Come Midnight (26 page)

Chapter 19

"Patrick... Patrick, wake up!" Megan St. Clare shook her husband's massive shoulder till he finally stirred. The bed creaked as the big man shifted his weight. Firelight bronzed his tousled black curls and glinted off the dark stubble on his chin. He blinked owlishly up at her, trying to gather his wits.

They'd had precious little sleep, what with the storm shaking the rafters when they'd prepared to turn in. They'd been sleepy enough, having made sweet and lazy love at length before the fire, but trying to sleep was futile with that hellish wind and thunder fit to wake the dead. And so, quipping that Mother Nature was as good an aphrodisiac as any he could think of, he'd taken his wife in his arms for another loving—as wild and as fierce as the storm itself. The storm finally quit, just as they'd climaxed and lay spent in each other's arms. With a chuckle, he'd told Megan it appeared both they and Mother Nature had won a well-earned rest.

Only, now it appeared his beautiful wife had other ideas.

"Wha ... ?" he questioned groggily. He half raised himself on an elbow, although he'd have liked nothing better than to fall back asleep with Megan in his arms. But something about the way his wife held herself— poised and alert, like some graceful forest creature testing the wind—gave him pause.

"Patrick, somethin' odd's happened—I can feel it"

"Mother of God, Megan," he groaned. Bleary-eyed, he squinted at the tall-case clock that stood across the bedchamber. "We've had ... what? Twenty minutes' sleep? And now you're waking me to tell me something's odd?"

She gave an impatient shake of her head, tossing the fire-bright mane of hair that tumbled about her bare shoulders. "Odd, as in wrong, me love. And ye know I'm niver mistaken about that sort o' feelin'."

Patrick rubbed a massive hand over his face, said good-bye to sleep, and sat up straight in the bed. Megan may not have had the Sight—an ability she still claimed her sister was born with, never mind all Caitlin's denials—but she did have these uncanny premonitions. He still recalled, with a shudder, the first time one of her "feelings" had struck—smack in the middle of Dolly Madison's dinner party. She'd made him drive her home at once. They were just in time to save their infant son from the fire sweeping the wing of their house that held the nursery. Brendan's nurse had stumbled and knocked herself senseless, overturning the lamp she'd been carrying on route to the kitchens, perhaps to fetch him a sugar teat, someone had surmised. The poor woman hadn't been as lucky as their son.

"A feeling about what, love?" He fervently hoped it had nothing to do with the lad. Brendan was miles away, staying with Megan's sister Bridie, in Ireland; while they were here in Kent, as guests of the Westmonts, because of Caitlin's wedding. He hoped it didn't mean trouble at home, either; their Virginia plantation was an ocean away.

Megan had already swung off the bed and begun searching for her clothes. Now she paused, looked at him gravely. " 'Tis Caitlin. I've a feelin' she's—ach, Patrick! The wee colleen made us promise not t' tell, but... well, now the time's come and gone, I suppose there's no longer any harm in it. She—"

"Whoa," he said, holding up his hand. "One thing at a time, love. Made us promise not to tell?"

"Ashleigh was there as well. We went t' see Caitlin the day before the—ach, will ye sit there, askin' questions all the night—or will ye don yer breeches and fetch the rig fer me? The lass is in trouble, Patrick, and I must go t' her!"

"We'll go to her, love." Patrick had rarely heard his wife this overwrought, and he climbed quickly from the bed. "Talk to me while we dress ourselves."

Megan heaved a sigh, then quickly resumed pulling clothes from a portmanteau that lay, half-packed, beside a tall chest of drawers. " 'Tis a long story, Patrick," she said, "and not a tame one. A tale as fearsome as an Irishman's soul when the fury's on him. I fear 'twill sorely try yer wits. At the very least, 'twill severely test yer grip on reality."

Patrick, who was only half Irish himself, grinned at her. "Megan, my love, since when has that stopped you?"

***

In another part of the house, Ashleigh Westmont paced the floor of her dressing room. She did this frequently of late, to spare Brett's sleep when the babe was restless and kept her awake nights. After all, she could always nap during the day. Her husband, however, was an aristocrat who took his duties seriously; he had obligations having to do with his vast holdings, and if he were to meet them, he needed his rest. Yet to say the babe was restless tonight was an understatement.

