The Prince of Midnight

  When he’d seen the mare to her new stable, S.T. went into a free port shop, taking care of errands of his own. He glanced out the door at the dockside. Water glittered, cold and bright against the dark interior of the shop. A small cart drawn by a dog passed the door. There was no sign of Leigh yet. He looked down at his palm, considering the silver locket that had caught his eye. It was shaped into a delicate star with a tiny paste diamond at the center. He rubbed his ear and eyed the shopkeeper.

  “Cent cinquante,” the man said in Flemish-accented French.

  “Le diable!” S.T. laughed and let the locket slide back onto the counter. “Cinquante, he said firmly. “And I’d expect a ribbon with it at that.”

  “Vhat color?” the shopkeeper asked, switching smoothly to English. He opened a drawer and pulled out a rainbow of satin ribbons. “I don’t see such a locket go for below a hundred. Silver metal, yes? Regardez… vhat color be her eyes, monsieur?”

  S.T. smiled. “The southern sea. The sky at sunset. Fifty-five, mon ami. I’m in love, but I’m poor.”

  The man held up a swath of ribbons in sapphire hues. “Ah—to be in love! I understand. Ninety-and I gif you the riband as a token.”

  S.T. chewed his lip. He had one hundred and twenty livres left—five English guineas, after changing the money the blind mare had brought. But there was lodging still to be paid—and for the channel passage, some smugglers’ palms to be greased into silence.

  “Eighty-five, monsieur,” the shopkeeper offered. “Eighty-five, and a riband in every color to equal all her pretty dresses.”

  S.T.’s mouth flattened. One pretty dress was more than he’d been privileged to see in the past weeks of traveling north across France with Leigh Strachan. He shook his head reluctantly. “I can’t afford it. Just give me the razor.”

  “Sixty, m’lord,” the shopkeeper said quickly. “Sixty for the locket, the razor, and the sapphire riband. No duty. A free port, Dunkerque. It is all I can do.”

  S.T. glanced outside again. He tapped his fingers on the counter. “La peste. “He sighed. “I don’t know. All right. Give it to me.”

  “Her blue eyes, they will sparkle like the star, monsieur. I promise you.”

  “Certainement,” S.T. said dryly. He paid, got a receipt against the French duty, stuffed the package into his waistcoat pocket, and walked outside. He stood for a moment, watching the water and boats sway dreamily in front of the neatly painted shops and houses with their arched Flemish gables. He shuddered in the cloudy northern chill. The memory of his last channel crossing haunted him. He turned back inside and asked the direction of an apothicaire.

  Leigh met him a quarter hour later, just as he was stepping out of the pharmacopoeia. He could not imagine why everyone on the street didn’t stop and gape, she looked so clearly to him like a lovely woman dressed up in men’s clothing. Her hair was pulled back in its queue and powdered, which made the blue of her eyes seem intense. She walked with more grace than any gawky youth of sixteen had ever managed. She’d wanted to carry his rapier, but he wouldn’t let her. She didn’t know how to use it, and he saw no sense in making her a fair target for a fight.

  She looked at the paper packet in his hand. “What did you buy?” she demanded in her husky counterfeit voice.

  She had the most annoying talent for putting him instantly on the defensive. “Some dried figs.” He fiddled with the ring on his sword belt, adjusting it unnecessarily.

  “Oh. Figs.” She shrugged, and then actually favored him with a small smile. “I was afraid you might have bought something medicinal from that quacksalver.”

  S.T. frowned. “A quack?”

  “I went in earlier, to replenish my stock of savine. The digitalis was mislabeled as magnesia, and his plantain is molding. It’s that sort who gives a patient deadly nightshade when they meant to administer the common variety. But the fruit seemed well enough. May I have one?”

  S.T. bounced the packet in his palm. “Well, they’re not precisely… figs… exactly.” He squinted at her. “You’re sure he’s a charlatan?”

  “You did buy medicine, didn’t you?”

  “Did you purchase some proper skirts?” he countered.

  “That’s neither here nor there at the moment. What did you buy in there? I don’t want you dosing yourself from that shop. It’s not safe.”

  “Careful, Sunshine. You’ll make me think you give a damn about my welfare.”

