Midnight Mistress Read online

  Midnight Mistress is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  2013 Loveswept eBook Edition

  Copyright © 2000 by Ruth Owen.

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States of America by Loveswept, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

  LOVESWEPT is a registered trademark and the LOVESWEPT colophon is a trademark of Random House LLC.

  eBook ISBN 978-0-307-82210-9

  Originally published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House Company, New York, in 2000.

  www.readloveswept.com

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  Other Books by This Author

  The Editor’s Corner

  London January 1, 1800

  A new century!

  Cathedral bells all over the City, from St. Peter’s grand chimes to the slow bells at Aldgate, pealed a welcome to the new hundred years. The palace Horse Guards paraded in front of Pall Mall, while mummers and mountebanks gave free shows for the children in Hyde Park. Earlier that morning, several hot air balloons had risen into the clear dawn skies, the impressive but impractical inventions of the last century delighting and astounding the celebrating throng. Pugilists staged exhibition matches for the masses, and there was a prime bang-up at the Bell Tavern over whether the favorite’s mendozy punch was a flush hit or a hum concocted by their two managers before the fight. All in all, it was a glorious day, and the cold, crisp winter day rang with the sounds of celebration. And why not? There was much to celebrate.

  The unpleasantness with the Colonies in America was over and done with. The war with France continued, but with the anticipated surrender of Malta, and the recent signing of Russo-Turk alliance, the devil Napoleon was at least temporarily at bay. With the new century had come astonishing advances in science, such as Joseph Priestley’s machine for producing electricity by friction, and Humphrey Davy’s incredible “column of electric light” from a battery. And Newcomen’s coal-powered pumping engine, first developed almost seventy years ago for the Cornwall mines, had been redesigned by a young engineer named George Stephenson, who was using it to power a loud, impractical but still fascinating invention called a steam locomotive.

  Almost seven hundred new books had been published the year before, and magazines such as the Morning Post and the Gentleman’s Press were now being read by the upper class, though such ratified pursuits were, of course, far beyond the limited intelligence of the general public. Advances in medicine and social hygiene were reducing the City death rate from disease from one person in twenty to half that figure. But most impressive of all was the fact that the glorious British Empire stretched across the entire world, from India, to Australia, to the West Indies. And almost every ounce of cargo that came from the mighty empire, whether it was rum from the Indies, gold from Africa, jade from the Orient, or stone obelisks from the desert graves of Egypt, was brought in through the immense and sprawling network of piers, roads, tunnels and warehouses known as the London docks at Wapping, one of the largest ports in the world.

  Yes, there was much to celebrate, and on this day of days everyone in the City, from the most pampered lord down to the most low-born chimney sweep, put away their quizzing-glasses, riding crops, mops, brooms, and shovels and joined in the revelry.

  Everyone—save one.

  Eight-year-old Lady Juliana Dare sat on a tea crate on the Execution docks near Limehouse Cut, watching her father’s newest schooner, the Swallow, floating along the bright waters of the Thames. Her father owned many ships, along with a number of profitable estates and holdings, for the marquis of Albany was a rich and powerful man. But all his riches hadn’t mattered a whit three weeks ago, when Juliana’s delicate, beautiful mother had died of influenza. And all of his power couldn’t help Juliana find a way out of the dark, hurting place inside her, where all she could think about were the stories her mother would never read her, the kisses she’d never feel on her brow, and the warm arms that would never be there to hold her.

  “Lord, are you crying again?”

  Juliana looked up into the handsome, irritated face of her cousin Rollo Grenville. Ten years her senior, Grenville was Juliana’s closest relative besides her father. Lord Albany had brought the young man down from Oxford because Grenville had lost his own parents years ago and he’d believed her cousin would be a comfort to her. What Albany failed to realize was that Grenville had never cared much for his parents and was only marginally put out by their loss. He’d never much cared for Juliana, either.

  Being saddled with a mewling baby in the midst of all this merriment was more than Rollo could handle. He looked at his silver pocket watch and determined that Albany would not be back from his business meeting for another three-quarter hour. And the buxom tavern wench who was throwing glances his way did not look as if she was prepared to wait that long. “Listen, I want you to promise to wait right here. Right here, mind you. I’ll be back in ten min—” Grenville stiffened as the wench lifted her skirt to display a very immodest expanse of calf, then disappeared behind a stack of barrels. “All right, fifteen minutes. Wait here.”

  Her cousin’s absence meant nothing to Juliana. Her world was just as cold and empty with him as it was without him. She used to love sitting on the docks and listen to her father tell of the wonderful, exotic places he’d visited. Juliana had been so excited when he’d said she and her mother would join him on his next voyage. But now her mother was gone, and the thought of taking an adventure without her only made the loss more painful.

  “Why so glum, Princess?”

  Startled, Juliana turned around. The speaker was a wharf rat—one of the orphaned children who lived off the scraps and leavings on the docks. She guessed he was twelve or thirteen, though it was hard to tell from his filthy clothes and half-starved appearance. Yet despite his deplorable state he held his head high, and his striking sky blue eyes met hers without a hint of uncertainty. “I’m not a princess,” she admitted with strange reluctance. “And I’m crying because my mother died.”

