Midnight Kiss

by Nancy Gideon

  “Oh, no. Never say that. Nothing can ever be so terrible as to make one wish to surrender life. It is the most precious of all things.”

  Her passion seemed to amuse him. “Yes. I believe you are right in that,” he said, with a quiet melancholy.

  She wanted to reach out to him, to touch his brow, to soothe away the furrow of distress. In fact, she went so far as to take a step closer, when a sudden harsh voice intruded.

  “Arabella!”

  And she turned to confront her father’s furious gaze.

  Chapter Four

  “DOCTOR HOWLAND, good evening.”

  Stuart ignored the marquis’s calm drawl. “Bella, get your wrap. It’s time we were leaving.”

  “But, Father...” She let that trail off as she recognized the set of his jaw. There was no point in arguing. That tense clench of his teeth said he would drag her off, if need be. She looked to Louis, trying to keep any overt emotion from her eyes, and she curtsied prettily and murmured, “My lord, a pleasure.”

  He caught her hand to lift her up from a pool of muslin, holding her gloved fingers for a moment too long before carrying them leisurely to his lips. His gaze never left hers.

  “Il piacere e stato mio. The pleasure has been mine, Miss Howland.”

  And she was falling, drowning in the warm green sea of his gaze as if diving for the gold hidden in the depths of his eyes. Unconsciously, she clutched at his hand, shaken by the thought of separation.

  “Bella.”

  The slice of her father’s command severed her fixed concentration. Graciously, she drew her hand back and hurried to retrieve her pelisse.

  AS SHE MOVED through the crowd of the medical elite, Arabella was unaware of Wesley Pembrook’s sullen stare as it cut from her to the elegant marquis. What had happened, he puzzled. He could fasten upon no logical explanation. He’d been so close to all he desired, then... then what? The foreigner had intruded, not only into the scene of his seduction, but into his very brain. He could think of no other way to describe it. His will had been smothered. A strange buzz of distraction still lingered, enough to convince him that he hadn’t imagined it.

  What had the man done to him? Was it some sort of hypnotism? Was that the power he held over Arabella? Who was he, this stranger Arabella Howland embraced as if he offered a kind of salvation? A man who knew Stuart Howland was a man he should know. Wesley vowed to discover the truth of it and find some way to use the information to his advantage. But not tonight... not when his mind was veiled with a dizzy languor. But he would find out all there was to know about Arabella’s mysterious knight errant.

  WITH HER COAT draped over her arm, Arabella approached Louis and his father. They were involved in an intense discussion and didn’t notice her as she slipped up behind them. Their words held her, the meaning devastated her, and all the light within her heart dimmed in an instant.

  “You will stay away from her.”

  “I will not harm her.”

  Stuart snorted at that. “You may not be able to control yourself.”

  Then came Louis’s bewildering reply. “I’ve had three hundred years to learn control.”

  “It hasn’t served you very well, Radman.”

  “Besides,” the marquis confided with a chilling sobriety, “I would never allow an interest in your daughter to jeopardize our research. That is my main objective, and I’ll let nothing distract me from it. Nothing.”

  Arabella squared her shoulders and interrupted with a cool, “Father, I’m ready to go.”

  Without sparing the marquis a glance, she handed her pelisse to her father and let him assist her into it. So, his lordship considered her a mild distraction. Well, she wouldn’t dream of interfering with his purposes. Let him whisper with her father behind closed doors. It was nothing to her. To prove it to him, she took her father’s arm, meaning to leave the gathering without a parting sentiment or look... until a quiet word insinuated itself within her mind.

  Arabella.

  She turned in response to find Louis’s unblinking gaze upon her. And she could swear—could swear!—that he had spoken her name aloud. Her father didn’t react as if he’d heard him. But she’d heard his call to her as clearly as she heard her father’s terse command.

  “Come, Bella.”

  So she pulled her gaze from those eyes of mesmerizing hue and hurried to her father’s side away from the danger of Louis Radman.

