Fire at Midnight Page 3

  The filtered dawn light gave her skin the translucence of a cameo. Her fine cheekbones bore a natural winter-kissed flush more lovely than any color out of a pot. Beneath a black ribboned fedora, her curly red hair was scraped into a topknot, as if she were determined to tame its sensual beauty into ladylike neatness.

  Kit gaped like a schoolboy at a sweetshop window. Heat banished the chill from him. He wanted to undress her. He wanted to see her titian waves cascading around her slim white body.

  He formed the most charming smile he could manage, given his unshaven state. “I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Christopher Coleridge. My friends call me Kit.”

  She raised one auburn eyebrow. Fingers fisted at her sides, she came closer and stopped a few feet from him. Her long-lashed green eyes perused him with relentless intensity. She viewed him with the cool distaste one might afford a poisonous snake.

  “My name is Norah Rutherford,” she said. “I came to see where my husband was murdered.”

  Chapter 2

  Clinging to the frayed threads of her composure, Norah tasted the bitter satisfaction of catching the marquess off guard. His smile faded, though the set of his mouth retained its naturally wicked slant. Hands at his hips, he regarded her with a boldness that confirmed his notorious reputation.

  She had expected a libertine. He hadn’t disappointed her. The image of a self-indulgent aristocrat after a long night of debauchery, he stood coatless, his collar hanging open. Black hairs curled at the unbuttoned top of his shirt. Fine lines of weariness bracketed his mouth and eyes. An unshaven shadow hugged the teak-hard contours of his jaw and cheeks.

  Yet even in his unkempt condition, the Marquess of Blackthorne commanded attention. His rugged muscularity and tousled onyx hair oddly reminded her of the promise of perfection in an uncut gem. He had tiger’s eyes, dark and direct and dangerous.

  She had heard rumors of his wild parties, whispers of his gambling and womanizing. No true lady considered him proper company, especially unchaperoned. But today, shock and disbelief had overpowered her scruples.

  ‘‘Please sit down, Mrs. Rutherford.” Coming closer, he extended a bronzed hand.

  Panic constricted her chest. She stepped out of his reach. By custom she should curtsy, but her pride rebelled at paying homage to a man who preyed upon weak women. “Thank you, but I prefer to stand. This is hardly a social call.”

  “Of course. I sincerely regret the unfortunate circumstance that brings you here.”

  His sympathy, the very gentleness of his tone fired the icy void in her heart. She disliked platitudes, especially from this philanderer. “My husband’s death was more than mere misfortune. According to Inspector Wadding, it was murder.”

  He paused in the act of donning his formal coat. “Yes. I had intended to call on you today and offer my condolences.”

  “Never mind that. I would rather you tell me exactly what happened.”

  “I doubt I can add anything to what the inspector already said to you.” His voice lowered. “But please know, Mrs. Rutherford, that I hold myself accountable. If I can atone by helping you and your children in any way...”

  Untimely tears prickled at the back of her throat. Norah swallowed her secret sorrow and looked at the soiled glassware littering a side table. She felt as used and empty as those vessels. “Maurice and I were never blessed with children.”

  “I’d be happy to help you make any arrangements,” the marquess went on softly. “I’ll notify your acquaintances, or do whatever else I can to make this tragedy more bearable for you.”

  His persistent kindness nearly undid her. She held tightly to her control and reminded herself that his sympathy rang false. He only wanted to unburden himself of guilt. “If you truly wish to be of service, your lordship, you may start by showing me where my husband died.”

  Frowning, he cocked his head. “There’s nothing to see. My servants have tidied up.”

  “Nevertheless, you’ll show me upstairs now.” She pivoted toward the hall. “Or I shall find the way myself.”

  Lord Blackthorne stood still, a predator garbed in the finely tailored suit of a gentleman. In a flash of black humor, she guessed this was the most unorthodox reason a woman had ever used to get herself into his bedroom.

  Shrugging, he motioned to the door. “Since you insist.”

