Night Shadow

by Catherine Coulter

  He grinned into his mirror as he studied his cravat. Even without Stromsoe directing his every article of clothing, he was pleased with his appearance. He looked formal and as arrogant as his great uncle Max.

  He was pacing the drawing room, waiting for Lily. She was two minutes late. His breath caught in his chest at the sight of her. She was wearing the same brown wool gown, a relic with long, tight sleeves and a nun’s neckline. She hadn’t gotten to within ten feet of a hairbrush, had the stoniest expression he’d ever seen on a face, and she looked lovely.

  “Good everning, Lily,” he said and gave her a smile. It wasn’t much of a smile, but it did pass muster.

  She gave him a mockery of a curtsy. “How lovely of you to ask me to dinner,” she said in a faraway voice. “Is this to be my last?”

  He shrugged. “Who knows? Ah, here’s Thrombin. I trust Mimms outdid herself?”

  “Yes, my lord, I believe you will be pleased.”

  “A fatted calf, undoubtedly,” Lily said, and she was quite serious.

  “For the prodigal viscount?”

  Knight allowed Thrombin and Thomas, a footman, to serve the first course; then he dismissed them with a kindly “We’ll see to ourselves now, thank you.”

  He turned to Lily. “Would you care for bacon-cheek garnished with greens? They’re one of Mimms’s specialties.”

  Lily helped herself, saying nothing.

  Knight served himself a good portion of rump steak and kidney pudding, ate two bites, felt it thud in his stomach, and sat back in his chair, his eyes on Lily. He picked up his full wineglass and twirled the delicate stem between his long fingers.

  “You expect me to kick you out?’”

  “Your message was that you’d come to a decision. I’m waiting.” She hadn’t looked up as he’d spoken. It seemed to him as if she were finding her vegetable marrows of great interest. “As you pointed out, I’m not even a poor relation. I’m not anything at all, as a matter of fact.”

  “I wouldn’t say that’s true. You’re a very beautiful woman, Lily. And a very passionate woman as well.”

  She stiffened up like a poker at that observation but still didn’t look at him.

  He simmered, perversity singing through his veins. Damn her for her aloofness. “What a man loves to hear is woman’s breathy little cries, to feel her fingers digging into his arms, to know that she wants him to—”

  “Stop it, damn you.”

  He smiled. He’d won; at least he’d gotten her eyes off her vegetable marrows and onto him. “All right. All I wanted was your attention. Answer me a question, Lily, and no, don’t look back down at your plate.”

  “Very well.”

  “Tell me why Tris didn’t marry you.”

  She looked as if she’d like to slam her fist into his jaw again. Then she looked incredibly weary, shrugged, and said, “Why not tell you, even though you won’t believe me. Tris did ask me to marry him. I refused him, particularly before my father’s death. After his death, I had no money, no home, and Tris asked me again. I continued to turn him down. I was very fond of him, but I didn’t love him, you see, not the way I think a woman is supposed to love the man she will marry. But there were the children. Finally I agreed. We would have been married by now if he hadn’t been killed.”

  “I see. How long did you live with him?”

  “Six months. And I didn’t live with him, I simply lived in his house.”

  “Naturally. How very crass of me to state things so crudely. You were, of course, the children’s nanny?”

  “That’s right.”

  “In Tris’s house?”

  “Yes, that’s correct.”

  He took her completely off guard when, after pausing for a long moment, he cocked his head to one side and said, “You’ve quite a right uppercut. Did you knock me out?”

  She would never understand a man’s mind, she thought, staring at him. They were the most curious creatures, their thought processes defying logic. “No, after I hit you, you stumbled, lost your balance, and struck the back of your head against the edge of the mantelpiece. That knocked you out. I did, however, add another blow to your stomach.”

  He dropped his hand unconsciously to his belly. “Thank you. I couldn’t remember anything beyond your right to my jaw.”