  THE DREAMS BEGAN that night, dreams so vivid, so erotic in content that Arabella awoke each morning in a sweat of enraptured panic. They were dreams. They had to be dreams. But they were so real.

  In those dreams that were more like memories, she’d hear his voice.

  Arabella.

  She’d awaken, or dreamed that she did, and sit up with covers clutched beneath her chin. And across the floor up to the foot of her bed came a stream of silvery moonlight. From that pale, ethereal beam, particles began to shift and swirl, like fanciful motes, collecting, growing denser, taking shape, forming the figure of a man. That man was Louis Radman.

  There he’d stand, his eyes transfixing her, shining with a glitter of gold. There was something hypnotic in his total stillness. Then he would say, though his lips would never move with the actual speaking, Arabella, call to me. And she would, dropping the sheet from her bosom, stretching her arms outward in invitation.

  “Louis.”

  And he’d come toward her, as silent as a drifting shadow, gliding with no real effort of movement. With the mere gesturing of one hand, the covers stripped from her, fluttering down, as if carried on some mystical breeze, to settle at the end of her bedstead. She couldn’t move. She didn’t want to.

  “Louis, love me.”

  She’d say those words without reluctance, without restriction, because this was a dream, and that’s what she’d always wanted to say to him. That’s what she’d always wanted from him. And he’d sit on the edge of her bed, though there was never any actual give to the mattress in the acceptance of a man’s weight.

  Soon, little one. Soon we will be together. But for now, we must be patient.

  And she’d lie back into her bank of downy pillows, wanting him to come down to her, encouraging him with the wanton undulations of her body, with the wicked, wanting entreaty of her gaze. “Touch me, Louis. Kiss me. Make me yours.”

  How easily those words came, those shameless words, as excitement stirred and simmered deep within her.

  Soon...

  And, as if he couldn’t bear to leave her in such a desperate state of unfulfilled desire, his hand moved casually, never quite touching her, floating, skimming above the outline of her nightdress. And all along her skin, she felt such a flood of heat, a melting warmth that rippled and teased her to the edge of rapture. He was seducing her with his mind, loving her with his thoughts, and she writhed and arched with the delight of it until all at once a sense of focus returned, a sense of reality. And she would find herself alone in her bedroom, panting, perspiring within the twist of her nightclothes, so sure, so sure that he’d been there, that he’d somehow provoked the illicit magic without ever once putting a hand upon her.

  But that, of course, was impossible.

  THE ANNOUNCEMENT that she had a visitor spurred a flurry of anxiousness within Arabella. For five nights, she’d carefully avoided the sight of Louis Radman when he’d come to see her father, and for five nights, she’d awakened from those explicit dreams craving him like a dangerous addiction. She went through the days in an edgy exhaustion, often curling up on the sofa in her father’s study to catch an hour of undisturbed rest. Her father was concerned about the state of her health. She was concerned about the state of her mind. This unnatural fixation was controlling her life and she didn’t know how to break from the enslaving pattern. She was afraid to confront the source, afraid that with one look
, Louis would read all within her confused gaze. But hiding from him built a suspenseful yearning almost as bad as the dreams.

  And now he’d come to see her. Fluttery with panic and flushed with anticipation, she swept into the parlor. Early evening lamplight outlined his form against the far window. She paused, breathless with excitement, and then he turned.

  “Miss Howland, I’ve come to offer my apology.”

  Arabella stared at Wesley with an unconcealed frown, aware of a plummeting disappointment. She didn’t want an apology from the man. She didn’t want anything at all from him.

  “And now you have,” she answered coolly. “So, if there’s nothing else...”

  “Arabella, don’t be cruel.” It was a pretty petition, she’d give him that, his expression suitably contrite, his tone tugged by just the right amount of regret. But she didn’t believe any of it and said so.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Pembrook. I cannot find it in me to forgive you.”

