The Midnight Man

by Charlotte Mede

Genres: Gothic; Medieval Romance; Viking Romance

Synopsis

"The less you know about Ramsay, the better. . ."

Lady Helena Hartford knows nothing about Nicholas Ramsay. Rumored to be the richest man in England, he appears out of the shadows and commands her to trust him. Newly widowed, Helena is the target of powerful forces determined to seize her fortune by committing her to an asylum. Losing her wealth means nothing, but losing her freedom to the fetid air and hopelessness of Bedlam would be a never-ending horror.

Nicholas has his own reasons for pursuing Lady Hartford. Familiar with the scandalous reputation her artwork has inspired, he is focused on revenge but supremely unprepared for the immediate, gut-clenching desire she invokes.

As their uneasy alliance gives way to intense passion, enemies are circling ever nearer, intent on a shocking agenda. And Helena has no choice but to trust this mysterious, unpredictable man who could be her savior, or the means of delivering her to her worst nightmare. . .

Release date: August 1, 2008

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 336

Sample

June 1860

Oblivion is what she craved.

Strands of blue smoke snaked along the low ceiling. The room was hushed, its plush red upholstery absorbing sounds of both pleasure and pain. It was a place people came to forget, to slay their demons by slaking their desires.

Helena Hartford sank deeper into her chaise, unable to resist the images that bled before her eyes. It was always like this. Her work could make her forget anything, even the tightness in her lungs and the fear gnawing at her bones.

Her mind was already elsewhere and her fingers itched for her palette and brush, the crimson, blue, and flesh tones of the room fusing in a cacophony of color. That man in the corner. She watched as his high, starched cravat was loosened by the nimble fingers of the half-naked young woman kneeling by his side. His eyes were closed as he sucked hungrily on the opium pipe between his lips. It was an Hieronymus Bosch canvas come to life.

Nearly three hundred years ago, the Dutch painter had captured all too well the symbols and iconography of sin and human failings. She noted several men, lounging next to the broad stairway, eager to make their ascent to the private rooms on the second floor.

Helena’s eyes narrowed at the assembly of guests, all of them scions of England’s noblest and wealthiest families who in the dark pursued pastimes that wouldn’t hold up to the bright light of day. The world could be an infinitely forgiving place—if you were male. And a friend of the noble Duke of Hartford who now lay deep in a cold grave.

Helena’s smile was cynical as she focused on the small blue pipe delicately balanced on the side table so that its contents would not drop out. When she had first arrived a few minutes past midnight, there were several raised eyebrows, an unusual reaction in a venue renowned for its discretion. Helena Hartford, the widow of the old Duke of Hartford, was known for her flaunting of society’s strictures. But this…

She took hold of the pipe with surprisingly steady hands. The warm smoke filled her lungs, its sweetness a new sensation. Another inhalation, then another. To forget, to obliterate the fear, to fall into the comfort of nothingness.

They would never dare to look for her here. She knew she was safe for the moment because for anyone to divulge her whereabouts would be to disclose secrets so ugly that even society could no longer look away.

She sank into the cushions of the alcove just as her limbs began to relax, the room coalescing into a swirl of patterns on a canvas. Time was suspended in a blanket of pure physical sensation.

The voices beyond receded like a bad dream. With vision simultaneously sharp and blurred, she examined the pipe with preternatural concentration. The contours were smooth beneath her fingers, etched with a stream winding into an endless horizon, a perfect, perspectiveless landscape. She placed it carefully on the side table before welcoming the soft red cushions that enfolded her in their embrace. She was alone in her private cocoon. Images, elusive as butterflies, danced behind her eyes, their scorching yellows and virulent blues carrying her away to a place where she was finally free. No father, no husband, no fears.

She blinked slowly, then focused.

The hand on her wrist was beautiful, large and strong, and male. A sinewed forearm, the shirt cuffs turned back, led to shoulders that blocked her view of the salon. Broad shoulders, but sculpted beneath the fine linen shirt, no cravat, and a waistcoat with the top two buttons undone. A torso she suddenly ached to draw.

She couldn’t see his face against the dim light of the chandelier. He was sitting on the chaise, leaning over her, saying something. The deep voice was rough velvet.

