A Lady by Midnight

A Lady by Midnight

Tessa Dare

Dedication

For Tessa Woodward and Helen Breitwieser, with much gratitude.

Contents

Chapter One

Summer 1814

C
orporal Thorne could make a woman quiver, from all the way across the room.

An inconvenient talent, so far as Kate Taylor was concerned.

The man didn’t even have to try, she noted with a rueful twinge. All he had to do was stride into the Bull and Blossom, claim a bar stool, glower into a pewter tankard and keep his broad, hulking back to the room. And without a word . . . without so much as a
glance . . .
he had poor Miss Elliott’s fingers trembling as she laid them to the pianoforte keys.

“Oh, I can’t,” the girl whispered. “I can’t sing now. Not with him here.”

Yet another music lesson ruined.

Kate never had this problem until a year ago. Before then, Spindle Cove had been chiefly inhabited by ladies, and the Bull and Blossom was a quaint tea shop serving iced cakes and jam tarts. But ever since a local militia had been organized, the establishment had become both the ladies’ tea shop and the gentlemen’s tavern.

She wasn’t opposed to sharing—but there could be no “sharing” with Corporal Thorne. His stern, brooding presence took up the whole room.

“Let’s try again,” she urged her pupil, striving to ignore the intimidating silhouette looming in her peripheral vision. “We almost had it that time.”

Miss Elliott blushed and knotted her fingers in her lap. “I’ll never get it right.”

“You will. It’s only a matter of practice, and you won’t be alone. We’ll keep working at the duet, and we’ll be ready for a trial performance at this Saturday’s salon.”

At the mere word “performance,” the girl’s cheeks went crimson.

Annabel Elliott was a pretty young lady, delicate and fair—but the poor thing flushed so easily. Whenever she was flustered or nervous, her pale cheeks blazed as though they’d been slapped raw. And she was flustered or nervous far too much of the time.

Some young ladies came to Spindle Cove to recover from shyness, or scandal, or a debilitating bout with fever. Miss Elliott had been sent in hopes of a different cure: a remedy for stage fright.

Kate had been tutoring her long enough to know that Miss Elliott’s difficulty had nothing to do with a lack of talent or preparation. She only needed confidence.

“Perhaps some new sheet music would help,” Kate suggested. “I find a folio of crisp, new-smelling music to be even better for my spirits than a new bonnet.” An idea struck. “I’ll go into Hastings this week and see what I can find.”

In truth, she had been planning to visit Hastings for a completely different purpose. She had a call to pay there—one she’d been putting off. Purchasing new music made an excellent excuse.

“I don’t know why I’m so stupid,” the blushing girl lamented. “I’ve had years of excellent instruction. And I love to play. Truly, I do. But when others are listening, I always freeze. I’m hopeless.”

“You are
not
hopeless. No situation is ever hopeless.”

“My parents . . .”

“Your parents don’t believe you’re hopeless, either, or they wouldn’t have sent you here,” Kate said.

“They want me to have a successful season. But you don’t know the pressure they’ve put on me. Miss Taylor, you can’t possibly understand what it’s like.”

“No,” Kate admitted. “I suppose I can’t.”

Miss Elliott looked up, stricken. “I’m sorry. So sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. How thoughtless of me.”

Kate waved off the apologies. “Don’t be silly. It’s the truth. I’m an orphan. You’re absolutely right—I can’t possibly know what it’s like to have parents with such high expectations and soaring hopes.”

Though I’d give anything to experience it, just for one day.

She continued, “But I do know what a difference it makes to know you’re among friends. This is Spindle Cove. We’re all a bit unusual here. Just remember, everyone in the village is on your side.”

“Everyone?”

Miss Elliott’s wary gaze slid to the enormous, solitary man seated at the bar.

“He’s so big,” she whispered. “And so frightful. Every time I start to play, I can see him wince.”

“You mustn’t take it personally. He’s a military man, and you know they’re all addled by bomb blasts.” Kate gave Miss Elliott an encouraging pat on the arm. “Never mind him. Just hold your head high, keep a smile on your face, and continue playing.”

“I’ll try, but he’s . . . he’s rather difficult to ignore.”

Yes. He was. Didn’t Kate know it.

