A Kiss at Midnight

by Eloisa James

  If Gabriel looked at her like this, and decided he would marry Tatiana instead, then she had tried her best.

  “Rosalie,” she said, turning to her maid, “this gown was an inspired choice. Thank you.”

  “It’s the way it molds under your bosom,” Rosalie said, coming over to give her expert opinion. “The way the fabric comes horizontal here, and then there’s nothing but a bit of flimsy silk over your breasts . . . And your legs, miss! They look so long. You’ll have all the ladies sighing with envy.”

  Kate grinned at herself. As far as she knew, no one had ever sighed in envy over the way she looked.

  “Another thing is that it’s just a little short on you,” Rosalie continued, “which shows your ankle and the shoe. Some ladies shorten their gowns on purpose, just for that. Those with good ankles, of course.”

  There was a tap on the door, and there was Victoria, with Algie at her back. She wore the famous cherry wig, offset by a delicious white gown trimmed in cherry.

  “Lord and Lady Wrothe are waiting for us in the gallery,” Victoria reported. And then, catching sight of Kate’s ensemble as Rosalie moved aside, she stopped and clasped her hands together. “Oh! You look . . . You look . . . Algie, look at Kate, just look at Kate!”

  Kate walked forward, hugely enjoying the surge of confidence that comes from feeling beautiful.

  Algie’s reaction was as satisfactory as Victoria’s. His mouth fell ajar, though it couldn’t go far due to his extraordinarily high collar. “You look like someone . . . you look like . . . you look French!”

  That was obviously his highest praise.

  “You both look wonderful,” Kate said.

  “I can’t breathe,” Victoria confided. “But luckily this ball gown is an old-fashioned shape, and the pleats mean that you can’t see my figure very clearly.”

  “You look delectable,” Kate said. “Shall we go?”

  Henry and Leo were waiting for them at the far end of the portrait gallery. Henry was magnificently dressed in plum-colored silk sewn with arabesques of seed pearls. “Well,” she said, as Victoria and Kate reached the end of the portrait gallery. “I must say that I’m glad that you two didn’t come on the market when I was in my prime!”

  “You would have stolen the gentlemen and left us broken-hearted,” Kate said lightly, giving her a kiss. “Thank you again,” she whispered.

  “For what?” Henry said.

  “For coming to the ball with me.”

  “You don’t need us,” Henry scoffed. “The prince will fall to the ground in an ecstasy of despair when he sees you. I just want to be sure that I don’t miss the show. I love a good comedy.”

  Wick’s eyes widened as they approached the ballroom. He bowed deeply—and winked. Then he nodded to his footmen, and with a smooth, synchronized movement they each pulled open one of the great doors.

  Wick preceded them to the top of a short flight of stairs leading down into the ballroom, and announced in sonorous tones, “Lord and Lady Wrothe. Miss Victoria Daltry and Miss Katherine Daltry. Lord Dimsdale.”

  There were perhaps two or three hundred people in the ballroom. Chandeliers caught the glint of diamonds and rubies, the sheen of iridescent silks.

  Kate walked forward to the top of the stairs, and paused just long enough to make sure that all eyes were on her. Then she began slowly, very slowly, descending the stairs into the room. Naturally she held up her skirts, which brought the glass slippers—and her ankles—into view.

  As she reached the bottom step, she heard the stir of voices, the shrill repetition of her name. But more than voices, she saw men’s heads swivel in her direction.

  She realized, with a start, that it was a bit as if someone had tossed a bucket of oats into a pasture full of stallions. They all turned, almost as one, and headed toward the delicacy.

  She greeted the nearest man with a smile. And she did not look to the right, or the left, to see if a prince might be watching.

  Her pleasure was all the keener for years of watching Victoria prance off to local assemblies, and then to London for her season . . . always staying behind, always in plain cambric and sturdy cotton, with her fraying gloves and shabby boots . . .

  Kate was in the grip of a particular kind of joy.

  The first gentleman reached her, almost stumbling over his dancing slippers in his fervor. He introduced himself, in the absence of their host. “How lovely to meet you, Lord Bantam,” she said sweetly. He was wearing two waistcoats, one of figured velvet over another of sky-blue satin, and he bowed with a flourish that caused the buckles on his shoes to flash like diamonds.