  A haunted look shadowed his eyes. “Cor, that’s a blow. Me own mum weren’t much good to me, but I still miss her sore. Right here,” he said, pointing to his thin chest. “Like someone carved out my heart and forgot to sew it back up.”

  “Yes, that’s it exactly,” Juliana cried in amazement. “Father says I must be brave and keep a stiff upper lip. But I keep feeling my lip and ’tis ever so soft. And Grenville says I’m a baby for crying. Do you think I’m a baby?”

  The boy stared at her, as if amazed that his opinion would matter. “I think that anyone what loves enough to hurt ain’t no baby.”

  “And do you think my upper lip will ever be stiff to please my father?”

  The boy’s ga
ze traveled to her mouth. A strange vulnerability shook his confident expression. “Your lips be fine. In fact, you’re … perfect.” Clearing his throat he took a step away, and touched the forelock of his muddy blond hair. “I’d best be going.”

  “Oh, don’t. Please. Here, I’ve got a penny.”

  The bright confidence in the boy’s eyes died. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and backed away. “I ain’t no charity. I never asked for coin.”

  “But your clothes are so awful and you’re so thin—”

  “I ain’t no charity!” The boy still held his chin high, but there was a gleam of shamed tears in his eyes. “I’m Connor Reed and I make my own way, see. Always have. Always will.”

  Juliana watched the boy stalk away, struggling with emotions too deep for a young girl to understand. She’d promised her cousin that she wouldn’t leave this spot. She’d promised her father that she’d listen to Grenville. But she also knew that talking to this boy had made her feel more alive than she had in weeks. Somehow he’d touched the hurt inside her, and for an instant she hadn’t felt empty or alone. Magic, she thought as she gazed after him. Like one of the heroes in the stories her mother used to read to her. A magical storybook hero.

  She jumped up off the crates and ran after the boy. “Connor Reed, come ba—”

  Her foot caught in a stray rope. She lost her balance and toppled over the side of the dock into the river.

  The freezing water drove the air from her lungs. She struggled to the surface and tried to cry out, but her words came out as a choking whimper. No one saw her fall. No one knew she was drowning. She heard the celebration on the docks above her, the loud revelry that overpowered her faint cries. She flailed helplessly as the water closed over her a second time.

  Her clothes felt like lead. Treacherous eddies pulled her under. With the last of her strength she clawed her way back to the surface and gulped much-needed air. She looked up and thought she saw Grenville watching her from the pier above. Then the water closed over her again, and as she lost consciousness she imagined a white-winged angel coming to take her to heaven.

  But when she opened her eyes she saw that her savior wasn’t an angel, but a half-starved, blue-eyed wharf rat, drenched to the skin. “You lie there qu-quiet-like, Princess,” he said through chattering teeth. “Everything’s gonna be b-bang-up prime.”

  And as she saw her worried father arrive, and watched him lay his hand on Connor’s thin shoulder, she knew that somehow things really were going to be “bang-up prime” after all.

  London January 1, 1808

  For the second time in her life, Juliana Dare felt as if she were drowning.

  She sat in the shadowed corner of her father’s study and watched her world come to an end. Her father, Frederick Dare, the marquis of Albany, stood behind his desk, his strong, stout shoulders bent in despair. And in front of the desk, with his back to her, stood the tall, rigid figure of Connor Reed.

  “I want the truth, boy. By God, you owe me that much.” The marquis rammed his hand through his graying hair and leaned forward, his broad, usually smiling face pale and drawn. “Connor, why did you do it? Why did you take the money?”

  Juliana gripped the chair arm, feeling the pain in her father’s voice stab through her. Eight years ago Albany had pulled Connor from the filth and squalor of the London docks. He’d raised the boy as his own, and no father could have loved his son more. Connor had become a part of Juliana’s family, and had been her protector and companion during her father’s fabulous seafaring adventures. She’d lost count of the number of times he’d saved her from the perilous situations her childish curiosity got her into. He was her hero—

  “Why, damn you?”

  Albany slammed his fist on his desk, sending quills and papers flying, and teetering the single candle that provided the room’s only light. For an instant, the erratic flame shimmered through Connor’s dark blond hair, turning it into an angel’s halo. But the moment passed, and the ominous shadows closed in again. Connor bent his head and clasped his hands tightly behind him, as if the iron manacles were already on his wrists. “You have my confession, my lord. Why should my reasons matter?”

  “Why, indeed.” A shape uncurled itself from the shadows beside the desk. Mr. Rollo Grenville, Juliana’s second cousin, stepped into the small circle of light. At twenty-six he was only five years older than Connor, but his elegant coat of plum-colored superfine and his polished manners made him seem like another breed entirely. “He has admitted to taking the five hundred pounds from your strongbox. ’Tis more than enough to send him to Newgate. I say we send for the magistrate and be done with the cur.”

