The Midnight Hour: All-Hallows’ Brides

by Kathryn Le Veque, Meara Platt, Scarlett Scott, Mary Lancaster, Maggi Andersen, Chasity Bowlin, Sydney Jane Baily, Violetta Rand

  She moved closer, ignoring the sounds of the orchestra at her back, the dancers, the entire masque itself. It occurred to her then that Markham could not have disappeared with such effortless finesse, much like an apparition. There was only one manner in which he could have made himself vanish.

  And much as she hated herself for it, she recalled, just for a second before she banished the reminder, a time when he had once made a habit of escaping from social gatherings, just as she had.

  Sarah stole a look over her shoulder. No one else watched. The guests seemed intent upon their dancing and merrymaking. After another careful look, she surreptitiously ran her fingers along the paneled wall. And found a lever.

  She engaged it, and the wall slid open in reward. With another look over her shoulder to be sure no one else watched or followed, she slipped inside the wall, making certain it closed securely in the shadows.

  The chamber was bathed in softly flickering light, and she realized at once that it was a study adjoining the ballroom through the hidden door. An unsettling sensation told her she was not alone. She knew before she even turned who stood behind her.

  “You ought not to have followed me.”

  His voice was low, a warning rasp.

  Sarah could not suppress the shiver that overcame her as the Earl of Markham stalked closer. He did not stop until he stood near, towering over her with his height. In such proximity, he was even larger than he had been from a distance, and she knew a moment of uncertainty as she faced him. For the last two years, they had scarcely crossed paths. He often mingled with a fast set, and Sarah could not bear the sight of him after the ruthless manner in which he had treated first her, and then Amelia. The love within her had so swiftly curdled to hatred.

  “Why are you here?” he demanded when she maintained her silence.

  Beyond the secret room, the din of the ballroom was muffled. The strains of the minuet took on an almost haunting quality.

  “To remind you of your sins,” she said, wondering if he recognized Amelia’s gown or if he had expunged every memory of her.

  His gaze was as light blue and arresting as she remembered. No other gentleman’s eyes she had ever seen possessed such an unusual hue. Pity the Lord had wasted beauty upon a heartless scoundrel.

  “I do not require a reminder,” he said, his tone grim. “I know my sins well enough.”

  Her breath caught. Had he just made an admission? Could it be so simple? So easy? Nothing between them ever had been. Why would this be?

  “I have been waiting for this moment for two long years,” she told him, refusing to retreat even when he moved nearer. “Do you recognize me, Lord Markham?”

  He reached out, a lone, long finger touching one of the curls of her wig. He must have removed his gloves upon entering the hidden chamber, for his hands were shockingly bare. She held still, refusing to flinch, though a sharp pang stole through her, quite unwanted, before she ruthlessly quashed it. Once, she had longed for this man. How envious she had been of Amelia then, much to her shame, even as Sarah had hated him.

  He took his time, studying her in silence. She had been convinced he would require but one look at her, wearing Amelia’s gown, for the resemblance to prod his inner guilt into action. Unless he felt no guilt? A new chill swept over her, prickling her flesh.

  “I would recognize you anywhere, my lady,” he said at last. His eyes swept over her face, lingering on her mouth. He caught the curl he had been toying with between his thumb and forefinger, delivering a gentle tug. “What have you done to your hair?”

  It was not what she had expected him to say. He was meant to have been overwhelmed by the apparition of the woman he had so callously seduced.

  “Do you not remember, my lord?” she demanded coolly.

  His head dipped lower, the wine-laced heat of his breath fanning over her cheek. “I remember everything, Lady Sarah. Do you remember? Truly? That night at the Bellingham ball…”

  Shock lanced her, and she barely stifled a gasp at his words. How dare he mention that night? How dare he refer to their misbegotten kiss? How dare he deconstruct her carefully laid plans for revenge by looking at her with such tenderness? As if he had been longing to see her…

  Once, after his sudden betrothal to Amelia, Markham had caught Sarah alone, and he had looked upon her in the same fashion he was now, until she had slapped his cheek and bade him never speak to her again. He had told her he wanted to explain, but there were no explanations which would suffice.

