Midnight Kiss

by Nancy Gideon

  “What are you doing here, Bella?” he asked at last.

  “I brought you home. Remember?”

  “Vaguely, just vaguely.”

  “And—and I could not leave until I knew all was well with you. I was waiting for your servant to ask him how you were. I must have fallen asleep in your parlor. I fear our carriage driver will demand a fortune in payment.” Then her expression deepened. “I was so worried.”

  There was no coquettish flicker of lashes, no modest blush. She gazed up at him with an unashamed intensity. With a self-sacrificing love.

  He touched her face with the rub of both thumbs, sketching over the exquisite lines in a leisurely glide. “That was not a wise thing to do,” he told her, lowering as he did, so that their breaths mingled and their lips parted with anticipation.

  “It didn’t matter,” she replied with heartshaking candor. “I was not afraid of you, only for you.”

  His smile was faint, his voice bittersweet. “Bella, you are far too brave for your own good.” Then his expression and his tone altered, both growing quiet and somewhat awed. “And so beautiful.”

  She was about to smile and chastise him for his flattery, for she knew it was not true. She’d slept on his sofa. Her hair was a tangle, her eyes puffy from lack of rest and worry. Her gown was crumpled and stained with grim doings in her father’s lab. But she couldn’t speak or chide him. Because the soft glow in his gaze confirmed his words and the soft pressure of his mouth atop hers sealed them as truth.

  Beneath that warm, attentive kiss, it was so easy to dismiss the fact that she was lying under him on the floor of his hall. When his fingers combed through her loosened hair with a gentle tug and a luxurious kneading massage, it was simple to forget her panic of the night before. The things she’d seen, the horrors she’d considered, seemed far removed, indeed. A nightmare compared to this sweet heaven. When she took his warm, lean face between her palms and felt his kiss deepen in response, it seemed the most unlikely madness that she could have thought of him as something unnatural, as something unwholesome. Sheer emotional folly conceived of fright and unusual stresses. That was all. Not real, not like this. Not like the feel of him above her in the clean spill of daylight. Not like the pure and not-so-pure feelings that surged with his most meager touch. His struggles had been a violent physical reaction to an untested experiment, not a transformation into an unholy monster. And to drive away the guilt for having entertained such insanity as possibility, she spoke out with complete honesty by saying the one thing she was totally sure of.

  “I love you, Louis.”

  Instead of looking pleased or even offended by her forward speech, Louis was guarded and all too somber. “You do not know me, Arabella.”

  “I know enough,” she argued.

  And he smiled at her tenacity. “Not near enough. But you will. We shall discover it together, for I have forgotten much of what I was.”

  She didn’t question his odd statement because he was kissing her again, and when he was kissing her, no rational process could overcome the pleasure. And it was a pleasure, pure and simple, having his weight distributed along her body, having his mouth mold hers into the shape of passion. She’d waited too long to experience this paradise to be shaken from it by doubts or false propriety. This was the man she wanted. The man she’d yearned for all her life within the forum of her maiden’s dreams, and if he were not so weak, if they were somewhere other than the hall floor, she’d have stripped off her gown and her governing principles without hesitation to enjoy him to the fullest and most desirable degree.

  Then Louis levered up and his smile was wrought with amusement. “We are lying on the floor. Does that not strike you as a trifle odd?”

  “No more so than any of the occurrences of the last few nights.”

  He eased off her and she felt the absence keenly.

  “Come. We must seek out your father. I have many questions for him, and I am sure he has them for me. What is the time?”

  As they both sat up on the hall runner, Arabella checked her watch. “Eleven.”

  “Eleven in the morning,” he mused with a wistfulness lost to her. He took a deep, sighing breath and closed his eyes as he expelled it with savoring leisure.

  “Louis? How do you feel?”

