Meet Me at Midnight (3 page)

“You were practically…fornicating! And in
my
garden!” Lady Franton fainted artistically into her husband’s arms.

The accompanying titters and mutterings of agreement were simply too much to bear. “I have never set eyes on him before tonight!” Vix yelled.

“It’s not where your eyes have been that we’re concerned about, Daughter,” her father growled, white-faced. “You’ll call on me tomorrow, Althorpe, or I’ll see you jailed—or hanged.”

The marquis sketched a short bow. “Until tomor
row.” He took her hand in his, bending over her knuckles and brushing them softly with his lips. “My lady.” With that he turned on his heel and strolled back in the direction of the house.

The rat
. Victoria wanted to join him in fleeing, but her father stalked forward to grab her by the arm. “Come along, girl.”

“I am not marrying Sin Grafton,” she spat out.

“Yes, you are,” he hissed. “You’ve gone too far this time, Victoria. I kept warning you, but you couldn’t be bothered to listen. If you don’t marry him, none of us will ever be able to show our faces in London again. Half of your fellows have seen your unmentionables—twice in one night, from what Lady Franton told me!”

“But—”

“
Enough!
” he roared. “We will make the arrangements tomorrow.”

Victoria opened her mouth again, but at her father’s furious glare she humphed and subsided. Tomorrow was still a good distance away. She would have ample time to explain things when her parents had calmed down enough to listen. One thing was certain, though: she was
not
going to marry Sinclair Grafton, the Marquis of Althorpe, under any circumstances. And certainly not just because he’d swooped in like a dark, seductive demon and said so.

T
hat damned bastard Marley was still managing to make a wreck of his life.

It had been a close decision: stealing the viscount’s female companion, or his last breath. Given the consequences of last evening, Sinclair wasn’t certain which would ultimately prove more satisfying.

Someone scratched at the master bedchamber door. Sin ignored it and continued shaving. His valet, though, straightened and glanced at the entry.

“No,” Sinclair said before Roman could suggest anything.

“It might be important. Your bride-to-be may have fled England.”

“Or one of her other suitors may have arrived to shoot me.” One in particular he wouldn’t mind seeing. He had a lovely ivory-handled pistol in his pocket for just such an occasion.

The scratch repeated, louder.

“Master Sin, you—”

“Stop being so damned jumpy.”

The valet glared at him for another moment, then
pushed away from the wall and stalked over to yank open the door. “It’s Milo, my lord.”

Not the least bit surprised that his valet had defied him, nor at the identity of his visitor, Sinclair went to work on his chin. “Thank you, Roman. Why don’t you see what he wants?”

“I would, my lord, but he still isn’t speaking to me.”

Somehow, whenever Roman said “my lord,” it sounded like a euphemism for “halfwit.” With a sigh, Sin dropped his razor into the shaving bowl. Picking up a towel, he climbed to his feet and faced the doorway. “Yes, Milo?”

The butler stepped past Roman, making a point of not looking at the stocky gargoyle of a valet. “The post just delivered a letter for you, my lord. From a Lady Stanton.”

Milo’s tone wasn’t much friendlier than the absolute silence with which he favored Roman. Sin wiped the remaining shaving soap from his face. “Thank you.” The butler handed over the missive, and his employer pocketed the folded paper without looking at it. “Milo, did you often interrupt my brother’s toilette to bring him insignificant correspondence?”

The butler flushed. “No, my lord.” He lifted his pointed chin. “But I do not yet know your routine. Nor was I aware that the letter was insignificant. I apologize if I was in error.”

“Apology accepted. Please send Lady Stanton a bouquet of red roses, with my compliments. And inform Mrs. Twaddle that I will not be taking my dinner here this evening.”

Milo nodded. “Very good, my lord.”

“Milo.”

The butler turned around. “Yes, my lord?”

Sinclair granted him a dark smile. “Never mind about Lady Stanton. I’ll see to her myself.”

“I…yes. As you wish, my lord.”

As soon as the butler’s heels passed over the threshold, Roman shut the door on him. “You should hand that Mr. Highboots his papers.”

Sin shrugged as he returned to his dressing table. “Milo’s a competent enough butler.”

“Well, I don’t like the idea of you keeping your brother’s staff on. One of ’em might just put a ball through
your
head some night.”

“I don’t want them out of my sight—or my reach.” Dropping back into his chair, Sinclair gestured at a jacket laid out on the large, rumpled bed. “And I am not wearing that blue monstrosity to call on my future father-in-law.”

“It’s conservative.”

“Exactly. He might approve it, and then where would I be? Get me the beige and cream.”

“You’ll look like a rake.”

“I am a rake, you idiot. And I have no intention of letting Stiveton forget that for one damned minute.”

