Of Midnight Born

by Lisa Cach

Beth laughed. “No, how very true.” And how ironic to have Sophie lecturing Alex on the nature of reality.

  “I do not understand why it matters in which order the letters go,” Serena complained.

  “This is the way it is done. Everyone knows them in this order.”

  “That does not mean I have to,” she said.

  He sighed in mild exasperation, a sound that encouraged rather than chastised her. “It’s the alphabet, Serena. It goes in alphabetical order. Later on, when you learn to use the dictionary, you will need to know the letters in this order.”

  “What is a dictionary?”

  “A book for finding the meanings of words you do not know.”

  “How would I know which word to look for, if I did not know it?”

  “Are you being deliberately difficult?”

  She blinked innocently at him.

  “You are a wicked woman. Your brothers must have had a terrible time with you.”

  “I gave as good as I got, is all I will say,” she pronounced primly, and turned her eyes back to the sheets of paper on Woding’s desk in his tower study. “Show me which ones make my name. I will learn those first, and they will be my landmarks. I cannot make sense of all of these at once.”

  He bent down next to her and wrote out her Christian name beneath the rows of letters. “That is how I imagine Serena is spelled,” he said. “I do not know for certain.”

  “And Clerenbold?”

  “Learn this first, and then we will tackle Clerenbold. It uses some of the same letters.” He spelled out loud the letters of her name for her, and had her repeat them until she could do it by heart. He gave the letters their sounds, showing her how they went together to form the one word: Serena.

  “These ‘e’s, they do not sound the same,” she protested.

  “No. The same letter can have different sounds, depending upon the word.”

  “I do not like that.”

  “Neither do schoolchildren.”

  She made a noise to show what she thought of that comment. She stared at her name on the paper, then formed the sounds, her lips moving as she went through the letters. “It’s quite a lovely name, isn’t it?” she said.

  “If you do say so yourself.”

  She leaned away from the desk, and pointed at the paper. “Write yours there, beneath mine.”

  He bent forward again and picked up his pen, then stopped. “Which would you prefer, my Christian or my surname?”

  “Christian.”

  He bent to his task, and muttered to her under his breath, “I do not see why, when you insist upon calling me by the other, without even the courtesy of a ‘Mr.’”

  “Nor have I heard you call me ‘Lady Serena,’ Woding.”

  “Your pardon, madame.”

  “Mademoiselle, if you please.”

  “Do you speak French, then?”

  “Doesn’t everyone know a little of it? Thomas loved to practice swearing in that language. He imagined using it to curse the French in their own language while he ran them through with his sword.”

  “Mm. I am not sure I regret not having had the chance to meet him,” he said, beginning to write out his name.

  “He would not have liked you, at least not at first,” she said.

  “Why is that?” he asked, looking up from his careful penmanship.

  She gestured to the room at large, the telescope, the orrery. “He would not have understood all this. He did not like what he did not understand.”

  “He is not alone in that.”

  “No. ’Tis a great fault of human nature.”

  He stared at her, then said, “You surprise me. Up until yesterday I would have thought you were of the same opinion as Thomas.”

  “I have no fondness for ignorance. It weakens one. Thomas and my brothers understood that concept in relation to warfare, but to nothing else. I, however, felt that I learned that lesson a hundred times over. It was my ignorance on a dozen scores that was partly to blame for what happened to me.”

  “That cannot be an easy admission to make.”

  “Rest assured, I blame le Gayne for most of it,” she said, and bared her teeth in a false smile.

  She did blame le Gayne, but since Woding had first started conversing with her, she had felt flickers of her own guilt flaring up whenever she thought about what had happened, what she had done. Ignorance had not been enough to bring her and Thomas to their end. Le Gayne had not been enough. Something had had to bring the two together, and a very dark part of her, hidden away beneath the rest, was beginning to say that she herself had been the key to the disaster that had followed.