  It was to begin here, this night, she reminded herself, the prelude to his destruction. She was not affected by this man. Any feelings she had once harbored for him had long since been dashed upon the rocks of truth. She knew who and what he was now.

  “Do not dare to speak of it again,” she snapped curtly. “I did not refer to the grievous mistake I made as a young, innocent girl, but to your betrothed. Do you not remember my sister?”

  The question was torn from her, emerging bitter and hoarse. But though she had practiced this confrontation in her mind a hundred times, nothing could have prepared her for the onslaught of emotion she felt now. Anger, hurt, betrayal. A veritable maelstrom, one from which there was no escape. Her entire body vibrated with it. Even her hands trembled.

  Lord Markham appeared every bit as affected as she was. Beneath his half-mask, his nostrils flared. He stilled, though he did not withdraw his touch or create a polite distance between them as she had supposed he would.

  “Of course, I remember her.” His voice, like Sarah’s, held an undeniable edge of bitterness.

  What did he have to be bitter about? She was the one who had fallen beneath his spell, only to realize he had been blinded by Amelia, the same as everyone else. She was the one who had lost her sister, the best friend she’d had. He was the one who had stolen Amelia’s innocence and gotten her with child before they could even be married.

  She hardened her heart and continued on her course. “And yet, Lord Markham, you have carried on with your life for the last two years, as though she never existed at all.”

  His lips flattened, a muscle in his clenched jaw jumping to life, the only signs he was at all perturbed by her presence and her charges. “Would you have had me join her, Lady Sarah?”

  “Yes,” she seethed. “How dare you live when she does not?”

  “You ought not to have come here this evening, my lady. You were not invited.” His voice had become icy and rigid.

  No, she had not been. She had taken Lady Frederica’s invitation with her new friend’s reluctant approval. She had not been this near to the Earl of Markham since before Amelia’s death.

  Thinking of how Amelia had spent her final hours, bleeding slowly to death, enraged Sarah anew. How she longed to slap the callous rogue before her, just as she had before. Only this time, she would use greater force. Leave him with a mark.

  Her lip curled in disdain. “It is past time you suffer the consequences for your actions.”

  “What do you imagine me guilty of?” he asked, his tone deceptively casual. Everything about him, from his stance, to the unyielding set of his shoulders, suggested a man on edge. “Pray, enlighten me.”

  He was still impossibly near, invading her space with his large body. She refused to be the first to move away, and so she remained where she stood. She could be impervious, she told herself. But in truth, one tilt of her head, and their lips would touch, and for a beat, she recalled the afternoon when she had unintentionally stumbled into him at her father’s townhouse. It had been the day before Amelia’s death. His hands had settled upon Sarah’s waist, steadying her. Her hands had fluttered to his shoulders.

  The heaviness between them had been undeniable, trumping even the anger she felt toward him for his treachery.

  His head had dipped toward hers, his mouth a temptation to sin, and even though he had been her sister’s betrothed and he had kissed her dizzy only to choose Amelia instead, she had longed for his kiss. How weak she had been. A desper
ate, aching yearning had seized her. She would have brought their lips together had it not been for an unexpected footman rounding a corner and restoring her sense of right and wrong.

  “Tell me,” he urged again into the thick silence that had fallen between them. “What sin have I committed, Lady Sarah?”

  “Murder,” she whispered to him at last. “You are guilty of murder, my lord.”

  Chapter Two

  For a moment, Philip stared into the eyes of the woman he loved, uncomprehending. When he had first caught sight of her that evening in the ballroom crush, though her features had been obscured by her mask and her golden hair covered by a wig, he had known deep in his gut—it was her. Shock had hit him first, followed swiftly by a rush of longing so intense, he had retreated to his private sphere to collect himself.

  But she had followed him, entering his study through the secret panel. Part of him had been convinced she was the product of his restless imagination. That he had somehow conjured her with his longing. Here, however, was proof she was all too real. Her scent surrounded him—violets and Lady Sarah, a divine combination he had thought never to breathe in again—and it was only with great concentration he realized what she had just said.