  His eyes slit open and he smiled at her. “Awful. Wonderful.” Then he extended his hands. “Help me up. I must change into something—presentable.” Glancing down, he was chagrined by the state of his clothing, for much of the blood dried to brownish blotches was not his own. “Your father will be frantic.”

  Her father! Yes, she must get home. But still, she knew his condition not to be life threatening, and being here with Louis...

  Arabella assisted him up, and as they stood, toe-totoe and nearly eye-to-eye, she was struck by the difference in him. It was more than the way the daylight warmed his features, softening the taut edges given by evening shadow. There was a vulnerability she found most endearing. The incredible aura of power and invincibility was curiously absent, and for the first time, she felt he was approachable. Softer, somehow. An obtainable goal.

  And as he lifted one of her hands to his lips for a courtly kiss, her heart was gone.

  “I shall be right back.”

  “Do you... need any help?”

  The thought of Arabella’s assistance within his dressing room was a tempting one, but alas, for the moment, unwise as well. The need to see the father was greater than the need to bed the daughter. For the time being.

  “I can manage, little one.”

  He did manage, barely. By the time Louis reached the top of the stairs, his legs were shaking strengthlessly and his lungs burned for lack of air. He was tired. An odd sensation, one scarcely remembered. There’d been a certain weakness when he hadn’t fed, but not this dragging exhaustion of body and sluggishness of mind. Mortal weariness. And he smiled into the labored gasps. He would have to get used to these limitations. He would enjoy getting used to them.

  As he turned into his rooms, he was warned by the faint shush of steel. Instinctively, his forearm flew up to deflect the arm wielding the dangerous blade. When the sword swung back to ready another cutting arc, Louis tried to call out, but was met with the frustrating block within his own mind. He tried again, aloud.

  “Takeo!”

  The boy relaxed his defensive stance. In fact, he looked ready to swoon from surprise. He stumbled backward, eyes huge and disbelieving, his mouth working soundlessly.

  “It’s all right. It’s me.”

  The boy gestured toward the sunlight leaking between the closed draperies, his expression filled with unvoiced confusion.

  “Yes, daylight. Isn’t it beautiful? I look forward to seeing it each day of my mortal life.”

  The boy was still uncertain. His brow furrowed and he seemed to be concentrating. Then he touched fingertips to his brow and shook his head in frustration.

  “I’m sorry, my friend. We can no longer talk as we used to. That I will regret. Come. Help me change out of these defiled garments.”

  Takeo approached him cautiously. Finally, Louis extended his hand and the boy reached out to touch it, as wary as a wild dog with a potential threat. Louis’s fingers closed warm and reassuring over the slender ones.

  “It is me. Reborn. Takeo, I am alive again.”

  The boy’s smile broke small and tremulous, then stretched wide as he moved to swiftly embrace his mortal friend. Then, just as quickly, he moved away and went to draw out proper attire, wiping at his eyes as he did so.

  Slowly, feeling the aches and strains of his body as if it was as new to him as the sunrise, Louis stripped off the offending clothing and cleansed away the traces of what he had been. And when he glanced up from his washbasin, he was greeted with another startling sight. His hand rose unsteadily to touch his face,
a face he’d not seen reflected back in centuries. Yet there, in the small shaving mirror, was the man he’d once been, staring back, unchanged by time’s passage. He stood for a long while, hand to his cheek, simply lost in the study of that near and familiar stranger.

  Then Takeo nudged him, offering up a fresh shirt, and he was pulled away from his fascination. Yet as he dressed, he cast continual glances into that revealing glass, each time surprised and delighted to find his image returned.

