Free The Prince of Midnight by Laura Kinsale Page A

a long note he'd
learned from Nemo in the days when they'd lounged on his castle steps hurling
wolf music at the moon. He hoped the Gypsies heard it; he hoped the housewives
and shopkeepers heard it in the towns; he hoped Sade heard it; he sang Nemo's
haunting call as passionately as his human lungs could carry it and hoped they
all shivered in their beds, in their carriages and tents and houses and all the
places they thought themselves safe.
    The wild melody filled him, made him an outlaw again, transmuting his
solitude into exile. He sang until his chest ached and the wolf note fell like
water into a deep well, cascading down to silence.
    He drew a breath. The night was still around him. In the waiting hush, he
could hear the blood in his ears, the last faint echo of his wordless lament
from the hills around.
    And then from far away there came an answer. A single, desolate voice raised
the howl again on the night wind, rising up to a peak and sliding earthward. It
was joined by a second singer, and a third, until at last it was a chorus: a
reckless, savage symphony in celebration of his outlaw cry.
    * * *
    Leigh had long since grown impatient with this count and his insinuations. He
spoke so quickly that she could keep up with only half of his French, fidgeted
and touched her arm and babbled on about the English and the Hell Fire Club,
staring at her fixedly and then grinning avidly at his valet. She regretted
accepting his invitation. Whatever evil he planned could only delay her, and
she'd wasted time enough already in this vain journey.
    Looking back, she saw that it had been weakness that had sent her here in
search of fighting skills she'd never learn. She'd left England driven by a
nightmare; clinging to the illusion that she could take revenge as a man would
take it. She'd come seeking a champion of justice, a shining, mysterious,
half-remembered legend of her girlhood . . . and found that he was human—and
lonely—and looked at her as if she could console him.
    She would have used that masculine hunger in his eyes, lured him into aiding
her in her plan the way a hunter would coax some starving tiger into his baited
trap. But when he'd stumbled and held on to her shoulder for support and looked
at her with his fine handsome face full of pride and longing, he'd shown her the
true extent of his desire.
    Something deep inside her had recognized that look. She saw the anticipation
in him, and it went beyond uncomplicated lust. Aye, she'd have yielded her body
as the price of her goal—she'd resolved on that long ago—but her body wasn't
enough. That look asked for more.
    So she had left him. She took the first available means, abandoning one more
childhood delusion along with all the others. There was no one responsible for
justice but herself. She would do what she must alone, in whatever way she could
find to do it. She'd hoped to have vengeance with honor, but if honor was not
possible, she would have vengeance all the same.
    The Comte de Mazan had been in a ferment of excitement all the way from La
Paire, where the sound of musket fire had followed them out of town. Apparently
the halfhearted pursuit had stopped at the border, since the chaise could have
been easily overtaken on the rutted, twisting roads. The track worsened as they
went along, reducing them to a pace slower than walking, the wheels falling
heavily into holes, bouncing everyone inside, and then climbing out with a
creaking groan.
    Leigh sat silent and tense, clinging to the strap to keep her seat. She
judged it prudent to refrain from inquiring into the count's recent past,
holding him at a distance with cool replies to his enthusiastic conversation.
The valet, Latour, spent the endless time frowning mutely at the road behind
them, interposing that with intent glances at Leigh.
    "Look at this," the count said, and leaned against her as the coach swayed.
He slipped a little leather volume into her hand. "