Meet Me at Midnight (5 page)

“A drive in Hyde Park on Saturday, then.”

“I have an engagement.” She ducked out from under his arms, making a show of straightening her hair.

He lifted an eyebrow, wondering whether the engagement was with Lord Marley. “I am getting the distinct impression that you don’t want to be seen with me.”

Hesitation glinted in her eyes. “I still think we may be taking this too seriously,” she offered. “Perhaps
everyone will come to their senses in the next week, and we won’t have to go through with this silly business.”

“Perhaps they will. But you will go driving with me on Saturday morning.”

She lifted her chin. “Or you’ll do what?”

An unbidden smile touched his mouth. Challenging him wasn’t exactly the best way to be rid of him, but she would discover that soon enough. “As I told you last night, a kiss is only the beginning of a seduction. The next step is much more…interesting.”

Before she could comment on that, he swept a bow and pulled the door open again. “I’d best inform my family that I’m getting married. Until Saturday, my lady.”

“H
a, ha! Sin!”

Christopher Grafton bolted down the stairs of Drewsbury House and flung his arms around his brother. Sinclair returned the embrace, holding his younger brother tightly for a long moment before he released him again. A knot he hadn’t realized he carried loosened in his chest. He’d lost one brother, but he’d been able to return before anything happened to Christopher. And nothing would happen to him now.

“It’s good to see you, Kit,” he said, grinning as he stepped backward. “You’ve grown a foot.”

“At least a foot. I’d been hoping I was taller than you now, blast it.”

“Christopher has your grandfather’s height,” a female voice said from the morning room doorway. “I’m surprised you recognized him after five years.”

Sinclair’s heart jolted, and his sense that he was dreaming left. Now it was real. Now he was home. Slowly Sinclair turned to face the voice. “You haven’t changed a bit, Grandmama Augusta. I would recognize you anywhere,” he drawled.

Augusta, Lady Drewsbury sipped the cup of tea she
held in her hands and eyed him over the rim. “Of course I’ve changed. I’ve lost a grandson.”

“Grandmama,” Christopher chided, flushing to the roots of his dark brown hair. “He’s just come back. Give him a moment to breathe before you pounce.”

Her slender shoulders rose and fell with the breath she took, while her keen blue eyes remained on Sinclair, assessing him. He wondered what she saw. This was what he had dreaded on returning to London—not the mess he’d been forced to make of his reputation, or even the prospect of ferreting out Thomas’s murderer with the trail two years old, and well-covered to begin with.

No, more than anything else he had dreaded facing his grandmother with no explanation he was free to give her for his god-awful behavior over the past five years, and especially for the past two. “No worries, Kit,” he said smoothly, those same five years the only thing that kept his voice steady. “Don’t spoil our grandmother’s fun. No doubt she’s been plotting her speech for ages.”

“Sin,” his brother murmured.

“I did have a speech,” she agreed, her tone as calm as if she were discussing the color of his coat. “Now that you’re finally here, though, I can’t see that it would make any difference. You disappointed me, Sinclair. I have since lowered my standards for judging your behavior. As Christopher said, you’ve returned. Come and have some tea.”

He bit back his cynical response to the insult as unfair. Sin shook his head. Of all the yelling and weeping and name-calling with which Augusta might have greeted him, her quiet acceptance was worse. He had disappointed her; he’d been less than she’d hoped
and expected, so she now appeared to expect nothing of him. “I can’t stay.”

She nodded, apparently expecting that, too. “Very well.”

“You can’t leave already!” Kit protested. “You only just got here. Are you at least going to be in London for a while?”

“Don’t pester your brother, Christopher. No doubt his social calendar is full of invitations and gatherings.”

Finally, a little acid. It felt better than the cool nothingness of her earlier tone, but not by much. “Actually, I came to invite you to an event,” he said slowly. “On the fifteenth.”

Augusta’s expression hardened. “You are family, Sinclair, but neither your brother nor I will ever participate in some farce you and your…cronies devise.”

“Grandmam—”

“It may very well be a farce,” Sin agreed, “and I understand if you choose not to attend. I’m not entirely certain I’ll be there myself—at least not sober. The event is a wedding. Mine. Prince George—”

“What?” Christopher yelped. “A wedding?
Your
wedding? You’ve only just returned! Did you bring her back with you from the Continent? Is she Italian?”

“More importantly,” his grandmother broke in, “is she carrying your child?”

Augusta’s expectations of him seemed to lower each time he opened his mouth. “No. She isn’t. And she’s English. I met her…quite recently.”
Good God, had it really only been yesterday?
Sinclair shook himself. “I’ve been back in London a few days. I’ve just been somewhat…busy.”