  WESLEY PEMBROOK tugged impatiently on the locked drawer of Stuart Howland’s desk. He scanned the cluttered surface in search of a lever to use in prying it open. But maybe that wouldn’t be such a good idea. Too obvious. He was in the Howland home by request. He’d cleaned up the dreadful mess left by whatever Stuart was dabbling in, including the disposal of a bloodless corpse. He’d run twenty-eight stitches through his mentor’s shoulder in an attempt to close the horrendous wound. Now the doctor was abed, drifting on the opiate he’d been given, mumbling deliriously about the undead and his daughter’s safety. And Wesley was tormented by curiosity and elation. For he was on the inside now, and in a position to demand all. With the duties he’d performed this morning, Howland could refuse him nothing. The good doctor’s indiscretion had secured the future Wesley so avidly sought.

  The sound of the front door opening distracted him from thoughts of petty burglary. He heard the housekeeper’s silly prattle and Arabella’s smoother tones. And then an accented drawl most unmistakable. Radman.

  The trio confronted him warily. Then he was displeased to note how Arabella tucked familiarly up against the marquis, making no attempt to discourage the possessive placement of Radman’s hands upon her shoulders.

  “Wesley, how is my father?”

  “Mended, and resting quietly. He suffered a great deal of trauma from the attack of whatever it was—madman or beast.”

  “I must go up to him right away.”

  “I am surprised that you would leave him at all, considering his condition.” Wesley slid an accusing look to Radman and waited to hear her excuse.

  Arabella was unshaken. Her chin went up in defiance of his claim of her negligence. Her tone was cold. “Father was insistent that I find his lordship. I knew his wounds were not life-endangering and you had already been sent for.”

  “And him.” Wesley jerked his head toward Radman. “What has he to do with this?”

  “Why, nothing. He was not here.”

  “Then why was his the name your father has been crying out in his fever?”

  Louis’s hands rubbed reassuringly along Arabella’s upper arms. His reply was cool and crisply logical. “I am financing the project Howland was working on. Of course, mine would be the name he called. It’s work that’s very dear to both of us.”

  “Being—?”

  “None of your concern,” the marquis concluded.

  Wesley gaped at him, then assumed a haughty posture. “None of my concern? I beg to differ. I have spent the sum of this morning removing evidence of some very odd goings-on. I have disposed of a cadaver. I have sponged up signs of bizarre experimentation—involving two parties. I have sewn up a tear in the doctor’s muscle tissue that nothing human could have made—and you tell me it is none of my concern.”

  “You will be rewarded for your efforts.”

  “’Tis not reward I seek!”

  Louis fixed him with a narrow stare. At first, Wesley recoiled from it; then he realized there was no intimidation to his mind, just an arrogant aristocrat’s ire. Whatever powers Radman had, he wasn’t applying. Or couldn’t apply. Wesley squared up in challenge.

  “I want to be recognized for my involvement in Doctor Howland’s work.”

  “Oh, I can arrange for you to get what you deserve.”

  That seeping threat brought florid color to Wesley’s face and Arabella’s timely intervention. Her hand touched the back of Louis’s, and her quiet words served to settle him.

  “My lord, Mr. Pembrook has earned our gratitude this day. Who can say what might have happened had he not seen fit to respond to our urgent plea? When Father is stronger, I’m certain he will want to thank Wesley in a manner more fitting with his generosity.”

  Wesley simmered smugly at that praise and oozed, “A kind word from you would go far, Miss Arabella.”

  “Then, of course, you shall have it.”

  Radman might have snorted at that exchange, but Wesley couldn’t be sure.

  The marquis looked annoyed and impatient. “Where is your father, Bella? I must see him at once.”

  Rankled by the man’s familiar use of her name, Wesley snapped with authority, “As I’ve said, he’s resting. He must not be disturbed.”

  “He will be more disturbed if he doesn’t see me. And his daughter. I believe you know the way out, Pembrook.”

  Wesley fumed at the casual dismissal and sought out Arabella with his protesting gaze. She only smiled at him in a weary plea for understanding.

  “Thank you, Wesley. But please, you must go to the hospital and quiet any undue questions. Only say my father was attacked by some deranged person seeking narcotics. It wouldn’t do for suspicions to be aroused.”

