The Prince of Midnight (7 page)

Again a tiny falter, an instant's waver of that steady regard. She frowned at
his chest, and he could see her thinking, weighing alternatives.

"You need me," she said at last.

Not:
I want to.
Or
I enjoy the company.
Or
I think we
could come to admire one another.

Just a task. Clearly she'd long since decided he was useless for her original
purpose. Which he was. But he'd rather have been the one to deliver the snub,
thank you.

"Much obliged," he said sarcastically. "But I don't need your help, Miss
Strachan—as a matter of fact, you're a hindrance. You may think that outfit will
fool a Frenchman, but Nemo won't come near me as long as you insist upon
skulking about in the vicinity."

She shrugged. "Tell me when to stay at a distance, then."

"Le diable. "
He let out an explosive breath. "Do you know nothing
of a beast's fine senses? He'll discover me long before I can find him. Stay
away, Miss Strachan, if you don't need my nursing. Just stay away from me." He
pushed off the ledge and brushed past her. He kept going, down to the next curve
in the trail, which he turned with studious leisure, careful to keep his hand on
a rock and his eyes fixed on a tree to control the vertigo. He was aware that
there was no sound of movement on the path behind him. He managed a quick glance
up through the bushes, and saw her still standing there, as if she'd taken him
precisely at his word.

Fine. Grand. He'd have let her tag along with him if she'd shown the least
sign of civility. Truth be told, he could find Nemo with or without her if the
wolf was going to be found. Truth be told, he relished having someone to be
responsible for besides himself—skirt-smitten blockhead that he was—calling
halts when he judged she needed the rest, making certain she paced herself,
trying to prevent the crazy chit from pushing till she dropped.

She reminded him of an animal in that way. She kept on like some
single-minded beast, the way a wounded stag would keep stumbling forward,
oblivious of obstacles and pain and sense. Just moving, as if the motion itself
had some design.

His reason told him to leave it alone, that he'd had enough of damsels in
distress to last any man ten lifetimes. But his spirit filled him with visions
of that nighttime highway, of scandalous glory . . . erotic, heady pleasure, joy
that burned through all his veins, in the saddle or in a woman's arms.

Love had never lasted; it had all come to naught more times than he could
remember. He gave himself to the dream, and it vanished in his hands. It had
ruined him.

He ought to keep his wits.

But she was like none of the others.

Maybe, this time, it would be different.

Bouffon!
He always thought it would be different. He always thought:
this time .
. .

Ah! but
this
time, this time, this time . . .

Damnation.

By the time he reached the village, his vertigo was abating, diminishing into
the faint disorientation that he'd learned to tolerate, the sense of being
constantly just a bit light-headed, but he wasn't yet past a stumble. He didn't
know if she had followed him or not—there were a thousand paths she could have
taken, splitting off from the trail to the village and heading north or south or
east or west or any direction a lunatic girl might want to go.

La Paire boasted two bridges over the narrow river, logically enough, and not
much else. Marc's tavern clung to the cliff in between them, a whitewashed,
tile-roofed and green-shuttered domestication of the old fort walls, snugged
between perpendicular neighbors. The hill town seemed to grow right up out of
the top of the gorge and peer over into it, like an upended jumble of child's
blocks that managed by some miracle of balance and faith not to fall in.

S.T. had thought the town and the canyon and the pair of bridges arched a
hundred feet above the narrow cataracts quite picturesque when first he'd come
here. And Marc had laughed at S.T.'s jokes and served good spicy red wine, and
there was wild country for Nemo and sunlight like nectar, and it was all a long,
long way from anywhere . . . and so he'd stopped running.

La Paire was a border town on the flanks of the Alps, changing hands between
Capets and Hapsburgs and the House of Savoy with monotonous regularity.
Presently, La Paire stood on the French rim and S.T.'s Col du Noir on the
Savoyard side of the border, but any treaty signed in Madrid or Rome or Vienna
might change that in a day.

He'd bought the ruined castle by letter from a young chevalier who preferred
Paris to rustication. It made a home of sorts, the first one S.T. had had in his
life—or the first he'd chosen for himself, at any rate, and one of the few he'd
lived in for more than six months altogether. He found he liked solitude. He
preferred to go to bed at sundown, he who'd spent all the nights of his past in
revelry or scandal or lawless hunting along the dark highways. He painted,
slept, and dug in the rocky dirt to grow things, and that had been good enough.

