A Kiss at Midnight

  He had vaguely expected to hate her, and he couldn’t even do that. It took only a quick glance to see that she was very nice. She would never shout at him like a little shrew; it wasn’t in her.

  Her uncle Dimitri was smiling broadly and rocking back and forth on his heels. “I’ve been to this castle,” he announced, in a thick accent. “I visited as a lad, when Lord Fitzclarence had the castle. Told my brother that the castle was worth having to come to England.”

  The damned castle, Gabriel thought, even as he bowed again and smiled.

  “Expected I’d see you this afternoon,” Dimitri said, giving Gabriel a shrewd glance.

  “I apologize,” Gabriel said. “I wasn’t aware of your arrival.”

  “This little girl is the apple of her father’s eye,” Dimitri announced.

  A tiny sound escaped Tatiana’s lips; she was pink with embarrassment.

  Gabriel bowed again and gave her a reassuring smile.

  “I have to say my piece, chicken,” Dimitri said. “We’re from the Kingdom of Kuban, Your Highness. Don’t suppose you’ve heard much of it.”

  “I have not,” Gabriel said, “but—”

  Dimitri interrupted him. “My brother helped settle Cossacks next to the Sea of Azov. So we haven’t been princeling about for generations.”

  Gabriel nodded respectfully. Over his shoulder, Wick was motioning that he should begin the procession to the dining room.

  “What I’m getting to,” Dimitri said, “is that her father didn’t want her pushed into this marriage. If Tatiana likes you, she stays. If she doesn’t, we’ll be leaving, dowry and all, and none of this talk of broken betrothals.” His smile showed his teeth, and all of a sudden Gabriel saw, for just a flash, a Cossack warrior behind the man in blue velvet.

  He bowed yet again. Thank God, at that moment Wick touched him on the shoulder, so he turned to Tatiana and offered his arm. “Your Highness, may I accompany you to the dining room?”

  She smiled at him, and he noticed that though she was shy, she wasn’t paralyzed by it. Someday she would be a composed and doubtless articulate woman. A perfect princess, in short.

  Prince Dimitri fell in behind, with Gabriel’s aunt, Princess Sophonisba, on his arm, and they led the way to the dining room, followed by a great train of jewels, velvets, and silks. The women were exquisite, like delectable pillowy sweets. The men were groomed and polished, like the sleek aristocrats they were.

  The only person he wanted to see, the only person he wanted to eat with, was upstairs, wearing a simple gown, a pink wig, and a pair of wax breasts.

  Prince Dimitri was quickly swept into an argument with Lady Dagobert about whether the Portuguese court should remain in Rio de Janeiro or eventually return to Portugal, which left Gabriel to make conversation with Tatiana.

  Except that his aunt Sophonisba was too old to care about rules dictating who spoke to whom, and so she barked a whole series of questions across the table at Tatiana. Sophonisba was a bad-tempered termagant, by anyone’s measure. His brother Augustus loathed her, and had thrown her onto the boat with the same satisfaction with which he discarded the lion.

  “Youngest of four, are you?” Sophonisba said, as the first course was being cleared away. She paused and reached under her wig to scratch her scalp. “There were eight of us. Nursery was a madhouse.”

  Tatiana smiled and murmured something. She was obviously kindhearted, and if a little taken aback by his aunt’s abrasive manners, wasn’t letting it affect her courtesy.

  “You’re a pretty little thing,” Sophonisba said, picking up a chicken leg and waving it as if she’d never heard of a fork. “What are you looking at?” she snapped at Gabriel. “If it’s good enough for Queen Margherita, it’s good enough for me.”

  Tatiana was giggling.

  “La Regina Margherita mangia il pollo con le dita,” Sophonisba told her. “Can you translate that, girl?”

  “I’m not very good with Italian,” Tatiana said, “but I think that Queen Margherita eats chicken with her fingers?”

  “Good for you,” Sophonisba said. “How many languages do you speak?”

  “My brother and I sent our children to be educated in Switzerland,” Prince Dimitri said, catching the question. “Tatiana’s one of the smartest in our brood; up to five languages, aren’t you, dumpling?”