“I’ve seen your work.”

She pushed away the haze clouding her thoughts, unable or unwilling to concentrate as a ribbon of fear unfurled deep in her chest. “You have.” It was more of a statement than a question. Her artist’s eye traced his body, a sculpture that was large-boned, long-limbed, but elegantly made. Like nothing she had ever seen in real life. More like a hallucination or a bronze at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

“It’s magnificent.”

He was so close that she could detect his scent, the ocean, sun, and something else. Languorousness seeping into her bones, her words were slow to come. “I must have misunderstood.” She heard herself laugh, the sound throaty and low. “Most of the critics, not to mention the friends of my late and beloved husband, aren’t that generous in their praise.”

“You’re bitter.”

The blue-gray smoke combined in the air between them. “How discerning of you, sir. Whoever you are.” The metallic taste in her mouth stung as a flare of panic flickered in her chest.

She made to sit up and couldn’t. Although he wasn’t touching her, she instantly felt caged by his body limned in the shadows of the alcove. Closing her eyes, she tried to shut him out, following the shapes and patterns her imagination conjured. A stream distorted by sunlight. A face shattered into geometric planes. A rough-hewn mountain range. She was only vaguely conscious now of the low and constant sounds of strangers humming in the background.

Then the hand skated down her arm and a jolt of awareness pulled her back. And all she could do was focus on his touch, as compelling as the opium in her bloodstream, the calloused fingers moving slowly over the sensitive skin of her wrist before he pressed one finger into her bare palm. A shiver traveled from the top of her spine to the tip of her womb.

She opened her eyes. What if he is one of them? The thought crawled out the thick morass that was her reality. She wanted to move, to run, but she couldn’t, held down by a force of nature invading her senses. The urge, out of nowhere, was contradictory and overwhelming: to reach up and loop her arms around his neck, then trace the hard muscles and warm skin of this man’s body. First to feel and then to draw him.

“What’s in that head of yours, Helena? In your mind’s eye?” The low gravel voice mesmerized and she’d barely registered that he knew her name. His hard fingers traced a sensual pattern on her palm, the fine veins of her wrist.

From under heavy lids, she strained to discern his features. He was so close she could track the cadence of his breathing, the rise and fall of his chest. “What I see?” Her breath was shallow and the words cost her some effort. “Inspiration? You think this is where it comes from?” She gestured to the small blue pipe with her free hand. “Not from here, not from this.”

“Then from where?” The dark voice led her on, as surely as if he’d leaned closer, his lips hot on the curve of her neck. Beneath the heaviness of her limbs, she felt an unfamiliar need, a tightening in her chest that was equal parts desire and dread.

“Most people believe I’m mad.” It was more of a whisper than a statement.

“Why?”

She shook her head against the enveloping, smothering cushions. “Because of what I do and how I do it.” Explaining anything more would not help, even if she could.

“I saw your entries in the Salon des Refuses in Paris.” He cupped her cheek, sketching her ear, the slope of her shoulder. Her insides turned liquid and her skin hot.

Desire coursed through her, foreign and frightening, desire for this stranger whose face she couldn’t see. His voice and his body, the here and now that could blot out the terror that hovered in the air around her. From far away she watched herself as, with leaden arms, she reached up to pull him down toward her. His muscles were granite beneath her hands.

Her blood rushed and she breathed in his scent. “You’re what I need,” she murmured. “To escape, just for a little while…”

She was on the margins of awareness, her physical senses as keenly attuned as the finest instrument. The heaviness pooling in her abdomen and the swelling of her breasts were exotic terrain, her body suddenly alien to her experience.

She felt the heat of his breath with its tinge of warmed brandy and tobacco. “I can do that for you, Helena. I can do whatever you desire.” His voice caused a muscle to spasm low in her belly. A strong arm slipped under her back, caressing her waist with infinite slowness, burning through the protective layers of skirt and undergarments. His fingers ran up the middle of her back and her shoulder blades tightened in response.

Helena’s body inclined toward him with the inevitability of a magnet to the south pole. He was there, his warm breath inches from her mouth, and all she wanted to do was touch him and be touched by him.

“Good Lord, who’s that you’re rutting with, man?”

