After Midnight Page 4

  The dining room doors flew open and a man appeared in the doorway, shaking off a panting footman. The footman’s powdered wig sat askew on his head, revealing a thatch of coppery red hair.

  The startled guests gaped, forks and goblets poised halfway to their mouths.

  Jerking his waistcoat straight, the young footman shot the interloper a black look. “I’m sorry, my lord,” he said, still breathing heavily. “I tried to tell the gentleman you wasn’t receiving callers, but he didn’t take kindly to the refusal.”

  Despite Kane’s laconic posture and heavy-lidded gaze, Caroline sensed that the stranger’s appearance was definitely a surprise. And not a welcome one, either.

  “Good evening, Constable,” he said, rising from his chair just long enough to sketch a mocking bow. “Had we known you were going to grace us with your presence this evening, we would have delayed supper. Your regards must have been lost in the post.”

  “Oh, come now, Trevelyan,” the man said, making a great show of brushing off his sleeve where the footman’s hand had rested. “I like to think that old acquaintances like us are above such silly social niceties. We never used to honor them when we were at Oxford together.”

  With his long, lanky frame, ill-fitting and rumpled frock coat, and untidy thatch of light brown hair, Caroline suspected the stranger would look windblown even on a breezeless evening. What his face lacked in charm it more than made up for in character. He might be thin-lipped and hawk-nosed, but both humor and intelligence glittered in his toffee-brown eyes.

  Those eyes scanned the table until they found what they were seeking.

  “Miss Vivienne,” he said, his tone gentling as he nodded toward Caroline’s sister.

  “Constable Larkin,” she murmured, swirling her spoon around her bowl of lobster bisque without sparing him so much as a glance.

  Caroline jumped as Portia kicked her under the table. Neither one of them had ever seen their sweet-natured sister give anyone the cut direct.

  The exchange was not lost on their host, either. Amusement rippled through his voice as he swept out a hand. “I don’t believe you’ve made the acquaintance of Miss Vivienne’s sisters—Miss Cabot and Miss Portia. You should be familiar with the rest of my guests. I’m sure you’ve harassed or interrogated them all at one time or another.”

  The viscount’s guests continued to eye the intruder, some curiously, others with thinly veiled hostility. A sneer twisted Julian Kane’s sculpted lips, and for once even Aunt Marietta seemed at a loss for words.

  Undaunted by their regard, or lack of it, Larkin settled himself into an empty seat halfway down the table and cast the young footman an expectant look over his shoulder.

  The footman stared straight ahead, his freckled jaw set, until the viscount blew out a noisy sigh. “Do offer the constable some supper, Timothy. If we don’t feed the man, I fear we may never be rid of him. The only thing he loves more than barging in uninvited is eating.”

  Beneath the footman’s glowering scrutiny, the constable proved Kane’s words by helping himself to generous portions of stewed quail and vegetable pudding. Caroline suspected it would take more than one such meal to fill out his gaunt cheeks and narrow shoulders. She couldn’t help but wonder what might have driven an Oxford graduate to seek out a career in the constabulary instead of a more profitable post in the clergy or the military.

  Larkin polished off the quail in half a dozen bites, following the last swallow with a greedy gulp of wine and a rapturous sigh. “Whatever else your failings, Trevelyan, I have to admit that you do set one of the finest tables in London. I suppose that shouldn’t surprise me since you’re rumored to be a man of such vast and varied…appetites.”

  The harmless word sent a curious shiver down Caroline’s spine.

  “Is that why you came here tonight?” Kane asked. “To insult me and heap praise upon my cook?”

  The constable leaned back in his chair, swiping at his mouth with his napkin. “I came here because I thought you’d be interested in knowing that there had been another disappearance in Charing Cross.”

  Adrian Kane didn’t even blink. If anything, his gaze became even more somnolent. “And why would that information concern me? Given the unfortunate squalor of the rookery, debtors seeking to avoid their creditors probably vanish every day. And night.”

