Of Midnight Born

by Lisa Cach

  “I’ve been resting. I do not judge time well when I do that. How long has it been?” she asked. As he came around the desk she let herself go solid, anticipating his embrace.

  “Nearly three weeks. I didn’t know what to think,” he said, stopping in front of her.

  He looked too surprised to do anything but stare, so she closed the distance herself, wrapping her arms around his rigid body and laying her head against his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I did not know so much time had passed. It tires me to be real, and I must rest.” It was the truth, although not the whole of it. She did not want to tell him of the dying tree, and her tie to it. It would destroy the time she had left.

  “You should have told me,” he said, his arms finally coming up and holding her in a tentative hug. “I didn’t know what to think when I woke and all trace of you was gone. Your clothes, your shoes—even any stain of blood. For a moment I thought I had dreamed it all.”

  “I won’t go away so long again,” she said. “I lost track of time, is all.”

  “I should not have tired you so.”

  “Don’t say that,” she said, touching his lips with her fingertips. “It is the most wonderful tired I have ever felt. I would not give up a moment of it.” And it was true. She would have to ration what time she had left, ration what she could share with him through touch, but it was worth the cost.

  He smiled, but there was something uncertain in his eyes, and he released her and moved slightly away. Her own happiness at returning faltered as she realized he was holding back, and she went immaterial again, conserving strength. She stepped over to his desk. “Tell me what you have been working on while I was away,” she said, running her fingers over his papers. If he was talking, maybe she could subdue this painful tightness in her throat that said he did not seem entirely happy to see her.

  “You must have little interest in that.”

  “On the contrary,” she said, going around the desk to where she could look at his charts right-side up. “I want to know what occupies your mind, and I very much enjoyed our last conversation about astrology.” And she wanted to know what had happened to draw him away from her. Or had he never been as close as she had thought to begin with? Maybe he had been hoping she really would disappear after losing her virginity.

  “Astronomy.”

  “They are the same,” she said, not bothering to look up.

  “As you will,” he said.

  She heard the hint of humor in his voice, and a little of the tightness loosened. If she could amuse him, then at least he did not hate her. “Why the dish full of spent matches?” she asked. Matches were one of the more wonderful new things she had seen since Maiden Castle was rebuilt. She would like to strike and burn a hundred of them herself, but she doubted that the delight of such a novelty had been Alex’s motivation.

  “It was a thought I had while lighting a lamp in the dark,” Alex said. “Here, let me show you.” He picked up a new match, then blew out the oil lamp that had been burning on his desk. She saw him look at her and frown. “You can still see me, can’t you?”

  “As well as I suppose you can see me,” she said, remembering what he had said about how she seemed to glow. “Or perhaps better.”

  “Well, pretend all is dark, as dark as the night sky. You see stars burning at their appointed places, and perhaps you see a sliver of moon near the horizon, but all else is blackness. Nothing moves. You see nothing approaching, and then…” He scraped the match across a striking plate, and the head burst into flame. “There, did you see it?”

  “I see it,” she said. “I do not understand your point, but I do see the flame.”

  He snapped his hand, waving out the match, and dropped it in the dish with its siblings, then brought out a fresh one. “Not the flame,” he said. “It is the moments before.” He again struck the match against the plate, a trifle more slowly and weakly this time, causing the head to spark where it scraped along, but not to catch fire. “There, you see?” he asked excitedly.

  “I see no flame.”

  “But did you see the fraction of a second before there was no flame?”

  “The spark?” she asked.

  “The sparks.” He repeated the demonstration. “Do you see?”

  “It looks a little like a glowing streak.”

  “Yes! What if what we see as a streak of light across our sky is something similar to what we see when we strike a match across a rough surface? What if it is the heat of friction causing something to catch fire, and then burn its way across the heavens?”

  “But what is the match head, and what does it strike against?” Serena asked. “There is nothing up there.”

  “There are planets and stars and comets, and pieces of them sometimes fall to earth. In 1803 just such a stone was seen to fall from the sky, near a village in France. That is the match head.”

  “But then rocks should be falling upon us every time we see a star fall, and such is not the case.”

  “Perhaps they are too small. Perhaps they are no bigger than the head of this match, and burn themselves into nothing before they can reach the ground.”

  “And against what does it burn?”

  “The very air we breathe.”

  She chortled. “I think not.”

  “Have you never felt the wind blow upon you with such force that it was as if something solid pushed you? What is wind but air? It can wear away mountains, given enough time. It is possible, Serena. And look at this,” he said excitedly, lighting the lamp and coming around to her side of the desk. He pulled out a star chart with many lines upon it, all intersecting at almost the same point. “I did not see it for so long: my attention was all on numbers and durations and times. I was obsessed with calculations, when simply looking afresh at my own dashes across the chart could have told me so much more. I had these short lines that marked the path of a falling star, and then it struck me that if I extended them, back to whence they came…You can see yourself.”

  “They all come from the same place,” Serena said. “Every falling star?”

  “No, only those on the same night, or a series of nights one after the other. They all come from the same place in the heavens! Do you see?”