A voice intruded, like a rock hitting the stillness of a pond, heavy with alcohol. A shuffle of footsteps and then the slurred exclamation. “Not that I can see from this vantage point, but I’d swear by my dead mother-in-law, hellish harridan that she was, may she rot in hell, that you’re about to rut with the widow Hartford. Not bad, not bad at all, I’d say. You’ve done well for yourself, old boy.”

The words penetrated the thick fog of opiates and desire. Helena stiffened. Wide shoulders still blocked her view, but the man who held her was as fixed as a mountain range and didn’t move a muscle. He didn’t have to.

“You must have a death wish, Lord Beckwith.” The threat, in that low gravel voice, was as casually delivered as the crack of a pistol shot at dawn.

Helena closed her eyes, willing reality to disappear.

Lord Beckwith’s casual tone suddenly took on a distinct quaver. “Good God, I meant no disrespect…. Truly, I didn’t quite realize…who you…er…were…are.”

“I suggest you turn fast on your heels and exit this establishment if you’d like to see the next sunrise.”

All signs of dissipation in Beckwith’s manner miraculously cleared like rain on a summer’s day. “Of course, of course.” A restrained cough, the clasping of hands in supplication. “And you can count on my discretion. Certainly…”

“The alternative doesn’t bear contemplation.”

There was no response. Lord Beckwith had disappeared into the blue smoke of the salon, leaving behind a keen mortification and the unwelcome awareness of having been discovered virtually flagrante delicto, in a public space, albeit one of London’s most luxurious and louche opium dens. Helena opened her eyes against the panic that seeped like cold water back into her veins, the rising curtain of reason beginning to reassert itself. She struggled to sit up, pushing back her hair.

“Thank you.” She placed her hands at her temples to keep the room from spinning. “I’m not usually like this….” She took a shaky breath. “I just couldn’t deal with him…with anyone at present.”

They were sitting side by side, and for the first time, in the shimmer of the chandelier’s light, she saw his face clearly. As the momentary dizziness subsided, she was struck by an overwhelming masculinity, of sharp planes and angles, of unfamiliar ground. The men in her circle were and had always been refined, the cream of the aristocracy, their features softened by hours of leisure and undemanding days marked by nothing more important than a meeting with one’s tailor or a card game at White’s. Even the models she sketched were malleable clay, young and unformed, in comparison with this man.

This man was cut from a distinctly different cloth. The nose was strong, the forehead broad, the mobile mouth above the clean architecture of a stubborn jaw bracketed by lines. Lines of hard-won experience. Only a slight indentation in the chin alleviated some of the starkness. His eyes were light gray, disconcertingly opaque, revealing nothing.

“Are you all right?”

She felt like the fifth ring of hell on a bad night. A headache began its steady beat, deliberately mocking her. “I’m well, thank you,” she lied, sitting up straighter, hoping to clear the vestiges of stupor that still numbed her brain. Again, she was struck by his size as he loomed beside her, taller, broader, stronger. Her imagination careened wildly. This man, she sensed in the pit of her stomach, would not be easily dispatched.

“What to say in a situation like this?” She licked her dry lips, the words as brittle as a social cliché. “It’s a bit awkward, certainly.” The useless sentiment drifted into the smoke-thickened air. “No need for introductions. Better that we just take our leave without much more fuss,” she continued, fully aware that she was rambling. She couldn’t quite recall the words they’d exchanged and didn’t want to remember the strange feelings that had threatened to smother her with their strange intensity. With an evil eye, she looked at the pipe on the low table between them.

He caught her glance. “Opium is a powerful drug.”

“As I’m quickly learning.” Uncomfortable with the conversation, she smoothed the folds of her dress. Only then did she realize that her bodice was flecked with paint, lines of ochre and bright red, evidence of futile hours spent in her atelier earlier that evening.

A smile deepened the lines around his mouth. Strong white teeth flashed against darkened skin and she wondered if he had spent the past six months in an exotic clime. Whoever he was, unlike her, he seemed stone-cold sober.