Even though Corporal Thorne excelled at ignoring
her
, she couldn’t deny his effect on her own composure. Her skin prickled whenever he was near, and on the rare occasion that he looked her way, his glare had a way of slicing deep. But for the sake of Miss Elliott’s confidence, Kate set her personal reactions aside.

“Chin high,” she quietly reminded Miss Elliott, and herself. “Keep smiling.”

Kate began playing the lower half of the duet. But when the time came for Miss Elliott’s entrance, the younger lady faltered after just a few bars.

“I’m sorry, I just . . .” Miss Elliott lowered her voice.

“Did he wince again?”

“No, worse,” she moaned. “This time he shuddered.”

With a little gasp of indignation, Kate craned her neck to view the bar. “No. He didn’t.”

Miss Elliott nodded. “He did. It was terrible.”

That sealed it. For him to ignore her pupils was one thing. Wincing was another. But there was no excuse for shuddering. Shuddering was beyond the pale.

“I’ll speak with him,” Kate said, rising from the pianoforte bench.

“Oh, don’t. I beg you.”

“It’s all right,” Kate assured her. “I’m not afraid of him. He might be brutish, but I don’t believe he bites.”

She crossed the room and came to a stop just behind Corporal Thorne’s shoulder. She almost gathered the courage to tap the tasseled epaulet of his red uniform.

Almost.

Instead she cleared her throat. “Corporal Thorne?”

He turned.

In all her life she’d never known a man who could look so hard. His face was stony—composed of ruthless, chiseled angles and unyielding planes. Its stark terrain offered her no shelter, nowhere to hide. His mouth was a grim slash. His dark brows converged in disapproval. And his eyes . . . his eyes were the blue of river ice on the coldest, harshest winter night.

Chin high. Keep smiling.

“As you might have noticed,” she said lightly, “I’m in the middle of a music lesson.”

No response.

“You see, Miss Elliott is anxious when it comes to performing for strangers.”

“You want me to leave.”

“No.” Kate’s own reply surprised her. “No, I don’t want you to leave.”

That would be letting him off too easily. He was always leaving. This was their standard interaction, time after time. Kate screwed up her courage and attempted to be friendly. He always found some excuse to promptly leave the room. It was a ridiculous game, and she was weary of it.

“I’m not asking you to leave,” she said. “Miss Elliott needs practice. She and I are going to play a duet. I’m
inviting
you to lend us your attention.”

He stared at her.

Kate was accustomed to awkward eye contact. Whenever she made new acquaintances, she became painfully aware that people saw only the bold, port-wine splash on her temple. For years she’d tried to obscure her birthmark with wide-brimmed bonnets or artfully arranged ringlets of hair—to no avail. People always stared straight past them. She’d learned to ignore the initial hurt. In time, she went from being just a birthmark in their eyes, to being a woman with a birthmark. And eventually they looked at her and just saw Kate.

Corporal Thorne’s gaze was altogether different. She didn’t quite know
who
she was, in his eyes. The uncertainty set her on a razor’s edge, but she kept struggling to find her balance.

“Stay,” she dared him. “Stay and listen while we play our best for you. Applaud when we finish. Tap your toes to the rhythm, if you like. Give Miss Elliott a bit of encouragement. And shock me to the fingernails by proving you’ve a smidgen of compassion.”

Eons passed before he finally gave his succinct, gravelly response.

“I’ll leave.”

He stood, tossed a coin on the counter. And then he walked out of the tavern without looking back.

When the red-painted door swung shut on its oiled hinges, mocking her with a loud slam—Kate shook her head. The man was impossible.

At the pianoforte, Miss Elliott resumed playing a light arpeggio.

“I suppose that solves one problem,” Kate said, trying, as always, to see the bright side. No situation was ever hopeless.

Mr. Fosbury, the middle-aged tavern keeper, arrived to clear Thorne’s tankard. He pushed a cup of tea in Kate’s direction. A wafer-thin slice of lemon floated in the center, and the aroma of brandy drifted toward her on a wave of steam. She warmed inside before she’d even taken a sip. The Fosburys were good to her.

But they still weren’t a substitute for a true family. For that, she would have to keep searching. And she
would
keep searching, no matter how many doors slammed in her face.

“I hope you don’t take Thorne’s crude manners to heart, Miss Taylor.”