  That could be why le Gayne’s shadow had appeared. It could be a reason for it to come back. Madame Zousa’s medallion seemed to be working so far, though, keeping her safe. She had seen flickers of darkness suggestive of that evil spirit, but so far had been in no danger that she knew of.

  “Spell your name for me,” she said, and listened while he did so, trying to distract herself from her own dark thoughts. As Woding explained the letters of his name and pointed them out in the alphabet, the vast collection of squiggles began to take on a sort of sense. She still could not recall most of the letters, but they were now looking less like spilled worms and more like something with meaning.

  She saw him glance out the window, and followed his gaze. It was full dark.

  “We’ll stop here,” he said, “and resume tomorrow.”

  She didn’t want to stop, not now when her brain was beginning to put the first hint of order to it all. “Can we not continue up there?” she asked.

  “I cannot have the lamp uncovered.”

  “Woding,” she said, shaking her head. “Do you think I will have trouble seeing without a lamp?”

  He flushed, caught out in his foolish error of thought.

  “You’re right, of course. I warn you, though, I shall be looking at the skies. You will have to spend your time reciting the letters of the alphabet.”

  “S, E, R—”

  “In their proper order.”

  “Were you always like this, Woding, or did you only become so exciting in your old age?”

  “Sarcasm does not become you.”

  “I was not being sarcastic. Spirits do not stoop to such modes of expression.”

  He grunted and held his arm out, directing her to precede him to the steep steps to the roof. She obeyed, rising from her chair, and once at the steps lifted her skirts to climb them. He started to follow, but she pointed back at his desk. “You’ll have to carry the paper for me.”

  He did as she bade, but said, “I thought you could carry some things. I thought you carried that medallion that Madame Zousa gave you.”

  “I did, but it is much easier for you than for me. I find it…quite fatiguing.” She did not want to tell him of her connection to the cherry tree: whatever trust she had in him, it was not yet that strong. To tell someone of the tree was to give him the power to end her existence.

  She stopped when she was far enough up the steps that the trapdoor would have pressed against her head. It would be indelicate to continue, showing a headless body to him as she went through the closed door.

  He came up beside her, the two of them standing close on the steps, and raised his arms to push open the trap. His nearness made her dizzy with the possibility of his touch, and with his arms raised she was tempted to wrap her own around his chest and press her face into his neck.

  The trapdoor fell open with a loud thud, and the moment passed. She climbed out onto the roof, her lips curving in a smile as the world spread out beneath her and the night breeze blew through her body. Perhaps she could understand a little of what drew Woding to this tower.

  She looked up into the deep eternity of the heavens, and in a flashing leap of thought, understood some of what Woding had tried to explain to her about what he felt when gazing at them. “It’s an oblivion within awareness that you find here, isn’t it?” she asked, hearing him come up behind h
er.

  “What was that?”

  She tilted her head back, the world falling away around her, her eyes seeing nothing but sky, and felt her soul lift up into the infinite midnight blue of the heavens. “It is like walking in the pitch-black across an open field, your eyes wide, your senses awake to every sound. You know there are things out there, yet you feel you are the only creature on earth, the only solid object in the night. It is as if the world has disappeared.” She brought her gaze back down and turned to look at him. “That is what you feel when you look into the night sky. Am I right?”

  His gaze on her was thoughtful. “It is a better description than I have ever come up with,” he admitted quietly. “You have a gift for putting intangibles into words, when you choose to use it.”

  “Thomas said I liked the sound of my own voice,” she said.

  “I have difficulty imagining you as a chatterbox.”

  She laughed. “No, never that. ’Twas more a matter of beating down my brothers with words until I got my way. Big as I am, I still could not best them in brute strength.”

  “I’m sure you had your ways. I grew up with a household of sisters, and I’ve seen the trickery of which they’re capable.”

  “Subtlety was always my last resort,” she said.

  “So that’s what it’s called.”

  She smiled. “You have stars to watch.”

  “And you have letters to learn.”

