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Cinderella After Midnight
Lilian Darcy
She had the dream dress, the shoes…and a secret. For "Lady Catrina" was really plain, poor Catrina Brown–and she didn't belong at the glamorous ball she'd so boldly crashed. Cat's mission was desperate, yet success seemed within her reach. Until her gaze met Patrick Callahan's across the crowded room. The handsome millionaire bachelor was everything she despised in a man–wasn't he? Trapped in his heated stare, Catrina knew Patrick saw through her flimsy disguise. Come midnight, would he expose her masquerade…or would this magical night last until dawn–and beyond?
It was midnight!
“I’m sorry…good night, Patrick. I have to go!” Catrina fled through the doors and into the lobby.
“Wait, Cat!”
“No. Patrick, I’m late….” She pushed open the outer door and ran into the humid June night. But he was still behind her.
“Stop! You can’t leave like this, when we’ve—when I have no idea who you really are.”
Cat didn’t listen. Couldn’t listen. Her skin was still alive and hot from the way they’d touched. But she had no illusions about what Patrick Callahan felt, even if he did.
Skittering down the steps, she felt her spike-heeled shoe come loose. It hurt. Why hadn’t she felt that before? Deliberately, she kicked the shoe off and left it on the step.
Like Cinderella.
Dear Reader,
September is here again, bringing the end of summer—but not the end of relaxing hours spent with a good book. This month Silhouette brings you six new Romance novels that will fill your leisure hours with pleasure. And don’t forget to see how Silhouette Books makes you a star!
First, Myrna Mackenzie continues the popular MAITLAND MATERNITY series with A Very Special Delivery, when Laura Maitland is swept off her feet on the way to the delivery room! Then we’re off to DESTINY, TEXAS, where, in This Kiss, a former plain Jane returns home to teach the class heartthrob a thing or two about chemistry. Don’t miss this second installment of Teresa Southwick’s exciting series. Next, in Cinderella After Midnight, the first of Lilian Darcy’s charming trilogy THE CINDERELLA CONSPIRACY, we go to a ball with “Lady Catrina”—who hasn’t bargained on a handsome millionaire seeing through her disguise….
Whitney Bloom’s dreams come true in DeAnna Talcott’s Marrying for a Mom, when she marries the man she loves—even if only to keep custody of his daughter. In Wed by a Will, the conclusion of THE WEDDING LEGACY, reader favorite Cara Colter brings together a new family—and reunites us with other members. Then, a prim and proper businesswoman finds she wants a lot more from the carpenter who’s remodeling her house than watertight windows in Gail Martin’s delightful Her Secret Longing.
Be sure to return next month for Stella Bagwell’s conclusion to MAITLAND MATERNITY and the start of a brand-new continuity—HAVING THE BOSS’S BABY! Beloved author Judy Christenberry launches this wonderful series with When the Lights Went Out… Don’t miss any of next month’s wonderful tales.
Happy reading!
Mary-Theresa Hussey
Senior Editor
Cinderella after Midnight
Lilian Darcy
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Books by Lilian Darcy
Silhouette Romance
The Baby Bond #1390
Her Sister’s Child #1449
Raising Baby Jane #1478
* (#litres_trial_promo)Cinderella After Midnight #1542
LILIAN DARCY
has written nearly fifty books for Silhouette Romance and Harlequin Mills and Boon Medical Romance (Prescription Romance). Her first book for Silhouette appeared on the Waldenbooks Series Romance Bestsellers list, and she’s hoping readers go on responding strongly to her work. Happily married with four active children and a very patient cat, she enjoys keeping busy and could probably fill several more lifetimes with the things she likes to do—including cooking, gardening, quilting, drawing and traveling. She currently lives in Australia, but travels to the United States as often as possible to visit family.
Once upon a time there were three sisters who didn’t believe in fairy tales….
For more than three years, they lived in a run-down trailer park. Not many handsome princes there. Things got better when they found a fairy godmother—Pixie Treloar. She had a house for them to live in. Still, the sisters believed in their own hard work more than they believed in rich men and princes and knights in shining armor.
Then one sister, Catrina, met wealthy Patrick Callahan at a society ball…. Would she learn to believe in fairy tales after all?
Contents
Chapter One (#u4c5182d0-35f0-594d-8322-98958907d250)
Chapter Two (#u9fbe4504-c91a-50eb-aa0d-cfe3e2493726)
Chapter Three (#ub91d0545-fd38-54e0-9324-721b6f7e5c56)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
“I have located the target, Number One.”
The deep-toned, disembodied words floated through the air like a silk scarf on a breeze. The hiss of skate blades across freshly resurfaced ice punctuated the sentence. An elegantly clad skater made a graceful turn, swished past Catrina Brown once more and said in a tone of even deeper significance, “Repeat, Number One, I have located the target.”
Catrina, who was feeling nervous, lost patience.