“Who, me?” She forced a little laugh. “Oh, I’m more sensible than that. Why should I take to heart the words of a heartless man?” She ran a fingertip around the teacup’s rim, thoughtful. “But kindly do me a favor, Mr. Fosbury.”

“Whatever you ask, Miss Taylor.”

“The next time I’m tempted to extend an olive branch of friendship to Corporal Thorne . . . ?” She arched one brow and gave him a playful smile. “Remind me to whack him over the head with it instead.”

Chapter Two

“M
ore tea, Miss Taylor?”

“No, thank you.” Kate sipped the weak brew in her cup, masking her grimace. The leaves were on their third use, at least. They seemed to have been washed of their last vague memory of being tea.

Fitting, she supposed. Vague memories were the order of the day.

Miss Paringham put aside the teapot. “Where did you say you’re residing?”

Kate smiled at the white-haired woman in the chair opposite. “Spindle Cove, Miss Paringham. It’s a popular holiday village for gently bred young ladies. I make my living offering music lessons.”

“I am glad to know your schooling has provided you with an honest income. That is more than an unfortunate like yourself should have hoped.”

“Oh, indeed. I’m very lucky.”

Setting aside her “tea,” Kate cast a surreptitious glance at the mantel clock. Time was growing short. She despised wasting precious minutes on niceties when there were questions singeing the tip of her tongue. But abruptness wouldn’t win her any answers.

A wrapped parcel lay in her lap, and she curled her fingers around the string. “I was so surprised to learn you’d settled here. Imagine, my old schoolmistress, pensioned just a few hours’ ride away. I couldn’t resist paying a call to reminisce. I have such fond recollections of my Margate years.”

Miss Paringham raised an eyebrow. “Really.”

“Oh, yes.” She stretched her mind for examples. “I particularly miss the . . . the nourishing soup. And our regular devotionals. It’s just so hard to find two solid hours for reading sermons nowadays.”

As orphans went, Kate knew she’d been a great deal happier than most. The atmosphere at Margate School for Girls might have been austere, but she hadn’t been beaten or starved or unclothed. She’d formed friendships and gained a useful education. Most important of all, she’d been instructed in music and encouraged in its practice.

Truly, she could not complain. Margate had provided for her every need, save one.

Love.

In all her years there, she’d never known real love. Just some pale, thrice-washed dilution of it. Another girl might have grown bitter. But Kate just wasn’t formed for misery. Even if her mind could not recall it, her heart remembered a time before Margate. Some distant memory of happiness echoed in its every beat.

She’d been loved once. She just knew it. She couldn’t put a name or face to the emotion, but that didn’t make it any less real. Once upon a time, she’d belonged—to someone, somewhere. This woman might be her last hope of finding the connection.

“Do you remember the day I arrived at Margate, Miss Paringham? I must have been such a little thing.”

The old woman’s mouth pursed. “Five years at the oldest. We had no way to be certain.”

“No. Of course you wouldn’t.”

No one knew Kate’s true birthday, least of all Kate herself. As schoolmistress, Miss Paringham had decided all wards of the school would share the Lord’s birthday, December 25. Supposedly they were to take comfort from this reminder of their heavenly family on the day when all the other girls had gone home to their own flesh-and-blood relations.

However, Kate always suspected there’d been a more practical motive behind the choice. If their birthdays were on Christmas, there was never any need to celebrate them. No extra gifts were warranted. Wards of the school made do with the same Christmas package every year: an orange, a ribbon, and a neatly folded length of patterned muslin. Miss Paringham did not believe in sweets.

Apparently she still didn’t. Kate bit a tiny corner off the dry, tasteless biscuit she’d been offered, then set it back on the plate.

On the mantel, the clock’s ticking seemed to accelerate. Only twenty minutes before the last stagecoach left for Spindle Cove. If she missed the stage, she would be stranded in Hastings all night.

She steeled her nerve. No more dithering.

“Who were they?” she asked. “Do you know?”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“My parents.”

Miss Paringham sniffed. “You were a ward of the school. You have no parents.”

“I do understand that.” Kate smiled, trying to inject some levity. “But I wasn’t hatched from an egg, was I? I didn’t turn up under a cabbage leaf. I had a mother and father once. Perhaps I had them for as many as five years. I’ve tried so hard to remember. All my memories are so vague, so jumbled. I remember feeling safe. I have this impression of blue. A room with blue walls, perhaps, but I can’t be certain.” She pinched the bridge of her nose and frowned at the knotted carpet fringe. “Maybe I just want to remember so desperately, I’m imagining things.”

