the shadow flitting around the chandelier that dangled just over her head.
“And which Miss Cabot would you be today?” Wilbury asked dryly as Caroline stepped up to the doorway, preparing to join her groom at the makeshift altar where they were to repeat their vows and begin their life as man and wife.
She slapped the butler on the arm with her bouquet of white roses, releasing a whiff of their heady fragrance. “You needn’t tease so, Wilbury. After tonight, you’ll be able to address me simply as Lady Trevelyan.”
He wheezed out a labored sigh. “I suppose it would behoove me to please you since you’ll be mistress of this castle in—” He cleared his throat. “—approximately one minute.”
“One minute,” Caroline whispered, suffused with both wonder and terror.
But that terror faded when she peeked around the door frame and saw Adrian waiting for her on the other side of the great hall. His hair gleamed in the candlelight while his eyes shone with love and tenderness, the invitation in their luminous blue-green depths impossible to resist.
Caroline plucked one of the blooms from the roses and tucked it behind her ear in a silent tribute to the woman who had brought them all together. As she clutched her bouquet and took her first step toward Adrian’s waiting arms, every clock in the castle began to chime at once, heralding the arrival of a brand new day.
Acknowledgments
I want to thank my amazing editor, Carrie Feron, whose keen insight and discernment turned this book from a dream into a reality, and my extraordinary agent, Andrea Cirillo, for being a dream to work with for the last fifteen years.
I want to thank Richard and Eleanor Morris, wherever they are. Drayton and Linda Hatcher would also like to thank you for opening up your hearts and your home to their little girl when she needed you the most.
I want to thank my Axis of Angels, for always making me laugh when I wanted to cry.
About the Author
New York Times bestselling author TERESA MEDEIROS wrote her first novel at the age of twenty-one and has since gone on to win the hearts of both readers and critics. A two-time recipient of the Waldenbooks Award for bestselling fiction, Teresa makes her home in Kentucky with her husband and two cats. You can visit her website at www.teresamedeiros.com.
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By Teresa Medeiros
AFTER MIDNIGHT
YOURS UNTIL DAWN
ONE NIGHT OFSCANDAL
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
AFTER MIDNIGHT. Copyright © 2005 by Teresa Medeiros. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
ePub edition © August 2005 ISBN: 9780061795855
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