The Prince of Midnight (39 page)

"Don't," she said. "You've had what you want from me tonight."

"That isn't all I want."

"Oh, indeed," she said bitterly. "How could I think it enough? Just my whole
self, every inch of my body and soul, that's what you want." She opened her eyes
and stared into his. "It is not me who demands a lover on their knees."

He lowered his gaze, his face sober, troubled. "You said it was you and me,
together—and I ... it felt so good. I want it that way." He looked up at her
from beneath his lashes and said in a low voice, "I think I know what love is,
Leigh."

"Go away!" She hugged the pillow to her. "Go away, go away, go away."

"'Twas you who came to me," he said softly.

"I ... hate . . . you."

He bent, resting his forehead on her shoulder. "You cannot," he whispered.
"You can't hate me."

For an instant she sat with her lip trembling, her whole body cold except
where he touched her. "How many love affairs do you have to your credit,
Monseigneur? Fifteen? Twenty? A hundred?"

He did not look up. " 'Tis no matter."

"How many?"

"Some. I never gave my heart, not this way."

"I have had one," she said. "His name was Robert. How many can you name?"

He blew out a breath and drew back. "Why?"

"Why not? Name me the last five."

"What is your point?"

She lifted her chin, looking down her nose. "Poor ladies, can you not recall
them?"

"Of course I can recall them. The last one was named Elizabeth, and she was
the bitch who turned me in."

"That's one." She watched him. "Who preceded Elizabeth?"

He frowned and shifted, pushing away to arm's length. "I don't see that it's
important."

"You've forgotten."

"I haven't forgotten, damn it. Elizabeth Burford, Caro Taylor, Lady Olivia
Hull, and—Annie—Annie, uh—she was a Montague, but she married twice—you'll
forgive me if I can't recall her married name, and Lady Libby Selwyn."

She lifted her eyebrows. "You move in elevated circles."

He shrugged. "I move where it pleases me."

"You were in love with all of them."

"Ah. Is that the point? No, I was not in love with any of them. It wasn't at
all the same. This time—" He stopped, with an arrested look, and then his gaze
evaded hers. "It's different this time," he said.

"Certainly. Do you propose to set up a nursery? Build you a fair manor house
upon a hill? Give up your— occupation—and settle in to be an honest country
squire?"

He stared into the shadows, brooding. "I've a price on my head. You know
that."

She thrust back the blankets. "How fortunate for you."

He looked at her sharply. "I don't find it fortunate at all."

"Do you not?" Leigh groped for her shirt, pulling it over her head.

"Wait." He reached for her. "Leigh! Don't go like this."

"I've no notion to stay." She turned away for the door.

"You're not the same as the others," he exclaimed. "I love you. I
love
you! You're—God, Leigh, you're like the sun, you burn so bright it hurts me. The
rest ... all the rest, they're candles to it."

She put her hand on her heart. "A nicely turned gallantry, ready primed," she
murmured. "I said you should have been a troubadour."

"Plague take you!" His feet hit the floor with a thump. "Why won't you
believe me? I love you!"

She snorted. "Decidedly! Which plague will you have dispatch me?"

He gripped the bedpost. "Leigh—listen to me." His voice gained force. "I've
never felt like this."

She laughed outright.

"It's true," he shouted. "I've never felt this way;
never;
I love
you! For God's sake, tell me how I can prove it!"

She stood with her hand on the door, staring down at the latch.

"Tell me how," he said.

She hugged the shirt around her and shivered. "Leave Chilton alone," she said
slowly.

"What?"

She turned to him. "Stay out of Felchester. Forget Chilton. Leave it be."

"Forget Chilton," he echoed. His arm stiffened against the post. "What do you
mean?"

" 'Tis plain enough, I think."

He shook his head in frustrated bafflement. "Not at all." He shook it again.
"No. This is how I'm to show my love? By failing you?"

"I don't care anymore," she said steadily. "It won't bring my family back. It
won't change anything. I've known that..." She took a breath. "But it seems to
have come clearer lately."

"And so I'm to abandon it."

