Wait Until Midnight

THIRTY-ONE

"Edmund," Lydia whispered frantically. "You must not do this. You know you will regret it when the terrible fever of your rage has passed and you discover the truth. You are wrong about me, I swear it."

Edmund responded with ruthless kisses, plundering her senses with the determination of a marauding pirate intent only on gaining the abject surrender of his victim.

Trapped beneath him, her skirts a tumbled sea of delicate blue silk, she looked up into his savagely set features. She knew at once that she was powerless to stop him. He was so lost in his fury and despair that he was likely not even aware of her puny struggles.

When sanity returned, he would be horrified by his own actions. But by then it would be too late for both of them. Desperate to save herself and Edmund as well, she

placed her dainty hands against his broad shoulders in a vain attempt to check his rash assault.

Caroline paused and put down her pen. She was not entirely satisfied. It was certainly a very exciting scene but I Edmund Drake seemed to be out of control. That did not fit his character.

The muted clang of the door knocker sounded just as she made to pick up her pen for another attempt. Emma and Milly were home early. Evidently the play they had at-tended that evening had failed to live up to expectations. They must have left during the intermission.

Mrs. Plummer was in bed upstairs, having taken her usual sleeping tonic: a mix of laudanum and gin. The combination was guaranteed to ensure that she slept like the dead until morning.

Caroline listened closely and then got to her feet when she did not hear the scrape of iron in the lock. Perhaps her aunts had neglected to take their keys.

She crossed the carpet and went along the corridor to the front hall. There she paused to peer through the small panes of beveled glass that framed the door. Shock snapped through her when she saw Adam. He seemed to be leaning rather heavily against the jamb.

Hastily she unlocked the door and yanked it open. "What are you doing here at this hour?"

It is a long story." He braced one hand against the doorjamb and looked at her with a veiled expression that did nothing to conceal his prowling tension.

She was suddenly very conscious of the fact that she was garbed only in a dressing gown and slippers.

"Something is wrong," she said, trying to read his hard lace. "What is it?"

"May I come in?"

"Yes, of course." She stepped back to allow him into the hall.

He shoved himself away from the doorjamb. When he walked through the opening, she saw that he was not moving with his customary masculine ease.

"Are you all right?" she asked. She noticed the beginnings of a dark bruise under his right eye and answered her own question before he could speak. "No, I can see that you are not. You have been hurt"

"I could do with a glass of your aunts' sherry," he admitted, tossing his hat onto the hall table. "Make that two glasses."

He winced when he started to peel off his overcoat. "Let me help you." She reached up to ease the garment off his shoulders. "Please tell me what happened." "Could I have the sherry first?"

She led him back along the hall to the study, sat him down in a reading chair and poured out a large measure of sherry.

He took a long, grateful swallow and lowered the glass with a sound that was somewhere between a sigh and a groan.

"It has occurred to me this evening that I am not as young as I used to be," he said. "No wonder everyone is pressing me to get married."

"You are making me very anxious, Adam. Kindly tell me what has happened."

He leaned his head against the back of the chair and closed his eyes. "A message was delivered to me a short time ago by two gentlemen of the criminal class. It was made clear that if I did not cease my inquiries into the matter of the fraudulent investments and, presumably, the murders, the diary would be turned over to one of the more flamboyant newspapers."

Horrified, she leaned down and gently touched the incipient bruise. "You could have been killed."

He opened his eyes. She saw the predator in him and shivered.

"As it happens, I wasn't," he said.

She had never seen him in this strange, unpredictable mood. Whatever had occurred tonight, it had been dangerous and violent, she thought.

"I noticed that you favored your ribs when you removed your coat," she said, trying to maintain an air of Florence Nightingale calm. "Do you think you have broken any hones?"

"No." He touched his side somewhat tentatively and then shook his head with more certainty. "Nothing is broken. Just a few bruises."

"Wait right here" She hurried toward the door. "I will fetch a clean cloth and some of the salve that Aunt Emma uses for bruises"

He frowned. "There is no need—"

She ignored him and went down the hall to the kitchen to find the things she needed.