  She snorted delicately. “I wouldn’t treat a dray horse from a pharmacy like that.”

  “Ah. Thank you. For a moment there my head was swelling.” He turned and started to walk down the street. Leigh was right beside him. “What do you need medicine for? You should have asked me.”

  “Where are your new clothes? I don’t see any packages. No dresses, no hats, no reticules. That damned frock coat’s getting a little threadbare, don’t you think?”

  She frowned and didn’t answer. He knew she wanted to berate him for mentioning female articles here on the open street, but she didn’t dare. There were enough outsiders in Dunkerque to render English a comprehensible language, no longer so safe and useful for private communication as it had been in the tiny villages of France.

  S.T. let her stew. He waved at a dairy cart and tipped the farmer a sou to carry the two of them out of town with the empty milk pails. The ride passed in stony silence, barring the pass through the customs as they left the city, where he produced his receipt and murmured to the officer. S.T. wouldn’t have disapproved entirely of a bodily search, on the chance that Leigh might stand revealed as a female for once, but they escaped without that adventure.

  A mile from Dunkerque on the coast road, where the white sand blew off the dunes and splayed in pale fans across the raised roadway, he slid from the tail of the cart. Leigh slipped down and walked back a few paces to meet him. The ox and farmer plodded onward, oblivious.

  A dog began to bark as they walked along a dike toward a neat cluster of house and outbuildings set a little back from the road. Moments later, a young boy in baggy trousers and long, striped stockings raced out to meet them.

  “The wolfs awake, monsieur!” The boy danced backwards in front of them as they walked, speaking rapid French. “He waits for you! Maman gave me a mutton bone to feed him, but I didn’t put my fingers through the bars, monsieur, I promise! Will you take him out now? Will you allow me to pet him again? I think he likes me, do you agree?”

  S.T. pulled at his lip, pretending to give the question deep thought. “He licked your face, yes? He wouldn’t lick your face if he didn’t admire you.”

  The child giggled. Then he cast a sly look at Leigh. “But he doesn’t lick Monsieur Leigh’s face.”

  S.T. bent down and whispered loudly, “That’s because Monsieur Leigh is such a giddy puss. Never stops laughing. Haven’t you noticed?”

  He glanced at her as he spoke, but couldn’t tell if she followed his French or not. The boy stuck his finger in his mouth and laughed. He regarded her with wide eyes and took S.T.’s hand. “I think Monsieur Leigh more scary than the wolf,” he confided shyly. Then he brightened. “Maman says that my father left a message of importance. He is to send the boat for you at high tide, so you must be waiting at the Petit Plage with all your things. Beyond the last dike—I’m to show you where.”

  “When’s the tide?”

  “After dark tonight. Maman said she would tell you when to go. You must eat first, she said. We’re to have a hochepot with pig’s ears and mutton. She made that specially for you. And she packed a ham and baked some raisin buns for you to take on the boat. Do you think the wolf might like a raisin bun?”

  “He’d like some of your mother’s exceptional sausage much better.”

  “I’ll tell her,” the boy exclaimed, and ran ahead into the farmyard.

  “No doubt you’ll find a pound of it wrapped up in Brugge lace on your pillow,” Leigh murmured in English.

  “Jealous?” He grinned. “She’s a pretty little housewife,
isn’t she?”

  “I only dislike to see poor trusting père grow a cuckold’s horns while he’s out at his trade.”

  “Perhaps he shouldn’t be so trusting. Perhaps he ought to come home more often, and not stink of fish when he does, hmm?”

  She lifted a dark eyebrow. “You’ve no scruples about it?”

  “About what, Sunshine? Kissing the hand of a sweet femme for her kindness to us? That’s all I’ve done, I assure you.”

  “She’s half in love with you.” She kicked a muddy pebble out of the path. “Well enough the wind’s turning. We’ve only been here two days. I shudder to think if we were to stay a week.”

  He stopped and looked toward her, his mouth curving faintly. “I’d no idea you accorded such potency to my charm.”

  “Oh, I’ve no illusions on that score,” she said. “You’ve been breaking hearts from here to Provence.”

  “I can’t touch yours, it seems. What’s left to me but flirting with a demoiselle now and again? ’Tis harmless enough.”