“Jill Brown!” she hissed quickly, “Will you quit treating this like a spy movie and just tell me where he is? There’s no one within five yards of us right now. Who’ll hear above the music? And if by some miracle someone did hear, don’t you think ‘I have located the target’ sounds just a teensy bit more suspicious coming from a waitress, than ‘Would you care for a drink, ma’am?”’
Jill’s face fell. “Oh…I was enjoying that,” she said.
A neat flick of her hips scraped her blades sideways into the ice and brought her to a halt beside Cat. She balanced a tray of sparkling drinks in fluted glasses expertly in one hand.
“Well, I wasn’t,” Cat answered. “You’ve gotta help me blend in, Sis. That’s your role. Pixie did a brilliant job with this dress, and that was hers.”
Cat’s sixty-two-year-old cousin Priscilla Treloar, known to everyone as Pixie, could sew like a dream. She had been the wardrobe mistress for a well-known national ballet company for more than thirty years until her health slowed her down and she’d had to give up work. She had insisted that the perfection of Cat’s dress was one of the key elements in the success of this evening’s plan, and Cat suspected she was right.
She fingered one of the dress’s narrow diamanté shoulder straps. Apart from the straps and a matching diamanté edging around the bodice, the gown was plain black, and depended for its glamorous effect on the figure-hugging simplicity and perfect fit of its cut and line.
Beneath the full black skirt, the occasional peeks of layered silver lining were tantalizing. If you didn’t look very closely, the imitation silk could have easily passed for a designer original. There were more than a few of those here tonight.
“My job is to be Lady Catrina, and I’ve got the aristocratic accent down perfectly thanks to half a lifetime of watching British sitcoms,” Cat continued, her confidence rebounding a little. “I can do this. I know it. All you have to do is tell me which table Councillor Wainwright is sitting at, and I’ll zero in. This whole thing is too important for us to mess it up by treating it like a game, Jilly. We can’t have Cousin Pixie lose her home.”
The warmth in the way she used her mother’s cousin’s lifelong nickname betrayed the love Catrina and her two stepsisters felt for Pixie, even though Pixie was not a blood relation to Jill and Suzanne.
Jill had come back down to earth at Cat’s words.
“I’m sorry. You’re right,” she said, then switched her tone suddenly as a pair of new arrivals at the Mirabeau on Ice ball came past. “And I can particularly recommend the Mirabeau sparkling white….”
“Why, thank you.” Graciously, Cat took a glass, as prompted, gripped the stem in her fingers and left her pinky aristocratically curled.
“He’s at the corner table on the far side of the champagne fountain,” Jill said, as soon as she was able to speak safely. “With a group of several other people.”
“I’d better get on over to him, then.”
“Yeah, because he’s not known for staying out late, according to our dossier.” Jill grinned. Despite Cat’s lecture, the word dossier had rolled off her tongue as if she said it every day. Then she looked guilty and apologetic. “I’m sorry, Cattie.”
This time Catrina waved it aside. “Just wish me luck, okay?”
“Oh, huge luck, Lady Catrina. Huge! This is equally important to all of us.”
“And you’d probably best not speak to me for the rest of the evening, unless you have to.”
“Gotcha. See you later, then.”
Jill swished over to a nearby table to offer her drinks tray as more designer-clad guests trickled in. Cat was left with a tingle inside and a glow on her cheeks that she recognized as the effect of adrenaline. It wasn’t nerves anymore but a buzz of exhilaration and confidence.
I’m going to be good at this. I’m going to convince Councillor Wainwright to vote against the proposed rezoning at the council meeting in August, and he won’t have a clue this was planned.
She walked around the rink, using the carpet laid on top of the ice. She had to think herself into the role of Lady Catrina Willoughby-Brown, jet-setting member of the British aristocracy, and skates were a complication she didn’t need tonight, since she wasn’t the talented skater that Jill was.
The Madison County Ice Rink looked incredible tonight, a far cry from its usual mundane self. In the center of the rink was an enormous, flowing champagne fountain and some towering ice sculptures based on the works of famous artists—Rodin, Michelangelo, Moore.
Next came a specially erected polished and sprung wooden dance floor in the shape of a large O. A wide outer ring of ice accommodated the on-ice staff and any of the guests brave enough to put on skates. Finally, edging the rink were lantern-lit tables set on carpet.
The surrounding bleachers had been removed for the night to make room for platforms set with two more tiers of gorgeously decorated tables. The rink’s floor-to-ceiling windows were frosted over with lacy patterns, and the walls were draped in black fabric.
Overhead there were chandeliers, mirror-balls and spotlights, all in the colors of Mirabeau wines, which ranged from pale straw gold through soft rose to a dark crimson. On a large dais at one end there was a band playing lively dance music.
Catrina shut all of this out, however, focused on her quest.
Yes, there was Wainwright, as Jill had said. Councillor Earl P. Wainwright, to be precise. He was seated with a group of six others, four of them men, at one of the best tables on the ice. Cat had her strategy mapped out in advance and she didn’t hesitate.