  “But what does it mean?”

  He ran his hands through his hair. “Ah, well, I don’t know about that. I have ideas, but I don’t know. I am trying to tie this theory of the striking match to the patterns of when there are showers of falling stars throughout the year. How I wish I had a thousand years’ worth of observance to sift through, to find the key. If there is one.”

  “You make me wish I had paid closer attention to the heavens,” she said. “I sought solace in them as something eternal, but cared little for keeping note of what they did.”

  “There are precious few who have, however long their existence,” he said, and gave her a grin. “We all of us look to the sky, but what we each want from it is as different as each man from the other.”

  She was silent a moment, her mind circling around a new understanding of his nature. “I think that you believe that if you could unravel this mystery, you would be unlocking a secret of the universe. I think you believe that if you could understand this, you could understand what your place is on this earth.”

  “This is about science, and discovery,” he said.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head slowly, “it’s not. And it’s not about losing yourself in the vastness of the heavens, either, like you told me before. It is quite the opposite.” She looked into his eyes as she spoke, and saw a puzzlement deep within the sapphire, a puzzlement that was laced with hurt, as of an ancient wound that he barely knew existed.

  After a moment he shook his head, breaking their gaze, and turned his attention back to the confusion of papers on his desk. “Whatever it is, ‘twill be a long while before I find my satisfaction. I will not be getting any closer to a solution in the next few weeks.”

  “Why is that?”

  He s
ighed, sitting down and leaning back in his chair. “I have received a letter, most elegantly penned, from dear sister Philippa. She and my sisters Amelia and Constance have elected to visit me, along with their families, and doubtless with a friend or two as well. For all I know, Sophie and Blandamour may join them. They should all be here tomorrow. I’ve let Rhys and Beth know, and invited them to stay as well, if they dare.”

  Her lips parted, the corners of her mouth turning the slightest bit down in disappointment.

  “Exactly,” he said. “We shall have little time to ourselves, and certainly I shall be unable to put to use whatever clear nights we may have.”

  “But why do you allow them to come?” she could not help asking.

  He grimaced. “To repair the damage I myself did. Apparently I did a fair job of convincing them I was dancing on the edge of lunacy, and they are descending en masse to ensure that such is not the case. As I won’t go to them, they have decided to come to me.”

  Serena pulled in her chin, indignant at the idea. “You do not need to be coddled like a baby. You are not mad.”

  He shrugged with one shoulder. “’Twill make them feel better.”

  “You are a most generous brother to sacrifice yourself in such a way.”

  “You are partly to blame for my allowing their visit, you know.”

  “Me? How?” she asked, appalled.

  “It is what you have told me of your own brothers, especially Thomas and William.”

  “I don’t know why any of that should make you wish to have your sisters here.”

  “Don’t you?” he asked, looking at her with a mirror of the same intensity she had used on him. She felt a tingle in her nose, and an ache in the muscles of her face that spoke of long-hidden tears. “You watched them both die,” he said. “You lost all your brothers.”

  “Let be!” she said, feeling the wetness in her eyes.

  He cocked his head slightly to the side, and she saw the understanding sympathy in his eyes. “My sisters yet live. However much they annoy me—and they do annoy me greatly—I still care for them. I sometimes forget that.”

  She wandered over to the telescope, not wanting him to see the jealousy on her face. Whether it was jealousy of the affection he showed for his sisters, or envy that he had living siblings, she was not sure. At this moment she was jealous even of his own living body. He would go on to a normal life, with family and love and laughter, whereas she never would.

  She closed her eyes, her own envy making her feel ill. With effort she smothered the sensation and turned to face him again, a false smile on her face. “Enough of this serious talk. Weren’t you going to tell me all about pirates?”

  “That depends,” he said, arching an eyebrow at her. “Are you going to keep your gown on all night?”

  She laughed through the remnants of her tears, even as she recognized that an offer of sex from him was not the same as an admission of affection. She knew, however, that she would rather have his body close and his heart far than go back and spend a lonely night in her garden. She had had thousands of lonely nights in her existence already. She needed no more.

  She walked toward the tower door, casting what she hoped was a seductive look over her shoulder. “Are you going to sit at your desk all night?”

  He was out of his chair and halfway across the room before she had time to react, startling all thoughts of envy and loneliness from her head. For the moment, there were much richer emotions to consider.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  It was clear enough what was going on. Woding’s brother-inlaw Harold Tubble, the stupid, red-faced squire, had brought his equally stupid niece Felicia as a marriage prospect.

  Serena stood in a shadowy alcove of the music room, watching the assembled guests as Felicia pounded her plump fingers upon the piano keyboard and trilled along with the song. The girl had a bosom it was hard for even a woman to take her eyes from, all pillowy masses of white flesh pushed up over the neckline of her off-the-shoulder evening gown, rippling and jiggling as she moved her arms.