Until now. Until three years of isolation pressed in his chest, a tangle of
lust and chagrin curled on top of terror that he would walk across a bridge and
see Nemo's skin nailed to the town gate.

He was spared that. The main gate was only a gate, in need of repair as
usual, and presently blocked by a coach that had unwisely attempted to cross the
river and pass beneath the low portcullis. Since the iron grating had hung at a
slant over the cobbled street from some time in the early Middle Ages, there
seemed little hope that the combined efforts of the mayor, a dozen townsmen, two
housewives acting in an advisory capacity, and a swarm of dirty little boys were
going to straighten it up and free the coach in the near future. S.T. took the
other bridge across.

The guard post was empty, also typically. S.T. walked from the sovereign
territories of His Highness, the King of Sardinia and Duke of Savoy, across the
official border into France without even a halfhearted challenge. The lack of
ceremony suited him perfectly well, since it saved him having to hear the sad
story of the lieutenant's latest love affair.

He went into Marc's by the kitchen door, where the
aubergiste
gave
him no more man a wild glance and rushed past, carrying a tray up the stairs to
the salon. S.T. glanced at the crowd of spectators pressed around the windows in
the public room and decided to follow Marc upstairs.

He sauntered into the salon as if he were dressed in silk stockings and
Venetian velvet instead of a waistcoat and stained breeches. Normally he didn't
bother to patronize the upper room, but he could put on his airs with the
noblest of them, as Marc well knew. The innkeeper only bobbed his head when S.T.
commandeered the divan and crossed his legs in his most elegant sprawl.

Out on the narrow balcony that overlooked the town gate, a nattily dressed
man in a powdered wig sat propped against the iron rail, swinging an ebony
walking stick with a gold knob and grinning at the commotion in the street
below. His companion, looking bored, slouched at the table where Marc was
pouring two generous servings from a bottle of his best cognac.

S.T. favored the guests with a distant nod and lifted his finger for a glass.
Marc actually looked relieved to hurry over to him; the tavern keeper left the
entire flagon on the side table, gave S.T. a significant glance and a peculiar
twitch of his eyebrows in the direction of the seated man, and hastened out of
the room.

That was decidedly odd. Normally, Marc would have required a bit of cajoling
and numerous promises before parting with even a bottle of his Hermitage, much
less the cognac, given the sad status of S.T.'s bill. He took a thoughtful sip,
tilting his head to survey the travelers discreetly.

He found his interest returned. The man at the table was looking at him with
insolent openness, one elbow resting casually on his armchair. He wore a gray
frock coat, with a thick fall of lace at his throat, and breeches and waistcoat
of matching marigold yellow. His weapon was a cane sword, lighter and more
convenient than S.T.'s unfashionable but lethal colichemarde.

The stranger's dark eyes moved over S.T. as if he were a horse at auction;
the bored mouth curved upward a little when S.T. met his look squarely. Without
comment the man turned again to the balcony, stuck his hand into his fair
chestnut hair, and rested his cheek on his palm.

"Come and drink, Latour," he said lazily to his companion, "and give me to
hope that we won't be incarcerated here for the night."

"I make no promise." The other man straightened and bowed briefly. " 'Tis
apparent to me that this execrable hole of a town, she is habited by clowns and
monkeys."

"But, no!" Irony dripped from the soft words. "They cannot be so obtuse as
this valet of mine, whose unfortunate idea it was to cross the bridge."

The man on the balcony hesitated an instant, and then bowed again more
deeply. "
Mais oui,
monsieur le comte. It is as you say, of course."

"Come in and drink, Latour," his master said in a low, silky voice. "Do show
some respect. I may be amused to see you drape yourself across the balcony rail
when it's between us, but now there is a gentleman present."

Latour obeyed, placing the walking stick carefully in a corner. He stationed
himself behind the count's chair and took the glass of cognac offered, but did
not drink.