  Lily said nothing. She took a drink of her wine, set down her glass carefully, then folded her napkin. “Would you care to tell me what decision you’ve reached?”

  He waved her question away. “I was pleased to see the children.” He frowned the moment the words were out of his mouth. “I hadn’t realized that I’d missed them.”

  “They were pleased to see you. Of course, they don’t really know what you’re like, but—”

  “Nor do you.”

  “If it makes you feel all the more powerful to hear it, you were all they could talk about. They doubtless went to sleep talking about you. They’ll doubtless have wonderful dreams about you.”

  “That sounds nauseating, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes. What is your decision?”

  “You’re not much for light dinner conversation.”

  She pushed back her chair and made to rise.

  “Sit down. I’m not through with you, Lily, not by a long shot. Sit down.”

  She wasn’t about to obey him. Her chin went up in the air. “Why should I? You have no hold over me. You’re just enjoying playing with me as a cat would with a mouse.”

  “Sit down and I’ll tell you my decision.”

  She looked mutinous, but finally gave in and eased back into her chair.

  “Good. Now, I’ve decided not to boot you out, so to speak, if you and I can come to some sort of mutually satisfying agreement. It would be worth your while to listen, Lily.”

  “I won’t be your mistress, Knight.”

  “I wouldn’t consider you for that position. I doubt you have the requisite skills.”

  She raised her eyebrows and shrugged. “It’s bound to be an insult in any case,” she said, more to the cold vegetable marrows on her plate than to him.

  “I hope not,” he said.

  “Very well, say what you will, Knight. I’m listening.”

  “I want you to marry me.”

  If he’d told her that he was Lazarus and he’d just been away on a trip for three days, she couldn’t have looked more taken aback. She turned as still as Lot’s wife, her pallor nearly as white as that pillar of salt.

  He said again, “I want you to be my wife. At last you can be a Winthrop.”

  Still she stared at him. Then, “I will be gone by tomorrow morning. I will not stay here and be toyed with any further.”

  “I’m not toying with you. I am not insulting you. I’m asking you to marry me.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not?”

  “You despise me. You think me a trollop, a whore, a—”

  “No, I don’t,” he said, but she knew he was lying. And he knew that she knew. “All right, I do have serious questions about your character, but I don’t care. It’s that simple. I don’t give a good damn. I want you and I want the children. I can’t have one without the other. I’m not such a monster to separate you from them either. So you’re part of the package. Marry me.”

  “I could simply be their nanny. This is absurd for you to—”

  “No, you can’t be their nanny. Remember the reason you left London? All that damned gossip? Well, it simply won’t go away. You’re too damned beautiful. And too damned young. Another thing, my dear. I can’t simply tell myself not to touch you. If you don’t marry me, you will end up in my bed. I want you very much and I know, as we’ve already proved, that you want me as well. Marriage is the only solution.”

  “But you’re not forty.”

  He threw back his head and laughed deeply. “However did you hear of that?”

  “From Mrs. Crumpe, when we were looking at your portrait. ’Tis a major tenet of your philosophy of life.”

  “I see. I don’t
suppose she stopped with that? No. All right, she also filled your ears with a lot more.”

  “Yes, quite a lot more.”

  He could just imagine, particularly the part about him disliking children and planning to ignore his own, just as his father had ignored him. Had he really believed such nonsense? “No, I’m not forty, I’m a mere twenty-seven, and marrying you will give me three children, a ready-made family. My father would howl about that if he were here to see it. But I’ve made up my mind. Now, will you marry me?”

  She looked at him steadily. It was a solution, a perfect solution, if one could be cold-blooded about such things. He wanted her body. That was all. And the respectability of marriage. To protect his name and the children. But he didn’t love her. At least Tris had loved her. She shook her head. “No,” she said. “No, I can’t do it.”

  “How many men were there before Tris? That was why he wouldn’t marry you, wasn’t it? You’d already had a protector. Or perhaps he did ask you. Did you use the children as a lever to get him to come around?”