  Larkin held out his glass so the footman could pour another grudging splash of port into it. “That may very well be true, but as you know, there have been over half a dozen mysterious disappearances just since you and your brother returned from your travels abroad.” He gave Kane an unmistakably pointed look. “In most of those cases, there have conveniently been no witnesses. But just yesterday morning a young woman came to us with a most extraordinary story.”

  “Fueled by hysteria and cheap gin, no doubt,” Julian offered, draping one long, elegant arm over the back of Vivienne’s chair.

  Larkin shrugged. “Perhaps. I’d be lying if I said the girl was of sound moral character. But I can assure you that both her story and her terror were quite convincing.”

  “Do go on,” Kane commanded, suppressing a yawn. “My guests were hoping for another poetry recitation from Julian after we supped, but I’m certain your tale will prove to be just as entertaining, if not more so.”

  The constable ignored the jibe. “According to the girl, the incident occurred shortly after midnight when she and her companion were strolling through Charing Cross.”

  “Am I to assume the fellow was a longstanding acquaintance?” Kane asked gently.

  “Actually,” Larkin admitted, “she’d met him only minutes before outside one of the gambling hells in Pickpocket Alley. The two of them had paused beneath a lamppost to…” He hesitated, stealing a pained glance at Vivienne’s porcelain profile. “…converse when they were attacked by a stranger in a long black cloak.”

  “Attacked?” Julian echoed. “How? Did he threaten them with a club? A knife? A pistol perhaps?”

  “The girl saw no weapon. She claims their attacker was possessed of extreme physical prowess. He simply snatched the man away from her and shoved him up against the lamppost, lifting him off the ground with one hand.”

  Caroline picked at her quail with her fork to avoid looking at Kane’s brawny shoulders.

  “The girl was so stricken with fright that she fell to her knees and hid her face. When she finally dared to lift her head, her companion was gone.”

  “Gone?” Aunt Marietta echoed shrilly, touching a hand to her fleshy throat.

  Larkin nodded. “Vanished. As if into thin air.”

  “Pardon me, Constable Larkin, but if you have no body to provide any evidence of foul play, then how do you know the man didn’t simply run away?” Caroline couldn’t have said what prompted her to speak up. She only knew that a crystalline silence had fallen over the table and everyone was staring at her.

  Including their host.

  The constable cleared his throat, his gaze narrowing on her face as if he was seeing her for the first time. “A valid question, Miss Cabot, but with this incident following so closely on the heels of the other disappearances in the area, we have no choice but to treat it with equal suspicion. Especially after what the attacker did next.”

  “What did he do?” she asked reluctantly, wondering if it was too late to leap across the table and cover Portia’s ears.

  The guests held their collective breaths as they awaited his reply. Even Vivienne stole a glance at him, her lips trembling.

  Larkin bowed his head, his long face somber. “According to the young woman, he approached her and helped her to her feet. His face was in shadow, but she described him as having the manners and demeanor ‘of a gent.’ He tucked a gold sovereign into her hand and told her to scurry home to her mum because there were worse monsters than him roaming the night. Then he turned, and with a swirl of his cape, disappeared back into the shadows.”

  Kane surged to his feet, making it clear that both his patience and his hos
pitality had reached their limits. “Thank you, Constable. It was very kind of you to drop by and share your riveting tale with me and my guests. I can assure you that we’ll heed your warning and take care to avoid Charing Cross after sunset.”

  Larkin rose, facing him down the table. “See that you do.” As two burly footmen appeared in the doorway, a wry smile curved his lips. “I appreciate the courtesy, but I do believe I can find my own way out.” He paused in the doorway as if he’d forgotten something as inconsequential as a glove or a handkerchief. “I nearly forgot to mention that I ran into an old friend of ours from Oxford just the other day in Covent Garden—Victor Duvalier.”

  Although Julian visibly blanched, Kane’s face could have been carved from stone.

  “Apparently, he just returned to London after an extensive tour of the Carpathians. He said to give you his regards and to tell you that he hoped your paths would cross very soon.”

  “As do I,” Kane murmured, something in his expressionless face sending another shiver down Caroline’s spine.

  Before turning to go, Larkin sketched a surprisingly graceful bow in Vivienne’s direction. “Miss Vivienne.”