He pulled out the letter and opened it, stifling a grin as he caught the valet’s disgruntled expression in the dressing mirror. Swiftly he perused the contents and then sank back, scowling. First the
ton
was trying to foist a surprise wedding on him, and now this. When bad news came to call, it always seemed to bring company.

“Fine. Call me an idiot if you want,” the valet grumbled from the dressing closet. “But you’re the one got trapped into marrying Vixen Fontaine, on his first proper jaunt back in London.”

“I didn’t get trapped into anything. I made a point
with Marley.” He couldn’t even say the bastard’s name without growling.

“And the marriage?”

“That was just my way of avoiding being stoned and run out of London.”

“Ah.”

“‘Ah’ yourself. No father in his right mind would allow his daughter to marry me. Everyone’s simply laboring under the misconception that I’d be safer if I were leg-shackled to some poor female.” Sinclair read the letter once more, looking for any hopeful sign. “Bates sends his greetings, by the by.”

“He’d better. He owes me ten quid, that lad does.” Finally the proper clothes appeared on the bed, and the valet sauntered back to the dressing table. “Who’s Lady Stanton, anyway?”

“Some dowager living in Scotland. Wally’s great great twice removed or something.”

“Sounds safe enough.”

Sinclair eyed him. “I’d like to think I’m not completely incompetent. And your ten quid is on the way to London, since you asked.”

The valet sobered. “Bates didn’t find anything?”

“No. I didn’t expect him to, but one can always hope, I suppose. Wally and Crispin are meeting up with him. We’ll regroup here. They’re letting a house on Weigh House Street. Or Lady Stanton is, rather.”

He handed the missive to the valet, who scanned through it much as Sinclair had.

“Well, I’m glad Crispin’s coming, anyway,” Roman said. “Maybe he can talk some sense into you before you do end up married.”

“I’m the Marquis of Althorpe now. I will need to marry eventually, if only for Thomas’s sake.” And
whatever he decided, the thought of having Vixen Fontaine in his bed was considerably arousing. Given Marley’s taste in females, he’d expected a hoyden—not a goddess. Those long, curling eyelashes…

“I know, I know. But everyone in London thinks you’re…you know…
him
. And
him
shouldn’t be taking a bride—not even a wild one like the Vixen.”

With a snort, Sinclair recaptured the letter and crumpled it, tossing it into the dying embers of the fireplace. “I am him, and there isn’t going to be a marriage right now. Don’t complicate things.”

The valet folded his arms across his chest and glowered. “You’re the one complicating things, Sin. You can’t even live in your own house without the servants thinking you’re—”

Sinclair glared back at him. “For the last time, Roman, I
am
him. Nothing has changed since France or Prussia or Italy except the target
du jour
. Stop making me defend my poor character.”

“But that is not—”

“Leave be.”

“All right, my lord.” Roman grabbed up the shaving bowl and dumped the contents into the chamber pot. “If you want everyone to think you’re a blasted blackguard instead of a hero, and you want to marry an earl’s high-flying daughter to keep your disguise, that’s your affair. If—”

Sin pushed to his feet. “I am here to find my brother’s murderer, Roman. The damned Crown may have kept me lurking about the Continent for the past five years, but Bonaparte’s finished now, and so am I. I will keep the disguise, though, for as long as it serves me. Is that clear?”

The valet heaved a breath. “Clear as glass.”

“Good.” Sinclair favored him with a slight grin. “And don’t go about calling me a hero. You’ll ruin everything.”

Roman folded his arms across his chest. “Well, I’d hate to do that now, wouldn’t I?”

“You cannot be serious!”

“I have never been more serious, Victoria.” The Earl of Stiveton paced around and around the couch in the middle of the library, his footsteps so heavy that they rattled the glass doors of the display cabinet at the far end of the room. “How many escapades were we supposed to overlook? How much outrageous behavior did you think we could ignore?”

“More than this.”

“Victoria!”

Victoria lay supine on the couch, one arm flung across her brow in her best dramatic pose of helpless vulnerability. “It was just a stupid kiss! For heaven’s sake, Father.”

“You kissed Sinclair Grafton in a completely…intimate manner. You let him put his hands all over you.
In public
. I cannot—I will not—tolerate this any longer.”

Hmm, she’d used the same vulnerable pose last week. It hadn’t worked then, either, and she’d ended up housebound for three long days. Victoria sat up. “So you’re making me
marry
him? That seems a bit severe. I’ve kissed other men, and you haven’t—”

“Enough!” Stiveton clapped his hands over his ears. “You shouldn’t have kissed anyone. But this time, Victoria, you were caught—in the arms of a complete scapegrace, and in the presence of a crowd.”