She was never one for denying the truth. The headache urged her on, and on a shallow breath, she said, “You’re clearly familiar with my name, sir, and you believe I’m here to indulge in certain proclivities, which I don’t bother to deny. However, I would ask you not to consider these previous moments as representative of, well, of anything, of anything…” she faltered, looking down on her lap as though she would find the words there to continue. “It’s probably best that we forget this encounter ever occurred.”

His smile broadened and he threw an arm across the back of the chaise and crossed one booted leg over the other, the muscles straining against the superfine of his trousers. He was clearly not of the indolent class, and he clearly had no intention of making the situation easier for her.

“By that I mean you caught me at a bad moment, sir.” Her headache was a tight band around her forehead and neck, clearly her punishment for having explored forbidden territory. But the fog was clearing and she wondered whether it was for the best because, at the moment, reality was not her friend. And then she recalled Lord Beckwith’s hasty retreat.

She licked her dry lips. “Who are you?” She looked up at him, arching her neck in an attempt to loosen the knots that were in danger of cutting off her circulation.

He observed her closely before answering, and she didn’t want to look away from eyes that seemed to absorb the darkness around them.

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” he said finally. She was relieved that he spared them the charade of rising and sketching a bow. “Nicholas Ramsay at your service, Lady Hartford.”

Helena shook her head, dispensing with anything resembling tact or savoir faire. The name, without a title, meant absolutely nothing to her. Possibly a good thing if it indicated that he didn’t run with her late husband’s crowd. “I’m at a distinct disadvantage, sir.” As always, her reputation had preceded her. “You know more about me, clearly, than I about you.”

He caught her with his expressionless eyes. “I shouldn’t think that would disturb you, Lady Hartford. From what I’ve gleaned, you’re a woman who lives rather freely, doing exactly as she pleases, regardless of society’s demands and strictures.”

An arrogant, and a monumentally ill-considered, assumption. She felt unaccountably irritated because here was yet another man bestowing his estimation on her behavior. Her head pounded and her blood warmed to low simmer. “And that’s what you think, is it, Mr. Ramsay?” Helena returned both hands to her lap and tried to keep the scorn from her voice. “And so what does please me? You seem overly well informed about my likes and dislikes.”

“I’d be overly bold in answering that question.”

Helena’s eyes narrowed. “Your reticence is far from disarming, Mr. Ramsay, or even remotely convincing.” As though this man were afraid of anything. His long legs, the muscles hard, were mere inches from her own. He was immaculately, expensively dressed, although his garments lacked the usual embellishments favored by fashionable men of society.

Her reaction to him made no sense and even the opium in her system didn’t account for the fact that moments earlier, before this wave of irritation and anger, she’d been all but ready to take him to her bed in a headlong rush of desire.

Desire. Passion. They belonged to the exclusive terrain of her work and little else. Until now.

She was a fool if she didn’t acknowledge this was a dangerous man. Lord Beckwith had.

She dared another glance at his strong profile, the radiance from the chandelier gleaming against his thick hair cut unfashionably short. The full force of his gaze was disquieting more so because she doubted that his eyes ever reflected the light.

Silly, fanciful thought.

“I don’t believe this conversation is going much of anywhere fruitful, sir,” she said, shifting away from him on the chaise in an attempt to bring the unfortunate encounter to a quick close. Something was wrong here and she didn’t have the luxury of finding out what it was. “I believe I’m ready to depart for the evening. I shall have a hansom called.”

As she moved to rise, she felt a hand, hard and strong, on her wrist.

“I didn’t take you for a coward, Lady Hartford.”

Still shaky on her feet, she sat back down on the chaise. She desperately hoped to make a quiet exit. “Whatever you believe about me is inconsequential, sir.”

He leaned forward and his power struck her like a physical force. “Please let me go.” But he didn’t and she knew she couldn’t afford to make a scene. Not here. Not anywhere. Not anymore.

“You’re not a coward, so why not be honest with yourself? What did you feel moments ago? Fear?” His voice dropped to a lower register. “Or desire?”

The timbre in his voice had changed to something possessive, something dark. His eyes bored into hers. “Whatever you’re running away from, I can help—better than opium,” he said in silken tones. “I came here for you tonight.”

A fresh drug slammed through her body, rushing her senses. Her face flushed with heat and he hadn’t even touched her. Yet. Hidden in the folds of her skirt, his fingers slipped around her hand.

