One Wicked Wish Page 10

  He rolled onto his back, taking her with him so that she straddled him. When her torn bodice sagged, he couldn’t resist fondling her breasts.

  “We really have to stop,” she murmured, bending down to crush her lips to his in a desperate kiss that made him ache.

  Their wriggling had put paid to her coiffure. A tawny tangle tumbled down to form a veil around his face, as her lips drove him insane. He tunneled his hands through the silky mass, while their mouths waged a battle of ferocious pleasure.

  When at last she pushed up against his chest, she was rosy with arousal. He smiled at her. In pain, but just so damned delighted with her, he almost didn’t mind. “You don’t look like anyone’s governess right now, Miss Faulkner.”

  She gave another of those huffs of laughter that he found so charming, perhaps because they were nothing like the tinkling giggle that most of the women of his acquaintance cultivated. Her eyes completed a survey of him that threatened to set him ablaze. “That may be the case, but you certainly look like a libertine, my dear Lord Halston.”

  Laughing and catching her by the waist, he turned until she was beneath him. When he rose on his elbows, she stroked the chest revealed under his gaping shirt.

  Halston quaked beneath her touch. Wherever her hands strayed, they trailed magic.

  “We must be sensible,” he forced out and heard a complete lack of conviction in the words.

  Stella drew him toward her. “I think that’s what I should say.”

  More kisses. More heat. More luscious frustration, but in the end, they came to rest against the pillows, entwined in each other’s arms, and he was almost glad that she’d escaped a swiving. At least before he had time and privacy to do her justice.

  She murmured with disappointment when he drew away. He liked that Stella owned her desire. Hell, so far he liked everything about her, except the fact that he couldn’t take her to bed right now and keep her there for a month.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his throbbing prick reminding him how much he wanted her.

  “Don’t be sorry. I love it when you touch me.”

  He gestured toward her bare breasts. “If you don’t want me to touch you again, you might want to pull up your dress. Next time, I can’t promise to stop. Nobody has ever driven me as wild as you do.”

  When she didn’t move to obey, he ground his teeth and reached across to hitch up the bodice of that ugly green dress. Eventually he covered her. That seemed like the sin, not what Stella did to herself in the lonely nights.

  “Stop looking at me like that.” The hunger in her expression made him want to kiss her again. “It’s just inviting trouble.”

  “I can’t help it. Do you know why I said yes to you?”

  “Because you want me?”

  “Well, that, obviously.”

  “And?”

  “And because while I’ve missed a man’s touch, one man alone has tempted me to his bed.”

  After that, what could Halston do but lunge forward and kiss her again? Even though he knew it would worsen his torment. By all that was holy, he’d tumble her all night, once he got her to himself. He cursed the hours that stretched ahead before he could possess her.

  She flattened her hands on his chest and held him away. “You should go.”

  “I should,” he said, and this time he meant it. “I’ll come to you, once the house is quiet.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  He groaned. “I’ll think of you every second.”

  “You’re such a flatterer.” Amusement lit her eyes. “No wonder you make the ladies swoon. You have such a way with a seductive phrase.”

  “Are you seduced?”

  “I hope to be.”

  He chuckled and kissed her again, lingering long enough to torment himself with wanting more. The taste of her lips flung him high into heaven. When she gave herself to him, the world would burst into flame. Having to wait until midnight seemed like punishment.

  “Until later,” he whispered.

  “Until later,” she repeated, her eyes making sensual promises that he’d make sure she kept.

  He shifted off the bed. “It’s agony to leave you.”

  Her smile’s cynical edge told him that she didn’t believe him. He was trapped in the liar’s dilemma. When he made extravagant declarations to Stella, he spoke the truth. Yet his reputation for smooth-tongued seduction meant that she took all his remarks with a pinch of salt.

  “I’ll see you at dinner.”

  His sigh held a sulky tinge. “When I have to pretend that we’re strangers. When I have to pretend that I have an ounce of bloody interest in the tribe of blockheads infesting my house.”