  And worst of all, behind the wench on the piano bench, Woding stood adding his own rich baritone to the birdlike chirpings of the girl. There must be a fantastic view of that jellied cleavage from up there, Serena thought. She had not seen him cast even a single glance at her where she stood in the alcove, his attention all on his performance and the bouncing, pink-cheeked Felicia.

  The guests had arrived yesterday, spaced over hours, keeping Woding constantly busy. Every spare room was filled, even the servants’ quarters, and there seemed to be no place where quiet could be found. People were invading her garden, children running wildly along the paths, jumping off the bench, and falling into the flower beds. They were walking along the lower wall, they were talking in the kitchens, and their noises could be heard in every nook and cranny of every hall and room. Even Woding’s tower had been invaded, becoming a lookout for attacking armies or the crow’s nest of a ship to the minds of several nieces and nephews, a lantern-wielding troupe of whom had even explored the cellars, in search of the ghost they had all heard about.

  She could bear nearly all of it. She was strong. She knew how to endure. It was understandable that Woding needed to direct his attentions to his guests: they did not give him a chance to do otherwise. She also understood that he had been too worn out to do more than hold her as he fell asleep last night. In a way, his attention being given to others had been of help to her, as she had been able to conserve her energies and recover from the quick, playful lovemaking of two nights ago. It had not been as exhausting as that first time, but it had been draining nonetheless.

  She could bear nearly all of it, except for Felicia. It was eating her away inside to have that bouncing breeding machine present when there was yet an uncertainty in Woding’s feelings for her. The looks exchanged among Woding’s sisters and brothers-in-law, the flirtatious sparkle in Felicia’s gray-green eyes, the subtle manipulation of seatings and activities to push the two of them together, it was all as corrosive as acid on her heart.

  Woding was laughing now with the trollop as the others applauded their duet, and with her plump little hand on his he raised Felicia from the bench so she could curtsy as he bowed. She was a short creature, all hips and bosom, with a squeezed little waist in between. Her thick brown hair reminded Serena of Beth’s, but she had none of the intelligence in her eyes that Beth had.

  No, Felicia’s eyes glittered with imbecilic humor, and a hunger for Woding. Serena’s Woding. And Woding let them glitter at him to the girl’s heart’s content. Was he thinking what that plum pudding of a girl would be like in his bed? Was he thinking of the children he could beget from her fertile loins? Maybe he was thinking of how he could mend the tattered ties with his sisters, by acceding to their obvious wish that he marry a living girl and settle down into family life.

  Felicia was a sponge-headed lackwit who would never care about his falling stars or challenge his ways of thinking. Didn’t he see that?

  The chairs were pushed back to the walls, and Philippa took the place of Felicia at the piano. She ran through a quick series of scales, then started in on a rousing melody, revealing a musical talent that Serena would never have guessed resided in such a stern woman. Soon the lot of them were prancing about the floor, arms catching and swinging, skirts swaying, smiles all around.

  Woding protested at first, but soon he, too, was among them, being passed around the women like a new baby to be cooed over by all, and of course most especially by Felicia.

  Serena left the room, revolted and sick, angry and helpless all at once. Woding seemed not to mark her leaving.

  In the main entry hall, several of the children, their ages ranging from four to fourteen, were huddled at the foot of the stairs. The blond-haired daughter of Philippa, Louisa, had their attention as she told a story in low, breathy tones, her eyes wide, her hands telling the tale alongside her words.

  “And on her wedding night she vowed her husband wo
uld never touch her!” Louisa said to the pale little faces all around her.

  Serena knew what story the girl told, the same way a young Rhys had told a tale to Woding, the same way countless other children had told each other tales over the years, to frighten one another in the ruins of Maiden Castle. She felt an urge to make herself visible to them, preferably with a dagger dripping blood in one hand, le Gayne’s severed head in the other. That would give them something to whisper about under the covers at night.

  She resisted the urge, never having enjoyed the hysterical shrieking of frightened children. She was not a monster. Instead she climbed past them up the stairs and went down the hall to Woding’s bedroom.

  Otto was lying in the middle of the bed, Beezely—unbelievably—curled up nearby. Serena crawled onto the mattress and lay down beside them, resting her cheek on her folded arms, watching the animals sleep. She would wait here for Woding to tire of that dancing pudding and come to her, where he belonged.

  Alex finally escaped from those few relatives still awake, and from Felicia, who seemed to have made it her mission of the day to take any and every excuse to bump into him, touch his arm, sit beside him, and give him views of her prodigious bosom, all the while gazing up at him with invitation in her eyes. She was a foot shorter than he was, and he felt in constant danger of stumbling over her, the way one stumbles over a spaniel that in its adoration stays too close to one’s feet.

  She was a sweet girl, but quickly becoming a bit of a pest. He knew why she was here, and knew equally well that there was no chance in hell that he would find her acceptable wife material, even if there had not been someone else.

  Serena. He had seen her watching from alcoves and doorways, from corners and shadows, silent and still. He wondered what she was making of all this, and whether she wished to chase them all from his house.

  When Philippa had started playing music for dancing, he had rather wished Serena would appear, and send them all running. He had always loathed dancing.