  They went out into the lofty hall and up a staircase so grand ten people abreast could ascend its marble glory. A team of servants bustled to and fro, clearing away the glassware from the New Year’s Eve party, sweeping cigar butts and other debris from the beautiful palazzo floor, polishing the smudges on the newel post. A footman balanced himself on a tall ladder and unfastened the Yuletide greenery looped along the balcony.

  A fog of unreality swathed Norah. The tap of her footsteps mingled with the heavier echo of Kit Coleridge’s shoes on the marble steps. She glanced sideways at him. Thoughtful absorption firmed his exotic dark features. He exuded an aura of banked energy, his vitality and strength evident in his springing steps. Her own limbs felt as dead and stiff as coral, and so brittle they might shatter with the slightest handling.

  He opened the door at the end of the upstairs passage and ushered her inside. Fabrics in the rich hue of Siberian jade lent the bedroom a surprisingly cheery comfort. Silver-framed photographs decorated the tabletops. Her numbed senses registered the warmth of the fire and the faint masculine aromas of shaving soap and earthy musk.

  She paused, aware of Lord Blackthorne standing silently behind her. She had expected something murky and foreign and cave-like, the lair of a tiger. From nowhere came the image of him luring a woman here, charming her with the mesmeric music of his voice, enticing her with the hypnotic luster of his eyes, and then pouncing, stroking, overpowering her…

  Norah forced down a shudder and walked to the foot of the bed. Pale sunbeams trickled through the windows, slid past the silk hangings, and pooled on the plush bower beneath the canopy. The pillows were plumped, the ivory linens smooth with the sheen of satin, the goose-feather coverlet thick and inviting. A place to sit and read. A place to cuddle on a cold night.

  A place to die.

  She groped within herself for grief, but found only a dreamlike void, as if her soul had separated from her body. As if she hovered above the well-appointed room and looked down at the woman standing by the empty bed, her face bleached of color against the jet-black of her gown, her fingers twined together. She fancied herself a painting on display at the Royal Academy: Young Widow Faces Tragedy.

  Beside a vase of hothouse calla lilies on the nightstand, metal glinted. Her heart took a tumble and brought her crashing back to earth. On stiff legs, she went to examine the object. The fluted gold match case was topped by a lustrous pearl set in a bed of rose diamonds.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Kit Coleridge, from behind her.

  “It’s Maurice’s matchbox,” she whispered. “The one I gave him for Christmas.”

  Kit picked up the small piece and examined it, the gold bright in his topaz-brown hands. “It must have fallen from his pocket. The maid probably found it when she was tidying up.” His gaze lifted to Norah. “May I take it? The police may consider it a clue.”

  “Of course.”

  As he went to put it on a side table, she stood immobile by the bed. Against her anesthetized skin came the sensation of warmth on her cheeks, a wetness that seeped from her eyes and slid down, spattering like raindrops on her hands. She gazed at the splotches of moisture on her gloves. The suede would be ruined. Winnifred would scold. And Maurice wouldn’t be present to temper his cousin’s crossness.

  He was dead.

  The desperate disbelief that had propelled Norah here in the wintry dawn abruptly fled. Oh, Blessed Virgin. He had been consorting with another woman. And Norah hadn’t even guessed.

  The cruel blow deprived her of breath. She felt as naïve as she had been as a young bride who had escaped the confinement of a Belgian convent only to have her romantic
dreams strangled by the bonds of marriage. Long ago she had accepted that Maurice kept a part of himself closed to her. Didn’t every man? Didn’t she hide a part of herself, too?

  A virtuous wife refrained from plaguing her husband with questions; she performed her duties with grace and modesty. By force of willpower, Norah had disciplined her baseborn tendency toward disobedience and outspokenness, even when Maurice refused to publicly acknowledge her artistic talents. Even on the infrequent nights when he exercised his conjugal rights. Even when he was detained evening after evening at his club.

  His absences had grown more numerous in the past half year. How foolish she had been not to realize. All those evenings he must have been meeting a scarlet woman in a scarlet cloak.

  The faithless blackguard. With the filthy coin of deceit, he had repaid her efforts to be a worthy wife. From a corner of her mind crept a shameful sense of relief and liberation...

  Her rigid control crumbled. A floodgate of feelings spewed forth. She trembled under the onrush of fury and frustration. Her body ached and burned and hurt. Her heart pounded a terrible, suffocating rhythm.