  Her eyes met his directly. “I think not, when you stay with them all night.”

  “Ah.” His jaw hardened. “Really, do you think you ought to take the high ground with me on that subject?”

  “You know my position on the matter,” she said stiffly. “I’m accessible for you to satisfy yourself; I see no need for you to make all these young ladies fall in love merely to prove that you can stir them to it.”

  “I’m not trying to prove anything. What damned business is it of yours where I sleep?”

  “I feel that I’m responsible for you.”

  He stared at her, astonished and incensed. “I beg your pardon, mademoiselle. But I’m a man full grown; I don’t need an impertinent chit of a girl claiming responsibility for me.”

  “Do you not? Then who do you expect will be accountable for this foolish wife when her husband tosses her out for sleeping with another man? They’re a family! ’Tis something precious, what you’re playing with. You haven’t even any discretion about it. I expect it makes no difference in a public inn, and I’ve said nothing every night since we left Aubenas, but in a private home like this when you claim to go for a walk after supper and then come back at dawn, there’s some notice taken, I assure you.”

  “Is there indeed! Notice taken by whom? The boy? He’s long asleep. Her husband? We haven’t seen that mullet monger in person yet, have we? He’s too busy netting smelt to have a care for his poor lonely wife. ’Tis you takes notice! A precious family, is it?” He gave an angry laugh. “I bow to your greater experience—I don’t know much of that! So what’s my punishment to be? Another six weeks of bad humor and cold shoulder? Is that what you’re pleased to call ‘accessible’ to me? God, I don’t know how I’ll bear the delight!”

  Faint color rose in her cheekbones. She turned her face away. “I pity the woman. Yes, she is lonely. She’s weak. Why must you take advantage of her?”

  “I made her laugh. I called her pretty. I kissed her hand at the kitchen fire. That’s the sum of it. As to all these shameful, wanton hours after midnight, it’s Nemo I spend ’em with, not some willing female—much to my regret! I take Nemo out and let him run free while he has the chance, when there’s less prospect he’ll be shot by some stalwart village knight with a notion to protect the populace. I hate it that he has to go back into that damned kennel box we had built for him. Can you comprehend that? Lord, did you truly think I’ve slept all day in an open chaise just because I’ve been debauching myself beyond bearing every night? If you’re going to spy, you’d best go a little further with the effort and get your facts straight before you make your accusations.”

  She stood very still, staring at him, her figure silhouetted in deep colors against the dingy sky.

  “Not that bedding her isn’t a perfectly splendid notion,” he added wildly. “She’s got warm blood in her in place of ice water, which is more than I can say for you.”

  Her shoulders lifted. She held them back, rigidly straight.

  “Does that offend you?” he sneered. “Good.”

  The color in her cheeks had become a blaze. She moistened her lips. “I beg your pardon,” she said in a deathly hollow voice. “I have been mistaken.”

  His harsh breath made the cold air frost around his face as he watched her walk away from him. He twisted the paper package and crushed it in his fist. When she was almost to the farmyard gate, he called her name.

  She didn’t turn. The chained dog began to bark again, but she ignored that, too. S.T. took a deep breath and strode after her, but by the time he reached the yard, she had disappeared into the gabled farmhouse. The boy was just running out the door toward him, begging to pet Nemo and give the wolf a handful of smoked fish.

  S.T. stared past him at the farmhouse. It took a conscious effort to force his hands to relax. He was a brute; a bastard; he well knew why she had no warmth in her. But the way she treated him, the endless cutting snubs in spite of every attempt to win her admiration—it drove him beyond endurance. After a long moment, he turned on his heel and followed the boy into the barn.

  Chapter Ten

  S.T. had thought he was prepared for the channel crossing.

  He wasn’t.

  All those queasy weeks of bouncing along in an open chaise, where at least he could focus on stable landscape, were nothing to the reeling horror of a ship’s berth in a heavy sea.

  While he could still reason, he wished he’d taken the powder he’d purchased at the quack apothicaire. If it had killed him, so much the better.