“It would appear so,” Augusta said dryly. “Who is she?”

“Lady Victoria Fontaine.”

“The Vixen? You’ve caught the Vixen?”

Finally Augusta looked surprised. “Hush, Christopher. You mentioned Prince George. He is attending?”

“Yes. He has made Westminster Cathedral available to us.”

“Then we shall attend. It is a matter of family honor.”

Sinclair bowed. “Thank you, Grandmama.” When he straightened, though, she had already vanished back into the morning room. “So much for the family reunion,” he muttered.

“What did you expect?” Kit asked. “You’ve written, what, a dozen times over the past five years? When you couldn’t be bothered to appear for Thomas’s funeral…well, we—she—”

“I didn’t know he’d been killed,” Sinclair lied, returning to the foyer for his hat and cane. Silently he cursed himself. The lying had become so effortless—easier than the truth.

With the war over, he should have been free to tell his family where he’d been and what he’d been doing since he left—but Thomas had known, and Thomas was dead. As soon as he’d learned of the murder, when he could think again at all, he had vowed to tell them nothing until he was absolutely certain there would be no reprisals against his family for his actions in Europe. That was what mattered—that they remain safe, his reputation be damned.

“Sin,” Christopher continued, pursuing him to the front door, “will you call on us again?”

“I don’t know. I’m at Grafton House. Come and see
me if you like. If Grandmama will allow it.”

Kit scowled. “I’m twenty years old. I do as I please.”

Taking a breath, Sinclair put a hand on his younger brother’s shoulder. They didn’t need two disappointments in the family. “Don’t desert her. You’re all she has.”

“I know
my
duty,” his brother said darkly. “She’d only like to see you do yours.”

“Wouldn’t we all,” he returned with a cynical smile. “Wouldn’t we all.”

Lucy nibbled on another tea cake. “What do you mean, ‘What do I know about him?’ I don’t know anything other than what everyone knows.”

Victoria sat back on the comfortable morning room couch and fiddled with her cup of tea. “I meant, have you heard anything over the past few days?” She glanced at the tall grandfather clock in the corner. He’d set this morning as their next meeting; in another five minutes it would be afternoon, and he would be late.

She wasn’t nervous or anxious about his arrival, of course. She’d merely invited her friends to call in anticipation of his failure to appear. Her hands folded and unfolded of their own accord, and she scowled down at the silly things. She wasn’t nervous at all.

Daintily, Lucy blotted crumbs off her gown with the tip of her finger. “The only thing I’ve heard is that Marley went out and got completely sluiced after the Franton soiree, and that he hasn’t sobered up yet.”

That wasn’t much of a surprise. Drinking and wagering seemed to be Marley’s favorite activities. Lucy’s comment at least explained why he hadn’t
called on her, when previously he had appeared on her parents’ doorstep almost daily.

Marguerite Porter, on Victoria’s other side, picked at the pink lace sleeve of her day muslin. “Diane Addington was dying to join us today, only her mother absolutely forbade it. She says you’re a bad influence, Vixen.”

“Hush, Marguerite. It was just bad circumstances.” Lucy giggled. “Heavens, if I could have stolen a kiss from Lord Sin, I would have done it, too.”

“Is that what they’re calling him?” Victoria asked. “See, you did know something I didn’t.”

“Well, they mostly called him plain Sin, before. It’s not much of a change.”

“I think it qualifies as a promotion, don’t you?” Victoria sighed—and realized she’d been doing a great deal of that lately. “Whatever Diane’s mother says, Marguerite, the Addingtons have already accepted the invitation to the wedding.” She rose, strolling over to look out the window. Still no sign of Lord sin.

“Well, no one wants to miss the wedding. It’s a pity you didn’t go to Almack’s last night. Everyone’s talking about it.”

Her gaze still on Brook Street outside, Victoria took another sip of tea. “I’m not allowed to go anywhere unless accompanied by my parents or my betrothed—as if that would help anything. Father must think I intend to flee or something.”

“You don’t, do you?” Lucy gave her a distressed look. “That would be horrid, if you left London.”

“Of course not. What would I do, flitting about in some foreign country with no money?” The idea had crossed her mind more than once, but it seemed utterly selfish and unproductive. Whatever her father might
think, she had as much family pride as he did. And living her life in exile was not something she felt ready to face. Some other solution was bound to arise without resorting to anything that drastic—or permanent.

Marguerite shuddered. “I’m so glad it wasn’t me that he ruined,” she breathed. “Of course, he’s absolutely stunning, but I heard he actually
lived
in a Paris brothel for six months.”