  She was still laughing at him. After Francene’s dramatics, Stella’s coolness should be welcome, but Halston wanted her to suffer the way he did. Damn it, he just wanted her. When he held her in his arms, he glimpsed a need to match his own, but she regained her sangfroid far too fast for his liking.

  By heaven, he’d shake her up tonight. That ironic distance would disappear forever, once he took her to paradise and back.

  “I’ll make it up to you.”

  He directed a theatrical scowl at her. “By George, you’d better.”

  Her low laughter followed him as he disappeared behind the hidden door.

  Chapter 8

  Stella sat on the bed, watching in wonder as the secret door opened on a dark passageway, then closed behind Halston without a sound. She had a strange feeling that she turned into a heroine in one of the gothic romances that she devoured with such gusto.

  She scrambled to her feet and crossed to examine the wall. Unless one knew about the door, one would never guess that the clandestine entrance existed. Excitement roared through her as she realized that the next time the panel opened, it would admit a man who meant to use her body.

  She could hardly wait.

  Stella still quivered after those passionate kisses. How foolish she was to think she understood desire. She’d wanted Niccolo with all the urgency of first love. What she experienced in Lord Halston’s arms wasn’t at all the same. It was powerful and dark and irresistible. It seemed to draw her deep into a turbulent ocean.

  Despite the tragic end to her affair with Niccolo, their love had been full of joy. When she kissed Halston, she succumbed to danger and desperation.

  Yet she craved Halston’s touch in a way that eclipsed even her passion for her handsome Italian suitor. Niccolo had called to her innocence. Halston called to the shadows lurking in her soul and left her craving more of his touch.

  When she caught a glimpse of herself in one of the baroque mirrors, a shocked cry wedged in her throat. A shaking hand rose to clutch at her torn bodice.

  Halston was right. She didn’t look like anyone’s governess. Her clothes were disheveled. Her hair coiled around her face, and her lips were full and red.

  Disturbed on so many levels, she stepped closer to the mirror. She and Halston had stopped short of sexual congress, but nobody who saw her now would believe that. She looked thoroughly tumbled. Worse, the brown eyes in the mirror brimmed with sensual languor.

  Stella had spent ten years suppressing the vibrant, voluptuous woman who gazed back at her. She’d managed it at nineteen. Would she manage it again, after she and Halston parted?

  She’d agreed to his sinful proposition because she wanted him to give her pleasure such as she’d never known and would never know again. But what on earth would she become, once the pleasure was done?

  The ormolu clock on the mantel chimed five. The eyes in the mirror rounded in horror as she realized how late it was. If Imogen saw her like this, there would be the devil to pay.

  The first thing she had to do was get out of this dress and hide it away. She dashed through to the dressing room. The fabric ripped again before she managed to bundle the rag into the armoire. Memories of Halston touching her bare breasts didn’t help to steady her hands.

  She managed a quick wash in water that was now ice cold
. Even when she’d finished, she could still smell lust and Lord Halston on her skin.

  In the nick of time, she hauled her shabby peignoir out of her bag. A soft knock sounded on the door, and Imogen came in without waiting for an invitation.

  While Stella loved her cousin, she’d always hated that her servile role meant she had no right to insist on the most basic privacy. Uncontrollable heat rose to her cheeks as she imagined the fuss if the girl had marched in fifteen minutes ago.

  “Harriet’s room isn’t half as nice as mine,” Imogen said, settling herself on the edge of the rumpled bed. Stella had hoped to restore it to order before Imogen turned up. As it was, she was just grateful that her cousin hadn’t discovered her close to naked in Halston’s arms. “In fact, it’s not half as nice as this one. She doesn’t have a view of the lakes.”

  “Poor Harriet.” Stella’s smile was teasing, as she tightened the belt on her robe and came forward into the room from the dressing room doorway. “How will she survive?”

  Imogen gave a short laugh. “You always think I’m trying to get one up on Harriet.”

  “How very odd that you say that.”

  Lady Harriet Comerford was golden fair. When she and Imogen were together – which they usually were – the effect was dazzling.