  “Uncle Dimitri!” Tatiana cried.

  “Not supposed to call her dumpling anymore,” the prince said, grinning so widely that Gabriel could see every missing tooth. “Though she used to be the most adorable dumpling baby I’d ever seen. We love dumplings in Russia; they’re more precious than rubles.”

  Tatiana rolled her eyes.

  “I never married, you know,” Sophonisba barked.

  She poked Gabriel and he jumped. His mind had drifted to Kate once again. “This fellow’s rascally father, my brother, never accepted an offer for my hand. I could have had anyone!” She scowled at the table, as if daring someone to disagree.

  The truth was that Sophonisba had been betrothed to a sprig of a princeling in Germany, but after she had arrived at his court and he had spent a day or two with her, he fled. She’d been sent home in great disgrace, and the Grand Duke never again bothered to try to fix a marriage for her.

  “Her Highness,” Gabriel told Tatiana, “was a famed beauty.”

  “I still am,” Sophonisba said promptly. “A woman’s beauty isn’t just a matter of youth.”

  Tatiana nodded obediently. “My grandmother always said that the greatest beauties in her day were so covered with powder and patches that one couldn’t tell if there was a woman or a horse underneath.”

  There was a moment of silence. Sophonisba had four or five patches stuck onto her powdered face; one was coming undone and hanging from her cheekbone.

  Tatiana’s mouth fell open and she turned pink as an autumn sunset. “Not that I meant to indicate anything of the sort about you, Your Highness,” she gasped.

  “Wasn’t around when your grandmother was young,” Sophonisba said with patent dishonesty, since she had to be seventy-five if she was a day. “I wouldn’t know what she was talking about.”

  She turned her head and barked down the table at Dimitri. “That’s utter nonsense, what you’re sayin’ about the Portuguese. Not a drunk in the bunch of them.”

  “I do apologize,” came a quiet voice at Gabriel’s right elbow.

  “My aunt took no offense,” he said, smiling down at Tatiana. She was bloody young.

  “Sometimes the wrong thing just comes out of my mouth,” she whispered.

  “Prince!” his aunt said, interrupting this charming, if tedious, revelation. “Not to put too fine a point on it, my bladder is about to burst.”

  Gabriel rose to his feet. “If you will all excuse me,” he told the table, “the princess is experiencing a malady and I shall escort her to her chambers.”

  “It isn’t a malady; it’s just old age,” Sophonisba said, waving her stick at Wick. He came immediately, drew back her chair, and helped her to her feet.

  “You’re the best of them,” Sophonisba told him, as she always did. She pinched his cheek and then looked triumphantly around the table. “Born on the wrong side of the blanket, but he’s just as much a prince as his brother here.”

  Lady Dagobert turned purple with indignation at this breach of decorum, but Prince Dimitri looked as if he was biting back a smile, which was a point in his favor.

  As Wick was helping Sophonisba straighten her skirts and get her stick in the right position, Gabriel bent down at Tatiana’s shoulder. “You see,” he said quietly, “nothing you could say would ever embarrass me.”

  She looked up, dimples in evidence. She’d make a lovely princess; even close contact with Sophonisba wouldn’t shake her composure. Plus, she knew languages.

  She was perfect.

  His aunt’s chambers were on the bottom level of the tower. It took them a good twenty-five minutes to reach the door of her room, as she constantly paused
to rub her ankle and complain about the flagstones, the damp, and the way he held his arm—too stiff for her liking, she pronounced.

  The moment the door closed behind her, he turned about and bolted up the stone steps.

  He’d been gone for almost two hours. At this rate, Kate had had more than enough time to absorb each picture in Aretino’s book.

  Thirty-two

  Meanwhile, in Gabriel’s chamber, Kate had opened the salacious little volume, peered just long enough to ascertain that, yes, Aretino’s men provided little comparison to Gabriel in the most pertinent area, and closed it again. She didn’t have any wish to examine engravings of men and women intertwined on a bed. Or on a chair, or anywhere else.

  She had the living, naked body of Gabriel in her mind, and nothing could interest her besides that.