  She laughed at that. He was getting back to normal. “Good night, Knight. How odd that sounds. In any case, perhaps I will see you in the morning. On the other hand, perhaps I might experience a bit of luck and not see even your shadow.” She got to her feet.

  “What of the children, Lily?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you don’t marry me, you will have to leave them. Doesn’t that bother you? Don’t you care? Is your love for them only an outward show? A sham?”

  She went right over the edge with that final shove. “You’re a bastard, a fool, an idiot. I will leave, my lord, but I will find the jewels first. Then the children and I will go together. I’m certain you’ll be delighted when we’re out of your selfish, boorish bachelor’s life.”

  He was out of his chair now, and at her side in a moment. He clasped her wrist none too gently between his fingers. “You listen to me, you stupid woman, you’re not going anywhere, and if you do, it will be quite alone and quite without a single damned sou to your name. Do you understand me, Lily?”

  She looked up at him in that moment, and it was his undoing. He clasped her face between his hands and kissed her, hard. His tongue was against her tightly closed lips. His hands left her face and stroked down her back, then held her tightly against him. His hands were in her hair, shifting through the thick tresses.

  “Oh, God, Lily.” He moaned into her mouth.

  “No,” she said. “No.” But she didn’t mean it, he knew she didn’t mean it, and in any case, it didn’t matter. Her lips parted and his tongue met hers and she froze, then melted faster than a Gunthers ice on a day in July.

  He felt it and reveled in it. He had her now. He wouldn’t let her forget how she responded to him. Never. How she doubtless had responded to all the men before him.

  He raised his head and looked at her. Her eyes were vague and dazed. He could see the pulse pounding wildly in her throat. If he wanted to, he could take her right here, in the dining room, on the floor, on the table, standing against the wall. He could lift her and bring her down onto him, deep and deeper still.

  He forced himself to calm down, to count his breaths.

  “You see,” he said at last, “you aren’t a virgin. No need to pretend you are, not with me, Lily.”

  He’d done her in yet again. She was weak and a fool. She had to get hold of herself. “All right, I’ll stop trying to make you believe I am. Good night, sir. Perhaps you’ll leave in the morning? The weather is quite fine for travel, isn’t it?”

  Knight didn’t say anything for a long time. He just looked at her, at the perfect bone structure, the naturally arched brows, the narrow nose, the soft mouth. He wanted her. He wanted her more than any woman he’d ever known, ever seen, ever dreamed about. More than any lady, more than any courtesan.

  “We will discuss our wedding tomorrow. Sleep well, Lily, but not too well. Dream of me. And when you do, dream of yourself naked, lying under me, and me stroking you with my hands, with my tongue—”

  She drew in a shattered breath, jerked away from him, and fled the dining room.

  She was a jade, but he didn’t care. He wouldn’t allow himself to care. One thing was certain, though. He’d never have to worry if she was playing him false. He’d never let her out of his bed.

  The next morning the weather continued fine. Knight took himself to the nursery after breakfast. Lily, he was told, had just left.

  Laura Beth was so excited to see him that he stayed with her a good thirty minutes. He saw the fine stitching around Czarina Catherine’s neck. Where were those bloody jewels? He and Lily needed to discuss that.

  He joined John and Theo for a few minutes, but Theo was in the midst of a geometry lesson and it was more than Knight could stomach. As for Sam, he was at the stables, mucking out a stall. It was Sam, bless him, who told him that Mama had gone riding on Violet. “To the west, sir. She likes that oak forest. Now, Cousin Knight, you must look at the paddock.”

  And he did. He had no choice, not really. He wasn’t about to disappoint Sam, whose enthusiasm over the horses and everything to do with them gave Knight serious food for thought.

  He rode out thirty minutes later toward the ancient oak forest. It was a beautiful spot, even in late fall. He smiled, a very cynical, very determined smile. He would do whatever was necessary.

  And he would do it this morning.

  Lily needed to have things explained to her, that was all.