  “That’s right, easy there,” Sommer said, his hands hovering above Nancy’s as she pulled the team of horses to a halt outside the stables. His right side was pressed up against her, and it was all he could do not to grab hold of her and push her down upon her back upon the short coachman’s bench, and smother her in the kisses of his pent-up desire.

  “You have a gentle hand with the horses; there is no question there,” he said, and was rewarded by her warm gaze. He thought she had grown fond of him, especially since he had started training her to drive the teams of horses. She had claimed to know how already, but there was no way on God’s green earth that he would let her lay hands to the reins except under his tutelage. Well, except for in the tunnel. Admittedly, she did a decent job there, but that was a limited circumstance. It was nothing like an open roadway.

  Ah, she was something special, his Nancy. Yes, he had resented her at first, but her quiet, solid ways reminded him too much of a sweet-tempered horse to let that resentment last. She was like the earth itself, patient and calm, all-accepting. She was not the giggling, high-pitched female he had feared would wreck the peace of the stables.

  It had been no trouble to receive the permission from Mr. Woding to teach her to handle the teams and the carriages. This nighttime excursion had been his own idea: night driving was a necessary skill, but the romantic part of him he had not known existed had been what urged him to it.

  He and Nancy, under the stars, high upon a coachman’s seat, his hands over hers on the reins…He had held hopes that a kiss might follow, or at least a touch of the cheeks. It had not happened, but he had confidence it would, in time.

  “Nancy, may I have a word with you?” Underhill asked, coming out of the part of the stables where they had their rooms.

  Sommer cursed under his breath. Damn Underhill. He was the only fly in the horse ointment of his plans. The manservant had been sniffing around Nancy’s skirts, making eyes at her when he thought no one was looking, and generally making a damned nuisance of himself.

  It was a hellish thing for the three of them to sit in the small common room of the stables, in front of the fire late at night, as they sometimes did. Underhill tried to charm Nancy; Sommer could see that plainly enough. He told jokes and anecdotes, trying to coax a smile from her. And Nancy, sweet Nancy, she smiled at his antics even though Sommer knew in his heart that she did it only to humor Underhill and preserve his feelings.

  A jewel such as she would not be taken in by one such as Underhill. No, she needed someone who understood horses the way he did, and who could understand the workings of a horse-lover’s mind.

  “One moment,” Nancy said to Underhill, and then turned her soft brown eyes to him. “May I?” she asked simply, her expression revealing nothing of eagerness, only the desire to do as someone had asked. Underhill was technically in charge of all the staff, answering only to Mr. Woding. She need not have even asked his permission to obey Underhill’s request.

  “Aye, but be quick about it. I won’t be rubbing down these horses all by myself.”

  She nodded her assent.

  Ah, beautiful lass. Brushing the horses was one of his favorite ways to spend time with her. The smell of horse sweat, the close, steamy heat, the sight of her body at work upon the massive frames of the animals…

  He sometimes imagined his own sex growing as large as those on the horses, and her waiting for him on hands and knees, her rear legs spread slightly apart. She would squeal as he mounted her, his teeth bared, nipping at her neck.

  He watched from the seat as she went with Underhill into the living quarters. What could the man wish to speak with her about that could not wait? Likely he thought his own whims more important than the needs of the horses. Selfish bastard.

  Minutes went by, the horses growing restless in their traces. He wanted Nancy to help him remove them. He could have done it himself, but it was a good excuse to have her by his side. He liked to correct her, or show her better ways to do things. He knew she appreciated his expertise. She might even make a fine coachman someday.

  He shifted on his seat. What were they doing in there? And what did Underhill need from her, anyway?

  Dark suspicions began to fill his mind. Was Underhill cooing in her ear, while he sat out here like a fool? Was he making advances toward her? Unwanted advances? Perhaps he had her up against a wall even now, his hands on her while she protested in that deep, gentle voice. It would likely spur the whoreson on.

