One Wicked Wish Page 19

  Her pretense at control dissolved like sugar dropped into boiling water. “Oh, Gray…” she said on a broken sob and threw herself at him. Their lips met, and his arms closed hard around her shaking body.

  A few rough tugs and the extravagant dressing gown crumpled to the floor. When he lifted Stella, she gave a choked cry but didn’t stop kissing him. Frantic hands caught at him, then she cried out again when he dropped her onto the bed. Her long legs sprawled in coltish abandon across the disordered sheets.

  When he came down over her, she grabbed him with greedy fervor, parting her thighs and clawing at his buttocks to draw him nearer.

  “I’m crushing you,” he managed to say somewhere during the whirlwind of kissing.

  “I don’t care,” she growled and bumped her hips up in silent invitation.

  During the last five days, he and Stella had been daring and experimental lovers, seeking delight in a hundred different ways. But as Halston slid forward and claimed her for this, the last time, it seemed right that he rose above her and met her dark caramel eyes. With every thrust, those eyes grew darker, then fluttered shut as she plummeted over into her climax.

  He didn’t move as she writhed and moaned around him. For a brief interval, pleasure had banished everything from his mind except how perfect they were together. Now as he ground his teeth and tensed every muscle against losing control, it was agony to know that he and Stella would never do this again.

  It was bad enough to acknowledge that now. It would be worse when she was no longer here and he had to face up to the true devastation of losing her.

  Halston meant to stay just where he was for as long as he could.

  Eventually she calmed, staring at him through eyes that sparkled with tears. She’d cried on their first night. Then her tears had left him devastated. Tonight after these resplendent days, the thought of her crying made him feel like someone razored off his skin piece by piece.

  “You’ve made me so happy.” Her voice vibrated with emotion. “Thank you, Gray. Thank you for these days. I’ll treasure the memory as long as I live.”

  He wanted to protest, to argue that if they were together, she wouldn’t have to remember. But he couldn’t find the heart when he recalled her stricken reaction after he’d asked her again to become his mistress.

  “You’ve made me happy, too,” he murmured and kissed her.

  It wasn’t a kiss of passion. It was a kiss of farewell. And he tasted goodbye on her lips.

  Feeling as if he died in slow increments, he withdrew and lost himself upon the sheets.

  Chapter 18

  Within its first hour, the Tierney ball was pronounced a raging success. The orchestra that Lady Tierney had imported from Paris outplayed any band from London. The decorations were spectacular. The catering was lavish. So many people had accepted invitations that everyone complained about the party being a dreadful crush, the height of praise for a ton gathering.

  Even the weather blessed Lady Tierney. For the beginning of May, it was warm and fine and in contrast to the Lumsden ball a couple of weeks ago, the well-lit terrace and garden proved popular with guests seeking a breath of air after the stifling heat inside.

  Stella sat with the chaperones and leveled blind eyes on the whirling crowd of dancers. Around her, the endless tide of gossip that buoyed the ladies through event after event rose and fell. She paid it no heed.

  All she knew was the ache in her heart. The pain had been with her ever since she left Gray’s bed. A pain that all too often rose to a howl of anguish.

  It had been so difficult to leave him, even though she knew that what he offered would end up destroying her. But each day since, her misery had worsened. She hadn’t realized how missing him would turn every minute to dust. She hadn’t realized how the compulsion to see him would cut at her like a knife. Nor how on the two occasions that she did see him, the sight would stab even deeper than his absence.

  It was too cruel having him within touching distance yet utterly, eternally out of reach.

  He hadn’t attended many events this week. Gossip had him staying at Prestwick Place for a few days after his guests left. When Stella had caught sight of him at the Bourton musicale three days ago, her reaction hadn’t just been a massive wave of futile longing. She’d been appalled at how ill he looked.

  While she’d never doubted that he’d prefer to continue their affair, she’d assumed that someone so used to women moving in and out of his life would recover from his disappointment in the blink of an eye. Seeing Gray haggard and desperately unhappy was a horrid shock.

  Perhaps under other circumstances, she might be flattered to know that she’d made such an impression on him. But she couldn’t summon any triumph. Instead she felt an excruciating sadness that he was no happier than she was. Nor was there any prospect of relief ahead for either of them. Because she loved him with such depth and devotion, his suffering only increased the burden of hers.

  Gray was here tonight. He’d danced with Imogen and with Lily and with Lady Tierney. At the moment, she couldn’t see him. She supposed that he and some willing lady strolled in the garden. Or he’d finished strolling and had retired to a private glade, designed for kissing. For more than kissing.

  Her jealousy undermined her noble wish for his contentment. If some hussy dared to set her claws into Gray, Stella wanted to scratch the trollop’s eyes out. He belonged to her.

  Which was absurd, when they were apart and destined to stay that way. He might languish without her now, but she was realistic enough to understand that he’d soon find another mistress to divert him.

  Lucky little bitch.

  “Miss Faulkner?”

  Her fantasies of eviscerating the next occupant of Gray’s bed – and every occupant after that, for good measure – came to a sudden end. A footman hovered beside the uncomfortable gilt chair that was de rigueur for chaperones at London balls.

