Lady Midnight (35 page)

"We had gone to a party, you see, aboard a yacht that my mother's lover—her protector—owned. My mother was a courtesan, the most beautiful and expensive in Venice. As my grandmother was before her, and as I was soon to be. My true name is Katerina Bruni. There was never any English soldier named Brown. I have never been married."

Kate had often thought that she could glimpse paradise in Michael's face, in his smile and the light of his eyes. Now, now when it was so very important and she was quaking in her slippers with fright and uncertainty, he was utterly expressionless. His sweet mouth was a straight, flat line, his gaze shuttered. He truly could have been carved of the wood from the tree they leaned against.

Yet he reached for her hands again. Surely that was a hopeful sign.

"You were a virgin," he said again, quietly.

Kate flicked the end of her tongue against her parched lips and nodded shortly, staring at their joined hands. "There—there was a man. He was in negotiations with my mother to become my protector, but he also died on the yacht. My virginity was very valuable to him."

"And not to you?"

Had
her virginity been valuable to her? She had never truly considered that. It was worth money to her mother, pride to Julian Kirkwood, but...

Yes. She had valued it, but not as they had. "It was," she said. "As a gift. One I chose to give to
you,
Michael."

He released her hands, and one finger gently lifted her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze in the moonlight. His stare was still quite unreadable, while she feared her feelings were writ too large. Fear, apprehension, hope, misery—love. Surely it was all in her eyes for him to see.

"Why, Kate?" he said, still quiet and gentle. Terribly gentle. "Why did you give such a gift to me? I have no great riches to give you, no palaces or crowns. Only my scarred self, and a most odd family and house."

Kate feared she would burst into tears. Her throat ached; her eyes itched. It was more important now than it had ever been before that she hold control of her emotions, that she convince him of the truth—that she had changed. And she
had
changed. She was no longer the uncertain girl she was before the accident. She was a woman, and she knew what she wanted—a home, a family. Love.

But she was no longer willing to gain and hold all that with deceit. Michael had to know the truth—they had to be together just as they were, two flawed people who tried to be better. Or they had to part.

"I gave that gift to you, Michael, because I knew that I could trust you with it," she answered. "You are a good man, and I care deeply about you." She was trying so very hard to be brave, yet she could not bring herself to say it—
love.
Courage could go only so far on this night.

"And you did not care about this other man?" he said.

Kate turned away from him, wrapping her arms over her hollow stomach. She remembered Julian Kirkwood—how handsome he was. Truly the most beautiful man she had ever seen, with his smooth olive skin, gray eyes, and glossy black hair waving back from a noble brow. He dressed with elegant perfection, beauty in every detail. Not like Michael's rough country attire, his limp, and scarred face. Julian had spoken five languages, been knowledgeable about literature, art, science, history. And he had made it very clear that he desired her, adored her.

But she had feared him, from a place inside herself so deep, so elemental. His gaze, his touch, were too grasping, too intense. His beautiful eyes did not see
her,
Katerina, but a creature of his own imagining, his own desires and dreams. If her life had gone on as it had begun, if she had become Julian's mistress, she would have had to
become
his dream woman. His Beatrice. Her own self would be forever buried.

With Michael, she never felt that way. Perhaps he had not known the truth of her past life, her external situation, but he had always known
her,
her heart.

Ever since the moment they met on the moor. And she sensed his goodness, his deep strength, his passion. He possessed something far finer than elegant clothes and Continental polish. And something in Kate's soul reached out to grasp that.

She knew that her silence had gone on too long. She wiped impatiently, roughly, at her eyes, and turned back to Michael. He still watched her in perfect silence.

"Did I care about him?" she repeated slowly. "He was handsome, rich, charming. He was friends with my mother's protector, so she adored him and advanced his cause. I did not care about him. I feared him."

At those stumbling words, Michael came to warm life. He caught her by the shoulders, his hands strong and safe against her. "Did he hurt you, Kate?" he said fiercely. "Did he—"

"No! No, nothing like that. It was just—when he looked at me he saw Dante's Beatrice, Petrarch's Laura. A dream, a fantasy. He watched me all the time, all the time. He followed me to the shops, to church, staring. Always watching." Her voice rose sharply, and she knew she was becoming hysterical. Yet this was the first time she had ever told
anyone
of what had happened with Julian Kirkwood. With her mother, Kate always feigned contentment with her lot. Lucrezia would not have understood her daughter's fanciful scruples. Now the creeping cold feelings of Julian's staring at her, kissing her, came flooding back. It was so very unlike the warm
Tightness
she felt in Michael's arms, under Michael's kiss. "I detested him. He wanted only a possession, not a real woman."

A strangled groan echoed in Michael's throat. For an instant, his grasp tightened almost painfully on her shoulders. Then he turned away, jolting to his feet. He strode two steps away, his back to her.

Kate buried her face in her hands. He was disgusted with her, disgusted with what she had been, with her lies. She wanted to tell him, longed to tell him, how very sorry she was. When she opened her mouth, all that came out was a sob.

In an instant, Michael was back with her, kneeling before her in the dirt of the innyard, reaching out for her hands like a drowning man.

"Kate, Kate of my consolation," he said, his voice a hollow echo she had never heard before. He sounded like she felt—as if surfacing from a cold depth. "I am sorry."

Utterly bewildered, Kate stared down at him. He was all shadows and angles in the dark. "
You
are sorry, Michael? Whatever for? You have done nothing."

"I am as bad as the man who would have bought you."

Kate gaped at him, completely nonplussed. Whatever she had been expecting, whatever she had been dreading, it was not
this.
"What are you talking about? You are nothing like him. He was selfish, delusional in his love. You are..." She faltered at that, for truly she had no words for all the things Michael was.