“Look, I can’t, not here,” she murmured, confused, the pressure of his hand indecent and arousing. He bent close and she shut her eyes.

“Yes, you can, Helena.” He brought his mouth close to hers. “And you will.” A heavy thrum pulsed between her legs. She felt his lips on her forehead, her cheeks, her eyelids. And then her mouth.

He pushed her gently back into the cushions. The luxurious press of his lips made her believe that the whole night stretched in front of them. The sweeping stroke of his tongue began a tantalizing rhythm—lazy, sensual thrusts and withdrawals that seduced with the subtlety of a master and the intent of an invading army. The taste of him made her breath come faster, the sweep of that clever tongue sending bright waves of shock straight to her breasts and between her thighs. Unwillingly, she lifted her hand to trace the sharp angle of his jaw before the other grasped the nape of his strong neck.

His arms pulled her close as he turned her face, slanting that devilish mouth down her throat where he took small bites along the sensitive curve of her neck, following with the touch of a warm tongue. Helena arched beneath him, only to have his lips return to her mouth to begin again. Shaking with reaction, she threaded her fingers through the short silk of his hair, a soft moan escaping from her mouth to his.

“I have to go,” she murmured, disoriented and weak, halfheartedly curving away from him. “This isn’t right…. I’m not feeling myself.” Her body vibrated, in response to him or the remnants of the opium, she wasn’t sure. Before she could catch her breath, he rose to his full height and pulled her from the chaise. Stumbling against him was like slamming into a wall of rock, and she barely reached his chin. Her lassitude instantly vanished and she tried to focus on the fine ivory buttons that marched up the front of his shirt.

“I have another place in mind if that helps.” Ramsay had yet to release her, the iron band of his arm around her waist.

Helena lifted her face to his, aware of the gray eyes that were cold against the warmth of his embrace and the heat of his words. This was no ordinary man. I came here for you tonight.

And suddenly she was afraid.

“Who are you? Why are you even here?” The questions spilled from her lips in no particular order. Looking frantically around the room, she pulled away and, miraculously, his hands dropped to his sides, hands that were large and all too capable with their hardened strength against her skin. “What is it you really want from me?” she whispered. They always wanted something.

He looked down at her with those empty eyes and it struck her that his face could have been minted on a Roman coin. Hard, cold, and resolute.

“I meant what I said earlier, Lady Hartford. I can give you what you want.”

The room was closing in around her, the red walls like the chambers of a heart. “I have an ample choice of lovers.” Her voice was pure bravado. She quickly glanced over her shoulder again in the hope they were not being observed. With some distance between them, her pulse slowed and her blood cooled. What remained was familiar—fear. Ramsay knew who she was, had known, when coming looking for her. In her earlier stupor, she had allowed herself to deny the obvious.

She began to shiver despite the hothouse air of the salon. Suddenly, the red velvet and dark shadows were all the more oppressive, smothering, the pall of smoke catching the back of her throat. She had to leave and only a broad chest and over six feet of solid muscle stood in her way.

“I’m sure you do.” He kept his voice neutral. “But this has nothing to do with seduction, Lady Hartford, regardless of the unusual circumstances. If it makes things easier for you, think of this initial meeting as a detour, although a pleasurable one, I’ll admit.”

Her head snapped up. “A detour?” Her jaw clenched. “I’m leaving, right now.”

“And I’m going with you.” Before she could react he pushed her toward the front doors of the house. He moved casually, elegantly, despite his size and as though escorting women from one of London’s most illustrious and debauched opium dens was a daily occurrence. The light from the wall sconces flickered, the scenes around the room a bacchanalian landscape. No one noticed when he gestured to the majordomo to retrieve her cloak.

Head throbbing, Helena tried to reclaim her arm discreetly. “If you think that I won’t scream…”

“As though anyone would notice in this milieu.”

“My driver is waiting. He will be alarmed and alert the authorities.”

“There is no driver. You mentioned earlier that you would call a hansom. And secondly, the last thing you need is to alert the authorities. As you well know.”

Without releasing her, he drew her cloak around her body. His hands on her shoulders and at her neck were heavy with intent.