  The bed loomed before her, the site of sinful luxury where Maurice had betrayed his vows and ripped apart the fabric of her life. All for his own manly selfishness. The clamor inside her surged to a storm tide. Rage misted her vision.

  She reached blindly for a pillow and hurled it aside. Glass crashed. The sound barely penetrated the roaring in her ears. She threw herself on the bed and tore at the counterpane. Her fingernails raked the sheets. Sobbing breaths burdened her chest.

  She hammered the mattress. “How could you do this to me?” she gasped out. “How could you do this?” She knew no curse black enough to express the humiliation heaped upon her by a cheating husband.

  Arms like steel bars locked around her, caged her frenzy. “Mrs. Rutherford...Norah...stop. Please stop.”

  She bucked within the restraint. “Let me go!”

  “Calm yourself.” The voice slid over her, as low pitched and soothing as the purr of a cat. “Don’t fight me. I only want to help you.”

  Warm breath blew against her cheek. She lay trapped, wriggling uselessly against the coverlet, pinned by the heat and hardness pressed along the length of her.

  “Go ahead and weep. I’m here for you. For as long as you wish.”

  Weakness saturated her limbs. She melted into the satin sheets. Her crying shuddered to a halt. A blessed blanket of deliverance sheltered her from the maelstrom of emotion. Like water running from a sieve, the madness swirled away and left her shaken and vulnerable.

  Hands turned her, guided her head onto the solid pillow of a shoulder. Her cheek met the smooth linen of a shirt. She kept her mind tightly shut to all but the comfort radiating from the embrace. With each slowing breath, she drew in the fragrance of a man, alien yet agreeable. She felt the pleasing pressure of lips moving against her brow, and the lulling stroke of fingers over her wet cheeks. A whimper of need rippled in her throat. From where the sound arose she could not fathom. She knew only that she needed the strength of his arms, needed the closeness of this man...

  “There now,” he murmured in her ear. “You’ll be fine, Norah. I’ll take care of you.”

  Kit Coleridge. It was Christopher Coleridge holding her, kissing her forehead.

  Awareness burned a path of color up Norah’s cheeks. She thrust her head back. His flagrantly handsome features loomed so near she could discern each individual black lash that shaded his tiger’s eyes. The fullness of his lower tip, the soft slant of his mouth suggested wicked intimacies, profane pleasures.

  She was lying beside the most notorious rake in England. In the bed where her husband had died mere hours ago.

  She scrambled into a sitting position. The tumbled state of the bedding horrified her. The shards of a crystal vase were strewn on the floor. A water spot anointed the fine carpet. The crushed lilies emitted a sickly funereal odor.

  Sweet heaven, she had lost control and behaved like a virago. Even worse, she had clung to Kit Coleridge with the shamelessness of a trollop.

  He rolled to his feet and reached out to her.

  Fear of his touch sent Norah flying backward. Her spine met the mahogany headboard. “Stay away! Stay away, you black-hearted scoundrel.”

  Her slur wounded Kit like a dagger plunged into his chest. From the prison of his memory escaped another jeering, female voice: You’re Blackie... a heathen from India. As if it were yesterday instead of fifteen years ago, he saw Emma Woodfern recoiling from him, her fair face twisted by disgust.

  Gall choked his throat. He stepped back, his movements rigid. “You needn’t be alarmed, Mrs. Rutherford. I meant only to straighten your hat.”

  “I can manage.” She yanked at the crooked fedora, then stood and smoothed her black skirt.

  Her somber aloofness, the tear tracks marring her pale cheeks, somehow sparked defensiveness in him. “I’m hardly a savage, to force a woman to my will. Or perhaps you came here expecting me to be dressed in a turban and loincloth, as if I’d just stepped off my elephant. Perhaps you expected my house to be filled with statues of pagan gods, like some godawful Hindu shrine.”

  She blinked. “No, I didn’t.”

  At her blank expression his anger eased, leaving him at a loss. He had overreacted to her insult. Norah Rutherford had just suffered the terrible shock of learning she was a widow; of course she would flinch from him.