  He couldn’t see; his vision swung and pitched if he opened his eyes, amplifying every lurch of the ship until his insides seemed stuck in his throat. His hand clenched on the wooden rail that edged the berth. He kept swallowing, trying to draw breath enough in his lungs to think. It seemed that a massive hand throttled him, pressing down with unrelenting force. He’d lost what little he’d eaten before they’d even left the shore boat to board the smuggling lugger, and now he had nothing but sick agony squeezing his stomach and chest and head.

  He heard the slide and rattle of the curtains drawn back from across the berth. A soft touch pressed against his cheek and temple, sweet-smelling release from the dank odors. He turned his face into it, tried to speak and only managed a choked groan.

  “You’re breathing too quickly,” Leigh said. She braced against the bulkhead and sponged his face with the scented water. “Try to slow down.”

  He gripped her hand so hard that it hurt her. She held steady while he panted against her skin. He was trying to obey her: a harsh exhalation, a suspended moment, and then another desperate rush.

  “Slower,” she said softly. “Slower than that.”

  “Can’t.” He swallowed convulsively. His breathing went back to the quick and shallow pants.

  Leigh bit her lip, knowing of nothing more to do for him, even out of all her mother had taught her. Earlier, she’d tried to coax him to take an infusion of boiled fern root, prepared on deck with great difficulty over an iron pot full of charcoal, but he could not keep the first swallow down.

  Heavy boots sounded in the passage. The captain of the little smuggling vessel came up behind her, peering over her shoulder into his berth. “Bust me,” he muttered. “I seen ’em in rum case in my time, but I hain’t never seen nobody took this bad before. Sure it’s only the seasickness, are you?”

  The Seigneur opened his eyes. He seemed to be trying to focus, but his head moved with the motion of the ship and instead of fixing on Leigh or the captain, his line of sight swung as if he were watching a fly circle their heads. She stroked his damp forehead. “Don’t try,” she murmured. “Close your eyes, monsieur; you needn’t talk.”

  He made a sound, a low-pitched whimper that was almost lost in his labored breathing. He was quiet compared to the crying and moaning crowd of seasick passengers Leigh had seen aboard the mail packet on her first trip across the Channel to France; very quiet and far more ill. It was the same way he’
d looked with his dizzy spells on the road north—his skin sweaty and white, his jaw clamped against the sickness—only on the lugger’s deck it had gone on and worsened until he’d seemed to lose command of his very limbs and sunk slowly down onto one knee, slumped against her leg. Taking him below to the captain’s berth hadn’t revived him; he’d only lain panting and ashen, driving to empty heaves if he tried to keep his eyes open.

  “I don’t know why he’s in such extremity,” she said, still stroking his face. “I understand this sort of thing varies with the individual sufferer.”

  The captain snorted. “There’s a passel o’ fancy words. You’re an educated young gentleman, then, are you?” He watched her hand a moment and then grinned. “You his mollie-cull?”

  Leigh paused in her stroking. The Seigneur turned onto his side with a heavy sound.

  “No need to, frown. ’Tis no nevermind to me,” the captain said. “Live and let live, says I. I think I could like a pretty rogue, myself.” He lifted a lock of hair that had fallen over her ear. “I like a soft cheek, I do.”

  Leigh put her hand on the dagger beneath her coat, but before she could draw it, the Seigneur made a sudden move. The captain lurched in the direction of the berth, his waistcoat caught in the Seigneur’s grip.

  “Mine,” he snarled, his voice hoarse and frightening between violent pants. He’d hiked himself half up in the berth; his teeth showed white in the dimness as he twisted the waistcoat in his fist. A button popped free, bouncing against the rail and then the deck.

  “Here now,” the captain said. “You’re a sick man.”

  “I’m not—dead,” the Seigneur growled.

  The captain pulled free with a grin. “Couldn’t ’a proved it by me. You bloody well look like a corpse.”

  “Don’t touch…” the Seigneur said shakily, his eyes shut. “Cut… y’r heart out.”

  “Aye, I’m a basket o’ nerves, I am.” With a good-humored chuckle, the captain bent down to search for his button. “Got no time for it anyhow. We’re within sight o’ Cliff End.” He straightened up and stuffed the cracked pearl button into his waistcoat pocket. “I’m not going any closer. You two chaps and your circus beast can lighter ashore with the goods as best ye may.”