"Yes."

He was silent for a long time. She leaned against the door, holding her arms
around herself against the cold.

"I can't," he said at last.

She lowered her head.

"I can't!" he said, louder. "And it makes no sense, anyway. I don't
understand you."

She closed her eyes. "Do you understand fear, Seigneur? Have none of these
ladies of yours ever dreaded to see you put on that cursed mask and ride out to
hazard your chances?"

"None that ever said. Do you doubt me? How would slinking off like some
man-milliner prove aught of what I feel?"

"Perhaps it might prove that you think of what
I
feel," she said
fiercely. "But that's no part of your love, is it?" She shoved the latch open.

"I think of what you feel! You'd not have me walk away from this; that can't
be love, that can't be what you truly want of met To be some spineless—nothing!"

"As well if I did," she said scornfully. "Nothing is all you give of
yourself. Hide behind your mask, then, if you will. I'll none of it."

"Leigh," he said, with a faint, desperate edge in his voice. "What if you're
wrong about me?"

She stepped into the hall and closed the door gently behind her.

S.T. bowed his head and pressed the heels of his hands over his eyes. Curse
her, damn her, how could she know it wasn't love he felt? She was so sure, so
resentful, she twisted his intentions around so far that she made him doubt
himself.

It
was
different this time. He loved her courage; he loved her when
the freezing rain dripped down off her hat and her hair was plastered against
her throat and she never once complained; he loved her in her breeches, he loved
her when she snarled at Dove and when she made an eye bath for a blind mare. He
loved her because she'd followed him; he loved her because she never cried and
that he loved her to the deepest raw center of his soul when she did. He wanted
to hold her and protect her—and he wanted her respect more urgently than he'd
wanted any prize in his life.

He should have told her. He'd mismanaged it; he should have put everything
differently. But how could he say such things? Not to a woman, to
her,
not when she sneered at him. Not when she doubted him. It made him burn with
shame to know she'd so little regard for his skill that she was afraid for him.
All the arguments and wavering over Chilton fell into place and made mortifying
sense to him now.

But she came. Why had she come, ah, God, and let him love her, and then told
him what she thought of him? A failure, a fraud, so bumbling that she dreaded to
see him ride out into danger.

It always happened this way. One instant of balance, a moment of union, and
then everything was fragmenting. This time was different, different, different,
and yet it was going to be just like all the others; slipping away into time and
memories. He felt frantic at the thought, threw himself facedown on the bed, and
clutched a pillow between his hands as if he could strangle it.

I love you,
he thought ferociously.
I'll show you it's
different.
He sat up with the pillow and socked it against a bedpost.
It's different!
He gritted his teeth and hammered it back the other way.
I love you
...
I'll show you . . . I love you .
. .
I'll
show you . . . it's different, it's different, it's different
... he kept
on pounding until the feathers exploded and fluttered around him, impossible to
catch or combat or master.

At twilight Sweet Harmony heard it and straightened up from her sewing. Her
eyes met Chastity's.

The sound echoed in the quiet street: horse's hooves chiming against stone in
a solitary rhythm.

It had been four days. Chastity's hands were pink and bleeding, swollen from
the nettles that she had to carry everywhere as a symbol of her contrition for
pushing Divine Angel. The nettles lay in her lap now, dried to winter stiffness,
their stinging hairs rubbed away by hours of contact. In the morning Angel would
go with her to the midden to see that she cut a fresh bouquet of penance.

Harmony lowered her eyes, afraid to betray the frantic leap of her heart. He
was back; he'd said he would come again and he came—and Harmony could see the
scarlet color flood Chastity's face.

Don't get up, Harmony wanted to cry to her. Don't move, don't speak.

But she dared not acknowledge the sound in the street while Divine Angel sat
with them. She held her breath and went on sewing, thrusting her needle through
the linen in jerky moves.

"I hear Master Jamie calling us," Divine Angel said, setting aside her work.

Harmony heard nothing but the sound of horseshoes on the cobblestone.

"Come." Angel rose. "You must bring the nettles, Chastity."

