A Rose at Midnight Read Online Free PDF Page A

last-minute visit went a long way toward banishing her concerns. She hadn’t seen him since Christmas, and she’d missed him. She always missed him, terribly, but she judged it wise to ration her time with him. If she indulged too, much, she might develop a fatal taste for him, the way certain men develop an attraction for rum or gaming. Once accustomed to his presence, she might be far too unwilling to give it up. So she only allowed herself small doses, just enough to keep her spirits up.
    She needed her spirits lifted today. No matter how often she told herself that things would be fine at Ainsley Hall, that Gilly could take care of herself, she still had this dreadful sense of foreboding. Something quite devastating was going to happen. And her comfortable, peaceful life was never going to be the same again.
    “Such a to-do,” Mrs. Rafferty clucked, heaving her massive bulk onto one of the small kitchen stools. In another place and time Ghislaine would have watched in amusement, wondering whether the stool would withstand the assault. But not today.
    “Indeed.” Wilkins, the elderly butler, harrumphed. “I don’t know about such goings-on in a gentleman’s house.”
    Ghislaine managed to bestir herself. “Lady’s house,” she corrected faintly, because it was expected of her. “This is Lady Ellen’s house.”
    The two other senior servants had invaded her kitchen, sending the junior staff about their business. It was late the next day, the staff had finished cleaning up after supper, and Ghislaine had the odd notion that the three of them were conspirators. They weren’t, of course. She had acted alone. As always.
    “Even worse,” Mrs. Rafferty said with a disapproving sniff. “For that wicked man to die in his bed here is somehow… indecent, that’s what it is.”
    Ghislaine held herself very still, the familiar coldness washing over her. “He’s dead, then?”
    “No. Doctor Branford expects him to pull through, which is a mixed blessing as far as I’m concerned. Mr. Blackthorne’s never been anything but a trial and disaster as far as his family is concerned. Even someone as distantly related as Lady Ellen is affected.” Wilkins could look very dour, and he did so now. “It would do everyone a service if he were to quit this earth, but I’d rather he didn’t do it in Lady Ellen’s house. Think of the neighbors.”
    “Such a mess, too,” Mrs. Rafferty said with a sigh. “Casting up his accounts all over the place. Gastritis, the doctor called it. Seems like an unpleasant way to die.”
    “I imagine it is,” Ghislaine said. “Is he past all danger?”
    “The doctor thinks so,” Wilkins said gloomily. “But he warned it might reoccur.”
    For a moment Ghislaine could see Nicholas Blackthorne’s face in front of her. The dark, bleak eyes; the sensual mouth; the dissolute beauty of him. It called to her, for one brief, mad moment.
    “I rather think it will,” she said evenly.
    “This weren’t no bleedin’ gastritis,” Taverner pronounced.
    Nicholas managed to raise his head. He had about as much strength as a newborn puppy, and God knew he didn’t want to do anything to jar the temporary peace of his innards. If he were to start the dry heaves again, he might reach for the pistol that had likely seen the end of Jason Hargrove, and follow him into the great beyond. Or perhaps precede him.
    According to that fool of a doctor, he almost had. It had been two days since he’d taken sick, two days of the most wretched purging his body had ever endured. For not the first time in his life he’d wanted to die, anything to stop the feeling of having his innards ripped out. In the shaky aftermath, such cowardice astonished him. He’d survived gunshot wounds, knifings, and probably not more than his fair share of beatings, and he’d always snapped his fingers at pain.
    But the pain he’d endured during the last forty-eight hours was like nothing he’d ever imagined. And that damned