  Imogen surveyed the room with a curiosity that made Stella jumpy. “Did you manage to have a sleep?”

  “Yes,” Stella said.

  “You must have had nightmares.” Imogen frowned, as she studied the wreckage around her. “This bed is a battlefield, and your hair is a complete bird’s nest.”

  Stella raised a nervous hand to her tangled hair, while she injected as much conviction as she could manage into her answer. “I dreamed of Italy.”

  When compassion softened Imogen’s gaze, Stella felt guilty for playing on her feelings. “I’m sorry. I remember you had bad dreams for years after you came to us.”

  To Stella’s horror, she realized that Halston’s neckcloth lay at her feet. Such carelessness was unforgivable. She’d been so overtaken by passion that she’d been lost to the danger of discovery.

  Placing one foot on the length of white linen, she tried to sound like her normal self. She didn’t dare try and kick it under the bed, in case the movement attracted Imogen’s attention.

  “I haven’t had bad dreams for ages.” She summoned a purposeful tone. Outside, the sky over the lovely landscape darkened toward nightfall. “You should go and change for dinner. You want to look your best.”

  Imogen’s nonchalant shrug rather surprised Stella. The girl had been so excited to come to Prestwick Place, presumably because it meant the chance to flirt with Lord Halston. “Nancy always performs miracles.” Imogen’s eyes sharpened. “I’ve asked her to come to you once she’s finished with me.”

  “But…”

  Imogen stood, and Stella edged around to hide the neckcloth. “I know you’ll say it’s not the done thing, but Papa isn’t here to disapprove. I hate to see your pretty hair bundled away as if it’s a shameful secret. Look at it now, it’s magnificent. Like a lion’s mane. And I’m the only person who knows about it.”

  After today, that wasn’t the entire truth. More heat flooded Stella, as she recalled Halston’s hands buried deep in her hair as he drew her down for yet another intoxicating kiss.

  “I’ll lend you my pearls, and perhaps Nancy can do something with one of your dresses.”

  “I’m only your companion,” Stella said, as the impossible vision of appearing before Halston as a woman of consequence floated before her.

  She was poor, she was a child of scandal, and she had a checkered past. She’d long ago given up any futile hopes of entering society as an equal to the highborn ladies who graced the ton.

  Imogen’s sniff was dismissive. “You’re an earl’s granddaughter and an earl’s niece. You’re my cousin. You have a perfect right to take your place in my world.”

  “Your father doesn’t agree.”

  “Papa will never find out that you loosened up a little at a country house party. Be brave, Stella. I know you try to hide yourself away, but you don’t have to. Not for the next few days anyway.”

  “You’re…you’re very generous.”

  “Pfft.” Imogen treated that statement with eloquent contempt, as the clock chimed the half hour. “I’ll come and fetch you, once we’re both dressed. We’ll go downstairs together.”

  The moment Imogen left, Stella scooped up Halston’s neckcloth and shoved it into a drawer with fumbling hands. Nancy had sharp eyes and was a gossip besides, however much of a genius she was with hair and clothing. Stella was torn between a longing to look pretty for Halston and fear at how close she already verged to scandal.

  ***

  When everyone gathered downstairs for dinner, the size of the house party surprised Stella. Halston hadn’t exaggerated when he said he’d done his best to hide his private intentions toward her. From what she knew of him, too, this was a much more respectable crowd than he ran with most of the time. No notorious widows. No men of doubtful reputation. Definitely no pretty opera dancers or courtesans.

  This sudden change in behavior caused comment. Halston had been clever there, too. Stella had feared his invitation might rouse speculation about a proposal to Imogen. If word spread that such a connoisseur had considered then rejected her cousin, it would harm the girl’s prospects on the marriage market.

  Young ladies from good families weren’t his usual company of choice. But he’d invited four of the most popular debutantes, any of whom would make him a suitable countess.

