At the Midnight Hour (5 page)

“Perhaps for dinner,” Liz said.

“Perhaps.”

She nodded, watching him turn and walk away with speculative eyes. He moved gracefully, yet economically for such a large man. And his tailored slacks and shirt revealed a lean, powerful build. Come to think of it, she’d seen calluses on his hands—so how exactly did a man who supposedly locked himself in a lab all day come by such muscular tone and definition?

And what had brought the man who, just yesterday, had said he wanted nothing to do with his son, out here to join them on the blanket? She frowned, her eyes narrowing in thought. She had four brothers, she thought she knew a thing or two about the male species. And right now, she was sure there was more to Richard Keaton than met the eye. A lot more.

She would get to know him better, she thought determinedly, her head nodding unconsciously. Not for her sake, she told herself. But for Andrew’s.

T
he opportunity came as the clock struck midnight and she was curled in her favorite chair in the library. As the cavernous room had a habit of growing chilly at night, she had lit a small fire in the fireplace and pulled the chair closer to the welcoming warmth of the flames. Once more she was lost in the burning love of the Yorkshire moors, and once more she knew instantly the moment that he entered the room.

Neither acknowledged the other right away. She remained with her head in the book, even though she was no longer following the words. And he remained in the doorway, watching the way the firelight reflected off the long gleaming strands of her hair and accentuated the delicate planes of her face. She was wearing another flowing skirt, this one covered with fall leaves. Over it, she sported a long, cream-colored knit sweater. This outfit suited her better, he thought. For some reason, he hadn’t liked her in the uniform. She looked more comfortable now—comfortable, natural, fresh. And lovely, oh, so lovely.

He frowned to himself and entered the room.

“Would you like a drink?” he asked her as he crossed the room to the brandy decanter for his habitual fare. She still hadn’t looked up from the book, but he could feel her awareness even across the distance that separated them. It filled him with a primitive satisfaction.

“All right,” she agreed, surprising them both.

“Brandy?”

“That would be fine.”

He poured the two snifters, feeling the unwanted tension build in his stomach. He’d come down from his tower tonight knowing she would be here. He’d come down sooner than he should have, and much faster than his normal steady steps took him. Because he wanted to see her. He wanted to watch her hair glow by the firelight, he wanted to feel the probing of her midnight eyes on him. He wanted...

His face grew dark, and his eyes grew cold as he pushed the thoughts away. She was his son’s nanny, he told himself—nothing more. But he still wasn’t quite thinking in those terms when he took the glass over to her. And he certainly wasn’t thinking of her as a nanny when her hand brushed against his to take the glass. Instead, the muscles of his stomach tightened reflexively as a bolt of pure desire rocked through him.

He willed the response away with unrelenting determination, retreating to the opposite chair.

Liz didn’t say anything, hiding her own thoughts by taking a sip of the brandy and letting it blaze a fiery trail down her throat. She’d only had brandy once before, and the strength of it startled her. She could already feel it, a low, curling burn deep in her stomach. But it didn’t seem to quite calm her nerves.

The atmosphere of the room had changed radically upon Richard’s entering, she realized with a start. Suddenly the quiet coziness of the room seemed to spark, smoldering now with an unrelenting awareness. All at once she felt self-conscious, wondering if her hair was too unruly, the sweater too bulky. When she lifted the glass for a second sip, her hands were trembling slightly.

She shook her head against the sensations. It was just nerves, the usual awkwardness of being around an unfamiliar person, she told herself. After all, though she had lived in this house for nearly two weeks now, she’d hardly exchanged half a dozen words with the man across from her.

It looked as if he’d had a rough day, too. His hair lay dark and tousled across his forehead, and his usual pristine dress shirt had the top two buttons undone. She found her gaze resting on the tantalizing glimpse of black, curly chest hair, strong and virile against the white of his shirt. When she realized she was staring, a low blush infused her cheeks as she glanced sharply away. What in the world was the matter with her?

The silence was becoming unbearable.

“So how was your day?” she asked finally, the question sounding unbelievably inane to her. He looked almost tired, but the grim set of his features made it impossible to believe he possessed such a human weakness.

He didn’t answer, his eyes seemingly intent on the dancing flames. He shrugged, maintaining his remote composure.