The storm explained why she and Brett had been unable to sleep for its duration—not that they hadn't put the time to good use, she mused with a wry smile. Only, now the storm had passed, and the child was still so fiercely active, one would think she harbored a cricket pitch inside her womb.

"Poor sweetheart, he's got you pacing again, has he?" Brett appeared at the doorway, bare-chested and disheveled—not so much from sleep as from their recent play abed, Ashleigh knew. He eyed her belly and gave her a lopsided grin. "One would think a future duke, even one yet unborn, might have better manners."

"What makes you think this one's a he?" she asked testily. Ashleigh's wasn't a high-strung temperament, even when she was increasing, but pregnancy and sleeplessness did nibble at her sunny disposition at times. Fortunately, Brett had been taking it all with the proverbial grain of salt, saying motherhood had its privileges.

"Call it paternal intuition," he replied, coming forward and taking her in his arms. "Or perhaps it's because I'd prefer to think that a daughter, like her sister, would be too much the lady to vex her mother so."

"You're supposed to be asleep, Your Grace," she said grumpily as he dropped a kiss on her brow. "While I nobly sacrifice myself for the future of the dukedom."

"The dukedom can go hang if it means distressing my wife." Turning her gently in his arms, Brett wrapped them about her from behind, resting his chin on her head. When he placed a hand on her swollen belly, however, he gave a startled grunt "The lad has a powerful kick!"

"Do tell," said Ashleigh with a sigh. "Yet, in truth, it was never this bad until tonight. It's as if that wretched storm overset every—"

"I know," he said soothingly, kissing her ear. He adored his wife and was committed to doing everything possible to ease her discomfort during this pregnancy. Fact was, however, he'd been largely absent when she'd carried their first, and he was fascinated by everything about this one. At the moment, though, in deference to Ashleigh's sensibilities, he decided not to mention the interesting small bulge—he could swear he saw the shape of a tiny foot—briefly evident beneath her filmy bed gown.

"That bit of weather was a nasty piece of work," Ashleigh went on, but Brett thought she sounded a bit less grumpy as he continued to rub and soothe her distended belly.

"Oh, I agree," he told her. And he did, but of course, with Ashleigh in her present condition, he'd have agreed if she insisted the moon was a purple tennis ball. "Can't recall a storm hereabouts ever being that savage—not in tame old Kent At sea, of course, now that's a different kettle of fish."

"Mm." She was smiling now. The babe had ceased its hijinks with Brett's soothing. "I seem to recall one particular storm at sea, however, that had precious little to do with the weather. The ocean was rather calm the night Marileigh was born."

"Don't remind me," he groaned. Their daughter had been born aboard one of his ships, on route from the Italian coast. Yet blessed as that event was, it had triggered a storm of emotional turmoil for him. He'd been forced to confront personal demons that had plagued him nearly all his life. In the end, he came to realize he'd held a host of unjust opinions, especially with regard to women. And not least of those he'd judged unfairly— and cruelly—had been Ashleigh. "I'm still amazed you could love me, after I'd been such a damned witless—

"What the devil ... ?" Someone in the hallway was pounding on their door. "Wait here," Brett told her, and went to investigate.

Ashleigh pulled a wrapper around her and followed him through their bedchamber when she heard Patrick's voice coming from the anteroom beyond:

"Deeply sorry about the hour, Brett, but my damned rig's sprung a wheel. Your cork-brained stableman seems to think I need to ask your leave, so's it all right if I borrow one of yours?"

Brett swore softly under his breath. "My apologies, Patrick. Must be the new man we took on. Borrow anything you like, and tell the fool I'll have his head if he ever again questions—wait a minute. Where the devil are you hating off to at this ungodly—"

"Ravenskeep Hall. Megan's had one of her—look, I'll explain later. Right now, I've a wife down at your stables, threatening to horsewhip your mutton-headed—"

"Patrick," Ashleigh put in anxiously, "does this have anything to do with ... uh, with Caitlin? A-and something that was supposed to happen at midnight?"

