Lady Midnight (7 page)

She studied him surreptitiously from the corner of her eye. With a start, she noticed something she had missed in her bizarre, overwhelming enthrallment. His cheek was scarred with a long, thick, pale pink line slicing from temple to mouth, with a few smaller flecks surrounding it. The shocking sight made her own scarred cheek itch and burn in memory, until she had to rub hard at it with her fingers.

What could have happened to this man, to mar his angel's beauty? Had it scarred his heart, as well? Had it changed his very world—as Kate's own injuries had?

She found she ached to know these things, to know everything about him. An overwhelming temptation came over her as he lifted her up onto the high carriage seat. A temptation to lean down and press a hundred kisses, a thousand caresses, on those scars, until they both forgot all the pain of the past.

Kate sighed deeply as she settled onto the seat, arranging her respectable gray skirts around her. Oh, she was
truly
in trouble now.

Chapter 3

He was in so much trouble.
Michael knew this as surely as he knew his own name. It had been a long time, a veritable lifetime, since he had felt this hot rush of immediate attraction toward a woman. This imperative urge to hold, to kiss, to breathe in her rosy perfume, her very essence, and absorb her into himself.

Why did it have to be with the new
governess? A
lady he would have to see every single day? A lady who was completely forbidden, thanks to his own iron resolve never to take advantage of any female under his roof. A lady who was,
damn it all,
a
lady.

Mrs. Brown's waist was slim and supple beneath his hands as he lifted her into the curricle, her weight as light as a snowflake. She wore no stays beneath her plain garments—she obviously needed none. For one second, his cheek brushed the soft wool of her skirt. She smelled of rose water and her own sweet female fragrance. It made him ache and stir deep inside, where he thought surely his soul was frozen forever.

Once she was seated, her hand, gloved in butter-soft pink kid, lingered gently on his shoulder.
"Grazie,"
she whispered.

He glanced up at her, drawn by the husky Italian accent. Her dark brown eyes were wide, her rose-pink lips parted on an indrawn breath. She was not unaffected by their nearness, either. Knowing that, seeing it, sent a rush of powerful, primitive masculine satisfaction jolting through him. It took all his strength to keep from pulling her pretty face down to his, kissing those lush, parted lips until they tumbled together to the ground, sighs and breaths mingling in the cool air....

No,
Michael thought regretfully, shoving those enticing images away. He was no longer the reckless, wild youth he had once been, who grabbed what he wanted no matter who might be hurt. He had learned his hard lesson with his sweet Caroline, and he couldn't afford to be like that anymore. He had responsibilities, and his family's reputation to uphold.

Kate Brown was lovely—there was no doubt about that. The loveliest woman he had seen since coming to Yorkshire. Her skin was milky white, but her hair and eyes were dark as night. Those eyes, with their coffee color, tilted up faintly at the corners, giving her an alluring, almost Eastern aspect. When those eyes turned in his direction they beckoned to him, drawing him closer, teasing him with glimpses of her inner self. They told him she was not merely a beautiful doll, as many ladies fluttering around the ballrooms of London seemed. She had an indefinable elegance, a sensuality as subtle as her rose perfume, that could be the undoing of any man.

Michael stepped back from the curricle, turning his face to the chill moor wind. It seemed to shake him back to reality, and he laughed at the thought of what Lady Ross or old Mrs. Sowerby might say if she came upon Mr. Lindley kissing his new governess in the middle of the road.

Mrs. Brown gave him a frowning glance, as if puzzled by his sudden laughter. Well, he couldn't explain it to her. He couldn't even explain this sudden madness to himself.

She reached up to push back a lock of black satin hair the wind teased from beneath her bonnet. As she smoothed it away from her face, he saw with a sudden shock that she was
not
perfect. A thin scar sliced beneath her high cheekbone, thinner and lighter than his own.

She was marked—just as he was.

He almost reached out to touch that scar, but caught himself just in time. She turned away from him, as if she sensed his urge, and broke the slender thread binding them.

"I left my valise beside that rock," she said softly, with no inflection at all in her voice.

"I'll fetch it, then, and we can be off." Michael turned and hurried back up to where she had been standing when he first saw her. The valise was old and worn, of cracked, stained brown leather. It was too homely for such a woman, he thought with rare whimsy. She should have satin pouches and silk-covered trunks.

The old case also didn't latch securely. It came open as he lifted it, spilling some of its contents onto the ground. He knelt to gather them up, hoping she couldn't see his blasted clumsiness, the way he fumbled with her night rail.

The garment was a serviceable white muslin, unadorned by any ribbons or lace—not something designed to set a man's senses reeling. But somehow his breath quickened at the sight of its softness, its femininity, by the waves of rose scent that wafted from its folds. He envisioned Kate Brown asleep in this gown, loose-limbed and warm with dreams, the muslin sliding back from a slim leg....

Blast! You've been without a woman for too long,
he mocked himself as he pushed the night rail back into the valise. It couldn't be healthy. He should visit Becky at the Tudor Arms again soon.

The books he gathered up were easier on his equilibrium, conjuring no erotic images. They
were
interesting, though—Dante and Petrarch in Italian, Byron, Shelley, a novel called
Pride and Prejudice,
which he remembered his mother and sister reading and rhapsodizing over. He tucked them in next to the night rail, and only then did he notice a small object half hidden in the shadows. It was small and lumpy, wrapped in a scrap of stained bright blue silk.