  “Yes?”

  “You’re required in the small salon as a matter of urgency.”

  The words were worrying enough to pierce her brooding. She surged to her feet on a burst of concern. Her eyes sought out Imogen, but she couldn’t see her.

  “Where is that?” She’d visited this house when Imogen called on Elizabeth, but she didn’t know her way beyond the drawing room.

  “I’ll take you there, miss,” the man said.

  Stella collected her reticule from where she’d placed it on the floor. Making her excuses, she threaded her way through the other chaperones and along the edge of the crowd. If Imogen had taken ill, a quick trip home and an early night might solve the problem.

  The small salon was at the end of a long corridor, hung with inept watercolors that she suspected the ladies of the family had painted. The footman pushed open the door and stepped back with a bow.

  As the door closed behind her, Stella rushed inside. “Imogen, are you all right?”

  The room appeared to be empty. Puzzled, she turned around. When she saw the tall man resting his back against the door, her poor suffering heart contracted in painful longing.

  “Gray…”

  He didn’t straighten, although he bent his dark head in a brief bow. “Good evening, Stella.”

  As confusion ebbed, anger replaced it. She’d said all she intended to say to him. That had been hard enough. Having to endure more arguments now when the outcome could never change verged on torture. He must know that.

  Her reticule dropped from nerveless fingers. “What game are you playing?”

  He didn’t seem to hear. His eyes ranged over her with an urgency that made her blood pump with a force she hadn’t felt since she’d left him. “By God, you look awful.”

  With a self-conscious gesture, she touched her hair. Thanks to Nancy, it was arranged in the curls that she’d sported at Prestwick Place, and she wore one of her own gowns. She couldn’t bear a complete return to the prim creature she’d been before the house party. That would be too much confirmation that her life promised to
be an arid desert.

  “Thank you very much,” she snapped. “So do you.”

  By heaven, he did. At a distance, she’d noticed his tired and dispirited air. Now, from only a few feet away, she saw dark hollows around his lightless eyes and deep lines scored between his nose and mouth. He looked at least ten years older than the lover who gave her such joy a mere week ago.

  He shrugged, as if his appearance didn’t matter. “Oh, you’re still beautiful. You’ll always be beautiful.”

  Stella doubted it. As bitterness and frustration took their toll, she’d turn into a vinegar-faced crone. But that wasn’t the important issue right now.

  She adopted a chilly tone. “Do you have something to say that I need to hear, or are you just playing with me the way a cat plays with a mouse?”

  A frown darkening his features, he straightened. “Do I look like I’m getting any enjoyment out of this?”

  She fought against the urge to take him in her arms. “No.”

  “You’ve made me a complete wreck. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I can’t think of anything but you.” He shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe what was happening to him. “When I see you now, I wonder if it’s the same for you.”

  It was. She’d noticed tonight how loose this dress hung on her. If she didn’t pull herself together, she’d soon be nothing but skin and bones.

  But none of that mattered.

  “Gray, we can’t be seen together, or all the trouble we’ve taken will be for nothing. Let me go back to the ballroom.”

  He didn’t shift away from the door. “I don’t give a damn for scandal anymore.”

  “Well, I do.”

  Again he didn’t seem to hear her. “I had to do something. I felt like I couldn’t take another breath without seeing you.”

  “You’ve seen me several times this week. The Bourton musicale. Lady Freeman’s ball.”

  “That’s almost worse than not seeing you at all.” He grimaced. “I feel like a dog chained to a post while someone parades a plate of sirloin a foot in front of him.”

  Plague take the rogue, she couldn’t doubt he meant it.

  “Hardly complimentary,” she said, although to her regret, she knew just what he meant.

  “I don’t set out to compliment you.”

  Her anger seeped away. Which was a pity because it left crippling misery behind. “I’m sorry.”

  A savage light flared in his eyes. “Is that the best you can do?”

  “Yes,” she said on a breath of sound and retreated until she bumped into a chair behind her. One trembling hand fumbled back to grab the chair’s carved back. She needed to hold onto something to stay upright.

  Gray looked so hurt. She hated that. She hated even more that she was the cause. Avoiding notice had once seemed the most complicated element of this affair. How naïve she’d been.

  “Don’t you want to see me?”

  She swallowed to ease a painfully tight throat. “Not if it just opens old wounds.”

  “My wounds haven’t started to heal yet.”

  “If you keep doing things like this, they never will.”

  “Is that all you can give me?” He spread his hands. “After everything we were to each other?”

  “What do you want?” Although she knew.

  “Since you left me, I’ve been living in purgatory.” That betraying muscle twitched in his cheek. This was a man at the limit of his resources. “I’m not in the habit of begging, but I’m here to beg you to come back, Stella.”

  Heaven help her, that was what she wanted, too. “Nothing has changed.”

  “Except now we both know what torture it is to be apart. Don’t pretend you’re not in hell as well. I won’t believe you. You’re a shadow of the woman who left me a week ago.”

  What could she say? He was right. “You have to let me go. This will destroy both of us.”

  “Not being together will destroy us,” he said. “How can you bear it?”

  She released the chair, and her hands formed fists at her sides. “Because I have to.”