  God, she must have loved her husband, to weep so violently. Kit felt more guilty than ever for hosting the party where her husband had been murdered, and he honed his determination to help her. Hunger throbbed inside him. If only he could inspire a love so powerful in a woman, a love so compelling in its intensity.

  She stepped back, glass crunching beneath her shoes. “Pardon my lapse in manners,” she said stiffly. “If you’ll send me a bill, I’ll pay for the vase.”

  “Never mind the vase. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Of course. I wouldn’t dream of inconveniencing you.”

  “Your husband died in my bed. I understand why you’re distraught.”

  Norah mastered her runaway emotions. Kit Coleridge watched her with the intent eyes of a friend. For an instant she felt drawn to him; then his pretense of concern affronted her. “Do you, my lord? Pardon me if I mistrust compassion in a man who recreated Sodom and Gomorrah in his own home.”

  His lips compressed. So, she thought, his high and mighty lordship had hoped to keep his bawdy revels a secret.

  “You’re overwrought,” he said. “Please come back downstairs. Betsy will have made up the fire by now. I’ll ring for a cup of tea—”

  “Bother your wretched tea. I came here for answers, not refreshments.”

  He settled his hand against the bedpost. “Ask away, then. I’ll gladly share what little I know.”

  “You can start by confessing the truth about this woman in the scarlet cloak. You must know her name since you asked her into your home.”

  “Didn’t Wadding tell you? The police surmise that she and your husband slipped in through the servants’ entrance at the rear of the house.”

  “Oh?” Norah let the word convey her disbelief. “Maurice was a respected jeweler, a proper gentleman. He was no thief to creep in back doors. He would never have entered your house without an invitation.” Or would he? she wondered in anguished chagrin. How well had she really known him?

  “Nevertheless he did.” With bland dark eyes, the marquess regarded her. “He wasn’t on my guest list.”

  “Then one of your visitors must have taken the liberty of asking him along.”

  “So why didn’t he come in the front door? No one recalled seeing him. Not even the footman stationed at the door could identify him. That brings us to the most logical conclusion.”

  “Or the most convenient one,” she flung back.

  Kit Coleridge stood still, yet the slight rise and fall of his broad chest drew her attention to the muscular power ou
tlined by his white shirt and black coat. With his mouth tightened and his eyes narrowed, he made a formidable opponent. “Kindly explain yourself.”

  Norah pressed her fingers into her skirt. She mustn’t let him frighten her. “I mean you may be protecting the woman who murdered my husband.”

  “I?” His brow creased. “Why would I protect a murderess?”

  “Perhaps she’s one of your conquests.”

  He snorted in disbelief. “Surely you can’t believe I’d protect a woman who’d cuckolded me.”

  With your husband. The unspoken words vexed Norah. She forced herself to face the ugly truth. For whatever unknown purpose, Maurice had stolen into this bedroom. With a woman who was not his wife.

  She tried to ignore her anger and put herself in his place, tried to imagine what he had been thinking and feeling. But the man whose habits she had known over the nine years of their marriage suddenly had died a stranger. The raw wound of his unfaithfulness smarted more than even sorrow at his death. Yet in her most secret depths, she admitted to a feeling of release from the odious bondage of physical union.

  Fingering the brooch at her throat, she walked to the window. A lacework of frost etched the glass panes. She rubbed a clear spot with the heel of her gloved hand. Across the street stretched Berkeley Square, a long quadrilateral composed of brown grass with leaf-bare plane trees and deserted pathways. Few people braved the blustery New Year’s morning, only servants about their early errands and a bundled-up driver perched atop his hansom cab. The faint clatter and banging from downstairs underscored the silence in the bedroom.

  Her chest ached. She had planned to spend a peaceful day sketching at her desk. Instead she stood in a stranger’s bedroom and contemplated an uncertain future.

  “Forgive me for intruding on your grief.” The deep-pitched timbre of Kit Coleridge’s voice sounded closer. “Yet have you considered that you might know the culprit yourself?”

  She swung around, gripping the cold windowsill behind her. “How could I? I had no idea Maurice even consorted with your kind of female.”