Midnight Bride

1.

MIDNIGHT BRIDE

By

Susan Carroll

Contents

Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Epilogue

Midnight Bride

By Susan Carroll:
WINTERBOURNE
THE PAINTED VEIL
THE BRIDE FINDER
THE NIGHT DRIFTER
MIDNIGHT BRIDE

Susan Carroll

A Ballantine Book
Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group

Copyright © 2001 by Susan Coppula

Ballantine is a registered trademark and the Ballantine colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

www.randomhouse.com/BB/

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 0-345-43397-1

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition: May 2001

This book is dedicated to two women of remarkable strength and courage:
My daughter, Serena, and my dear friend, Kim.
Ladies, out of the darkness,your light came shining through.
Midnight Bride

Prologue

The ship glided over the waves, the dark outline of the coast looming closer on the horizon. Passengers gathered on the deck, laughing and sharing the joy of imminent arrival, all except the man who had kept to himself for the entire voyage, so grim and unapproachable, no one had dared speak to him.
Raphael Mortmain stood alone at the deck rail, his profile averted from his fellow travelers. Even after an absence of five years, he had taken a great risk by returning to Cornwall, a man branded as a pirate, a thief, and a murderer with a large price on his head.
But illness had left his frame wasted to a skeletal thinness, his once trim dark hair lank and shaggy, his gaunt face lost beneath a layering of beard. Rafe doubted his own mother would have recognized him now. If she would have even bothered to try.
Evelyn Mortmain had abandoned him in Paris when he'd been no more than eight years old. He'd never heard tell of her again, except for the report of her death, her life flung away on the obsession that had consumed her, had meant more to her than her only son. The obsession that had tormented all the Mortmains for generations: the destruction of their enemies, the St. Leger family.
It was like a sickness in the blood, a madness that Rafe had never succumbed to in all his forty years—until recently. Now it was all that filled his thoughts both night and day. He shivered, taking a large quaff from a small silver flask. The whiskey burned his throat, but did nothing to warm the permanent chill that had settled in his bones. He wiped his mouth with a once strong hand that never seemed to be steady of late.
He squinted toward the distant outcropping of shore wreathed in mist. Cornwall, a land steeped in legends of romance and magic, fairy stories and hero tales, Rafe thought sardonically. It was nothing more than a bleak, isolated coast, the perfect place to exact his revenge, each swell of the ship drawing Rafe closer to him. The oh so noble Dr. Valentine St. Leger.
Hatred surged through Rafe, so virulent he shook with it as he remembered how hard he had once tried to lead a respectable life. His career as a customs officer had obliged him to return to that part of Cornwall where his ancestors had attained such infamy, but Rafe had sought desperately to put the taint of his heritage behind him. He'd managed to reach past the ancient Mortmain-St. Leger feud, find a friend in Lance St. Leger, perhaps the only true friend Rafe had ever known in his entire lonely life.
But Val St. Leger had put an end to all that. The stiff-necked doctor had made an extensive study of the misdeeds of the Mortmains, the injuries they had done to the St. Legers over the centuries. Val couldn't forget that Rafe was the last descendant of such a villainous line, nor would he allow anyone else to do so either, including his twin brother Lance.
And it hadn't helped that in his bitterness, Rafe had made mistakes. Terrible ones. He was willing to admit that, but he had been struggling hard to put everything right when Val St. Leger had interfered, cruelly exposing his sins, costing Rafe his friendship with Lance, costing him everything, obliging him to flee for his very life. No second chance for a damnable Mortmain.
"And now no second chance for a St. Leger either, doctor," Rafe whispered, taking another swallow of the whiskey. It caught in his throat, bringing on a coughing spasm, violent and painful. His entire body shook with the force of it, and this time when he wiped his mouth, his fingers came away bright with blood.
A consumption of the lungs, that was the verdict the doctor in Boston had pronounced about his condition. But Rafe felt that the illness wasting him was something far more insidious, more unnatural. Some darkness of the soul, years of suppressed rage, bitterness and despair, frustrated dreams and hopes eating away at him like acid, threatening his very reason.
Val St. Leger would pay for it. The mere thought of the St. Legers solemn disapproving features caused Rafe to tense with longing to wrap his hands around the doctor's throat and—
It wasn't until his nails dug into his own palms that Rafe realized what he was doing, clawing his hands into fists. He forced himself to relax, released a jagged breath. No, killing the noble Valentine would be far too swift a vengeance, over far too soon. Rafe had something more subtle, more cruel in mind. And none of the doctor's unique heritage would be able to save him. All those romantic legends, tales of strange inherited powers, whispers of magic.
Indeed it was the fabled St. Leger magic that was going to prove the good doctor's undoing. Rafe reached beneath the flap of his greatcoat, drawing out the object concealed there, fastened by a tarnished chain around his neck. A small shard of crystal dangled from the end of the silver braid, looking so dull that for a moment the mists clouding Rafe's mind shifted, allowing him a brief glimpse of his own sanity.
There was something cursed about this crystal he had stolen from the St. Legers. It had done something to him dark, terrible, and strange. Even now he could put an end to this madness, if he would just... just...
The crystal caught the light, flashing in Rafe's eyes, and the thought was lost. His fingers closed over the shard, piercingly cold. It sent a shudder through him, a weakness so dizzying he was obliged to clutch the deck rail for support.
Ah, God! He didn't know how much longer he could conserve what remained of his strength. As soon as the boat docked, he needed to find a horse, ride as fast and hard as he could toward the village of Torrecombe, to Castle Leger perched high above the rugged cliffs. The risks of being seen and recognized no longer mattered. The threat of the gallows held no terror for him.
He was already a dying man and he knew it. And that made Rafe Mortmain more dangerous than he had ever been.
Chapter One