  Which, she decided a moment later, they actually were.

  Lord Bantam was followed by Mr. Egan, and then by Toloose, Lord Ogilby, the Earl of Ormskirk, Lord Hathaway, and a Mr. Napkin. Henry floated forward as naturally as if she were Kate’s mama, tapping men on the arm with her fan, telling Ogilby that he certainly could not ask her goddaughter for a waltz.

  It was a heady, delightful feeling, standing in the midst of the gentlemen, her emeralds glittering as brightly as Lord Bantam’s buckles.

  But it wasn’t her emeralds that were attracting them. She knew that. It was the secret smile in her eyes, her peony lips, the sensuality in the way she moved.

  She caught sight of Effie and introduced herself as Victoria’s sister Kate.

  “Kate?” Effie breathed, and then smiled mischievously, dropping a curtsy. “What a pleasure to meet you! Why, I adore Victoria.” And then Effie was in the circle as well, the two of them laughing and flirting with all the men at once.

  “I am a terrible dancer,” she said to the Earl of Ormskirk, whom Henry had decided would be her first partner. Interestingly enough, Effie had bestowed her hand on Lord Hathaway rather than the younger bucks vying for her attention.

  He leaned forward as if mesmerized and breathed, “Would you like to sit this dance out, Miss Daltry?”

  Ormskirk had a strong chin and bright blue eyes. He looked like a man who was more comfortable on a horse than in a study. He would never read a journal about Ionian antiquities, whatever those were. Even after reading two articles, she still wasn’t quite sure.

  He was a man of deeds and not words. She favored him with a smile and was rewarded with another kiss on her hand. “I should prefer to dance,” she told him lightly. “But you, my lord, must take pity on me and tell me exactly what to do. I simply cannot keep these reels in my head.”

  “Neither can I,” Ormskirk confided. “I always find myself going the wrong direction. But this is a polonaise and that’s easy enough. The trick is just to keep slowly promenading about until everyone stops. Quite boring, really.”

  He was right; it was easy enough. Kate kept her eyes fastened on him so that she wouldn’t, by any stray chance, see Gabriel.

  Even the thought caused a jolt of anguish, but her smile didn’t waver.

  The earl responded to her attention like a flower in the sun. At the end of the polonaise he surrendered her to Lord Bantam with obvious reluctance. But he reappeared a very short time later, when she was about to dance with Toloose, and plucked that gentleman by the sleeve.

  Kate raised an eyebrow as Toloose made an excuse and walked away.

  “My goodness, sir, you remind me of a court magician,” she said. “How on earth did you frighten away poor Mr. Toloose? I was looking forward to admiring his coat at closer range.”

  “Toloose looks like a peacock, but he’s actually a solid fellow,” Ormskirk said. “I wanted to dance with you again, and so I arranged the perfect dance.”

  She smiled at him, noting the way his eyes lingered on her lips and the curve of her bosom.

  “A waltz,” Ormskirk said triumphantly.

  Kate knew the answer to that one. “My goodness, my stepmother never allowed me to learn the waltz! And I believe that my godmother explicitly instructed me not to waltz.”

  “How lucky for us that your stepmama isn’t here,” Ormskirk said. The twinkle i
n his eye made up, to some extent, for his high forehead. The poor earl was conspicuously going bald, though he was doing it in a distinguished fashion. It certainly wasn’t his fault that his forehead shone so in the light of all these candles.

  Kate frowned, trying to remember what Gabriel had said the night before about the waltz. It was licentious, she knew that. “Perhaps . . . Oh! There’s my godmother,” she said with some relief. “Henry, darling!”

  “Ah, Ormskirk,” Henry said. “I thought you’d be back.”

  “It’s a waltz next,” he said to her, with a curious kind of intensity. “I’ve asked Miss Daltry if I might escort her onto the floor.”

  “Ah,” Henry said, looking him up and down. “Well . . .” She nodded and seemed to come to a decision. “I haven’t any objections as long as you don’t cannon into me and Leo. I adore the waltz, but some couples act like a pair of horses spooked by a fly bite.”

