A Rose at Midnight
A Rose At Midnight
by Anne Stuart
Copyright © 2013, Anne Stuart
Contents
April 1803
There were few places as still and silent as the kitchens of an English manor house after the servants had retired to their hall for the evening. Ghislaine sat alone in the darkness, watching the glow from the wall of ovens, her small, strong hands resting loosely in her lap. The huge chair dwarfed her slight frame, but the kitchen staff knew better than to suggest removing that chair. It was provided for her comfort, and the comfort of Lady Ellen Fitzwater’s personal French chef was of the utmost importance. Never mind that the chef was a female, an unheard-of circumstance. Never mind that she was on far too friendly terms with her unconventional employer and yet kept a careful distance from everyone who dwelled belowstairs. The staff at Ainsley Hall understood rank better than they understood their Scripture, and Ghislaine was ruler absolute.
It didn’t matter that she didn’t seem to possess a last name. The staff called her Mamzelle and kept their opinions of her antecedents to themselves. It didn’t matter that she was probably no more than thirty years old, and looked a great deal younger, with her reed-slim, boyish frame, her huge, shadowed eyes, and the features that in some other woman would be called elfin beneath the tied-back mop of chestnut hair.
No one could call Mamzelle elfin. Not when only the faintest of smiles ever touched her mobile mouth. Not when her dark brown eyes suggested tragedies the servants could only guess at. Not when the little joy and affection in her soul was reserved for the small black puppy that slept happily at her feet by the oversized chair.
Ghislaine knew what they thought of her, and she was content with it, if with nothing else in her life. The servants were distrustful, wary, and jealous of her. But they wished her no ill, and that was enough. She leaned her head back in the chair, feeling the iron tension in her muscles, yet helpless to break its grip. During the past year she’d been as close to peace as she’d ever hoped to be. England was a haven, the kitchens of Ainsley Hall a safe kingdom where everything was ordered and preordained, sauces never curdled, roasts never burned, people were never tortured and butchered and…
She shook her head, listening to the stillness around her. If only fate hadn’t taken a hand once more. Surely she deserved her hard-won peace. And yet for years she had prayed for one thing, and one thing alone. Not happiness, not love, not comfort or friendship.
She’d prayed for revenge. So who was she to complain when fate had finally answered her prayers?
Ainsley Hall had twenty-seven bedrooms, a ballroom, six withdrawing rooms of various sizes and formalities, four dining halls, three offices, twelve powder rooms with indoor amenities, and the kitchens. In one of those twenty-seven bedrooms lay the man she had vowed to kill.
It would have been simple enough to find where he slept and take one of her butchering knives to him. She was adept at hacking apart mutton and sides of beef—the muscles in her slender arms attested to that. Surely a living, breathing male wouldn’t be that much harder. A sliced jugular, and her life’s ambition would be complete.
But she didn’t gossip with the servants, didn’t join them in their hall for cards and flirtation and speculation on those abovestairs. And with Ainsley Hall deserted of the gentry, all but the unwanted guest, she couldn’t very well wander the hallways looking for him. There was always the possibility that he might recognize her after all those years.
It was, however, unlikely. Doubtless she was just part of a distant memory, if that. Ruined lives would have little meaning for a man like her enemy. She was probably one in a long line of victims.
She wondered what Ellen would think when she heard the news—that her ramshackle cousin had been slaughtered, and her chef was being held accountable. Most untidy, Ghislaine thought with detachment, shaking her head. Perhaps she could find a neater way to handle the problem. If only she knew how long he was planning to stay. She didn’t want to rush into something that was better savored.
Lady Ellen Fitzwater had left Ainsley Hall the day he arrived, prey to those odd conventions the English put such great store by. Even with the protection of her half-deaf companion Miss Binnerston, Ellen couldn’t reside in a huge house like Ainsley Hall with an unmarried male of no more than distant connection. Not when he had such a shocking reputation as Nicholas Blackthorne possessed. So she’d decamped, grumbling as she went, and Ghislaine had been entirely prepared to accompany her. Until she heard the man’s name.
“Damn my cousin!” Ellen had fumed, her soft blue eyes indignant. She loved to curse, and while she practiced as often as she could, the words never sounded quite right coming from her gentle mouth. She’d tried to get Ghislaine to instruct her in gutter French, but Ghislaine had steadfastly refused.
“Why damn your cousin?” Ghislaine had inquired evenly moments before her illusion of safety shattered. “If you don’t want him here, simply tell him he can’t come.”
“He’s already here. Besides, an unmarried female doesn’t have much right to an opinion in such matters. Ainsley Hall might be my residence, but it does, in fact, belong to my brother, Carmichael, up until the time I may choose to marry. If I remain on the shelf it will be passed along to his offspring. If I marry, my husband will own it. In the meantime I’m lucky I’m allowed to reside here with Binnie. If the price I have to pay for that luxury is decamping every time some ramshackle half-relative shows up, then I’ll pay that price willingly.”
“Not willingly,” Ghislaine pointed out.
“No, not willingly,” Ellen admitted. “If only it were someone other than Nicholas Blackthorne! Why the blackest of all the black sheep, the one person likely to compromise every healthy female between six and sixty who even happens to be within the same county as he is! A decadent, dissolute, positively cynical wretch, and he’s driving me from my… Are you quite all right, Gilly?” Her tone of voice changed to one of sudden concern.
Ghislaine had sunk abruptly into a chair. “I’m fine,” she said faintly. “Tell me about your cousin.”