“Are you making much progress?” she tried again. Her cheeks still felt flushed. She should probably slow down on the brandy; the room was really becoming warm and her hands were shaking.

“A little,” Richard said shortly, taking another sip from his snifter.

“Enough to start getting more sleep soon?”

“I don’t sleep much,” he said simply. No, he didn’t like to sleep. He didn’t like to close his eyes, and see all the pictures that came to his mind—like
her
blond hair, and brittle blue eyes. Like her scorning laughter, her porcelain face twisted in petty rage.

A muscle in his jaw clenched, but then he forced himself to relax. It was all over. The wicked witch was dead.

He almost smiled at the dark humor, but his lips no longer remembered the motion.

“Are these capacitor things really so important?” Liz asked. Up this close, she could see the clean line of his jaw, the way it clenched and unclenched as he unconsciously rolled the brandy glass between his hands. He had a strong face, highlighted by sharp, penetrating eyes. There was nothing awkward about his features, nor anything soft. He certainly didn’t look like any scientist she’d ever known. In fact, he didn’t look like
any
man she had ever known, not even tall, dark and handsome Garret, who made all the girls swoon. Richard was too removed, too distant, too controlled. He looked like a man carved from granite, but for some unfathomable reason, she wanted to lean closer to him.

Her hands trembled even more as she glanced down at the amber drink gently swooshing in the confines of the heavy crystal glass.

Had he really
killed
his wife?
whispered her inner voice.
Was he really that cold?

She had no answer but the shiver that crept along her spine.

As she watched, Richard gave a dismissing shrug in response to her question and took another sip from his glass.

The silence reverberated through the room, straining her nerves. She found herself watching his hands, the way they rotated the glass around and around and around. He had long, lean fingers and wide palms. His hands could probably hold a basketball quite easily. They were strong, too, she would bet. Capable hands that could manipulate delicate wires as easily as they could crush a tin can—

What about someone’s neck? that tiny voice piped in again insistently.
What if they had curled around the delicate curve of a woman’s neck, and—

She cut off the thought with a horrified mental shake. She had no business thinking such things. She hardly knew the man at all, let alone what had happened to his late wife. Surely Liz knew better than to base judgments on mere gossip.

She dredged up a neutral topic. It seemed far better to keep talking.

“It was nice of you to stop by this afternoon,” she said after a moment. “Andy has done nothing but talk about you since then.” She stopped, but he didn’t say anything, so after a while, she continued, determined to develop a conversation. “What made you stop by? After our conversation last night, I didn’t expect to see you.”

He had no answer, watching the firelight. He had never intended to visit them. He had only done so because he had come downstairs and Mrs. Pram had informed him in her highest and mightiest voice that “that woman” had “Master Andrew” wearing “
jeans.
” That in itself hadn’t concerned him, but it had tempted him into glancing outside as he was about to climb the stairs to his tower. And then... How did a logical man like himself rationalize the rest? They had simply looked so...so...
right
out there. The bright blue of the blanket against the lush green of the yard, the glowing blond of Andrew’s hair shimmering against the deep darkness of her own as she had leaned over to hear him better. He had looked outside, and his feet had done the rest.

Like now. Just like now. He shouldn’t even be in here, he thought abruptly. What was he doing, sipping brandy with this woman, sitting in front of a fire with her? As if the cozy, domestic scene were natural. How long had it been since he had sat in this library with another person? How long since he had tried to carry on a casual conversation?

Who was he trying to kid?

The silence had dragged on so long, Liz had given up hope for an answer.

“Will you really arrange for Andy to come to your lab?” she prodded. “It would mean the world to him.”

Richard nodded. “I told him I would,” he said tautly, keeping his eyes on the flames, his hands once more absently twirling the glass in his hand. The child had seemed so eager. It would have been unnecessarily cruel, even for him, to have told Andrew no.

“Do you work by yourself?” Liz asked presently. The effort at conversation was beginning to be almost too much, but she was yet determined to make it work. Anything was better than just sitting, watching the lean fingers of his hands twirl the glass.

He nodded again, his wintry blue eyes finally glancing up to meet her own. “Yes. Most of my tests are run on computer, so I don’t really need any assistance.”