“Miss Taylor—”

“I remember sounds, mostly.” She shut her eyes, delving inward. “Sounds with no pictures. Someone saying to me, ‘Be brave, my Katie.’ Was it my mother? My father? The words are burned into my memory, but I can’t put a face to them, no matter how I try. And then there’s the music. Endless pianoforte music, and that same little song—”

“Miss
Taylor.
”

As she repeated Kate’s name, the old schoolmistress’s voice cracked. Not cracked like brittle china, but cracked like a whip.

In a reflexive motion, Kate snapped tall in her chair.

Sharp eyes regarded her. “Miss Taylor, I advise you to abandon this line of inquiry at once.”

“How can I? You must understand. I’ve lived with these questions all my life, Miss Paringham. I’ve tried to do as you always advised and be happy for what good fortune life has given me. I have friends. I have a living. I have music. But I still don’t have the truth. I want to know where I came from, even if it’s difficult to hear. I know my parents are dead now, but perhaps there is some hope of contacting my relations. There has to be someone, somewhere. The smallest detail might prove useful. A name, a town, a—”

The old woman rapped her cane against the floorboards. “Miss Taylor. Even if I had some information to impart, I would never share it. I would take it to my grave.”

Kate sat back in her chair. “But . . . why?”

Miss Paringham didn’t answer, merely pressed her papery lips into a thin slash of disapproval.

“You never liked me,” Kate whispered. “I knew it. You always made it clear, in small, unspoken ways, that any kindness you showed me was begrudged.”

“Very well. You are correct. I never liked you.”

They regarded one another. There, now the truth was out.

Kate struggled not to reveal any sign of disappointment or hurt. But her wrapped bundle of sheet music slipped to the floor—and as it did, a smug little smile curved Miss Paringham’s lips.

“May I ask on what basis was I so reviled? I was appropriately grateful for every small thing I was given. I didn’t cause mischief. I never complained. I minded my lessons and earned high marks.”

“Precisely. You showed no humility. You behaved as though you had as much claim to joy as any other girl at Margate. Always singing. Always smiling.”

The idea was so absurd, Kate couldn’t help but laugh. “You disliked me because I smiled too much? Should I have been melancholy and brooding?”

“Ashamed!” Miss Paringham barked the word. “A child of shame ought to live ashamed.”

Kate was momentarily stunned silent.
A child of shame?
“What can you mean? I always thought I was orphaned. You never said—”

“Wicked thing. Your shame goes without saying. God Himself has marked you.” Miss Paringham pointed with a bony finger.

Kate couldn’t even reply. She raised her own trembling hand to her temple.

With her fingertips, she began to idly rub the mark, the same way she’d done as a young girl—as if she might erase it from her skin. Her whole life, she’d believed herself to be a loved child whose parents met an untimely demise. How horrid, to think that she’d been cast away, unwanted.

Her fingers stilled on her birthmark. Perhaps cast away because of
this.

“You fool girl.” The old woman’s laugh was a caustic rasp. “Been dreaming of a fairy tale, have you? Thinking someday a messenger will knock on your door and declare you a long-lost princess?”

Kate told herself to stay calm. Clearly, Miss Paringham was a lonely, warped old woman who now lived to make others miserable. She would not give the beastly crone the satisfaction of seeing her rattled.

But she would not stay here a moment longer, either.

She reached to gather her wrapped parcel of music from the floor. “I’m sorry to have disturbed you, Miss Paringham. I will leave. You needn’t say any more.”

“Oh, I
will
say more. Ignorant thing that you are, you’ve reached the age of three-and-twenty without understanding this. I see I must take it upon myself to teach you one last lesson.”

“Please, don’t strain yourself.” Rising from her chair, Kate curtsied. She lifted her chin and pasted a defiant smile on her face. “Thank you for the tea. I really must be going if I’m to catch the stagecoach. I’ll see myself out.”

“Impertinent girl!”

The old woman lashed out with her cane, striking Kate in the back of the knees.

Kate stumbled, catching herself in the drawing room entryway. “You struck me. I can’t believe you just struck me.”