“Heavens, most of his reputation is so shocking I don’t know the half of it. He’s the last of the mad Blackthornes, from the northern branch of the family, and a nasty bit of goods he is. Cool and self-centered and unbearably wicked. If only he weren’t my cousin.”
Ghislaine managed to rouse herself to a semblance of polite conversation. “Because he embarrasses you?”
“Heavens, no! Because he’s such a notorious flirt, and so sinfully good-looking that I wouldn’t have minded… well, I suppose I would have minded. It’s all very well to say rakes are irresistible,” Ellen announced, “but I don’t really think they’d be quite comfortable to live with. Certainly Nicholas wouldn’t. For all his handsome face there’s something quite… unnerving about his eyes. Wouldn’t you say so?”
“I’ve never seen him,” Ghislaine said faintly, her hands clenched beneath her enveloping white apron. Ellen would have no reason to know it was a lie.
“Of course you haven’t. And you won’t this time. He came in a couple of hours ago, thoroughly foxed, and is snoring quite loudly in one of the bedrooms. We’ll simply decamp and wait until word comes that he’s gone to the continent.”
“Why is he going to the continent? He’s a little old for a grand tour, isn’t he?”
“Gracious, yes. Nicky’s been out of leading-strings for dozens of years,” Ellen said blithely. “No, I gather he’s involved in some wretched scandal again. Carmichael’s note said something about a duel, and another man’s wife. If the man lives, Nicky can go back to town if he so chooses. If he dies, Nicky’s off to France.”
“France?”
“Nicky’s always had a real affinity for France. At least for the time being we don’t happen to be at war. Don’t look like that, Gilly. I know you’re sensitive, but you needn’t look vaporish every time someone simply mentions the silly country. You’ll never have to go back, I swear it to you. Let Nicky go, and maybe he’ll come to the bad end he so richly deserves. They’re still using the guillotine, aren’t they?”
In her mind’s eye Ghislaine could see the flash of the blade, hear the sudden roar of the crowd. Could feel her own faintness, as she fought, always fought, the terror. “As far as I know,” she said, wishing in her heart that Nicholas Blackthorne’s black-curled head would end in the same bloodstained basket that had held so many others.
“Fortunately I haven’t had much experience with drunkards. I have no idea when he’ll come to and start demanding things. We’d best leave immediately. That odious manservant of his can see to his needs.” Ellen rose, fluffing her yellow skirts around her, and Ghislaine watched her with emotionless abstraction, suddenly aware that this was the last time she would see her benefactress.
She dressed poorly, ignoring Ghislaine’s occasional tasteful suggestions. Her form was voluptuous and her taste ran toward the extreme in ornamentation. Two ribbons were always better than one, three ruffles better than two, bright colors better than the pastels that would suit her pink and white prettiness to perfection. It had been Ghislaine’s unspoken goal to pass on her inborn Frenchwoman’s sense of style. For the past year her efforts had fallen on deaf ears. And now it would be too late.
“I’m not coming,” she said.
Ellen simply blinked her china-blue eyes. “Don’t be absurd. Of course you are. I know you usually refuse to accompany me to house parties, but this is different. We’re simply going to take refuge with Carmichael in Somerset while Nicky rearranges his life. A little rustication will do us both good. Besides, you promised to teach me how to cook.”
“Not this time,” Ghislaine said in her cool, faintly accented French. When she was nine years old she’d had an impoverished English gentlewoman as her governess, and her English was impeccable. Except when she spoke with the servants.
Neither woman thought it the slightest bit odd that the chef would refuse an order from her employer. “But why, Gilly?” Ellen wailed. “I’ll be so lonely up there!”
“You’ll have Binnie for company.”
“Binnie’s a fool. Why would you want to stay here? Nicky will probably spend all his time carousing, and your cooking will be wasted.” Ellen’s eyes filled with tears.
“You promised me when I agreed to accompany you here that you would accept my terms,” Ghislaine said softly. “I told you I couldn’t be your friend, your confidante, your sister. If I accepted your offer to come to England it would be as your servant or I wouldn’t come.”
“But Gilly…!”
“I’m staying here, in the kitchen, where I belong,” she said, rising and taking Ellen’s soft hands in her smaller, harder ones. “I’m sure I’ll be able to come up with something suitable for Nicholas Blackthorne.”
For all her emotions, Lady Ellen was not a stupid woman. Her voice was low when she spoke. “Will you tell me?”
Ghislaine didn’t pretend to misunderstand. She owed her that much. “Not in this lifetime,” she said grimly.
It had been less than eight hours since Ellen had left. Life at Ainsley Hall went on as usual, whether the mistress was in residence or not. The joint rulers of the staff, Wilkins the butler and Mrs. Rafferty the housekeeper, kept strict order. They’d negotiated a truce with Ghislaine shortly after she arrived, both of them recognizing an unassailable adversary when they met one.
A meal had been served to Nicholas Blackthorne, one that was sent back untouched. Ghislaine had viewed the tray with no emotion whatsoever, but now, as she sat alone in the vast kitchens of the huge manor house, she felt a trace of something as mild as irritation.
It was suddenly very clear. She wasn’t going to butcher Nicholas Blackthorne in his bed, much as he deserved it. There were far too many complications, not the least of which was the deep, bitter knowledge that she might not have the stomach for it, for the revenge she’d sought for so long.
She could only hope that the gentleman’s appetite improved as he sobered up. Because she had every intention of poisoning him, and then standing over him and watching him die.
She heard the steady footsteps approaching through the east pantry, and she sat very still, panic slicing through her. She didn’t recognize those footsteps.