When she returned a few minutes later with the cloth and salve, she discovered that he was no longer seated in the chair where she had left him. Instead, he was standing behind her desk, reading the scene she had been working on when he had arrived. She noticed that he had helped himself to another glass of sherry.

"What the devil is going on here?" Adam looked up, scowling. "Drake is attacking Miss Lydia?"

"There has been a dreadful misunderstanding," she explained, opening the jar that contained salve. "Edmund

Drake believes that Miss Lydia has lied to him. In his anguish and rage he has lost control of his passions"

"Only a brute or a madman is allowed that excuse,^" Adam said flatly. He swallowed more sherry.

She paused in the act of applying the salve to the cloth. "You are right. I knew there was something wrong with that scene. I shall have to come up with some other reason to explain his behavior."

"Why? I thought he was the villain of the piece. Villains are brutes and madmen, are they not?"

"Never mind." She cut off a section of the salve-soaked cloth and pressed it gently to his bruised cheek. "Hold this while I prepare another bandage for your ribs."

Absently he held the cloth in place. "Where are Emma and Milly?"

"At the theater. Mrs. Plummer is here but she is asleep upstairs? She soaked another section of cloth in the tonic. "This is for your ribs. Stand still while I remove your shirt."

He sucked in his breath when she gently tugged off his shirt, but he said nothing.

It was only the second time she had seen him without a shirt. The sight of his bare chest lightly covered in crisp, curling hair momentarily diverted her attention. He was her lover, she thought. She had a right to see him like this.

Pulling her scattered senses together with an effort of will, she wrapped the long strip of damp cloth around his ribs. Adam winced and swallowed the rest of the sherry.

"Did I hurt you?" she asked anxiously.

"No. The salve is cold, that's all."

"That is part of the benefit." She tied the ends of the strip very carefully. "Cold helps restrain the bruising."

He looked down, watching her hands as she worked. "I trust that your aunt does not use arnica in her salve?"

"No. She says that although it is very good for bruising, it is simply too dangerous to use. If it enters the body through a cut or an open wound, the effect is quite poisonous. Adam, these men who attacked you—do you think by any chance they were involved in the murders?"

"I'm almost certain they were not. They claimed that they were hired by our old acquaintance, the man of business who sports too many whiskers and walks with a limp."

"But what if—"

Without warning, he tossed aside the cloth he had been holding to his cheek, bent his head and kissed her with a fierceness that shook her to her toes.

When he eventually raised his head, she had to clutch his sleek shoulders in order to steady herself.

"Adam?"

"I shouldn't have come here tonight. I should have gone straight home."

"No, it is all right." She cleared her throat. "We have embarked on an affair. You have every right to be here."

"Do I?" He captured her face between his hands. "Do I really have every right to be here with you alone like this? Tell me the truth, Caroline."

"Y-yes." She swallowed, unsure of his mood. "We are lovers now."

"Lovers" He repeated the word as though he was not certain of its meaning. "Yes, I am most certainly your lover."

He kissed her again. This time when he raised his head, she could scarcely catch her breath.

`Adam, you really should not exert yourself in this manner," she managed. "Not after the ordeal you went through this evening."

"I want you."

She stopped breathing altogether.

"Here?" she finally got out. "Now?"

"Here. Now."

She moistened her lips. "Oh"

"You say that we are lovers." He eased aside the collar of her dressing gown and kissed the curve of her shoulder. "That is what lovers do. They make love."

She stared at the bookshelves on the wall behind his head. "In… in a study?"

"Anywhere that is convenient.^" He unfastened the first button of the dressing gown. "Lovers must take advantage of every opportunity."

"Yes, I suppose that is true, isn't it?" she said, struck by that observation. "But what if someone were to walk in on us?"

"We will worry about that if the problem arises. Kiss me, Caroline."

She put her arms tentatively around his neck, fearful of hurting him.

"I said, kiss me," he whispered roughly against her mouth.

The raw, masculine scent of his recent battle was still on him. She could feel the unnatural energy riding him.

She kissed him gently, seeking to replace the lingering aura of violence with love.