S.T. thought this a queer pair of birds, and rather fancied he'd have done
better to stay in the public room below. He'd have learned more there. The
shouts and chatter drifted up from the street, echoing in the quiet salon. S.T.
sighed and studied his glass. With this turmoil, he'd not get a quite moment to
question Marc no matter where he stationed himself.

He tasted his cognac. At least there was no obvious sign that Nemo had been
taken or any apparent concern about fever in town. This coach seemed to be the
biggest event in La Paire since the Crusades. He glanced toward the table and
found the young nobleman watching him again.

"I am bored, Latour," the man said slowly. "Bored. I must do something."

The servant Latour shifted uneasily. "Shall I bespeak a bedchamber, my lord?"

"No . . . in a moment, perhaps. I wonder—dare I be so forward?" He smiled a
little. "Could I hope that this gentleman might engage in a small hand of piquet
to pass the time?"

S.T. sipped his drink and considered the fellow before him with a
professional eye. The man didn't look like a seasoned gambler; he looked like a
well-padded aristocrat overcome with ennui. S.T. knew better than to trust that,
but on the other hand he hated to pass up an opportunity to fleece a lamb if he
had one.

"Nay," he said. "I don't wish to exercise my head so hard, monsieur. And I've
no purse about me."

The
comte
sat up straighten "This cursed place—" He stood suddenly
and began to prowl the room. "I cannot bear it! Listen to them down there, the
silly dogs; what are they about, to be of such idleness? Inform them I wish to
leave, Latour. Go and tell them I cannot tolerate confinement."

The servant bowed. As he left the room, his master pulled out a wallet and
emptied it on the table.

"Look, sir," he exclaimed, gesturing toward S.T. "There you are—twenty gold
louis. You may count them. Yes—count them! I wager them against nothing, for the
sport, if you please. A game, for God's mercy; don't deny me a little
diversion!"

S.T. rubbed his ear. He began to wonder about this fellow's wit.

The count swept up his plumed hat from the table and made a deep bow. "I beg
of you. The winnings are nothing; they are not of my interest—'tis my mind, you
see. I have a lively mind. I'm trying to be good, truly I am, I promise you. But
if I have no diversion, there's no saying to what I'll be driven."

Definitely witless. S.T. shrugged and smiled. He could put twenty louis d'or
to good use.

The count clapped his hands. "Excellent, excellent; you will play. Come and
sit down. Allow me the honor of presenting myself. I am ... ah—of Mazan. Aldonse-Fran
ç
ois de Mazan."

S.T. bowed, politely ignoring the little stumble over the name. "S.T.
Maitland. Your servant, Monsieur de Mazan."

"Ah. You have an English surname." He stared a moment at S.T. with a peculiar
avidity. "I love the English."

S.T. sat down at the table. "Sad to say, then, I must admit that I'm of
Firenze. My father was English. I never met him."

"Ah, Florence! The beautiful Italy. I have just left her. You speak French
very sweetly."

"Thank you. I have a small talent for languages. Do you have cards,
seigneur?"

The count had none—excellent evidence that he was no subtle sharpster. S.T.
rang and they settled down to the fresh deck Marc provided before he hurried
back out of the salon without even hanging about to watch the first draw.
Monsieur de Mazan was quite a decent player; though S.T. intentionally lost the
first two of three deals, by way of keeping the count interested, he didn't have
to try all that hard. As the nobleman dealt the third hand, S.T. set about
acquiring his gold louis. They came easily enough when he put his mind to the
task, sliding across the table to sit beside him with their dull metal gleam of
promise.

With all twenty piled on S.T.'s side, the count gallantly offered to quit the
table. S.T. gallantly insisted on putting his winnings at risk. He felt the old
passion begin to dawn, the pleasure in the gamble.

"Bless you," said the count. "You're saving my life. Here—another five
hundred livres against your louis d'ors." He watched S.T. deal. "So you've never
been in England, then?"

"Never," S.T. lied cordially.

"Pity. I should like to hear more of it. I've had several English friends to
visit my chateau. Miss Lydia Sterne, the daughter of the distinguished Mr.
Laurence Sterne. You've read his
Tristram Shandy?
So droll! I adore the
English. And Mr. John Wilkes has told me of his Hell Fire Club—" The count
smiled slyly. "That fraternity is of an interest most profound!"