A Kiss at Midnight by Eloisa James Page B

way he looked at her was almost amusing, in retrospect. She just had to get through the next few days. Then she could take all her newly altered clothing and go to London and find just the sort of man she wanted.
    She could see him in her mind’s eye. She didn’t want a man like that prince; what she wanted was someone more like Squire Mamluks, whose property ran close by Yarrow House. He was a sweet man who doted on his wife. They had nine children. That’s what she wanted. Someone straight and true, decent, and kind to the bone.
    The very thought made her smile, which caught Algie’s attention. “Did you see the waistcoat Mr. Toloose was wearing? He was the tall one, with the striped costume.” Obviously Algie had been experiencing some anxiety.
    “Yours is very nice,” she assured him.
    Algie looked down at his padded chest. “I thought so, I mean, I do think so. But that waistcoat . . .”
    They had both found something to desire.

Nine
    K ate didn’t know much about castles; she had only seen engravings in one of her father’s books. She had thought Pomeroy Castle would have airy flounces and furbelows, slender turrets, a pile of rose-colored brick in the setting sun.
    Instead it was four-square and masculine, with the aggressive look of a military fortress. The two turrets were round and squat. There was nothing lyrical about it. It bristled, its walls thick and bossy, like a stout watchman with someone to scold.
    The carriage trolled down a gravel drive, through the stone archway and into a courtyard. The door to the carriage swung open and Kate stepped down, taking the hand of one of Mariana’s groomsmen, to find that the courtyard was so crowded with people that she was tempted to turn and peer under the carriage to see if they had accidentally run someone over.
    A confused stream of persons was clattering in every direction, heading for arched passages on all sides. As she watched, a donkey cart piled with sacks of laundry narrowly avoided a man holding a stick, from which hung at least ten fish, bound for the kitchens, no doubt. He was followed by a man carrying a crate of live chickens, their heads poking between the slats. Two boys were carrying bunches of roses bigger than their heads, and narrowly missed being drenched as a maid tossed out what one could only hope was nothing worse than dirty water.
    Castle footmen, dressed in elegant, somber livery, quickly ushered them over the flagstones and through a second archway, into a second courtyard . . . where everything was transformed. Here was a quiet, beautiful space, as if the castle fiercely repelled those outside the walls, but celebrated its own occupants.
    The last rays of the sun caught Kate’s eyes and dazzled them, making the windows look like molten gold, and the people strolling through the inner courtyard like denizens of the French court: beautiful, relaxed, noble.
    The castle was sober outside, and drunk on champagne inside.
    She felt a flash of pure fear. What on earth was she doing, descending from a carriage in an ill-fitting traveling costume, pretending to be—
    She glanced at Algie and saw the tight anxiety in his eyes and knew that he didn’t belong here either: that this gathering of people shouting at one another in French and German, so carefully elegant and carelessly beautiful, was more than he had experienced before.
    And he was her family, or he soon would be. “You look splendid,” she said warmly. “Just look how unfashionably that gentleman is dressed!”
    In fact, she had no real idea what was fashionable and what wasn’t, but it was a fair bet. The man in question had almost no collar at all, whereas Algie had three.
    He followed her gaze and immediately brightened up. “Dear me, just look at those buttons,” he remarked.
    They were greeted by a Mr. Berwick, who introduced himself as the majordomo of the castle. He announced that he would personally escort Kate, trailing Rosalie, to a bedchamber in the west