She looked up at him with a fury in her eyes. “Did Sissinghurst send you?”

“We’ll talk more about this later,” he murmured into her ear, “and here comes Madame Congais. I suggest we act like lovers. It will assure a smooth exit.”

Before she could protest, Helena was hauled up against Ramsay’s chest, his total physicality suddenly more frightening than any of Sissinghurst’s threats. She lowered her eyelashes in self-defense just in time to see Madame Congais, in full sail, sweep over to them.

“Leaving so early, Monsieur Ramsay?” Her French accent was as artificial as the reddish glint in her hair. A shrewd businesswoman, she worked hard to ensure the ultimate in discretion and service for a clientele that ranged from the House of Lords to wealthy city merchants. She waved theatrically, gesturing to the wide staircase leading to the second floor of the house. “I could have your favorite suite prepared, of course. Was it not to your liking last time?”

Helena stiffened against Ramsay’s chest, pretending not to hear the strength of his heartbeat or the fact that he was a regular at Madame Congais’s establishment. He pulled her even closer for the woman’s benefit.

“Everything was superb as always, Francine. We are simply ready to take our sport elsewhere this evening.”

The words rumbled low in his chest, his body brushing against her breasts, forcing her to hold her breath. She jerked spasmodically, but Ramsay propelled her back toward the door and whispered against her lips, smiling as if he were telling a lover’s secrets. “I’m your best chance, Lady Hartford. If you’re as intelligent as I think you are, you’ll take the opportunity just handed to you.”

He lowered his head, his lips hot and possessive on the vulnerable side of her neck, and yet she sensed that he watched the room.

Her voice was acid sharp, pushing him away because her body couldn’t. “You’re a fool if you think that I’d leave here with you,” she hissed, refusing to wrap her arms around him. In response, he pulled her hips more tightly toward his and she swallowed a gasp of outrage. “You’re the one taking advantage of this opportunity!”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Lady Hartford.”

Over Ramsay’s shoulder, Helena saw Madame Congais’s majordomo open the door. Damp night air swept into the corridor.

Four men. Their eyes immediately fixed upon her.

The short one, on the top stoop, held a pair of manacles, dully glittering in the sputtering gaslight of Regent Street. Before she could struggle against the arms that imprisoned her, she heard the words—words that echoed from her nightmares.

“Lady Helena Hartford.” Her breathing stopped, but she wasn’t going to scream. She bit down on her lower lip, tasting blood, as she stared at the shackles and then up into the stony face of the constable.

“On the orders of the Bishop of London, you are hereby charged with immoral insanity.”

Panic knocked the last of the air out of her lungs, and her legs nearly buckled beneath her. The constable’s lips moved, the summons a dagger in her back. “To be immediately transported and committed to Bethlem Royal Hospital.”

The room spun and she heard prison doors clanging shut, the shuddering sound of cold metal defining her fate as clearly as a knife at her throat. Ramsay’s hard arms tightened around her along with the realization that he was the one wielding the knife that was going to end her life.

He was delivering her to the gates of hell, to a future of misery, degradation, and hopelessness.

To Bedlam.

“Is it done?”

The Bishop of Sissinghurst placed a meaty hand on the head of the child kneeling in front of him. Smiling benignly, he helped the small boy to his feet before giving him his blessing and a sticky treacle. His love for children was as genuine as the ruby-encrusted crucifix dangling from his cassock. Each Sunday afternoon, select children from the local poorhouse in Shoreditch visited the Bishop of London’s manse in the shadow of the great Cathedral of St. Paul.

The towheaded boy, his face gleaming from a washcloth scrubbing earlier that day, scampered from the room, clutching his sweet. A broad smile wreathed Sissinghurst’s face, outlined in the sunshine pouring from the stained-glass window. He sat down heavily in an overstuffed wing chair. “Well, Deacon Mosley,” he repeated, “once again—is it done?”

The younger man, with the delicate features of a cherub, nodded crisply, clasping and unclasping his hands in front of him with an eagerness that grated like a choir singing out of tune.

“My lord Bishop, I’m pleased to report that we have been successful.”

The bishop arched his brows, deliberately misunderstanding. “We have been, have we? You know I dislike hubris in a m. . .