  “No, you don’t. You can come to me. We can have what we had at Prestwick Place. It will be even better, because we won’t have to sneak around and the affair doesn’t have to end until we’re ready. Don’t you want that?”

  “Of course I want that,” she admitted, her voice breaking with the tears she fought not to shed. When she went back to the ballroom, it would be hard enough to hide her turmoil, without adding red eyes to the mix.

  “Then stay.”

  “I can’t.”

  “No scandal could be worse than this.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. I’ll bear the brunt of any gossip. You’ll just go on your merry way.”

  He glared at her. “Do I look particularly merry to you? Your good name hasn’t done you too many favors. Wouldn’t you rather be happy and notorious with me than respectable and lonely?”

  Oh, dear God, he tempted her. But her self-respect wouldn’t let her become his doxy instead of his equal. That self-respect awoke a scrap of defiance. “I won’t talk to you about this, when you block the door and stop me leaving. Is this how it would be, once I’m in your power? You’ll bully me into getting your own way every time my will clashes with yours? Pardon me if I don’t leap at the chance to surrender my independence.”

  He paled at her accusation. Which she knew wasn’t entirely fair. If she insisted on leaving with anything that sounded like firmness, he’d let her go.

  “Your independence? When you grovel to that toad Deerforth for every morsel you eat? When you’re at Imogen’s beck and call? When you’re so afraid of attracting notice that you can’t say one word to a man you fancy? A fine freedom you rejoice in, madam.”

  Stella flinched under his attack, knowing much of what he said was just. She scrabbled to retrieve her anger, but it had vanished as if it had never been.

  “Yes, that’s all true.” Her voice emerged laden with despair. “But none of that touches my soul. Being your whore would. It would tarnish everything between us. It would tarnish me.”

  She hurt him all over again. She could see that. The lines on his face etched even deeper. With a theatrical flourish, he stepped away from the door. “So go, then.”

  She should. Oh, how she should. But her feet remained glued to the floor.

  Something told her that this was their last chance to be alone together. Despite the conflict and sorrow, she felt alive for the first time since she’d left him. How could she rush away from that, whatever the risk of discovery?

  “Stella, have you changed your mind?” he asked, after the thorny silence stretched out to breaking point.

  “I can’t.” She blinked back tears, although it turned into a losing battle. “Our arrangement was a few days at Prestwick Place, then we go our separate ways.”

  “Fuck the arrangement,” he bit out. “I want more. I need more.”

  So did she, God help her. But she couldn’t relent. She was wise enough to know that an extra day, an extra week, an extra year only promised an even more agonizing goodbye. And with every day, the chance of discovery grew.

  “Gray, this has to be the end.” At last the tears began to fall. “Damn you, you’ve made me cry.”

  He looked stricken. And heartbreakingly remorseful. “Oh, my darling…”

  He strode across the room. Given his earlier behavior, she expected him to grab her, but his touch was gentle as he folded her into his arms.

  That proved disastrous for her control. “How dare you make me cry?” she wailed, her fist hitting his chest. “Everything’s been so vile without you, then you pull this trick and make it all worse.”

  “I know. I’m a beast and a brute.”

  “You are.” She snaked her arms around his waist, fitting herself without thought into his body as she’d done so often before. “How can I go back into that ballroom, looking like I’ve been bawling my eyes out?”

  Gray’s embrace tightened. She should
feel confined, compelled. Instead she just felt warm and safe. Which was mad, when alone with him in this room, safe was the last thing she was.

  “It’s all right. I won’t torment you anymore.” He cupped the back of her head and pressed her face into his black superfine coat. His rich, spicy scent filled her senses and reminded her of the hundreds of previous times when she’d rested in his hold. How it broke her heart to think that the last time he touched her, it was to comfort not to seduce her.

  After a long silence, he bundled her up in his arms and drew her onto a chaise longue in front of the unlit fire. Stella was too upset, too worn out, and too bereft to protest.

  “I’ll arrange for a footman to call your carriage,” he said.

  She regarded him through bleary eyes. “To take me back to Lorimer Square?”

  “Or we can forget your carriage, and you can come home with me.”

  His voice was grave, and his eyes were steady. Stella saw such longing there that her heart crashed against her ribs. For one charged instant, she wondered if she could run off with Gray.

  Was reputation more important than love? While becoming his temporary mistress meant that he’d send her away when he lost interest, would that be worse than these last few days without him?

  If she said yes, she’d have more of Gray. More pleasure. More tenderness. More laughter.

  Then she remembered Imogen. And she also recalled the careless way Gray referred to his mistresses, like toys brought out for his amusement and discarded once a new toy came along. She felt sick to think he might ever view her in the same light.

  She had to remember that he wasn’t a good man. He’d never pretended to be.

  Although he’d been good to her.

  As Lady Lumsden had said, he harbored the capacity to become a better man. But Stella was wise enough to know that only some major crisis would make him abandon a life of delightful self-indulgence. He’d have to change, and given how entertaining his existence was, why should he?

  Right now, he grizzled and griped because the toy he wanted was out of reach. But that didn’t make her a toy in her own mind.