A Kiss at Midnight

A Kiss at Midnight by Eloisa James

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Authors: Eloisa James
Tags: Historical
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years or a bit more. So why should I be forced to parade my bride in front of him? It’s not as if he’s a king. He’s just a spare prince.”
    “It will be quickly over,” Kate said.
    “He’s desperate for funds, of course,” Algie reported. “I heard that his betrothed is—”
    But whatever bit of hearsay he was about to pass on was lost in a welter of noise. The coachman suddenly bellowed and pulled the carriage to the right; the wheels squealed as they careened across the road; the dogs lost their breath expressing their opinions. Mercifully the vehicle came to a stop without toppling over, and the second carriage (carrying trunks, Rosalie, and Algie’s valet), managed to avoid bowling them over.
    Algie pulled down his waistcoat, which had got rucked up in the disturbance. “I’d better see what happened. This will take a man,” he said, looking not a day older than his eighteen years. “You stay here where it’s safe. I’ve no doubt but that we have a bit of trouble with the axle or some such.”
    Kate gave him a moment to exit from the carriage and then straightened her traveling bonnet and followed him.
    Outside, she found the groomsman soothing the horses, while Algie himself was bowing so deeply that she expected his ears to touch his knees.
    A man who had to be the prince was seated on a great chestnut steed, and for a moment she could see only his dark silhouette against the sun. She had the confused impression of his motion and power, easily controlled: an aggressive body, with big shoulders and muscled thighs.
    She raised her hand to her eyes to shade the sun just as he leaped from his horse. Dark hair swirled around his shoulders as if he were one of the actors who came through the village to play King Richard or Macbeth.
    Her eyes adjusted and she changed that idea. He was no Macbeth . . . more the king of the fairies, Oberon himself, eyes at a slight, wicked tilt, with just a hint of the exotic. His “foreign blood,” as Algie had it.
    He had an accent, a delicious smoky accent that matched his eyes and his thick hair, and there was something else about him, something more alive , more powerful and arrogant than the pallid Englishmen she met every day.
    She realized her mouth had fallen open, and snapped it shut. Thank goodness, he hadn’t noticed her.
    Groveling probably happened before the prince all the time. His Highness was nodding to Algie. His retinue had dismounted and were standing about him. The man to the left was precisely what Kate imagined courtiers should be, all curled and colorful like a peacock. There was even a boy in splendid red livery. Apparently they were out shooting, a royal shooting party.
    Then he did notice her.
    He surveyed her coolly, as if she were a milkmaid at the side of the road. There wasn’t a spark of interest in the man’s eyes, just a haughty calculation, as if she’d offered to sell him milk and he found it curdled. As if he were mentally stripping off her too-large traveling costume and staring at the stockings rolled up inside Kate’s corset.
    She inclined her head a fraction of an inch. She’d be damned if she’d rush forward and curtsy, there in the dust and the road, to a prince whose self-importance mattered more than his manners.
    He didn’t react. Didn’t nod, didn’t smile, just looked away and turned back to his horse, swung onto the saddle, and rode away. His back was even larger than she’d at first thought, larger than the smithy’s in the village, larger than . . .
    She’d never met anyone so rude in her life, and that included the smithy, who was often drunk and so had an excuse.
    Algie was snapping at the footman, telling him to open the carriage door and make it quick. “Of course it wasn’t the prince’s fault that our horses were startled by his party,” he said. “Now get us back on the road and be quick about it.”
    “Caesar!” Kate called. The little dog was busy yapping at the heels of a horse who could

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