First she waved to an imaginary acquaintance two tables farther on, then allowed her attention to be caught by the man sitting just to Earl Wainwright’s left, as if in sudden recognition. Changing course abruptly, she bore down deliberately upon the total stranger. She had her brimming glass of Mirabeau sparkling wine in hand and a glittering smile plastered in place.
But then, unexpectedly, the stranger’s eyes met hers for just a moment. Her hand jerked a little, and she spilled several drops of wine. He was already watching her, which she hadn’t planned for. It almost shattered her focus. His strong body was draped lazily in its seat, and there was a tiny smile on his face, just tickling the corners of his mouth. For some reason she felt confused and self-conscious and…
Don’t think about him, she coached herself quickly. He’s not remotely important. He’s part of your strategy for the first minute of this, that’s all.
“Alasdair!” she trilled at him in her round-mouthed regal accent. She didn’t let those dangerous blue eyes of his catch and hold her now. Instead, her gaze darted between a thick hairline, firm lips and a strong chin. “Fancy seeing you here! How marvelous! How absolutely marvelous!”
“Uhh…yeah,” answered Patrick Callahan, CEO of Callahan Systems Software and reluctant guest at the ball tonight. “Marvelous.”
He watched with appreciation and some alarm as a very shapely behind, clad in rustling black, slid smoothly into the empty seat beside him.
He’d had half an eye on the woman as she approached. Maybe a little more than half an eye, if he was honest. He was caught at this table by two or three people who might prove to be valuable clients for Callahan Systems in the future, and he was trying extremely hard not to be bored.
Trying hard, also, to understand why he found the prospect of the evening ahead such a chore. Most people would have looked forward to it.
Mirabeau was a California wine company that had hit on a novel marketing strategy. In several large cities across the United States, Mirabeau on Ice balls were taking place tonight. The buzz of publicity was deafening. By invitation only, the guest list for each ball was made up of an intriguing mix of the wealthy, the influential, the famous and the notorious.
Patrick wasn’t quite sure how Callahan Systems had earned its pair of tickets. Having one of its founding partners, i.e., Patrick himself, named last year as Philadelphia’s Most Eligible Bachelor by a well-known local magazine had probably helped. The fact that he’d briefly dated, in quick succession, both the Wentworth Hotels heiress and the stunningly glamorous ex-wife of a senator couldn’t have hurt, either.
He would have turned the invitation down if his brother Tom hadn’t reminded him of the networking opportunities. But he’d flatly refused to bring a date. He wasn’t involved with anyone at the moment. He was never involved with anyone for very long. And the idea of creating expectations in some casual female acquaintance by inviting her tonight didn’t remotely appeal to him.
No, if Tom wanted him to network, he’d prefer to attend the ball alone.
Somehow, the role of chief schmoozer at Callahan Systems had devolved almost exclusively onto Patrick over the past couple of years, since Tom’s marriage. With their younger brother and business partner, Connor, also about to take on the yoke of wedlock in September, the situation would no doubt get even worse. For some reason, Tom refused to understand that events such as these were no longer a source of pleasure to Patrick.
Maybe that’s because you haven’t actually explained the fact to him, said an annoying little voice inside his head. Tom had no idea about the vague dissatisfaction Patrick had been feeling with his life just lately, nor the unacknowledged envy he felt for his brothers’ rewarding personal lives.
“Okay, so if you don’t take a date, you’ll be able to cruise to your heart’s content,” Tom had predicted. “I bet Abigail Wakefield will be there, and Diane Crouch, Lauren Van Shuyler…”
“Cruise? I thought I was supposed to schmooze! Anyway, Lauren doesn’t fit that category. She’s a friend.”
“Cruise, schmooze,” Tom had said, ignoring the issue of Lauren Van Shuyler. “You’re a capable man. You can do both.”
Subject closed, apparently. And now here he was, schmoozing on the outside while his inner spirit was a million miles away.
So he had welcomed the approaching lightweight distraction of this fair vision in black and diamanté at first, before he had any idea that she would stop at his table. But when their glances had connected just now, he’d felt something—a mysterious, intuitive quickening of interest. Not the sort of thing he normally admitted to, and it had spooked him.
“But I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake about who I am,” he began. Why was he reluctant to disillusion her?
Then he saw that she had realized her mistake, too.
She clapped her hands dramatically to her mouth, then let them fall again. “Oh, I am most frightfully sorry!” she gushed. “I thought you were Alasdair Corliss-Bryant, an old friend of mine from the Gloucestershire Hunt. But I can see now that of course you’re not.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” Patrick answered. It was a formula response. He was aware that, on his left, local councilman Earl P. Wainwright, one of his schmoozing options for the evening, was now listening with eager attention to the new arrival. Hardly surprising. Miss England was gorgeous.
Patrick made a cool-headed assessment.
Maybe not quite as cool as he would have liked.