He opened the front of her robe with quick, ruthless movements. The next thing she knew, his hands were around her waist, lifting her.

She expected him to lower her onto the carpet. It seemed the only suitable location in the room. Instead, she found herself seated on the edge of the desk.

When he parted her knees and moved between her thighs, she was too startled to protest. The next thing she knew, his hands were on her, probing, stroking, making her wet and desperate.

There was a strange, fierce tension in him tonight but there was also control. She would always be safe with him, no matter how wild the passion that flowed between them.

It was a heady, glorious feeling.

He freed himself from his trousers. She encircled the length of him with her hands, familiarizing herself with the intriguing size and shape of him.

"You astonish me," she whispered, dazed.

His laughter was low and exciting. Then he did things to her with his fingers, truly astonishing things.

Everything within her tightened to an unbearable degree; tightened until she could not stand it any longer. Her fingers sank into his shoulders.

"Adam."

Without warning the compelling tension within her dissolved in a series of powerful, rippling pulsations that filled her with a near-violent pleasure.

Before she could even begin to recover, Adam curved his hands around her buttocks and thrust heavily into her.

His own release crashed through him. She heard him choke back an exultant groan and knew another kind of de-light in the realization that he had found such satisfaction in her arms. It was no doubt quite petty of her but she hoped with all her heart that he would never be able to entirely duplicate the experience with any other woman.

She clung to him, her thighs clamped snugly around him until the world returned to normal.

.

An eternity later, Adam roused himself with obvious reluctance and went about the business of putting his clothing to rights.

"I must be off," he said, glancing at the clock. "Your aunts will be home soon and I am in no condition to greet them."

"Promise me that you will summon a cab. I do not want you walking all the way back to your house"

He grinned, put his hands around her waist, lifted her off the desk and set her on her feet.

"I assure you, after that delightful tonic, I am feeling quite invigorated."

"But what if those two men try to attack you again?"

"I do not think I will see them anytime soon." He kissed her lightly on the tip of her nose and reached for his shirt. "Good night, my sweet. I will call upon you tomorrow."

She was startled by the change in his mood. It was in-deed as if he had taken some potent tonic or elixir. Was it possible that making love could have such a therapeutic effect on a man?

Adam was already striding toward the door. She hurried after him.

"You will be careful," she pleaded.

"Certainly," he said.

He spoke much too casually for her taste. But there was little she could do. She trailed after him and saw him out, onto the street.

When he was gone she closed the door and leaned back against it, clutching the knob in both hands.

Men, she reflected, were an odd lot.

After a while she went back into the study and sat down at the desk. She reviewed what she had written prior to Adam's arrival and was more unsatisfied with the lines than ever. Somehow, she simply could not allow Edmund Drake to lose control over his passions to the extent that he would harm Miss Lydia; not even if he believed that she had betrayed him.

Only a brute or a madman is allowed that excuse.

Then she recalled what he had said when she had bound his ribs with Emma's salve.

I trust that your aunt does not use arnica in her salve? And her own response: No. If it enters the body… the effect is quite poisonous.

Poison.

If Edmund Drake had been poisoned, he might well act out of character.

She picked up her pen, crossed out several paragraphs and wrote new ones.

"Edmund, you must listen to me," Lydia pleaded. "You are not yourself, sir. I believe you may have been poisoned."

Edmund went still, sanity and intelligence returning slowly to his fevered gaze. "Poisoned? But how is that possible?"

"The cakes," she said, glancing at the tea tray on the table. "This dark mood came upon you after you ate one of them a short while ago."

"Devil take it, you are right." Edmund shook his head, as though ridding himself of some mist clouding his brain. "Something is wrong. I do not feel at all well." He got to his feet and looked down at her with mounting horror. "What have I done? Forgive me, Miss Lydia. I would never harm you."

"I know" She sat up, hastily adjusting her skirts. "There has been a great misunderstanding. I can explain everything.^"

Much better, Caroline thought.

But she could no longer deny the obvious. Edmund Drake was rapidly becoming hero material. That left her with a serious problem. She had to find another villain and quickly. There were only a few chapters left to write before the story ended.