Michael picked it up, rubbing his thumb over rough edges. Curious, he folded back a corner of the silk—and frowned at what he saw. A sapphire, big as his thumb and blue as his daughter's eyes, surrounded by a ring of ivory pearls in a brooch that could feed a farm family for a winter.

Well, well,
he thought sharply, looking over his shoulder to where Mrs. Brown sat in the curricle, hands demurely folded in her lap, his greatcoat still over her shoulders. It seemed everyone had secrets in this world. The brooch could be anything—a family heirloom, a gift from the late Mr. Brown, whoever
he
had been. Or it could be something more sinister.

It was not worth sending her away over now, or even interrogating her about. But he
would
have to watch her. He had his family to think about.

"Mr. Lindley?" she called. "Is everything all right?"

Michael folded the brooch back up into its silk and placed the jewel back into the valise before standing again. "I'm afraid your case fell open, Mrs. Brown."

She gave a little laugh. "I fear it is a temperamental old thing! Just pinch the clasp together until it clicks."

He hoisted the valise beneath his arm and made his way back down to the waiting curricle—and the waiting Mrs. Brown. He noticed that his leg was stiffening a bit, and cursed that he hadn't thought to bring his walking stick. Without its support, he had to move more slowly and carefully, trying not to limp at all.

Mrs. Brown didn't seem to notice his slightly awkward gait. She watched his approach with a cool, serene smile, and nodded her thanks when he handed her the recalcitrant valise. She turned away, fussing with the clasp as he pulled himself up onto the seat beside her. She couldn't even look at him as they moved onto the road, turning the corner that led into Suddley village.

"Tell me about my pupils, Mr. Lindley," she said. "Your sister and daughter. What are their interests? What do they hope to learn?"

"My daughter, Miss Amelia Lindley, is nearly seven," he answered, and couldn't help but smile. He
always
smiled when he thought of his little Amelia. "She hasn't had very many opportunities for education yet, but she's very bright and curious. My mother has been teaching her her letters and some embroidery. She is very fond of music, and can already play some songs at the pianoforte." He tossed her a rueful smile. "I suppose I sound like a boastful papa, going on about how my daughter is so smart and talented and pretty beyond all other girls."

She smiled, too, but hers was suddenly sunny, delighted. It transformed her already beautiful face to something beyond loveliness. "You sound like a justly proud papa. I can't wait to meet Miss Amelia. She sounds like a delightful child."

Her smile remained, but it turned wistful at the edges, as if she remembered something bittersweet. She turned her face away.

Michael wanted that brief sunny glow back. He would do anything to make her smile and laugh again. Stand on his head, make ridiculous jokes—anything. When she smiled, she made him feel younger somehow. Lighter. Whole.

But of course, he couldn't do
any
of those clownish things. Not while he was driving.

"She must miss her mother a great deal," Mrs. Brown said wistfully. "It is hard for a girl to lose her mother."

At the thought of Caroline, golden-girl Caroline, Michael turned somber, too. It shook him completely from his haze of lust toward Mrs. Brown as nothing else could. "Amelia was very young when my wife died," he answered tightly. "She hardly remembers her."

"I am sorry to bring it up," she said. "It must have been very hard for you, as well, Mr. Lindley. To lose someone is never easy."

"Yes. You are a widow yourself, are you not, Mrs. Brown?"

She turned away again, the narrow brim of her dark blue bonnet hiding her expression from his view. Ail he saw was the clean, white line of her long neck rising from her high collar, the neat coil of shining black hair at her nape. "Yes," she whispered. There was a world of hurt in that one word. A hurt he knew he could not erase for her, as much as he longed to.

They drove along in silence for several long moments, until she looked back at him, her face smooth and serene. "And your sister, Mr. Lindley? She is fifteen, correct? She will be making her grand debut in only a year or two, surely."

"She will. Or rather, so we hope," Michael answered, unreasonably grateful for the change of subject. They had skirted perilously close to the edge of the personal—the painful. "Lady Christina is quite an intelligent young lady, very interested in botany."

"Botany?" Mrs. Brown said, faint dismay in her voice. "You mean, plants and such? I fear I know little of such things."

"That is quite all right, Mrs. Brown," he assured her. "Christina knows enough of that for all of us. I doubt Linnaeus himself could teach her anything. What she really needs is to learn to comport herself gracefully in Society and at Court. Conversation, dancing, fashion—that sort of thing. My mother will be able to tell you more."

She gave a distinctly relieved laugh. "Conversation, dancing, and fashion are things I
can
help her with. I promise you, Mr. Lindley, after a few months with me Lady Christina will be a veritable Diamond."

"A Diamond, eh? We would be happy if she would just cease getting mud all over her gowns!" They came up over the crest of a hill into the edges of the village. "And this is Suddley, Mrs. Brown."

"Indeed?" He watched her as she gazed around thoughtfully as they drove down the main street, taking in the buildings lining the cobblestone road. There was the inn, the Tudor Arms, where no doubt the soon-to-be unemployed post chaise driver was enjoying a pint and the buxom Becky worked as barmaid. Mr. and Mrs. Elliott's store, where any number of goods could be obtained, from London cloth to scented soaps to plowshares. The bookshop, the apothecary. The assembly rooms, where Lady Ross and her daughters vied with his mother for social supremacy. The old Norman church of St. Anne's, with its time-darkened stones and tall, square spire and ancient churchyard.

He hoped that Mrs. Brown liked it, for in Suddley was all the society that could be expected in the neighborhood. If she thought it primitive or unattractive, she would surely dash back to London, leaving him with a new, long search for another governess.