He climbed the stairs anyway. “Victoria,” he said softly.
She flung herself into his arms. “Sinclair,” she sobbed, digging her hands into the back of his coat as though she never intended to let go. “Are you all right? Tell me you’re all right.”
Sinclair closed his eyes, burying his face in her hair. “Victoria, I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t you ever lie to me again,” she said fiercely.
“Again?” he repeated, pulling her away from his chest so he could look into her violet eyes. “You mean you’re giving me another chance?”
“Of course I am. I love you.”
He stared at her. The dark, distrustful armor protecting his hurt, cynical insides melted away as though it had never been there. “You love me?” he whispered wonderingly, reaching out to tuck a straying strand of her midnight hair behind her ear. “Me?”
A tear coursed down one soft, smooth cheek. “Yes. I borrowed a horse from the Academy. I was going back to London to find you, but then I saw Kingsfeld heading here, so I turned around to warn—”
“You…you put yourself in danger. On purpose.”
“So did you,” she murmured.
Slowly he drew her into his arms again. “I love you,” he said into her hair.
She lifted her face to him, and he kissed her fiercely. Victoria Fontaine was his. Finally, For whatever reason, she wanted to stay with him, and he wasn’t about to question her wisdom.
“Sinclair,” she whispered, “I need to tell you something.”
“I already know.”
Victoria looked at him. “You knew, and you still sent me away?”
“No, no, no,” he said quickly, keeping tight hold of her in case she attempted an escape. “Alexandra told me last night.”
“Alexandra?”
“She punched me and then told me about the baby,” he said, kissing her again.
Her violet eyes began to dance. “Lex punched you? She’s never even punched Lucien.”
He nodded. “I had the distinct impression that she was rather angry at me. Furious might be a better word. Sweet Lucifer, Victoria. You rode all the way from the Academy to Althorpe? Are you certain you’re all right?”
“I am now.”
He kissed her again. “You have every right to punch me yourself, you know. Or worse. I know you were hurt and angry.”
“I was—until I figured you out.”
“Again,” he said with a soft chuckle.
“What finally convinced you about Kingsfeld?” She glanced over his shoulder toward the landing, but he turned her away.
“You don’t need to see that. We’re finally finished with him—thanks to you. You convinced me. And then I discovered that he owned a lamp factory in Paris.”
“He killed Thomas because of lamps?”
“No. I happened to have visited it once, when one of Bonaparte’s generals lost a wager to me. He owed me a rifle, and since we were both drunk and he therefore wasn’t exercising the soundest judgment, he took me to a munitions factory. I didn’t discover until the other day that it had the same name as the lamp factory Astin owned.”
“Then he deserved to die,” she whispered fiercely. “Do you think Thomas found out?”
“I think Astin was concerned he would. Apparently he meant to read a list consisting of every peer with French holdings when he presented his treatise before the House.”
“He suspected Astin already, or he wouldn’t have hidden those papers.”
Sinclair nodded, looking up as Christopher and his grandmother approached. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you. It was too dangerous.”
“You should have told us anyway, you big oaf,” Kit said heatedly.
The double doors downstairs slammed open. “Sin?”
“Upstairs. We’re all right.”
Victoria smiled at him. “Yes, we are.”
Crispin thundered up the stairs, pausing for only a moment to look down at Kingsfeld’s body. “Thank God. We heard a shot as we came over the hill.”
A few seconds later, Wally and Bates joined them. “I’m getting too damned old for this,” Wally rasped, bending over and panting.
“No matter,” Sinclair said, hugging his wife as tightly as he dared. “I’ve just retired.”
“Um, Sin, just so ye recall, we have one more matter to tend to back in London,” Crispin countered.
Sinclair looked at him blankly for a moment. He was finished with this; finished with spying, finished with avenging Thomas, and finished with lying. Now he could finally look forward, instead of back over his shoulder. And he had something to look forward to: life with Victoria, and children, and whatever animal she decided rescuing next. He didn’t think he’d mind if she did end up finding an orphaned elephant.
“What’s left?” Victoria asked, resting her head against his chest.
“Marley,” Wally prompted.
“Marley?” she repeated, frowning. “He didn’t do anything—did he?”
“Damnation,” he muttered. “No, except try to steal you away from me.”
“He never had a chance, Sinclair.”
“I had him arrested, though, to fool Kingsfeld. We have to get back to London before they decide to hang him.”
Her lips twitched. “Poor Marley.”
Sinclair kissed her smiling mouth. “Yes. I’ll have to be the one who gets you into trouble from now on, I suppose.”
Laughing, Victoria hugged him. “Is that a promise?”
About the Author
A native and current resident of Southern California, SUZANNE ENOCH loves movies almost as much as she loves books. She once appeared on an E! special, Star Wars Is Back, as an expert on the romance in the Star Wars movies. Other highlights include winning her third grade spelling bee, receiving an E.T. poster and T-shirt in an alien-inspired poetry contest, and submitting a script for The A-Team (which was not why the series was cancelled).
When she is not busily working on her next novel, Suzanne likes to contemplate interesting phenomena, like how the three guppies in her aquarium became 161 guppies in five months.
Suzanne loves to hear from her readers, and may be reached at:
c/o Lowenstein-Yost Associates
121 W. 27th Street, Suite 601
New York, New York 10001
Or send her an e-mail at [email protected].
Visit her website at www.suzanneenoch.com.
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By Suzanne Enoch
SOMETHING SINFUL
DON’T LOOK DOWN
AN INVITATION TO SIN
FLIRTING WITH DANGER
SIN AND SENSIBILITY
ENGLAND’S PERFECT HERO
LONDON’S PERFECT SCOUNDREL
THE RAKE
A MATTER OF SCANDAL
MEET ME AT MIDNIGHT
REFORMING A RAKE
TAMING RAFE
BY LOVE UNDONE
STOLEN KISSES
LADY ROGUE
Coming in November 2006
The Exciting Contemporary Romance
BILLIONAIRES PREFER BLONDES
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
MEET ME AT MIDNIGHT. Copyright © 2006 by Suzanne Enoch. 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 p
ermission of HarperCollins e-books.
ePub edition September 2006 ISBN 9780061747595
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