  “You don’t mean that!” But it wasn’t shock or disappointment that flared briefly behind his gaze. It was panic. And anger. A fierce irritation that she would complicate his ambitions by what he considered her unreasonableness. He reached out to grasp her forearms, but she wrested away.

  “I will thank you to restrain your demonstrations, sir. I do not like to be handled.”

  “Only by him, is that it?”

  “Him?”

  “By Radman.”

  Taken by surprise, Arabella felt a betraying flood of heat suffuse her cheeks, but she held to her aggravation. “The marquis does not maul me in public places against my will, nor does he expose me to the threat of scandal.”

  “What does he do?” Wesley snarled.

  “That is none of your concern, Mr. Pembrook!”

  “It is. What more must I do to convince you of my intentions?”

  “You’ve done more than enough already.”

  But he didn’t react to her level accusation. Instead, he drew himself up into the picture of wounded male pride and jilted affection to mourn, “Arabella, I have been clumsy in my court. That’s not because my suit is insincere. I’m a man of medicine, not a creature of poetic spirit. I am not good at games of romance.”

  “Then why don’t you try honesty?”

  He sighed and gave her an intense look. “I care for you, Arabella, and I want our futures to be one and the same. I will not lie to you and say it is passion that spurs this attraction. Much of it is purely practical. You are from a medical family. Your father is a man I admire. You would understand the stresses and sacrifices a physician must make. You are, in fact, the perfect wife for a man of science. You are the woman I need to fulfill my destiny.”

  That was honest. Perhaps if he’d spoken this way from the first, she might have considered such a union. She was a practical woman and valued honesty above all things. But that was before Wesley had forced himself upon her. That was before Louis Radman had bewitched her. There was no future for her with Wesley, and it would be cruel for her to let him believe there ever could be.

  And he didn’t take the news well.

  Wesley had all the earmarks of a truly great physician. He was ambitious, aggressive, self-assured, and independent, and he thought himself infallible. He absolutely could not believe it was some fault within himself that Arabella objected to. So he sought some other means to justify his failure to woo her into a sensible union of matrimony.

  “It’s Radman.”

  “This has nothing to do with Louis.”

  “Louis, is it?”

  Realizing she’d spoken unwisely, Arabella pressed her lips together. It was nonetheless too late to take back the intimate use of the marquis’s name.

  “Who is this man and what is he to you?”

  “That is—”

  “It is my concern. Something is not... right about that man. The other night, he mesmerized me. Do not laugh. I am not a man given to fancy. It’s true.”

  She wasn’t about to laugh. She knew it was true.

  “Arabella, it is dangerous to seek an alliance with such a man, a man whom neither you, nor anyone else seems to know anything about. I am speaking from my own fondness for you.”

  Of course, he was. That, and a good smattering of jealous pique.

  “Arabella, you have always been such a straight-thinking and pragmatic female.”

  Yes, she was. Everything about her was dull and staid and predictable, and she didn’t like Wesley very much for pointing out those attributes. She took no risks, she indulged in no imaginative flights, and she relied on logic for her every move. Except with Louis. Nothing about her feelings for him was logical, and perhaps that bit of romantic nonsense was the reason for her attraction. He made her feel... alive.

  “What has he done to earn such favor with you? Has he charmed you, too? Has he clouded your mind with his own?”

  That was much too close to the truth for Arabella to feel comfortable. A man like Wesley would never understand such a human weakness. “Don’t be absurd. I am not some weak-willed miss to fall prey to some charlatan’s tricks. What would he have to gain by wooing me?”

  Indeed. What would he have to gain?

  Her father’s assistance.

  That whispered with ugly insinuation through her heart and soul, and she blocked it with a fierce determination.

  “What does a man hope to gain if his intentions are impure?” Wesley argued.