“You’re not helping anything, Marguerite,” Lucy chided.

A phaeton turned up the short, curving drive outside, and Victoria missed whatever Marguerite replied. A tall figure in tanned buckskins, black coat and waistcoat, a brown beaver hat, and gleaming Hessian boots vaulted to the ground and strolled toward the front steps as though he weren’t precisely seven minutes late. Her fingers began shaking, and she set the teacup down in the windowsill before she dropped it.

This was ridiculous. Sinclair Grafton was ruining her life—with her own unfortunate assistance, of course—and she was actually anticipating spending time in his company. The man was only concerned with his own situation, and she became shivery and nervous whenever he came into view.

A moment later, Timms scratched at the morning room door and then cracked it open. “Lady Victoria, Lord Althorpe is here to see you.”

“Yes, thank y—” she began, but stopped as Althorpe brushed by the butler and strode into the morning room as though he owned it.

“Good morning, my lady,” he said, ignoring the room’s other occupants to approach her.

“Good afternoon, my lord,” she replied, and ges
tured at her friends. “You remember Miss Lucy Havers, and this is Miss Porter. Mar—”

The marquis intercepted her hand and brought it to his lips. “You noticed,” he murmured.

“Noticed what?”

A sensuous smile curved his mouth. “That I’m late.”

Victoria blushed. She’d only meant to censure him, not somehow give the impression that she’d been anticipating his arrival. Extracting her fingers from his grip, she gestured again at her guests. “And you noticed, but took no steps to remedy your shortcoming. Marguer—”

“My latecoming, you mean.”

She cleared her throat. “Stop interrupting. Marguerite, Lord Althorpe.”

The young ladies curtsied in near unison. “My lord.”

He kept his gaze on Victoria for another breath, then greeted her companions. “Miss Lucy, Miss Porter. I apologize, but there is only seating for two in my phaeton.”

“I didn’t think you were going to make an appearance,” Victoria cut in before he could do something as ungentlemanly as asking her friends to leave. Despite all his interruptions, he’d noted her friends’ names, and in fact, everything she’d said. “They came to save me from spending the day in complete solitude. I am a prisoner, you know.”

Althorpe’s quicksilver expression altered for just a moment, and then he flashed a rakish smile. “Then I propose a change of plans to set you free—we’ll all go for a stroll.”

“All of us?” Marguerite squeaked.

“Why not?” He shrugged. “It’s a lovely day, and I
would hate to deprive Lady Victoria of her companions.”

“Perhaps they don’t wish anyone to see them in
your
company,” Victoria suggested, frowning. He was supposed to go driving with
her
.

“Vix, that’s not nice,” Lucy muttered, flushing.

“Well, he’s already ruined me, and he can’t very well marry all of us,” she stated airily.

“Hm. Three to one sounds about right to me,” he murmured, the wicked smile touching his eyes.

Victoria had to wrench her mind away from the contemplation of how very attractive that smile was. “Yes, but that means you’ll need to find eight more gentlemen to accompany us.” With a sniff she faced her friends, trying to ignore the subsequent outburst of laughter that emanated from somewhere deep in his chest. “Don’t feel obligated to go walking with us,” she said. “He was late, so any of this is his fault.”

“Oh, no, I think it’ll be fun,” Lucy chuckled. “The four of us will make quite a stir.”

“That’s the spirit.” The marquis applauded.

“I…I have to…to go meet my dressmaker,” Marguerite stammered, backing away as though she expected the marquis to turn into a panther and leap on her. “I regret not being able to accompany you.”

“Give my regards to your mother,” Victoria called as her friend vanished through the morning room door.

“Shall we, ladies? Though I imagine we could squeeze three into the carriage if we got cozy enough.”

Lucy stifled another giggle. “Oh, my.”

With a sigh, Victoria took Lucy’s arm and ushered her toward the door. “Let’s get this over with, then.”

She and Lucy collected their bonnets and parasols from Timms, and the three of them headed down the
street in the direction of Hyde Park. Althorpe seemed content to stroll behind the two ladies, but Victoria kept hold of Lucy just in case he should try to come between them.

“Shouldn’t you be walking with him?” Lucy whispered. “You are betrothed, after all.”

“This is close enough,” Victoria answered, loud enough for him to hear. “I’m still hoping my father will come to his senses and halt this insanity.”

In truth, she wanted to walk beside him; to have her arm in his; to lean into his tall strength, and have him pay attention and say scandalous things to no one but her. And that was precisely why she refused to even turn around and look at him.