  Rollo’s words dripped with disdain. Juliana watched as Connor’s hands balled into hard fists, and felt the ghost of a smile flicker across her lips. There had never been any love lost between Connor and her pompous cousin—Lord knows there had been times when she’d longed to pummel the smug Grenville for the insults he’d made at Connor’s expense. But her father’s old first mate, Tommy Blue, had told her to pay the dandy no mind. It’s deeds what makes the man, not words spoke by some silly popinjay.

  Of course, Tommy’s words lost much of their comfort when she recalled that Connor’s most recent deed was stealing five hundred pounds.

  “I’ll not send for the magistrate.”

  Lord Albany’s pronouncement brought shocked gasps from Grenville, Connor, and Juliana. She pressed her hand to her heart. Connor wasn’t going to prison. Her father had seen that somehow this was all a terrible misunderstanding—

  “I’ll not send for the magistrate if you resign your commission and are out of London by tomorrow’s dawn and out of England by week’s end.”

  Juliana’s relief shattered. In exchange for his freedom, her father was stripping Connor of everything he possessed—his career, his shipmates, the country he loved … and her.

  “Well, boy, do you agree?”

  No! Juliana wanted to scream. Do not agree. Say you didn’t steal the money. Say you never saw it. Say anything, just don’t leave me—

  “I agree.”

  Like a man who’d just been handed a gallows sentence, Connor backed away from the desk and gave a nod of respect to the marquis, then a swift, unreadable glance at the smirking Grenville. As he turned toward the door, Juliana finally glimpsed his eyes, his brilliant, sky blue eyes that had always gleamed with easy laughter. The laughter had died. In its place was the lost, hopeless expression that Juliana had seen only once before, on the long ago day when she’d first seen him on the London docks—a filthy, starving beggar boy who’d been too proud to accept her coin. With a soft cry she reached out to comfort him. His mouth hardened at the sound, but he passed her by without a word. He slipped out of the room, leaving behind a whisper too soft for anyone else to hear. “I’m sorry, Princess.”

  The sob that had been building inside her finally broke free. Eight years ago he’d saved her from an icy grave in the Thames. He’d saved her from the loneliness of her mother’s death, and in the years that followed they’d become the best of friends. When Connor had left three years ago to join the Royal Navy, not even distance could break the bond between them. He had remained her best friend, her trusted confidant, and her hero. Until last night, on the eve of the new year, when he’d become so much more. I’m only a second lieutenant now, but in a few years they say I’ll be promoted to commander. After that ’tis only a short jump to captain, and a man can support a wife on a captain’s pay—

  A shadow fell across her, wrenching her thoughts back to the present.

  “You should have listened to me,” Grenville purred as he loomed over her. “I knew that wharf rat would show his true colors one day. Perhaps next time, my dear, you will not be so foolish as to entertain the attentions of a man so far beneath you. Why, he probably laughed about your tender feelings with a woman of his low and vile class—”

  “That’s not true!” Juliana bolted from the room before he could see the hot blush o
f shame stain her cheeks. Rollo was wrong. Connor loved her. Whatever else he had done, he loved her.

  By the time she reached her bedchamber, she had a plan. The marquis of Albany was a man of passion and daring, and his daughter was cut of the same livery. Growing up on a merchant ship traveling to all manner of strange and exotic foreign ports had given her a nature both bold and practical. She opened her wardrobe and shoved aside the beautiful gowns that her doting father had lavished on her, and pulled out an ugly but sturdy oilskin from her seafaring days. She shrugged on the old coat and twisted her thick red-gold hair into a serviceable bun easily concealed beneath the hood. Efficiently masked, she opened her jewel box, removing the emerald necklace and earrings that she’d inherited from her mother. She breathed a silent prayer to the long-dead Anna Dare. I know you wanted me to pass these on to my children, Mama, but Connor will need the money the gems will bring until he gets back on his feet.

  She penned a quick note to her father, telling him not to worry and promising to write soon. More than that she dared not say, not until Connor and she were safely wed. Then, without so much as a twinge of regret, she turned her back on her world of wealth and privilege and slipped out into the raw January night toward Connor’s lodgings.

  It was a foul evening, with a cold drizzle dripping down from the starless sky. Yet to Juliana it was like walking through heaven. She was on her way to join the man she loved, the man she believed in with all her heart, no matter what he’d supposedly done. Together they would put right this dreadful mess and clear Connor’s name. He needed her love and support now more than ever. And he would have her support—for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part.

  She raised her hand to her lips, recalling the soft kiss Connor had brushed across her lips to seal their engagement. It was the first time she’d ever been kissed. Connor’s mouth had been warm and gentle as a South Seas trade wind. Just thinking about it started a sensation like a whole flight of butterflies fluttering in her stomach. In that single instant she felt a whole new life open up to her, a life that was as full of possibilities as the exotic cities she’d visited as a child—enchanting, mysterious, and more than a little frightening.