  “No. No, of course not.” That would not do at all. At least, until he knew everything. Wesley came to boldly bow over Arabella’s hand, ignoring Radman’s fierce glower. In the daylight, the marquis’s manner was not nearly so fearsome. It was easy to slide a glance down his nose at him from his superior height and give him a direct cut. “If you have need of me, Miss Arabella, don’t hesitate to call.”

  She smiled warmly, even fondly. “I shall, Wesley.”

  WHEN HE WAS gone, Louis was nearly growling his displeasure. “The greedy leech. How could you stoop to placate him?”

  “A leech he might be, but he also has the makings of a dangerous enemy. You’d do well to avoid provoking him, considering all he knows and could yet guess.”

  “What could he do?”

  “He could ruin my father’s reputation in the medical community, for one. The rest I will leave to your imaginings, my lord.”

  He pursed his lips and bowed to her superior wisdom.

  Bessie, who had been standing off to the side up to this point, stepped in quickly when Arabella put a hand on Louis’s arm to lead him toward the stairs. “Here now, Miss, you cannot be taking a gentleman upstairs,” she scolded, in a sober undervoice. All the while, she was studying the marquis with a suspicious frown.

  “Father will want to see him.”

  “Your father has been put through quite enough, thanks to him and his funny doings. Please, Miss, have a care for the doctor’s health.”

  “Mrs. Kampford, believe me, Father will be much relieved after our visit.” As she spoke, she stripped off her pelisse.

  “Not if you mean to go in lookin’ like that.”

  Arabella raised her hand self-consciously to the untidy spill of her hair, then followed the housekeeper’s disapproving gaze. Her gown was stained and wrinkled, obviously slept in. She didn’t want to imagine how she appeared. And still Louis was looking at her as if she was the loveliest creature alive.

  “I will take his lordship up, and if you would be so kind as to prepare my room, I’ll refresh myself while they chat.”

  Partially satisfied that she could separate her young mistress from the saturnine lord, if not the lord from their home, Bessie bobbed into a quick curtsy and hustled up the stairs in front of them.

  “Forgive Bessie, my lord. She tends to be overly protective.”

  “She has every right to be. You shouldn’t disregard the counsel of those who care about you.”

  “And what do you say, my lord? Are you, then, a danger to me?”

  He quirked a faint smile. “Would I be wise to tell you if I were?”

  She searched his
impassive face. “I think so.”

  His fingertips ran a light trace along her jaw. He didn’t answer.

  “Well? Are you?” she prompted, with a maddeningly sure composure.

  “No, Bella. I would never harm you.” And the emotions rumbling through him were so deep they awed him.

  For hundreds of years, he’d thought only of himself, of ensuring his safety and his survival. It was foolish to care and mad to trust. And so solitude became a constant companion and thoughts of warmer ties faded with the advance of calendar years. In such a furtive existence, it was impossible to allow anyone near enough to make an impression upon the heart, let alone the soul. He’d numbed himself to feelings of guilt or human morality long ago. Or tried to. It took a tremendous degree of will to go on through the decades, trapped in his half-life, watching the world change again and again while he remained untouched. Immortality bred incredible arrogance. And boredom with humanity, with existence itself.

  What hadn’t he seen in three hundred years? He’d been through plagues and wars aplenty. He’d observed the forward thrust of civilization, though he couldn’t claim that mankind itself had moved an inch. He’d lived more than a half dozen lifetimes. He’d learned, he’d traveled, he’d studied under poets and prophets and philosophers. And yet, the basic thread of his being remained unchanged because he was unchanged. He was alone and so lonely for the touch of newness that Arabella Howland had taken him like a late summer storm, drenching him with wondrous sensations and shaking him with a tempest of anticipation.

  If Stuart Howland had restored his humanity, Arabella had awakened his long-slumbering spirit.

  And he would cherish her for the rest of his eternities for that simple gift. But he would rather love her for a single lifetime.