“Should have done it years ago. I might have knocked that smile straight from your face.”

Kate braced her shoulder on the doorjamb. The sting of humiliation was far greater than the physical pain. Part of her wanted to crumple into a tiny ball on the floor, but she knew she had to flee this place. More than that, she had to flee these
words.
These horrible, unthinkable notions that could leave her marked inside, as well as out.

“Good day, Miss Paringham.” She placed weight on her smarting knee and drew a quick breath. The front door was just paces away.

“No one wanted you.” Venom dripped from the old woman’s voice. “No one wanted you then. Who on earth do you think will want you now?”

Someone,
Kate’s heart insisted.
Someone, somewhere.

“No one.” Malice twisted the old woman’s face as she swung the cane again.

Kate heard its crisp
whack
against the doorjamb, but by then she was already wrestling open the front latch. She picked up her skirts and darted out into the cobbled street. Her low-heeled boots were worn thin on the soles, and she slipped and stumbled as she ran. The streets of Hastings were narrow and curved, lined with busy shops and inns. There was no possible way the sour-faced woman could have followed her.

Still, she ran.

She ran with hardly a care for which direction she was going, so long as it was away. Perhaps if she kept running fast enough, the truth would never catch up.

As she turned in the direction of the mews, the booming toll of a church bell struck dread in her gut.

One, two, three, four . . .

Oh no. Stop there. Please don’t toll again.

Five.

Her heart flopped. Miss Paringham’s clock must have been slow. She was too late. The coach would have already departed without her. There wouldn’t be another until morning.

Summer had stretched daylight to its greatest length, but in a few hours, night
would
fall. She’d spent most of her funds at the music shop, leaving only enough money for her passage back to Spindle Cove—no extra coin for an inn or a meal.

Kate came to a standstill in the crowded lane. People jostled and streamed about her on all sides. But she didn’t belong to any of them. None of them would help. Despair crawled its way through her veins, cold and black.

Her worst fears had been realized. She was alone. Not just tonight, but forever. Her own relations had abandoned her years ago. No one wanted her now. She would die alone. Living in some cramped pensioner’s apartment like Miss Paringham’s, drinking thrice-washed tea and chewing on her own bitterness.

Be brave, my Katie.

Her whole life she’d clung to the memory of those words. She’d held fast to the belief that they meant someone, somewhere cared. She wouldn’t let that voice down. This sort of panic wasn’t like her, and it wouldn’t do a bit of good.

She closed her eyes, drew a deep breath, and took a silent inventory. She had her wits. She had her talent. She had a young, healthy body. No one could take these things from her. Not even that cruel, shriveled wench with her cane and weak tea.

There had to be some solution. Did she have anything she could sell? Her pink muslin frock was rather fine—a handed-down gift from one of her pupils, trimmed with ribbon and lace—but she couldn’t sell the clothes off her back. She’d left her best summer bonnet at Miss Paringham’s, and she’d rather sleep in the streets than retrieve it.

If she hadn’t cut it so short last summer, she might have tried to sell her hair. But the locks barely reached below her shoulders now, and they were an unremarkable shade of brown. No wig maker would want it.

Her best chance was the music shop. Perhaps if she explained her predicament and asked very nicely, the proprietor would accept his music back and return her money. That would afford her enough for a room at a somewhat respectable inn. Staying alone was never advisable, and she didn’t even have her pistol. But she could prop a chair beneath her door and stay awake all night, clutching the fireplace poker and keeping her voice primed to scream.

There. She had a plan.

As Kate started to cross the street, an elbow knocked her off balance.

“Oy,” its owner said. “Watch yerself, miss.”

She whirled away, apologizing. The twine on her parcel snapped. White pages flapped and fluttered into the gusty summer afternoon, like a covey of startled doves.

“Oh no. The music.”

She made wild sweeps with both hands. A few pages disappeared down the street, and others fell to the cobblestones, quickly trampled by passersby. But the bulk of the parcel landed in the middle of the lane, still wrapped in brown paper.

She made a lunging grab for it, desperate to save what she could.

“Look sharp!” a man shouted.

Cartwheels creaked. Somewhere much too near, a horse bucked and whinnied. She looked up from where she’d crouched in the lane to see two windmilling, iron-shoed hooves, big as dinner plates, preparing to demolish her.