Still kneeling before her, he stared up at her, stark and lovely. "I insisted that we must marry, even though you said no. You refused, and I still thought that I knew best, that I could overcome your resistance. I only wanted what I wished for, you as my wife, not what you might desire. I'm sorry, Kate."

Sorry?
Kate's mother had always said men were right no matter what they said or did, that women just had to go along with them if they wanted life to be pleasant and comfortable. And men would never, ever apologize, even if they were lying scoundrels. Yet here was a man telling her he was sorry for offering her the one thing she wanted above all others.

To be Michael's wife, to have him and his family as her own for the rest of her days.

"Oh,
caro mio
," she whispered. "I promise you, Michael, you are not as other men. You have nothing at all to be sorry for. I am sorry. I lied to you from before we met—I brought such ugliness into your life, into Amelia's and Christina's lives. But I swear to you, I
vow,
I never meant to hurt any of you. I only wanted..." Once again, words and logic failed her. She had only emotion, like a great, choking tidal wave of pain and love and longing.

Michael sat beside her again, his arm coming around her shoulders, holding her submersion at bay. She was safe for the moment, always safe when he held her in the dark. But the morning always came eventually.

"Tell me what you wanted," he urged.

"A new life," she said. "A new way of being, where I could find out who I am. No masks, no falseness. The irony, of course, is that I had to lie to obtain truth."

"Why did you decide to come to England?"

"I told you the truth about my father. He was English, but I had never seen his homeland. Only read about it, heard tales of it from others. And it is very far from Venice. When my mother died, I was so lost, confused—I did not know what to do." Kate closed her eyes as she remembered those days at Maria and Paolo's cottage, when she was so sick and sad. "My mother owned her palazzo free and clear—I would have inherited it. I could have gone back, found a protector, taken her place in the demimonde. But I could not."

And her mother's spirit had told her she did not have to. But she could not say that to Michael. Surely he already thought her a bedlamite.

"I came here seeking goodness," she said simply. "And I found it."

"Kate," he said hoarsely. She turned her face up for his kiss, and his lips met hers in the most tender of caresses.

"Oh, Kate," he murmured, his lips trailing a ribbon of kisses to her cheek and throat, never letting her go. "You are so brave."

"Brave?" Kate tangled her fingers in the waves of his hair, returning his kisses. His cheek was rough beneath her lips, sweeter than oranges or marzipan. "I was a coward to lie to you."

He caught her face between his hands, forcing her to meet his forthright gaze. "You told me the truth in the end. That is what matters."

"But—"

"Sh. I cannot say I'm happy about it—about the life you had to lead, all the terrible things you faced. About the fact that you thought you
had
to lie to me, to anyone. That is all over, Kate. You are safe now."

Safe.
Kate stared up at him intently, longing to believe him, still afraid to. It was all too fine; surely it was a dream that would be snatched away like a drop of water.

"It is late," he said softly.

Kate closed her eyes. "Yes. I never meant to leave Christina and Amelia for so long."

"Go to bed." He pressed one last fleeting kiss to her brow, and let her go. "We can speak more of this later."

She nodded, unable to look at him again for fear she might start weeping. She had never before in her life been such a watering pot! Wordlessly, she took his coat from around her shoulders and handed it back to him. Wrapping her arms about herself against the sudden chill of the night, she fled into the silence of the inn.

* * *

Michael sat in the deserted innyard for a long time after Kate left. He smoked another cheroot, wrapped in the bittersweet silence and smoke.

He had known Kate Brown was hiding something, of course, from that first day. That sapphire brooch was the most obvious sign, but there was also her air of sophistication and secretiveness, her bright flashes of sorcery. The longing and pain in her eyes when she thought herself unobserved. In his more fanciful moments, he had imagined she might be a spy, or a runaway princess from some exotic Mediterranean kingdom. A jewel thief. A duchess. He
should
have included courtesan on that dream list—it only made sense, perfect sense, now that he knew. The way she moved, smiled, the
knowingness
of her, beyond her years. Yet he had never thought of it. Perhaps because of the poetic dreamy innocence that enclosed her like a white mantle, the palpable air of her being set apart from the mundane world.

His sorceress. His curst Kate.

Michael drew deeply on the cheroot until he felt the sharp bite of smoke at the bottom of his lungs. Kate was the most beautiful, alluring woman he had ever seen. Surely she could have made a vast fortune in Venice. Instead, she had surrendered all her innocence and passion in Michael's arms, in a rough sheep-herder's cottage while a storm raged around them.

He didn't know
what
he felt at this moment. He had felt love before in his life, and guilt—oh, yes, there had been plenty of fruitless guilt. He recognized the sweetness and fear of love now, blooming tentatively like a first rose of summer after a very black winter. He recognized the sharp tang of guilt. But there was also a bitter brew of hurt that she had felt she could not trust him, even after their lovemaking, mixed with something else—anger.

White-hot anger at people who were dead. Kate's mother, for trying to usher her own child into the life of a whore. And the unnamed man who wanted to buy Kate, to possess her like a horse or sheep or painting.

With a muttered curse, Michael dropped the end of the cheroot and ground it beneath his boot heel. If that man were before him now, Michael would thrash him to within an inch of his life for ever frightening Kate, ever making her feel as if she had no choices. It was true that he himself had once thought to possess Kate, as his wife. All those thoughts were gone now, vanished like the smoke.

He loved Kate, and he could think of nothing sweeter than having her love him, too, than spending their lives together as a family with Amelia. But it would have to be Kate's choice, and he sensed that she was confused and frightened right now.

It would have to be Kate's decision. Yet Michael had learned patience since his wild youth. He could wait.