Secrets of Midnight (30 page)

"Shh, Corie, do you want the old termagant to hear
us?" he demanded as he climbed in beside her and rapped on the roof. The
carriage at once rolled into motion as Will Brighton snapped his whip over the
two matched bays' heads. "At least now she isn't quite sure
what
happened. Let her wonder."

"But why . . . ?" Corisande didn't finish the
question as suddenly she and Donovan were cast into heavy shadow when the
lights of Somerset Place faded away, the carriage lanterns providing only a dim
glow. She felt him shrug, the two of them sitting so close together that his
arm rubbed against hers.

"The woman was irritating. And rude. Treating her
husband like a lapdog. Intolerable to watch."

"Oh."

Corisande didn't know why she felt
so
disappointed as a weighty silence fell between them—for heaven's sake, what had
she expected? That Donovan would say he'd done it all for her? He might be more
of a gentleman than she'd ever imagined, but she didn't need him to stand up
for her, no, not at all, nor did she want his protection—

"Of course, she wasn't very kind to you either.
That was damned intolerable too."

Her stomach suddenly turning upside down, Corisande
glanced at Donovan to see that he was staring at her in the dark, and she
quickly looked away. "I—I grew used to Lady Somerset's rudeness a long
time ago—"

"Well, there's no excuse for it. We were invited
guests in her home, but she ignored you from the very start."

"That shouldn't have surprised you. I told you her
invitation had absolutely nothing to do with me. But you're the son of a duke—"

"Yes, dammit to hell, so I am, and most of the
time it's brought me nothing but trouble." He gave a dry laugh that to
Corisande held bitterness too. "Except tonight, of course. Rank does
sometimes have its benefits. Did you see her face when I sent away the turtle
soup?"

Corisande began to chuckle, shaking her head. "Oh,
she was aghast, she really was. And her beloved painting, Donovan. I'm sure she
expected glowing compliments, but you sat down at the table with hardly a
grunt."

"A grunt? I don't grunt, wife. I said 'hmmm.'"

"Well, it might as well have been a grunt. I've
never seen anyone's face so red. That was Sir Randolph's wedding gift to her,
you know. She wanted that painting desperately, so Lindsay told me, and Sir
Randolph bought it for her at an auction."

"He should have sold Lady Somerset at that auction
instead," Donovan said bluntly, chuckling now too. "For a shilling."

"No, I think
a pence
.
Definitely a pence." Corisande laughed at the thought, imagining Olympia
Somerset surrounded by a roomful of silent, horrified bidders. But she really
began to laugh when, to her surprise, Donovan suddenly raised his voice to a
high-pitched falsetto, intoning, "Oh, Randolph dear!"

It was so ridiculous, hearing him mimic Lady Somerset,
and she didn't think she'd ever giggled so hard. When she was able to calm
herself she had to try it, too, but this time she added with a haughty ring, "Bring
our guest a brandy, will you?"

"Oh, yes, that was much better than mine."

"No, no, yours was better."

"Really? Good God, that woman had a vicious flair
for ordering her husband about, didn't she?" Donovan's laughter had
abruptly died down, and so did Corisande's as he added almost under his breath,
"Poor fool. Another marriage made in hell."

As silence reigned once more except for the carriage's
rumbling and creaking, Corisande turned her head to find Donovan wasn't looking
at her any longer but staring out the window into the black night, his body
gone tense beside her. So tense that she couldn't help but think of Lindsay's
letter and of last week, too, when Donovan had said unhappy marriages were far
more common among those of his station. Something inside her suddenly wanted to
know more, much more.

"You . . .
well,
you make
it sound as if all marriages are miserable."

"From what I've seen, most of them are. Bloody
miserable."

"My parents' marriage wasn't miserable. They loved
each other dearly."

"Then they were lucky. My parents hated each
other. Of course, my father deserved to be hated. You were more right about him
than you could ever know. He was a bastard through and through. Everything to
him was money. He married for money, made my brother, Nigel, marry for money,
ruined people's lives for
money—
just look at Arundale's
Kitchen. And he played with money."