  “Murder,” he repeated stupidly.

  The list of his sins was longer than the Bible, but murder was not one he could or would ever claim. Coveting his betrothed’s sister with a desperation that defied logic and reason? Yes. Being gullible enough to allow Lady Amelia Bolingbroke to manipulate him? Also, yes. Murder? Christ, no.

  He had resented Lady Amelia for her manipulations, but he had never harmed her. He was a gentleman, which was why he had offered for her even when it had been apparent she had intentionally trapped him into compromising her. Even when it had meant losing Sarah.

  But he was not facing Lady Amelia now, he reminded himself. She was gone.

  In her place stood the only woman he had ever wanted. And it required every modicum of control he possessed to keep from hauling her into his arms and kissing her. She would not want it, he knew, for she loathed him. And the devil of it was, he could not blame her.

  “Yes, murder,” Sarah repeated.

  Her eyes widened at his dumbfounded silence, those hazel, cinnamon-flecked orbs he had so oft admired studded with thick golden lashes. His body’s reaction to her was instant and powerful, just as it had always been from the first time their paths had crossed. He was a man of ration and reason, and he did not believe in nonsense such as fate. Even so, he could not deny the manner in which they had collided at the Bellingham ball, as if the world knew the rightness of their meeting.

  Until her sister had dashed it all away.

  “Do you deny you are to blame for Amelia’s death?” Sarah demanded when he maintained his silence.

  Confusion warred with the unreasonable, unwanted desire coursing through him from being in Lady Sarah’s presence. “Lady Amelia died of a lung infection. I fail to see how I can possibly have been to blame.”

  “You know very well what truly killed her,” Lady Sarah alleged. “It was not a lung infection, but your babe, you vile man.”

  Yes, he was vile. The innocent younger sister of his betrothed—regardless of the fact he had not wished to marry Lady Amelia—had been forbidden to him, and he had wanted her anyway. Had longed for her with a desperation he had spent the last two years trying to quell after she had made her disgust for him apparent. Drink had not cured him. Nor had merriment and endless distraction. None of it had cured him. No matter how many balls he hosted, he always longed for the one woman he could never have.

  And yet, here she stood. Tempting enough to make his hands itch with the need to touch her. Hateful and beautiful and everything he wanted. Everything he had been denied by her sister’s cunning machinations.

  He forced himself to remember the charges Sarah had laid against him, damning indeed. Her daring infuriated him even as he admired it.

  His mind and body were at war, churning with tumult. Understanding dawned slowly. Was she trying him? Toying with him? Perhaps she had become as shallow and heartless as her sister had been.

  “Is this some sort of jest, Lady Sarah?” he asked. “You invade my masque, follow me into a private chamber uninvited, and then accuse me of getting a bastard on my former betrothed? If you were a man, I would tell you to name your seconds.”

  “If I were a man, I would have challenged you to a duel two years ago,” she countered, the hatred in her voice as chilling as it was undeniable.

  It was just as well Sarah hated him. He hated himself for wanting her. For loving her. For ever falling prey to her sister’s ruse. For falling in love one day, only to lose his every hope of happiness three weeks hence. He had not forgotten, nor would he ever. But he had made the decision to move forward. To free himself of the ugly weight of the past at long last.

  “Tell me the true reason you have come here tonight,” he demanded, barely stifling the urge to take her in his arms, haul her against the wall, and savage her mouth with his kisses.

  She had tasted so deliciously sweet the night he had kissed her. Sugary, like orgeat. Mysterious, like Sarah, innocent with a hint of the wanton. She had moved against him, moaning, responsive. So very responsive.

  But she was an innocent, he reminded himself now. A lady. A lady who hated him. A lady he must never, ever touch. Still, somehow, he could not let her go, no matter how much his rational mind warned him he must.