“It must get lonely at times,” Liz ventured gently.

“Mostly it’s just frustrating.”

“What is your goal right now? What are you working on?”

“Finding an ideal dielectric to enhance the capacitance of a supercapacitor.”

“Oh. Well, that explains everything.”

For a moment, he paused at her humor, as if it had somehow startled him. But he quickly recovered his indifference, mustering his control.

“It’s not that technical,” he told her brusquely. “Basically, a capacitor consists of two small sheets of, say, metal, with a substance—a dielectric—between them. There are several traditional minerals that are used as capacitors—aluminum oxide, tantalum and the like. But to build a supercapacitor with the storage ability that I’m aiming for, those substances would take up too much room, making the capacitor huge. And I don’t want that.”

“I see,” Liz said. “So you want to build something like a battery?”

Across from her, Richard nodded and took another sip of his brandy. Unbidden, other images rose in his mind of other conversations. Yes, the person across from him should have blond hair, almost white. And she should be wearing something filmy and pink and looking at him with huge, china blue eyes as he babbled on and on about his work and his lab until he realized that she understood none of it. And really didn’t care to, either.

“Something like that,” he said with a shrug, letting the subject trail off.

Across from him, however, Liz’s mind was racing on its own.

“What does a capacitor look like?” she asked. “Surely it isn’t exactly like a battery, or you would simply use that.”

He turned his brandy glass in his hand once more, then took another sip.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said abruptly. “It’s not that interesting.”

Across from him, she frowned. He was definitely shutting her out, and for whatever reason, it made her angry. She was tired of all this mystery, and darn it, she was curious now. She’d never known anyone who had made a capacitor before.

“But I want to know,” she responded stubbornly, her forehead crinkling into a small frown. “I really do.”

The words pulled at him, threatening his control. He didn’t want to talk about his work. He didn’t want, for one minute, to wonder if she truly
was
interested. Because he’d been down this road before, damn it. And he wasn’t so big a fool as to make the same mistakes twice. He was different, he’d learned that long ago. His mind worked faster, too fast, his inventions were important to him, too important. Other people, they just didn’t understand these things. And he didn’t want to try, he didn’t even want to start, to make the effort only to look over and find her yawning, as he had found Alycia doing time and again throughout their marriage. “Well, really, dear, it’s not as if it’s anything interesting.”

“Forget it,” he said out loud, his features grim. “Perhaps when you bring Andrew to the lab, you can see them for yourself.”

It was, however, too late. Liz was easily as stubborn as he was, and she really did want to know.

“How big is a normal capacitor?” she quizzed. She glanced around suddenly, then picked up her discarded book. “Is it bigger or smaller than a book?”

He turned then, and that was his undoing. She was looking at him with those big clear eyes so unlike any eyes he’d ever seen. The dark blue color should have made them mysterious, should have made them unreadable. But instead, her eyes possessed an open unrelenting determination that drew him in, tempting him with their apparent sincerity.

“It’s smaller than a book,” he said tersely, staring into her eyes even as he told himself to shut up. “In fact, a normal capacitor would be the size of—” he looked around for an immediate reference point, and his eyes landed upon a simple silver ring she wore on her right hand “—like this,” he said, and without thinking about it, he moved over to the couch and picked up her hand. “This small stone here, the sapphire, is about the right size. And traditionally, a capacitor of this size can store ten to the—” he looked up suddenly to find her face just inches away as she leaned closer to see “—ten to the negative six farads,” he finished softly.

“That’s not much energy?” she asked, glancing from the ring to find him right in front of her. His eyes are intense, she thought hazily. Beautiful pale blue eyes. Lost in his much larger grip, her hand began to tremble once more.

“No,” he was saying. “A charge like that would be used up instantaneously.” His hand was still holding hers, but neither moved. Neither
wanted
to move.

It was a stunning contrast, Richard noted absently, his mind taking in the scene with almost clinical detachment. The pale beauty of her small, soft hand lying in the encompassing strength of his own large palm. Her fingers looked fragile and delicate, but he could imagine them having a strong, earnest grip to go with the rest of her. Hadn’t she talked of fishing, and horseback riding? He could see these hands on the reins, controlling the stubbornest of horses with the lightest of touches.