  She put the book down and walked over to a large table set up before the window. Gabriel had forgotten to show her the pot that once held a child’s toys, but she guessed it was represented by a carefully arranged collection of shards. To the right of these was a piece of foolscap, covered with precise, beautifully written notes about the pot.

  But that wasn’t all the table held. There was another fan, besides the one he had tossed her. It looked even older, and the paper was peeling from its delicate spines.

  There was a small book entitled The Strangest Adventure That Ever Happened, Either in Ages Past or Present, a little pile of copper coins, roughly formed and obviously very old. A chart appeared to calculate the motions of seven planets, and a little vial was marked “Diacatholicon Aureum.” Kate picked it up curiously, pulled the cork, and sniffed, but couldn’t tell what it was.

  Finally she picked up a much-thumbed journal called Ionian Antiquities, moved back to the velvet chair, and began to read. Twenty minutes later, after an exhaustive and probably learned discussion of Desgodets’s Les Edifices Antiques de Rome, she moved to the bed.

  She told herself to wake the moment Gabriel’s feet sounded on the marble steps, the very moment the door opened. She could leap off the bed and it wouldn’t look in the least as if she was inviting him to join her.

  When Gabriel opened the door to his chamber Kate was curled like a small kitten in the middle of the bed. Her wig was askew, and bright strands of hair had fallen over her face. She’d taken her slippers off, but otherwise she was dressed as when he had left her.

  She was bloody beautiful. Her skin was honey; Tatiana’s was cream. Tatiana’s cheeks were dimpled and round; Kate’s cheekbones were just this side of gaunt. Tatiana’s lips were pillowy and soft; Kate slept fiercely, her lower lip ruby red, as if she had bitten it in her sleep.

  After one glance, his rod was straining his breeches again. Gabriel turned away with a silent groan.

  He had the one night, only this one night.

  Walking silently behind the screened area of his chamber, he opened a little wooden door that stood about waist-high, reached in, and rang a bell that sounded in the kitchens.

  A moment later he heard the trundling, bumping sound that indicated the lift was on its way up. He waited until it was at the top of its journey, then reached in and grabbed the pail of boiling water and dumped it into his bathtub, released the rope, and sent the bucket back down to the kitchens again.

  He almost splashed himself with the next bucket and realized that he couldn’t get his coat wet, as he had to return downstairs, if not for dinner, then for the dancing.

  Neatly and quickly, with the sort of fastidiousness that he gave to every task, he stripped off his coat, waistcoat, shirt, and breeches, draping his clothes over a chair. He left on his smalls; it was Kate’s turn to be naked.

  A few moments later he looked at the bathing room with satisfaction. He had lit candles on every surface, and placed a glass of wine within tempting reach of the bath.

  A length of toweling on his arm, he returned to the bed and sat gently next to Kate. Her face had smoothed out now, and her lips were curled in a little smile, as if whatever had worried her earlier had stolen away, leaving her in a happy dream.

  He pulled a pin from her hair. She didn’t stir. He pulled another, and another, until he had all the hairpins he could see. Then he tried a gentle pull on her wig, but nothing happened.

  Her eyelashes fluttered and he thought she was waking up, but she merely rolled over so her shoulder and back were presented to him.

  In fact, Kate was carefully regulating her breathing and wondering desperately what to do. She had seen with a flicker of an eyelash that there was a naked chest bending over her.

  Aching desire made her want to open her eyes and wrap her arms around his neck. She wanted to pull that beautiful body over hers and let her fingers run over his chest and back. It was an all-consuming fever that pounded in her chest and sent licks of fire down her legs.

  But the cautious part of her brain had her frozen in place, her eyes shut, trying to persuade Gabriel that she was still sleeping. She was afraid.

  He was too tender, in the way he was carefully pulling her hairpins, as if frightened to wake her.

  He was too beautiful, sitting beside her, nearly naked in the golden light of candles.

  He was too much, too everything. With a pang she knew exactly what was frightening her: It was the terror that there would be no satisfying life without this prince. That he was everything to her, and that without him she might as well go back to Mariana and spend her life wretchedly protecting the tenants.