  “Mr. Larkin,” she returned, going back to stirring her congealing bisque as if the entire future of England depended upon it.

  Flanked by the footmen, the constable departed, leaving an awkward silence in his wake.

  “Instead of you ladies depriving us of your company so we can enjoy our port, why don’t we all adjourn to the drawing room for dessert?” Kane suggested. He leaned toward Portia. “If you will unfurl your prettiest smile, my dear, you just might be able to coax Julian into reciting another stanza or two of Byron for you.”

  Portia scrambled eagerly out of her chair while the rest of the guests rose and began to drift toward the dining room, slowly resuming their chatter.

  “May I have a word with you, Miss Cabot?” Kane asked as Caroline slipped out of her chair.

  “Certainly, my lord.” She turned, startled anew by his size. Given her willowy stature, she wasn’t used to having to look up just to gaze into a man’s face. She’d always been quite comfortable looking down her nose at Cousin Cecil.

  She wasn’t sure how it had happened, but suddenly the two of them were all alone in the dining room. Even the servants seemed to have vanished. As had all traces of amusement in the viscount’s luminous eyes.

  “I just wanted you to know that I’m perfectly capable of handling both Larkin and his suspicions. I don’t need you to defend me.”

  Taken aback by the rebuke, she lifted her chin. “I wasn’t defending anyone. I was simply asking a question that anyone with an inkling of common sense would ask.”

  He leaned closer, his smoky baritone pitched just above a growl. “If you have an inkling of common sense, Miss Cabot, you won’t involve yourself in my affairs.”

  Her mouth fell open, but before she could form a retort, he had sketched a curt bow, turned on his heel, and strode out of the room.

  Caroline snapped her mouth shut. Constable Larkin might have couched his admonitions in civility, but there could be no doubt about Kane’s blunt words.

  She had been warned.

  Chapter Four

  The moon was riding low in the starless sky when the Cabot sisters finally murmured their polite farewells and departed the viscount’s town house. A fine mist clung to the trees and grass, blurring the edges of the waning night. Even the irrepressible Portia was starting to drag her slippered feet. Caroline suspected her little sister would be fast asleep on her shoulder before their carriage pulled away from the curb. She smothered a yawn into her glove as Aunt Marietta took the footman’s hand and heaved herself into the waiting carriage.

  “Miss Cabot?” All three of the sisters turned as a man detached himself from the low stone wall bordering the walk. But it was Caroline who bore the brunt of his steady brown gaze. “Forgive me for startling you, but I was wondering if I might have a moment of your time?”

  Constable Larkin stood before her, hat in hand. He must have been sitting on that wall waiting for them to emerge for nearly three hours. Judging from the shadows beneath his eyes, this wasn’t his first sleepless night, nor would it be his last.

  To Caroline’s surprise, it was Vivienne who spoke up. “I shouldn’t speak to him if I were you, Caro. It’s hardly proper for a man to accost a young lady on the street.”

  “He’s a policeman, dear, not an ax murderer,” Caroline replied. “Why don’t the two of you wait for me in the carriage with Aunt Marietta? I’ll only be a moment.”

  Vivienne hesitated just long enough to throw the constable a scornful look before climbing into the carriage, her soft, pink mouth compressed to a disapproving line.

  Caroline led Larkin a few paces away, making sure they were out of her sisters’ earshot. Portia had always been able to overhear a juicy tidbit of gossip at one hundred paces. “I’d appreciate it if you could make this brief, Constable. I need to get my sisters back to my aunt’s lodgings. We’re not accustomed to keeping such extravagant hours.”

  Although he made a valiant attempt, Larkin could not quite hide the longing in his eyes as he stole a glance at the carriage. “I can see that you take your responsibility for their well-being very seriously. Which is precisely why I had to speak to you. I wanted to warn you to have a care where Miss Vivienne is concerned.” Still avoiding Caroline’s gaze, he turned his hat over in his hands, his raw-boned fingers caressing its brim. “Although I’ve only known your sister for a short time, I hold her in very high regard and I would never forgive myself should any harm come to her.”

