A Kiss at Midnight

Page 75

“Of course,” Gabriel said, turning his back on Kate.
Tatiana placed her fingers delicately on his arm and they began to walk from the room. She had exquisite manners, smiling and nodding at various guests, even as she said: “There is a sadness in you, prince.”
He cleared his throat. “I am sure you misinterpret—”
“No,” she said. They had reached the door, then the entryway. She drew him into the shadow, to the right of the great arched door standing open to the courtyard. “I do not misinterpret. I see what I see.”
Gabriel had no idea what he was supposed to say.
“I saw you waltzing with that lovely woman. I suppose,” she said thoughtfully, “that you have a story.”
He blinked at her.
“A love story,” she clarified. “You have a story, or so we call it. Many, oh many, of my relatives have a story in their past. We are passionate, we Cossacks. We love to be in love. And it seems to me that you have such a story as well.”
There didn’t seem to be any reason to deny it. Tatiana was not angry, nor was she particularly upset. “Something of the sort,” he admitted.
Tatiana nodded. Her eyes were sympathetic, very kind. “We in Kuban know our fairy stories,” she said.
“As do I,” he answered, knowing exactly what she was saying. “All stories come to an end.” He leaned down and dropped a kiss on her nose. “You are a very sweet person, princess.”
There was a faint sound, like a muffled sob, a scuffle of a jeweled heel . . . he raised his head in just enough time to see the flash of cream taffeta disappear through the arch to his right.
He swore and started after Kate, never thinking of what it must look like to Tatiana, to anyone who watched. She was flying across the courtyard, through the arch leading to the outer courtyard steps, without looking back.
He ran faster.
But he was too late.
The courtyard shone empty in the moonlight. In the near distance he could hear the trundling sound of carriage wheels starting down the gravel drive.
Too late, too late, too late.
He took one step forward, thinking to run after the carriage, to run mad, madder than he already was. His foot brushed something.
He bent down.
It was one of Kate’s glass slippers. It shimmered in his hand, as delicate and absurd as any bit of feminine nonsense he’d ever seen in his life.
He said it aloud, because there was no reason to be silent. “I am—undone. She has undone me.”
And his hand closed around the glass slipper.
Thirty-nine
K ate’s godmother’s house was exceptionally comfortable: cozy, expensive, and slightly dissipated. “Just like Coco,” Henry pointed out. They were lounging in her dressing room, whose walls were covered in watered silk, hand-painted with rather improbable coral-colored primroses. “She and I both have the air of a très-coquette . Leo says that my little darling graced a brothel in her past life.”
Kate looked over at Coco, who was perfectly groomed and ornamented, as of this morning, with a sprinkling of amethysts. “She’s too self-conscious to be a good trollop. A man could tell with one glance that she only wanted the coin.”
“That’s the nature of the job,” Henry said, very sensibly. “Now listen, darling.”
Kate got up and walked to the window, knowing from the tone in Henry’s voice that she wouldn’t want to listen. The dressing room window looked to the front of the house, onto a small public garden, windswept and rather forlorn. “Winter is drawing in,” she said. “The chestnut trees are all tinged with gold.”
“Don’t try to distract me with palavering about nature,” Henry said. “You know I wouldn’t know a chestnut from a conker. What I want to say, darling, is that you need to stop it.”
Kate stared out the window, her shoulders tight, hunched against the truth of it, against the warmth in her godmother’s voice. Her head hurt. Her head always hurt these days. “Chestnuts are conkers,” she said.
Henry ignored that feeble digression. “It’s been over a month,” she said. “Wait! Even longer.”
“Well over a month,” Kate said drearily. “Forty-one days, if you want an exact number.”
“Forty-one days of you in a vile temper,” Henry said. “That’s enough.”
Kate came and knelt by the arm of Henry’s low chair. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t mean to be so sharp.”
“I know you can’t help it, up to a point.” Henry tapped her on the chin with one beringed finger. “That point has come.”
“I don’t mean to—have I really been in a vile temper?”
“Did you just imply that my darling Coco would fail as a night walker?” Henry demanded.
Kate couldn’t stop a weak chuckle. “I did.”
“I can assure you that she would be in the highest demand, as indeed would I be, should we have taken up such an insalubrious occupation. And last night at dinner, did you not inform Lady Chesterfield that her daughter was as adorable as a newborn calf ?”
“She is,” Kate said feebly. “Same absurd expression on both of them.”
“And finally,” Henry concluded, “did you not advise Leo that his sister’s hair was now the exact color of horse manure in the spring?”
“But I didn’t say so to her .”
“Thank God for small favors.”
“It’s just that particular shade of olive green,” Kate said. “I’ve never seen it anywhere else in nature.”
“It wasn’t a question of nature, as any fool would know. The poor woman wanted to turn her straw to gold and it didn’t work out. I’m not saying you haven’t been a pleasure to live with, in some respects. I particularly enjoyed your characterization of the regent as Aaron’s rod with a bend in the middle. Though really, one shouldn’t joke about royalty, no matter how limp they are reputed to be.”
“I’m sorry,” Kate said, kissing Henry on the cheek again. “I’ve been horrible to live with. I know it.”
“It would be better if you would at least leave the house now and then. I miss going to the theater.”
“I will,” she promised.
“Tonight,” Henry said, folding her arms. “Tonight you are reentering society, Kate.”
“I’ve never really been in it, have I?”
“All the more reason that you start now.”
Kate clambered up from her knees, feeling very old and sad. She walked back over to the window, where twilight was drawing in over the chestnuts, and the last rays of sun were slanting through the boughs. Oddly enough, there was a bit of bustle in the park, which was generally as lonesome as a stone.
“You did the right thing,” Henry announced, from behind her.
Kate turned around. Her godmother hadn’t said a word about Gabriel, not since . . . not for forty-one days.
“You gave him a chance to man up, and he couldn’t do it.”
“He had responsibilities.”
Henry snorted. “You’re better off without him. And you were definitely right not to tell him about the possibility you had a dowry. Just look how large that dowry turned out to be. I expect that you could sense intuitively that it would make all the difference to him, and I can’t imagine a worse reason for him to break his betrothal.”