Harmony stood up. Chastity made a little sound as she came to her feet, but
whether it was pain or anger or fear or protest, Harmony couldn't tell.

"Did you speak, our dearest sister?" Angel asked kindly.

"No, Angel." Chastity lowered her face.

"Your time of affliction will soon be over. You must bear it with grace and
submission in your heart."

"Yes, Angel," Chastity whispered. "I do be very sorry."

"Master Jamie wishes us to join him in destroying the evil that threatens,"
Angel said serenely, and waited for them to go ahead of her out the door.

In the deep evening shadows, others were gathering, lining the street near
the piles of stone they had collected. It was to defend themselves, to crush the
devil's influence. This time they were ready, and down the street the devil
came, riding on his pale horse, masked in dazzling mockery.

"Go away," someone cried, a shrill, single voice in the silence. "We don't
want you here!"

The horse walked ahead, drawing slowly nearer. Harmony wished she could cry
out the same thing, to make him go away, to stop what was going to happen. He
must know, she thought frantically. Surely this time he must know.

The church bell tolled once. Master Jamie appeared around the corner of the
churchyard, carrying his Bible. It was time for dinner; every evening he made
this passage at precisely this moment, to say his blessing over the ceremony of
obedience in the men's dormitory.

He halted at the top of the street, facing the approaching devil.

Harmony looked away from him, back toward the advancing rider. One of the men
picked up a stone and threw it. He missed, and the gray horse suddenly wasn't
walking anymore; it moved at an easy, collected canter, past Harmony and
Chastity before Divine Angel even had time to take a rock from the nearest pile.

Stones fell in the street, most of them thrown lightly, an instant too late.
Harmony realized with horror that she hadn't even picked one up; she glanced at
Angel, and stooped quickly to grab the nearest as the men moved into the street,
brandishing larger rocks. Some of them had pitchforks, and one even carried a
blunderbuss. The girls threw weakly, without their hearts in it, but for days
the men had scowled and talked and promised what they'd do if the intruder came
again.

She glanced desperately back toward Master Jamie as the horse and cloaked
rider cantered down on him. Someone shrieked. Harmony sucked in her breath,
frozen in place as Master Jamie lifted his Bible in both hands.

"Stone him!"
he cried in a mighty voice that echoed all the way to
hill.
"Cast out the devil!"

The big rocks came hurtling past. But none of them touched the target; the
horse was well beyond range and had gone right past Master Jamie.

He lowered the book and yelled, "We are triumphant! See how he flees from the
righteous hand of God!"

The men raised an uneven cheer, but Harmony stood silent with the others,
watching as the white horse halted just behind Master Jamie and came sidling
back, moving sideways with one hoof crossed over the other.

It stopped behind him, close enough to touch, with the rider's boot just even
with Master Jamie's back.

The man in the mask stared at them all over Master Jamie's head. Harmony
couldn't see his mouth in the shadow beneath the harlequin design, but she was
certain he was grinning.

Master Jamie didn't turn. He must have known what was there, but he stood
straight, beginning to walk toward them as if he was continuing on his way to
the dining hall The white horse came right behind, prancing sideways. Every two
or three steps it bumped into Master Jamie, sending him stumbling. He stopped,
and the horse nipped his hat away and shook it up and down.

Someone giggled. The men stood with their rocks lowered, unable to throw them
without the risk of hitting Master Jamie. Suddenly the man with the blunderbuss
lifted the weapon to his shoulder.

The Prince drew his sword instantly, dropping the reins. He held the blade
against Master Jamie's neck.

"Throw it down," he said, in that low, carrying voice.

Evening light seemed to pulsate along the steel. Harmony realized with deep
shock that Master Jamie was shaking, his face white and red.

The horse moved sideways again, bumping up against his back. He lurched
forward, and then turned, grabbing the sword. "Fire!" he shouted. "Kill the
devil!"

His fingerless mittens closed around the blade. It swept upward; Harmony saw
blood, heard screams and Master Jamie's own screech as the cutting edge swept
across his fingers.