  “I already told you.” Her chin tipped up in the same stubborn show of defiance he recalled witnessing on so many occasions in the past, and damn his soul to perdition if it didn’t affect him every bit as much now as it had then. “I have come to remind you of your sins. For too long, you have been able to carry on with your life, unimpeded. You stole my sister’s virtue and got her with child. Your babe killed her. She died alone in the night, bleeding to death in her bed after miscarrying. Did you know that, Markham?”

  Holy God.

  Shock tore through him.

  She was serious.

  “My lady,” he forced himself to say, his mouth going dry, “if your sister was with child, I can assure you the babe was not mine.”

  And thank Christ for that.

  Because he had never touched anything more than Lady Amelia’s hands and her supposedly injured ankle. Just enough to unwittingly propel himself to ruin, he thought grimly. But he would never have so much as kissed the viper’s lips, let alone made love to her. He had agreed to marry her on principle.

  A gentleman did not retreat from what was expected of him. Whether or not Lady Amelia had carefully constructed a plan to entrap him into matrimony, he had fallen into her snare. Philip had promised to wed one woman, while his heart belonged to another, and in so doing, he had ruined his chances of ever earning the hand of Sarah. For although he had been freed by Amelia’s death to pursue Sarah, the damage had been done.

  “You lie,” Lady Sarah charged in the next moment, her contempt for him apparent in her disgusted expression and the bitter tone of her voice.

  Once, she had looked upon him differently. He could not blame her for hating him. He hated himself. His instincts had screamed to stay away from Lady Amelia, and yet he had taken pity upon her. She had claimed to have injured her ankle, then had begged his assistance. Stupid. He had been the lamb, prepared for slaughter.

  What sick sense it made now, if Sarah’s accusations were true. Quite likely, Amelia had been with child when she had lured him into the garden. He had been her means of saving herself.

  The self-loathing he did his damnedest to drown in drink and frivolity slammed into him then. “I am many things, Lady Sarah, but I am not a liar.”

  “My sister was with child,” Lady Sarah insisted, her voice breaking on the word sister.

  Her anguish pierced his armor better than any weapon, even if it was misplaced. He gave in to his weakness, just for a moment. Just for a breath. Only to comfort her. Not, he told himself, out of his own selfish need t
o touch her after years of longing.

  He still recalled the first time he had ever seen Lady Sarah. She had stood apart from the rest of her fellow debutantes. Intelligence had sparkled in her gaze, and he had been instantly drawn to her. The happy accident that led him to cross paths with her at the Bellingham ball had been a much-appreciated turn of fortune’s fickle wheel, and he had been instantly smitten.

  He had come calling upon her after the Bellingham ball, and Sarah had met him in the brightly lit morning salon presided over by an elderly chaperone who was nodding off into her prayer book. Sarah, a golden goddess with ink smudges on her dress and a volume of John Donne tucked beneath her arm, had been surprised to see him, he recalled.

  He cupped her cheek now, holding his breath. Soft. Her skin was so soft. And warm. Burning into his bare palm. Beneath his fingertips, the flutter of her pulse told him she was not as unaffected as she pretended.

  “I am sorry Lady Amelia is gone,” he said to Lady Sarah, and this, to his shame, was not entirely true. “But I will tell you again, my lady. If your sister was indeed with child, and if she perished as you say, the fault is not mine.”

  Lady Sarah’s eyes were wide behind the shield of her mask. But she did not move away from him, did not shrug from his touch. She was here, alone with him, to the great peril of her all-important reputation. She was not yet betrothed. He knew because he dreaded the day when she would become another man’s wife.

  He had not stopped wanting her or thinking about her.

  Had not stopped loving her, impossible though such an emotion was. A pestilence, truly. Love was a disease that overcame a man suddenly, reminding him he was fallible. Tearing him apart. Leaving him helpless, and as was so oft the fate, hopeless.

  “I do not believe you,” she said, her ordinarily mellifluous voice hoarse from the strain of repressed emotion.

  She was fighting so hard to remain stoic, and he admired her strength. He could not resist allowing the pad of his thumb to swipe over her cheekbone. Just once. “Believe me, Sarah.”