  “Kate,” he murmured, and she realized that his lips were against her throat, pulling back her hair, drifting over her ear. “It’s time for your bath. I have a tub full of steaming water waiting for you.”

  “Ah . . . hello,” she said foolishly. But she didn’t turn over. He had pulled off her wig, and one hand was stroking through her hair. It felt so tender that she let herself drift, eyes closed, feeling only the sensual stroke of his fingers.

  Then she suddenly realized what was happening and tried to stop him—but it was too late. His nimble fingers had unfastened all the buttons down the back of her gown. She sat up, clutching her bodice.

  “Gabriel,” she said warningly, narrowing her eyes at him.

  “You promised I could kiss you anywhere,” he said, hooking a finger into her bodice and giving a gentle tug.

  “I don’t remember saying that! And why aren’t you wearing any clothes?”

  “I am wearing my smalls,” he said. And then added wryly, “Except for the part of me that isn’t.”

  She looked down, just long enough to see that, in fact, a part of him was jutting straight out the top of his waistband.

  “You shouldn’t,” she protested, but at that moment he bent down and pressed his mouth on hers. Even so, she kept talking, but the words fell away as his tongue traced the soft line of her lips.

  “I could kiss your mouth all night,” he whispered.

  Kate told herself that kisses were what she had promised. True, she hadn’t thought that he would be naked . . . But at least he was wearing smalls. Even if they didn’t seem to cover that part of him.

  A small part of her will gave way, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. He responded instantly, taking her open mouth and pulling her against his bare chest. Kate melted, a sensation so overwhelming that she began trembling all over. He kissed her until wildfire danced in her veins, until desire slid like brandy through her limbs.

  “Gabriel, I . . .” she whispered.

  “Hush, sweet Kate,” he said, pulling back. “I’m going to take your gown off now.” Without waiting for an answer, he slowly drew forward the gown, pulling it over the tops of her breasts, over her corset with the wax inserts, down to her waist.

  “My arms,” she said, with a gasp. “I can’t move.”

  “My kiss,” he said, and his voice made the wildfire burn higher. It was hoarse, as if he was holding on to his control as best he could. He didn’t free her arms.

  She watched as his hands deftly unlaced her corset and then pulled it wide.
Her bosom friends were tossed to the ground; her breasts, pushed high and rigid by the corset, fell into his hands like ripe apples.

  He froze for a moment, and then pulled her chemise tight across her bosom. It was silk, as frail as gossamer.

  “Oh God,” he said, sounding as if the word was ripped from his lungs. “I’ve never seen anything more beautiful. Never.”

  Kate’s lips parted to say something, but no words came out because Gabriel had rubbed a slow thumb across her nipple. The feeling smoldering in her legs burst into flame. A choked cry came from her lips.

  “I have to taste you.” With one swift movement, he put his hands to her chemise and wrenched. The silk parted as sweetly as a sliced peach falls in two.

  “Gabriel!” she cried, but she could tell he didn’t even hear her. He was looking intently at her breasts, his eyes blazing.

  In his hands, her breasts didn’t look too small. They didn’t look as if they needed bosom friends to plump them up. They looked lush and round, exactly the right shape.

  Then he bent his dark head and she felt the touch of his lips on her breast. She’d seen it in Aretino’s pictures—men suckling women as if they were babes in arms. She had wrinkled her nose and turned the page, convinced that the Italian was depicting some sort of ludicrous perversion.

  But at the touch of Gabriel’s mouth she felt a surge of pleasure that was unlike anything she’d felt in her life. She couldn’t breathe, and a cry came from her throat. Gabriel sucked harder and a thumb rubbed across her other nipple; Kate’s mind went completely blank and her body arched up, a moan breaking from her lips.

  “I knew it,” he whispered roughly. He raised his head just long enough for her to see the mad exultation in his eyes. “I—” But his words were lost as he lavished attention on her neglected breast. And for her part, Kate had no ability to shape words, no power to do anything other than writhe under him, gasping.

  When he raised his head again her body was throbbing, the blood singing through her legs. “Gabriel,” she whispered.