"Gambling?"

She knew Donovan's eyes were full upon her now, and she
swallowed hard.

"Yes, gambling. But never enough to threaten his
dukedom. That's why he squeezed every last shilling out of his business
ventures. My mother couldn't stand it, the devastation the man wrought for
years without blinking an eye. She finally left him when a woman who worked at
one of my father's cotton mills came to Arundale Hall to tell him that her
three children had all starved to death that past winter for want of food. Do
you know what my father did, Corie?"

She shook her head, dread filling her.

"He hit her across the face when she refused to be
silent, knocking the poor woman down the steps. She struck her head at the
bottom and died. My mother never spoke a word to him again."

Corisande didn't know what to say, the bitterness so
thick in the air she could almost taste it. And she supposed some of it was
aimed straight at her. Yet if Donovan was no gambler, why hadn't he just said
so? He'd never denied anything of which she had accused him—but then again, why
should he? He probably didn't care at all what she thought of him—which hurt .
. . more than she could have ever imagined.

"So your parents were happy?"

Astonished at how quiet Donovan's voice had become
after the horror of what he'd just told her, Corisande nodded. "Yes, they
were. Very much."

"What happened? To your mother, I mean."

"A fever struck the parish, and many died. My
mother, Lindsay's mother—"

"Lindsay's mother too?"

"Yes. We'd known each other before, but I think
that's what drew us close. Her losing her mother, me losing mine. It was a
terrible time."

"And your father?"

Corisande sighed, drawing her cloak more tightly around
her shoulders, the thin muslin dress Rose Polkinghorne had made her offering
little warmth against the night's cool air.

"He's been as you've seen him since the day my
mother died, although he was worse at first. We had to beg him to leave her
grave—he loved her so much. They'd never been apart for even a day since he'd
saved her from a shipwreck. She'd just escaped from France, the Revolution,
only sixteen years old. But that's all I ever knew. My mother never talked
about her life there. She always said her life had begun the moment she met
Papa."

Falling silent, Corisande couldn't believe she'd shared
so much with Donovan; it had come out of her like a flood. He must have been
amazed, too, for he said nothing for long moments until he exhaled heavily.

"I envy the man."

Corisande looked at Donovan in disbelief, his face
hidden in shadow. "My father?"

"Yes, to have known so rare a thing as what he
shared with your mother. Not based upon money, or arranged, or forced upon him,
but found only by the purest chance."

"And look what it did to him."

Corisande had spoken so softly that she doubted Donovan
had heard her, his words unsettling her entirely. All she could think of was
how her father had wept and wept as if he couldn't stop, wept for days while
she huddled with her sisters, closing her eyes and ears to pain more wretched
than she ever wanted to hear again. She had seen then how much it hurt to be in
love, and had vowed she wanted no part of it. No, never. Never-

"Corie."

Donovan's voice was so husky that she felt shivers
spiral down her spine; suddenly she wished that the carriage wasn't so dark so
she could see his face, not just hear him.

"I just wanted you to know that you looked very
beautiful tonight at the Somersets'. I didn't say anything earlier, but I
should have. You were stunning."

Wholly astounded, Corisande bit her lip, tears
springing to her eyes. Beautiful? Stunning? Damn him, now he was taking his
bloody truce too far!

"I don't care if you thought I was no more
decorative than a turnip!" she blurted out, bunching her cloak and
shifting away from him. "I've no more need of your ridiculous compliments,
my lord, than you defending my honor to Lady Somerset—oh! What are you— Let me
go!"

Donovan had grabbed her forearm, drawing her back
toward him though she tried to brace her feet upon the carriage floor, but it
was no use. The damned leather seat was too slippery. With an outraged gasp she
was brought up hard against him, his arms locking around her to prevent her
from escaping even as she braced her hands upon his chest.

"How . . . how dare—"

"Easy, woman, easy! I only want to know why it
upsets you so terribly to hear such praise. Is it that bloody scar on your
face?"

Corisande was so
astonished,
she felt her jaw drop, her body going limp in his arms as if the wind had been
knocked from her.