He gave her a measuring look. "It does," he said tersely. "Megan's worried—"

"Then, I'm coming, too."

"Ashleigh, are you out of your mind?" Brett looked at her as if she'd grown horns.

"I'll leave you two to sort it out between you," Patrick muttered. Turning abruptly, he ran toward the head of the stairs.

"Ashleigh." Brett placed a staying hand on his wife's arm as she started for her dressing room. "Till now, I wasn't aware pregnancy affected a woman's wits."

"I'm as sane as a bishop, Brett Westmont! If it were your friend in trouble—"

"Then, prove it to me," he said gently. "Sweetheart, what's this all about?"

She heaved a sigh. "Will you at least allow me to dress while I explain? It will save time if I'm able to convince you I must go, and"—she shrugged—"well, no harm done if you still feel I'm mad to suggest it."

"Fair enough," he said, ushering her gently toward the dressing room with a pat on her bottom.

"There's really no need for you to dress as well," she told him as he followed her. Out of the corner of her eye, Ashleigh noted he was gathering up the apparel he'd discarded earlier—Brett had his own dressing room, but he was too impatient a lover to use it at bedtime. "I mean," she added, smiling to herself, "I could wake one of the grooms to drive me if—"

"Hammer the grooms," he growled. "If you go to Ravenskeep Hall—and I do mean if— no one's driving you there but me. Now tell me what the devil's happened to Ravenskeep's bride—and why it's got you and Megan the Bold in such a taking."

Ashleigh gestured at the upholstered divan in her dressing room. "Brett, darling, I think you had better sit down for this ..."

***

The first thing Brett noticed when his barouche rounded the final bend in Ravenskeep Hall's long, winding drive was the lights. There were dozens of them, from the lanterns over the stables, to the torches borne by a pair of footmen hurrying across the lawn, to the candlelight gleaming from every window of the house itself. The damned place was lit up like a Vauxhall Gardens fireworks display! "Something's definitely afoot here," he muttered as he slowed his cattle to a trot and guided them round the curve of drive in front.

He hadn't known what to think when Ashleigh began her account in a hushed voice, her tone implying something ominous and dreadful in the offing. When at first she mentioned a "devil's bargain" that his neighbor in Kent had made while back in London, Brett had been perplexed, for the subject seemed utterly mundane. Knowing the reputation Ravenskeep had gained for himself since returning from the Peninsula, he had assumed she was referring to some ill-advised wager or the like. An unfortunate mistake on Ravenskeep's part, but hardly something to inspire dread.

Like himself, Adam Lightfoot had led a less than tame existence as a young buck on the town, but since his return he'd been nothing short of reckless. The man he'd known before the war was rakish and wild, true, but never imprudent or dishonorable; the returning war hero, on the other hand, had seemed determined to wipe out every shred of honor implicit in the military laurels that had been heaped upon him.

In short, Ravenskeep was, in Brett's estimation, eminently capable of having gotten himself in dun territory over gambling debts, or worse. Not that he'd be unique among the haut ton in suddenly finding himself with pockets to let, though Brett had felt it rather out of character for a man as intelligent and worldly wise as Ravenskeep.

Then again, there'd been the tragedy of that fatal carriage accident in the spring. Of course, word had it the Ravenskeep marriage had been loveless, the marquis and his marchioness all but strangers to each other; still, it was a common enough occurrence among the upper crust. His wife's demise might have been taken as regrettable, but it was surely nothing to inspire wild grief in her husband.

On the other hand, no one doubted Ravenskeep's love for his son, and the child had been left in a bad way. Not impossible to believe that aspect of the tragedy had unhinged his father, which might account for all manner of "devil's bargains.'' At that point in Ashleigh's recounting of Caitlin's story, Brett had hardly taken those words literally; rather, he'd left room for any number of interpretations, given the colorful metaphors he thought a callow young Irishwoman might be prone to employ.

At that point, but not after. His wife had soon disabused him of his initial—and quite rational—assumptions. Once Ashleigh began to explain how Caitlin came to be involved, he realized things had quickly passed the bounds of the rational.