  He secured the reins and leaped down from the coach seat. He stalked over to the building, jealousy flaring through his blood, anger at Underhill’s affront cloaking his vision. The horny son of a…

  The room was orange to his dark-adjusted eyes, the lamplight bright after the night outdoors. It was sound that told him where to look.

  “I couldn’t wait for you to return,” Underhill was saying. “God, Nancy, you feel so good.” He had her pinned beneath him on the wooden settee, only her legs and skirts visible as they fell half off the hard piece of furniture. Underhill had his hand halfway up her thigh.

  Sommer launched himself at that writhing back with a roar of rage, and pulled the gangly man off his Nancy. He barely knew what he did, barely felt the thud of his own fists against the bony frame, and did not hear Nancy’s shouts and cries. It was only when Underhill was unconscious beneath him, his face bloodied, that he became aware that Nancy was clinging to him, trying to stop the assault.

  “You’re killing him! Stop!” she cried, her lovely voice scratchy with tears.

  He stumbled back, away from the crumpled form of Underhill, and Nancy released him, dropping down beside the fallen man, cradling his head in her lap. Her fingers gently touched his damaged face, his blood marring her white smock.

  “What have you done?” she asked, looking up at him, tears streaking down her face. “Why? He did nothing to you.”

  The sickening truth came home to him as he watched her coddle Underhill. She had not been a victim, but a willing participant. The thought made him ill, made him want to kick Underhill again, or slice his throat and finish the job.

  But Nancy was there, looking at him with wounded eyes. She had a reason to hate him now, whereas before there had been only respect, and perhaps a chance of turning her affections away from the unworthy.

  Ah, God. What had he done?

  He turned and walked from the room, his arms hanging loose at his sides, his eyes seeing nothing until he found himself in front of the stables and the carriage with the still-hitched horses.

  He couldn’t stay here,
couldn’t look again at Nancy’s face. He climbed into the coachman’s seat and felt a cry of despair trembling up from inside. He bit down on it, picked up the reins, and released the brake.

  “I am not certain he is quite normal, with his kisses,” Sophie said.

  “Ah? How so?” Beth asked. They were in the blue drawing room, their chairs pulled close to the fire, a tray of biscuits and cakes on the table between them. It was far too late in the evening for tea goodies, but there was something temptingly delicious about eating such fare while talking with a good friend into the wee hours.

  “He is such a mild-mannered man in all other respects, I had rather expected him to be mild-mannered in his affections, as well. Such has not proven to be the case. Why, before he left here he had me all but pinned against the books in the library, and…and…”

  Beth raised an eyebrow. “And?”

  “And—this is quite embarrassing—he put his tongue in my mouth.” Sophie widened her eyes in remembered shock.

  “Did he, then?”

  “And…and…he moved it. In and out.”

  Her friend’s eyes looked very much like those of a frightened rabbit. Beth smiled. She was glad to hear that Blandamour had some male animal instincts under all that genteel infatuation. He might stand a chance against Sophie, after all.

  Voices and a clattering of footsteps drew both their eyes to the half-open door that led to the entry hall. A moment later the stablelass, Nancy, appeared in the doorway.

  “Excuse me, madame, miss,” Nancy said, “I am looking for Mr. Woding.”

  Beth rose from her chair, sensing the tension in the normally placid girl. “I believe he is in his tower. What is it? What has happened?”

  “There’s been a fight between Mr. Sommer and Mr. Underhill.”

  “Oh, dear me. Are either of them hurt?”

  “I am afraid that Mr. Underhill may be badly so,” Nancy said, and Beth was surprised to see the sheen of tears in the girl’s red eyes. “My aunt, Mrs. Hutchins, has gone to tend to him. Please, could you take me to Mr. Woding?”

  “Yes, certainly,” Beth said, hurrying over to the girl, and taking her hand and giving it a brief squeeze. She looked in need of more comfort than that, but first things first.