"So that's it, then, isn't it? Good God, Corie, is
this how you want to go through life? Denying to yourself that you're a damned
lovely woman and thinking when anyone says so they're mocking you? So you have
a scar. It's never once bothered me—in fact, from the first moment I saw you it
only made me wonder what happened to you. What did happen?"

"I—I was cut," she said hoarsely, feeling
ridiculous as tears began to spill down her cheeks, but she couldn't stop them.
"Three years ago. A girl from Porthleven, Sophie Trelawny, married a
terrible man, a monster. He fooled us all, me, her parents, even poor Sophie—he'd
always seemed so nice. But he nearly beat her to death on their wedding
night—oh, God, there was so much blood."

She bent her head, sobbing silently now as Donovan's
arms tightened around her.

"Shh, Corie, shh, you don't have to tell me any
more if you don't want—"

"We . . . we all took turns sitting with her,"
she went on, scarcely hearing Donovan as the horrifying memories assailed her. "Her
parents,
myself
, Frances, sitting at her bedside and
caring for her while a search went on for the man. But a few days went by, then
a week, and they never found him. Everyone thought he'd fled from Cornwall, but
he came back. He came back the night I was sitting alone with Sophie."

"Corie, it's all right—"

"He'd been drinking for days, the bastard, and he
kicked in the window. He had a knife and he went for the bed while Sophie could
only scream, too weak to move. I tried to stop him, but he knocked me to the
floor, and when I came back at him again, he turned and cut me. I fell—I
thought he was going to kill me, he was standing over me and I saw the knife
and Sophie was screaming and screaming . . ."

Corisande clutched Donovan's coat even as he coaxed her
to stop, jerking at the deafening memory of a pistol shot exploding in the
room.

"Oliver Trelawny killed him—he'd heard Sophie
screaming, poor, poor Sophie. She never recovered, died only a few days later.
She'd lost too much blood . . ."

"Ah, Corie . . . Corie . . ."

Corisande gave no heed to Donovan's soothing whispers
as she buried her face against his shoulder and squeezed her burning eyes shut,
a great shuddering sigh escaping from her. But a long moment later, she felt
him ease her
backward,
suddenly very much aware of
what he was doing as he cupped her face in his hand, his thumb slowly tracing
over her cheek . . . her scar . . .

"You must wear this as a badge of honor, Corie.
Don't ever allow anyone to make you think that it's ugly. It's a thing of
beauty, of courage. God help me, I've never known a more amazing woman than
you. Never."

His vehemently whispered words plummeting to the very
heart of her, Corisande had never felt her pulse pounding
so
hard as he tilted her chin, his finger tracing over her lips for the barest
moment before his mouth captured hers.

She started, pulling back, but he only brought her that
much more fiercely against him, his kiss as fierce, as wild. She felt suddenly
as if she
were
drowning, Donovan drawing the very
breath from her body, and she thought to fight him, if only to breathe, to
live. At least until her arms found their way around his neck and she clung to
him as fiercely, drawing from him, too, what he seemed to crave so desperately
from her.

"Donovan . . ."

She'd said his name with a voice that sounded not her
own, hoarse, shaking, and she trembled from head to toe as his tongue swept
deep into her mouth. Her fingers entwining in his hair, she pulled him closer,
gasping when she felt his hand slip inside her cloak and cover her breast, her
nipple taut and swollen beneath his palm. A palm that began to slowly circle,
the thrilling pressure of his hand filling her with a yearning so powerful she
felt she might explode from its sheer intensity.

So, too, came a fierce awareness as she was suddenly
pulled onto Donovan's lap that she not only yearned but wanted to give,
ached
to give this man a part of herself
that she'd given to no one ever before. And it was the most frightening
realization of her life, the swaying, rumbling carriage, the all-encompassing
dark, their panting breaths, Donovan kissing her throat, her ear, her face as
his hands moved over her body and tugged her dress up over her bare thighs like
a dizzying dream from which she now desperately wanted to wake.

God help her, no, she wasn't falling in love with him,
she
wasn't! It was impossible, it was—