  As for Lily, she’d allowed Violet her head and was enjoying the crisp breeze pulling at her riding hat.

  It felt good to be away from the house, away from the children for a while—oh, tell the truth, you wretched fool! You had to get away from Knight, and his wretched marriage proposal. What to do? She wouldn’t marry him; she couldn’t. She knew what he thought of her and she would be utterly stupid to marry a man who believed her a woman of loose moral character. She could tell him the truth about that, but he wouldn’t believe her.

  What to do? She felt herself trapped, just the way she had with Tris. She couldn’t leave the children, yet not leaving them gave her no choice but to take the man who was their legal guardian. No, it wasn’t the same as it had been with Tris. She had to be honest with herself. It was the fact that Knight didn’t love her that made her shake her head. And she, fool that she was, she wanted him, desperately. She didn’t know why she did, but she did and there it was.

  If she continued in her refusal, would he boot her out? The answer was a rather obvious yes, at least to her. Her face froze in a mask of dismay. “I won’t think about him,” she said in a whisper. “I won’t.”

  She tried to force her mind onto the scenery, dutifully regarding the denuded rolling hills to her left, the small village of Cranbourne ahead to her right.

  She rode toward the oak forest, said to have been inhabited by Druids centuries before. She’d discovered it the second day at Castle Rosse, and now, whenever she went out for a ride, she returned here again and again. It was private, a place to be at peace. And if there were ghosts, they were as calm and peaceful as the sweet air itself.

  If she saw a ghost she’d ask him or her where the wretched jewels were. She’d examined every one of Theo’s books. No luck.

  There was simply no place else to look.

  What was she to do?

  Just as he’d seen her the day before by the ornamental lake, he saw her again, her back against a thick oak, staring down at her riding boots. Her hair wasn’t loose and flowing today; it was in a severe knot at the nape of her neck.

  “Good morning, Lily,” he said, all affability, as he strode toward her.

  She threw her hand out in front of her, to ward him off, he supposed, but Knight only smiled and kept on coming toward her. He saw the indecision on her face and said quickly, “No, don’t run from me today, Lily. I’m frankly not in the mood for another chase. Just stay put.”

  “Why don’t you leave? Go back to London.
To your damned mistress. Just leave. There’d be no talk if you weren’t here.”

  “I can’t leave,” he said and stopped only six inches from her.

  “The weather is fine. Of course you can.”

  “No. Neither of us will leave until we’re married. Then we’ll take a wedding trip. Where would you like to go?”

  “Knight, stop it. I pray you to leave be.”

  “I’m delighted it’s such a warm day. Just fancy, it’s early November and I’m actually sweating.” He smiled down at her with such warmth that she felt herself heating to a near sweat herself.

  “Would you like to know what I intend to do, Lily?”

  “You will tell me. I usually have no choice where you’re concerned.”

  “First I’m going to ask you again. Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

  “No.”

  “All right,” he said, still all affability. He shrugged out of his coat, loosened his cravat, and tossed it to the ground.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m undressing myself. Then I’m going to undress you. Then I’m going to make love to you, right here, under this beautiful old oak tree.”

  Sixteen

  Lily stared at Knight. He was musing about the history of the oak forest even as he began to unbutton his shirt. He couldn’t be serious. No, it was impossible. It was the middle of the day.

  On the other hand, he had entered her bedchamber, ripped open her nightgown, touched her and kissed her, and made her scream with pleasure. A pleasure she’d never even known existed. A wonderful pleasure. A pleasure devoutly to be sought. Oh, dear, she had to do something.

  “No, damn you.” Lily picked up her riding skirts and bounded away from him.

  “Not again,” Knight said, frowning after her. “Lily, I really don’t want to marry a mountain goat!” He would have caught her quickly enough if they hadn’t been in that damnable oak forest. She whipped behind a tree. He went one way and she went the other.

  He stopped immediately and waited. Her head peeked around one side. He didn’t move. Neither did she.