Read A Rose at Midnight for Free Online

begat more formalities, and there was no way he could go anywhere near Burgundy without spending several nights at their chateau.
    For once he was on his best behavior. The long absence from his father and the shadows of his childhood instilled in him the desire to be a new man, and he was doing his best to live up to that desire. He was polite and deferential to the old comte, charming to his little birdlike wife, brotherly to the young boy, Charles-Louis.
    But it was the daughter who disturbed him. The one with the odd name, Ghislaine, and the huge, trusting eyes. The skinny boy’s body with breasts just beginning to bud behind the tight silk bodices of her dresses. The quick, delicate gestures, the silvery magic of her laughter. The pure, innocent grace of her tore at his heart. And at his loins.
    He’d bedded a number of willing females during his sojourn on the continent. Barmaids and aristocrats, chambermaids and duchesses, he’d had his pick of any number of accommodating women. He had no delusions about his appeal. He knew he had a way about him, a certain combination of form and features, that women found attractive. And he discovered within himself a dangerous kind of charm that made that attraction even more volatile.
    But the women were all experienced. All older than he was, all buxom, sensual females with eager appetites and sophisticated practices. He’d learned a great deal from them, and enjoyed himself immensely.
    But he’d never been moved by someone little more than a child. Wanted someone trembling on the very edge of womanhood. His very longing for her disgusted him, but as each day passed, and the three-day visit stretched into weeks, that longing increased until it was an obsession.
    He assumed she didn’t know. She was too young, too innocent to realize what was going on in his satyr’s mind every time she took his hand, smiled up at him, kissed his cheek, and left a trail of delicate perfume behind.
    It could have gone on forever. Or at least until she was old enough, if fate hadn’t conspired to change his life. To halt the right turn he’d made, sending him tumbling back into blackness and despair. Into evil.
    He’d known what the letter would contain the moment he’d recognized his Uncle Teasdale’s handwriting. Teasdale would never write anything more tedious than a gaming IOU unless it was a matter of life and death. Indeed, it was the latter.
    Sir Jepthah Blackthorne had succumbed to another fit of apoplexy. Teasdale hadn’t given any of the particulars, but Nicholas could well imagine them. He’d probably died lamenting the fact that his name and his estates could only descend to a worthless, ramshackle creature like his younger surviving son. He probably cursed him with his dying breath, never knowing that Nicholas had made his first tentative steps on the road toward redemption.
    He sat alone in the gardens of Sans Doute, the elegant country estate of his godparents, and crumpled the letter in his large hand. There was a curious burning in his eyes, one that must have been occasioned by the brightness of the overcast sun. A similar ache hovered somewhere mid-chest, and he ascribed that to a surfeit of port with his godfather the night before. He sat alone, dry-eyed, and felt the first fiery tendrils of rage begin to rekindle inside him.
    It was there his godfather found him. Comte de Lorgny was a kindly man, but one not given to sensitivity or introspection. To give him his due, he had a great deal on his mind at the moment, chief of which was to ask a huge favor of his charming godson.
    “News from home?” he inquired, taking a seat on the marble bench next to Nicholas’s tightly strung body.
    Nicholas shoved the letter into his pocket. “Nothing to signify,” he replied with utmost casualness. “It seems I’ve got to return to England. Tomorrow.”
    The comet’s round face paled slightly. “Then perhaps now is as good a time as any for our little talk.”
    It took a