God's blood, he could scarcely credit it! Hadn't, until he saw the fear and worry in Ashleigh's eyes. She certainly believed it, and Ashleigh was not a woman given to superstition or irrational fantasies. Moreover, there'd been that "miraculous" healing of Andrew Lightfoot's maimed leg to lend credence to what Caitlin had told her and Megan. There'd been nothing for it, then, but to follow the St. Clares here, he thought grimly, as he drew his team to a halt behind the gig Patrick had borrowed.

He was just alighting from the barouche when the front door opened. A middle-aged woman wearing a nightcap over an iron gray braid, and holding a shawl clutched over her bed gown, stepped out. "Would you be the physician, sir?" she inquired anxiously.

"Ah, welcome, Your Grace." Ravenskeep's majordomo appeared in the doorway, easing his way past the woman before Brett could reply. "Sir Patrick said that you and Her Grace might be coming."

"What's this about a physician?" Ashleigh asked worriedly as her husband helped her from the carriage.

"We've summoned the physician from the village, Your Grace," said Townsend. "To attend to the marchioness, that is." Unlike the woman in the bed gown, the majordomo was fully dressed, his manner impeccably correct, but there was grave concern in his eyes. "Her ladyship is lying abed, unconscious, do you see, and—"

"Unconscious!" Ashleigh went pale.

The duke curled an arm about her shoulders to steady her. "Easy, love," he murmured, taking his wife's hand and giving it a reassuring squeeze. He still wasn't happy with her being here. According to her physicians, Ashleigh was at least a fortnight away from delivering the babe, but he had heard of women birthing early as a result of something greatly oversetting. He had agreed to bring her to the Hall only because he was certain that keeping her at home—fretting over possible consequences arising from that hair-raising "devil's bargain"—would have distressed her even more. "Is the marquis with your mistress?" he asked the majordomo.

"He is, Your Grace. And now, I believe, Sir Patrick and Lady St. Clare have joined them."

"And is his lordship.. . er, is the marquis well?" Brett asked carefully. Is he still alive and whole? Or has he perhaps sprouted horns and a tail?

"As to that, Your Grace, I cannot rightly say," Townsend replied as the duke led his wife up the steps. "It was his lordship who roused the staff shortly after midnight and had me send for the physician." He paused a moment, as if considering whether he should say more; the commanding stare of the duke's intense turquoise eyes decided it, and he went on. "I, er, believe he found her ladyship lying unconscious in her former chambers. His lordship was still there with her when his shouts brought me running from the servants' wing, do you see. I saw him emerge from her door and start down the hallway. He held her ladyship, limp and clearly unconscious, in his arms, and I asked what he would have me do. He called instructions to me as he carried her. Said I was to send the physician to his chambers soon as he arrived. But since then, Your Grace, there has been ... er, no further communication from his lordship. That is to say, none toward the staff. He—"

"No communication?" Brett questioned impatiently. "What the devil are you saying, man? Is he alive and conscious, or isn't he?"

"He won't speak to any of us, Your Grace, because he spends every minute on his knees!" The outburst came from the woman in the bed gown. "On his knees, praying over his poor lady wife!"

Brett and Ashleigh exchanged pointed glances. Brett couldn't help recalling the emphasis his wife had said Caitlin placed upon Ravenskeep's tragic loss of faith: in particular, his utter inability to pray. Even if it meant saving his damned, soul "And who might you be, madam?" he inquired briskly.

"Begging your pardon, Your Grace," she said, pausing to drop a curtsy to him, then another to the duchess. "I am Hodgkins, his lordship's London housekeeper. We were invited by the marquis to come down from town for the wedding, do you see. That is to say, he invited me along with Jepson, his lordship's butler. We had both grown very fond of the Irish Angel—er, I mean her ladyship, the marchioness—and she, of us, if I may say so, Your Grace."

"And do you say the marquis has been praying, Mrs. Hodgkins?" Ashleigh asked anxiously, as Townsend closed the door behind them.

"Indeed, Your Grace. Praying nonstop, poor man ... er, that is, if I may be allowed to say so, Your Grace."

Brett gave his wife's hand another reassuring squeeze and regarded the servants' worried faces. "Perhaps you had better take us to them," he said.