  Ormskirk grinned at that. “I fancy I can keep within the traces,” he said lightly, and turned to Kate, holding out his hand. “Miss Daltry?”

  For some reason, she felt strangely reluctant to dance with him again . . . but that was foolish. It was just the crush, and the way Henry’s perfume filled the air around her, and the heat of candles.

  “The dance floor will be far less crowded than here,” Henry was saying to Leo, “given as most of the debutantes will sit out unless that silly prince asks them to dance. I expect they’ll all line up, the better to ogle him.”

  Kate stiffened her backbone. She wasn’t going to stand on the side while Gabriel circled the floor with his betrothed. She gave Ormskirk a smile, one guaranteed to make the pretty flush on his cheeks rise even higher. “As long as you can steer me, my lord. For I must warn you that I am terribly inexperienced in this dance.”

  He reached out, blue eyes steady, and took her hand. “Miss Daltry,” he said, “it would be my honor and my privilege to lead you in your first waltz.”

  Thirty-eight

  Gabriel wore a coat of heavy embroidered silk that had been made for his presentation at the Austrian court. He knew what he had to do—and he would do it. Manfully.

  No, royally.

  He thrust a leg before Tatiana, gracefully extending a hand in a deep bow, a bow he had been taught by gentlemen who had spent their lives in the French court. The princess was pleasingly attired in a demure white ball gown. But it was adorned with real Brussels lace, and its sleeves were trimmed with swansdown.

  Her delight quivered from every smile, every sideways glance at him, every shining glance she threw at other ladies.

  Tatiana was confident, as well she might be.

  He danced with her, he danced with others, he danced with Sophonisba, who cursed him for bending one of the feathers decorating her headdress. He had an odd little conversation with Toloose, who looked at him with something akin to rage in his eyes, and said out of the blue, “She doth teach the torches to burn bright.”

  “Isn’t that from Romeo and Juliet?” Gabriel asked, confusedly thinking of his goodbye with Kate.

  Toloose nodded toward Tatiana, who was dimpling as she smiled up at Gabriel’s uncle. “Shakespeare might have learned everything he knew merely from a glance at her eyes.” And then he walked off without another word.

  Gabriel shrugged and danced with Henry, who smiled at him with genuine amusement and said, “I imagine you have seen my goddaughter by now.”

  “I have not had that pleasure,” he stated.

  “Well, then, you’re the only one in the ballroom,” she said cheerfully. “My goodness, Prince, your face is as white as marble. I do hope you’re not feeling ill. Everyone is having such a wonderful time.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” he said woodenly.

  “You probably were not aware of the fact. One is generally unable to tell if an Englishman is enjoying himself until he collapses in a drunken heap in the corner,” she added. “There are a great deal more betrothals being fashioned here besides your own, Your Highness.”

  He smiled, though he hated her for that comment. For the way her eyes assessed him, for the way she mentioned his betrothal, for the—

  For the glinting challenge in her eyes.

  He made it through the dance, bowed, straightened—and then he saw her.

  His Kate. She was glowing like a torch, a gorgeous, sensual, strong woman. A princess, by any measure.

  Her gown was magnificent, her hair delightful. He stared at the deep laughter in Kate’s eyes, at the strength of her little round chin, at the angular slash of her cheekbones.

  He saw both the inherent kindness in her face and the bone-deep sensuality in the way her lips curled.

  He could fight his way through the throngs of men around Kate, drive his fist into the chin of the man smiling down at her as if he was starving and she were manna from heaven.

  But Tatiana was next to him, and Kate was not, and he had his duty, his duty, his duty. He turned his back, feeling his temples throb as they never had before, and at that very moment the opening strains of a waltz sounded in the ballroom.

  Tatiana dimpled up at him. “My uncle agreed that I might waltz last night, but after your indisposition, I chose to remain on the side of the room.”

  He bowed; she put her fingertips on his shoulder; they swept onto the floor.