  Nobody observing him with his guests would notice particular signs of favor to Imogen or Harriet, or Lily Bilson or Elizabeth Tierney. None of them sat next to him at dinner, which to Stella’s surprise had proven enjoyable.

  Whether it was her less forbidding coiffure or the fact that manners were more relaxed in the country, the gentlemen on either side of her didn’t seem to resent having to speak to a woman without fortune or connections. Even better, they turned out to be interesting conversationalists. The worst part of the meal was trying to avoid staring at Halston, who was at his satanic best in formal black. He’d placed Mrs. Bilson on his right and Lady Tierney on his left. Both of those ladies were beyond the age of pursuing their host.

  “You’re looking very pretty tonight, Miss Faulkner,” Lady Lumsden said, sitting beside Stella when the ladies retired to the drawing room after dinner.

  Stella smiled without her usual reserve. She liked the whole Comerford family, and Lord and Lady Lumsden were among the few people in society who treated her like Imogen’s cousin and not her servant.

  “Thank you. Imogen decided that I needed to come out of my shell.”

  Lady Lumsden took a sip of her tea, as her perceptive blue eyes assessed Stella’s altered appearance. “Good for her.”

  Self-consciously Stella touched the soft arrangement of curls that Nancy had created from her unruly hair. She wore a dress she’d made herself in a subdued shade of blue. It suited her coloring better than any of her cousin’s castoffs. The borrowed pearls around her neck made her feel for once like a lady and not the hired help.

  “It isn’t appropriate,” she said.

  “Nonsense.” Annoyance thinned Lady Lumsden’s lips. “Just because your uncle treats you like a lackey doesn’t mean that’s what you are.”

  “My uncle took me in when I had nowhere else to go,” Stella said, trying to sound suitably grateful.

  “And has played on your sense of obligation ever since.” With a decided clink, Lady Lumsden set her teacup and saucer on a side table. “I’m sorry. I’m being too frank. But your mother would hate to think of you as Lord Deerforth’s drudge.”

  Lady Lumsden had been friends with Stella’s mother and was one of the few people Stella had met in England who spoke of the late Anne Ridley with any fondness. Her uncle almost never mentioned his sister. If he did, it was in tones that suggested she’d committed some irredeemable sin.
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  In this sophisticated, acquisitive milieu, Stella supposed that marrying a poor man for love did count as a sin.

  She struggled to come up with a response, but Lady Lumsden went on, thankfully on a different topic. “I wonder what Halston is up to with this house party.”

  Stella choked on her tea. As she struggled to catch her breath, Lady Lumsden took her cup away before she spilled its contents.

  “I’m sorry. I breathed in at the wrong moment,” she gasped, once she managed to speak.

  Dear Lord, she’d better polish her skills at being surreptitious or her reputation was doomed. She feared that she must be as red as a radish.

  Glad to have an excuse for avoiding Lady Lumsden’s gaze, she found her handkerchief and wiped her eyes. The problem was that Stella felt like she had a big black and white sign pinned to her back, announcing her naughty intentions toward the Earl of Halston.

  During her coughing fit, heads turned in her direction, but interest faded as her coughing subsided. She must stop jumping like a startled cat whenever she heard Lord Halston mentioned. For a start, it was bad for her health. So far, she’d drawn blood with a needle and almost choked.

  “Are you all right?” Lady Lumsden asked. “Shall I call a footman to help you upstairs?”

  Stella shook her head. “Thank you, but there’s no need. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. I wondered if you had any idea what prompted the spectacular if disreputable earl to invite a crowd of strangers to his country seat in the middle of the season. It isn’t his normal style.”

  “To have a house party?”

  “Oh, he’s had a few of those, but the guests are never marriageable maidens and their parents and chaperones. One might almost imagine he was ready to settle down at last. But so far, he’s paid no special attention to Harriet. Nor as far as I can see, to Lily or Elizabeth or Imogen.”

  Stella felt uncomfortable discussing Halston. “I have no insight into his lordship’s intentions. How would I? I doubt he even knows who I am.” In her ears, she sounded stiff and unconvincing.