  “He was not the one who was trying to unclothe me in the Ainsworthys’ foyer,” she countered. But much of her ire was driven by fear—a fear that Wesley was right, that Louis was using her, as he himself had tried to use her. Why else would a man of Louis Radman’s ilk show preference to a blue-stockinged daughter of a mere physician? And what if Louis had some strange power to influence the mind? What if he was planting those salacious dreams into her subconscious? Wasn’t that more reprehensible than a straightforward assault? She threw up a defense at Wesley, though in truth, the defense was for the state of her own heart.

  “Lord Radman is not my suitor. He has no interest in me at all. He is my father’s—” Then she caught herself, realizing in dismay how close she’d come to revealing Louis’s secret.

  “Your father’s what?” Wesley prodded, attention keen and whetted.

  “Benefactor,” she supplied. “He is financing some of Father’s research.”

  Wesley’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of research?”

  Too late to back out of that one. Wesley latched on like a tenacious bulldog. So she tried to look innocent, and that didn’t quite work, either. “I really don’t know. He didn’t confide the details.”

  “Arabella, you know everything that goes on in your father’s office. What are he and Radman doing?”

  And again, she could see that rampant ambition in his gaze, that greed for fame and self-interest. The idea of her father’s secret incensed him, too, but in his case, it was a fever to be included, to suck up his share of whatever reputation-making work Stuart Howland might be doing. And in his lust to excel, he completely forgot his reason for coming to the Howland home, to sway Arabella with his charm. He forgot everything, except the hope that he could be on the edge of sealing his success. His fervor was frightening to behold, making her more cautious than ever.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to ask my father or the marquis, for I truly do not know.”

  “I don’t believe you, Arabella.” He’d taken a threatening step toward her when a cool voice sounded from the doorway.

  “Ask me what?”

  THE SIGHT OF Louis Radman sent Wesley shrinking back with an unidentifiable fear. He’d felt the man’s strange power and had no desire to experience its control again. Purposefully, he avoiding making eye contact as he mumbled to Arabella, “Tell your father I will see him in the mornin
g. Good evening, Miss Howland.” And when he slipped by Louis, he boldly lifted his gaze as he sneered, “Radman.”

  The man just looked at him. That’s all he had to do to send a jolt through Wesley’s conscious mind like the receiving end of a pugilist’s punch to the head. He staggered slightly as pain lanced through his temples with an almost disabling strength.

  And Radman smiled, well aware of what he was doing.

  “Mr. Pembrook, again, a pleasure.”

  Then the crushing ache lifted and Wesley practically fled the room.

  THERE WAS A moment’s silence, then Louis’s attention shifted to Arabella. She felt the immediate warmth of his regard. Heat tingled along her nervous system. Was it her reaction to him, she wondered vaguely, or was it something he was doing to her? Whichever, she suddenly felt acutely aware of him; of his body heat, his breathing, his scent, as if the width of the room no longer separated them.

  “I trust I was not intruding,” came his soft-accented purr.

  “No. Your appearance was both timely and welcomed.”

  They simply stood for a long beat, absorbing the sight of one another. Irritation and suspicion fell from her mind as Arabella found herself lost in the deep mystery of his gaze. It was dark, she noticed with some surprise. His eyes seemed almost black in the unnatural light, as if the pupils had swelled and swallowed the irises whole.

  “I trust you are well, Miss Howland. You look a bit tired, as if you’ve not been sleeping.”

  “I’ve been having strange dreams,” she confided, before she realized what she was saying. The content of her dreams was the last thing she wanted to discuss with him, but she seemed powerless to evade his questions.

  “And they frighten you?”

  “They... disturb me.”

  “Do you wish them to stop?”

  “Yes—no. I... I... don’t know.” She blinked weakly, then with more concentration, and finally turned her head to the side. Once they no longer shared a gaze, she was able to think more clearly. What on earth were they doing discussing her dreams? She experienced a quiver of alarm, as if he’d planted the thoughts and was asking how she liked them. Too well... she liked them all too well. They were arousing, exciting, dangerous—but no, they didn’t frighten her. Nor did Louis frighten her. Even when she glanced up to find him standing at her elbow, unaware that he’d ever moved in from the hall.