  It was relatively empty; many of the guests either hadn’t yet learned the steps, or eschewed it for its salaciousness, or chose to stay on the side of the room and gossip about those who dared.

  Tatiana was like thistledown in his arms, anticipating every move of his leg. It was a genuine delight to dance with her. They found themselves at the top of the floor: He looked at her and raised an eyebrow.

  “Yes, let’s!” she said, laughing. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes shone.

  And with that he let the music carry both of them, around and around and around, as they swept down the ballroom. As they turned in perfect circles, he caught the awed stares of his guests. He knew what they saw: He looked like the perfect Prince Charming, and she a fairy princess indeed.

  They reached the bottom of the floor, and he looked down at his partner again. “Perhaps we should be a little less flamboyant for the rest of the piece.”

  “It was lovely,” Tatiana said, glowing. “If I could, I would dance the waltz all night.”

  He held her a bit more tightly, smiling. The length of her leg touched hers; it felt as sensual as that of a goat. With a kind of cold detachment, he found himself wondering whether he would be able to perform on their wedding night.

  What a scandal that would be . . . a prince found incapable.

  “Oh dear,” Tatiana said, pulling his attention back. “I’m afraid that not everyone is as skilled in the dance as you are, Your Highness.”

  He followed her glance. It was Kate, of course. She was dancing with Lord Ormskirk. They too were making their way down the floor. But unlike the easy elegance, the silent grace, exhibited by Tatiana and him, Kate and Ormskirk were circling too fast. Her head was back, and she was laughing with infectious pleasure. Her gorgeous buttery hair swirled around her shoulders as Ormskirk pulled her in circle after circle.

  When he and Tatiana danced, they held each other lightly. Properly.

  But in order to keep up his outrageous momentum, Ormskirk was holding Kate against his body. Gabriel felt a surge of rage building in his chest.

  The music ended. Kate and Ormskirk danced one final turn, in the silence, smiling at each other as if they had some sort of private agreement.

  Tatiana’s hand fell on his sleeve; Wick had thrown open the ballroom’s great doors. It was time to retire to the gardens, where an exhibition of fireworks would be set off from boats on the lake.

  He almost shook off her hand, but he didn’t. Instead he escorted the princess from the ballroom, out the great doors, down the long white marble steps.

  The night was cool, and Wick had dotted about metal pots filled with burning wood in order to keep the gu
ests warm. The licking flames competed with the moonlight and gave a yellow glare to the faces of people gathered at the lake’s edge.

  “I’ve never seen fireworks!” Tatiana cried with girlish enthusiasm.

  Gabriel thought of the years he’d spent in various courts, of his first fireworks, at age ten. “I’m happy to be with you at this occasion,” he said.

  There must have been something flat about his tone. Tatiana glanced up at him and then pulled him coltishly toward her uncle and a large group. “Uncle!” she called.

  “There you are, dumpling,” Prince Dimitri said. “Saw you making a right exhibition of yourself on the dance floor. Good thing your mother isn’t here.”

  Gabriel bowed. “The princess is a remarkably graceful dancer.”

  “She is, at that,” her uncle said. Tatiana had slipped to the front of the little group and was standing at the edge of the lake, watching the boats intently. “So what you have planned for us, prince?”

  “The boats will glide to the center of the lake and moor to each other,” Gabriel said. He saw Kate and the Earl of Ormskirk, to their left. “On a signal from Berwick, they will begin to set off their fireworks, in such an order as to create a remarkable display.”

  “Or so one hopes,” Dimitri said. “Always tricky, these fireworks, aren’t they?”

  “They are indeed,” Gabriel said. “If you’ll excuse me, Your Highness, I want to make sure that all preparations are in train.”

  “Surely you needn’t,” the prince said, but Gabriel was already slipping away. He walked to the back of his guests, clustered around the basin of the lake, and then started making his way . . . to the left.

  Naturally.

  She was standing toward the back of the group, thankfully, just in front of the entrance to the hedge maze. He silently walked up behind her and slipped one hand onto the curve of her waist, without saying a word.

  She glanced at him, but it was dark and he couldn’t read her expression. Without shrugging off his hand, she murmured something to the earl and backed away.