  “Nor would I, Constable. Which is precisely why you must stop dropping these lurid hints and simply tell me if you have any evidence to prove that Lord Trevelyan is a danger to my sister or any other woman.”

  He jerked up his head, plainly thrown off balance by her frankness. “Perhaps you should ask him what happened to the last woman he courted. A woman who bore a rather startling resemblance to your sister.”

  When he first spotted Vivienne, he went so white you’d have thought he’d seen a ghost.

  As Aunt Marietta’s shrill voice echoed in her memory, Caroline felt a chill ripple through her. “Perhaps I should ask you.”

  “I don’t have the answer. Eloisa Markham vanished without a trace over five years ago. The mystery surrounding her disappearance was never solved. Her family finally decided that she must have simply spurned Kane’s affections and eloped to Gretna Green with some penniless ne’er do well.”

  It was difficult to imagine any woman spurning the affections of a man like Kane. “But you don’t believe that?”

  The constable’s silence was answer enough.

  Caroline sighed. “Do you have any proof whatsoever that Lord Trevelyan is connected to her disappearance or to any of the others?”

  Larkin grew very still, his gaze narrowing on her face. “Instead of interrogating me, Miss Cabot, perhaps you should be asking yourself why you feel compelled to defend him.”

  Caroline drew herself up. This was the second time she’d been accused of such a grave offense in only a few short hours. “I’m not defending him. I just refuse to dash my sister’s hopes for a happy and prosperous future when you haven’t a single shred of evidence to convict him.”

  “How am I to collect evidence on a phantom?” Catching the concerned glance Caroline threw the carriage, Larkin lowered his voice to a fierce whisper. “How can I hunt a man who moves like a shadow through the night?”

  Caroline laughed, telling herself that it was only fatigue that gave the sound a hysterical edge. “What are you trying to say, Constable? That you—a man who has apparently decided to dedicate both his life and his calling to the unassailable pursuit of logic and truth—also believe that the viscount just might be a vampire?”

  Larkin gazed up at one of the darkened windows in the third story of the town house, his face set in grim lines. “I don’t know exactly what he is. I only know that
death follows wherever he goes.”

  In any other circumstances, his words might have provoked more laughter. But standing in front of a stranger’s house in an unfamiliar city in the predawn chill, Caroline was forced to hug her cloak more tightly around her. “That would be a sentiment more worthy of Byron’s fanciful pen, don’t you think?”

  “Perhaps Byron is simply willing to entertain the notion that not every mystery can be solved by logic. If you’re truly concerned about your sister’s welfare, I strongly suggest that you do the same.”

  As he donned his hat and turned to go, she said, “I can’t help but wonder if there isn’t a more personal motive behind your suspicions, Constable. You mentioned that you and Lord Trevelyan attended university together. Perhaps this is just your way of settling a grudge against an old enemy.”

  “Enemy?” Larkin echoed, turning back. Even as one corner of his mouth tilted in a rueful smile, an ineffable sadness clouded his eyes. “On the contrary, Miss Cabot. I loved Adrian like a brother. He was my dearest friend.”

  He tipped his hat to her before strolling away, leaving her standing all alone in the mist.

  “Damn Larkin to hell and back!” Adrian swore, watching the constable saunter away as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

  Caroline Cabot stood in the middle of the street below, looking like a lost little girl. Mist swirled around her, lapping hungrily at the hem of her cloak.

  As Adrian watched from the shadows of the roof, she turned and cast a troubled look at the town house. Her gray-eyed gaze was so clear, so incisive, that he nearly ducked behind a brick chimney before remembering that the cloak of darkness shielded him, as it always did.

  She turned and climbed into the waiting carriage, her shoulders slumping with exhaustion. As the carriage rolled away, Adrian strode to the edge of the roof, watching until it disappeared around a distant corner.

  It was just as he had feared. Larkin had lain in wait for her like a cunning spider, hoping to entangle her in his web. By speaking up in his defense, she had marked herself with the same ugly stain of suspicion that tainted everything he did. He’d long ago grown accustomed to the nervous whispers and sidelong glances that followed him everywhere he went. There was no reason she should have to do the same.