“An exceptionally stodgy crowd.”

“Victoria!”

“But—”

“No more explanations, and no more excuses. Unless he’s fled the country by now, you
will
marry Lord Althorpe, and you
will
face the consequences of your actions.”

“Haven’t you ever done anything just for fun?” she pleaded.

“Fun is for children,” he said stiffly. “You are twenty years old. It’s time you became a wife—and it now becomes a question of who else would have you.”

He stalked out of the room, heading straight for his office. There he would wait until Althorpe arrived, and then he would bargain her off to the infamous blackguard, just so he wouldn’t have to put up with her high spirits any longer.

Victoria sighed and flopped back down on the couch again. Ten hours should have been more than enough time to convince him of how unwise he was being, and of what a ridiculous match this would be for everyone concerned. Of course she’d stepped too far; she was always doing that. Her parents should expect it by now.

“I am not getting married!” she yelled at the ceiling.

It didn’t reply.

Of all the punishments her parents could devise, this was the absolute worst. In one more year she would come into her majority and be able to travel and aid whatever cause she saw fit. Once she married, that money would go to Sinclair Grafton, and he would no doubt lose every blasted bit at the gaming tables before she could do anything useful with it at all.

Yes, he was handsome, and yes, he’d made her pulse fly when he kissed her. That, though, was no
reason for her to marry him. She didn’t even know anything about him, except for the rumors of his terrible reputation. Her parents couldn’t want her to be leg-shackled to someone like that. They
couldn’t
think she deserved someone like that.

Victoria pounded the soft cushions of the couch in frustration. Her only hope was that the idea of marriage horrified Althorpe as much as it did her. Perhaps he had already left for Europe or parts unknown. She shut her eyes, then realized she was slowly tracing her lips with one finger. With an oath, she shot to her feet. One did
not
marry a man simply because he kissed with the skill of Eros. One married a man because he was kind and intelligent and understanding and supportive, and didn’t expect his wife to be nothing but a pretty picture who embroidered and had tea parties all day long. She wasn’t that kind of woman, and she couldn’t—wouldn’t—be that kind of wife.

Sinclair hopped down from his phaeton and climbed the shallow marble front steps of Fontaine House. He’d debated whether to call on Lord Stiveton or not, and decided that the Sin Grafton everyone knew would have—with some excuse as to why the marriage was impossible.

From what he knew, the earl was as dull and plodding as a wet sheep, but no fool. While Stiveton’s coming to his senses and whisking his daughter away would solve one problem, though, it would leave at least two more.

First, he’d gone too far last night. Lady Vixen Fontaine had seemed likely to know something of Marley’s possible involvement in a murder, but he hadn’t exactly gotten around to questioning her about it. He’d
been too busy ogling the splendid black-haired chit and enjoying the fact that he’d stolen her from her beau. Beaux, actually. If he had behaved that carelessly in France, he would never have survived Bonaparte.

Whatever the Vixen’s reputation, though, his was worse—and if he hadn’t stepped in with his marriage offer, the Franton soiree would have been both the first and the last gathering to which anyone invited him. And whatever he thought of proper society, he had to have access to it—at least long enough to prove whether Marley or one of the rest of them had killed his brother.

Of course Stiveton wouldn’t agree to the marriage. But the earl had to accept an apology sincere enough that it would keep Sinclair in the
ton
’s good graces until he didn’t need them any longer.

The second problem was nearly as troubling. Last night he had gone completely insane. Vixen Fontaine had batted her lovely violet eyes at him, and he had forgotten not only his suspicions about Marley, but also those about Lord William Landry and every other possible suspect lurking among her gaggle of admirers.

He hadn’t maneuvered her out to the gardens so he could question her; he’d done it so he could kiss her. And if her father and the rest of the gawkers hadn’t discovered them, he wouldn’t have stopped with kisses. He’d been in low company for too long. And, damn it all, he wanted to kiss her again, and to complete the intimate little interlude they’d begun.

Sinclair took a deep breath and swung the brass knocker against the door. Less than a heartbeat later, the heavy oak barrier swung open.

“Lord Althorpe?” the short, round butler queried, taking in his choice of attire with the expected degree of disdain.

Sinclair ignored it. “Where might I find Lord Stiveton?”

The butler stepped backward. “In the study, my lord. This way.”

He followed the butler’s clicking heels down the short hallway to a small office tucked under the staircase. The Fontaine family was an old, wealthy, and well-respected one, and he could imagine how deep an offense he’d shown them by manhandling their daughter. Better the likes of him than a cold-blooded murderer like Marley, though. If it had been Marley who shot Thomas. His life seemed to have become a series of “ifs” and “hows” over the past two years, and he was damned tired of not having the answers.