One Wicked Wish Read online

  “Yes, you.”

  Something vague that had worried her earlier suddenly clarified in her mind. “You know my name.”

  “Of course I know your name.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said, backing away and wrapping her arms around herself. Against the cold, and against the stirring awareness that if she’d noticed Lord Halston, Lord Halston had also noticed her. It was frightening. It was unacceptable. It was gratifying.

  She couldn’t let it be gratifying.

  He shrugged. “It’s quite simple. One lady in your family has escaped ruin in my company. I’m hoping you’ll offer yourself up in your cousin’s place.”

  Shock had her regarding him wide-eyed. “You…you’ve never given any sign that you noticed me.”

  He shrugged. “My attention would single you out, and that would only result in your banishment from London’s ballrooms.”

  One shaking hand rose to her throat where her pulse pounded like a drum. “I can see that you’ve devoted some thought to this.” Her voice hardened. “But I’m still not sure why you’d be interested.”

  “In a middle-aged spinster of no distinction?”

  Stella wasn’t insulted. After all, she worked very hard to be unobtrusive. “As you say.”

  “Except a diamond remains a diamond, even when it’s hidden at the bottom of a dark hole.”

  “A diamond?”

  He smiled. “Chasing compliments, Miss Faulkner?”

  “No, I’m doubting your sanity, my lord.”

  “How old are you?” Through the gloom, she felt his gaze focus on her. “Thirty?”

  “Twenty-nine,” she said shortly. It was lunatic to mind that his guess added a year to her age.

  “Still a few years away from middle-aged.”

  “On the shelf, though.”

  “Only because that’s where you place yourself.”

  “I have no fortune. I have to make my way as best I can.”

  “As a paid companion?”

  “If I must.” Although her uncle never paid her in actual money.

  “Which means wearing drab clothes and torturing your lovely hair and biting your tongue.”

  She was surprised – appalled – at how much Lord Halston had noted without her registering his curiosity. Over the years, she’d learned to identify and discourage unwelcome male interest. Yet she’d have wagered every penny of her paltry savings that Lord Halston didn’t know she was alive.

  Now the question was whether the male interest was indeed unwelcome.

  There was an illicit thrill in bandying words with this clever devil, just as there was an illicit thrill in eating him up with her eyes without fearing censure. “I haven’t bitten my tongue with you.”

  “I’m sure that’s been a relief.”

  It had, plague take him. She’d always been aware of his surpassing physical appeal, but this strange freedom she felt in his presence was even more disastrous to good intentions. She had to keep reminding herself that they’d never met before. This felt too much as if she picked up an engrossing conversation that had gone on for years.

  Stella straightened. Despite the danger – or perhaps even because of it – she’d enjoyed these last few minutes with Lord Halston more than she’d enjoyed anything in years. Which was a signal to bring the meeting to a close. All that could happen now was that she’d start to yearn for what she could never have.

  She’d had quite enough of that, thank you.

  He might talk about seducing her, but it was never going to happen. If she was wise – and to her regret, she had to be – this was the last time she’d even speak to Lord Halston alone.

  Her arms lowered to her sides, and she curled her toes to restore the circulation to her feet. While she wasn’t wearing flimsy dancing slippers, her shoes weren’t thick enough to keep out the cold. “My lord, all of this has been intriguing and rather flattering, but I must find my cousin.”

  Lord Halston was a diversion. Right now, she needed to find Imogen and give her a blistering lecture. Although the question remained that if the girl wasn’t here risking her reputation in Lord Halston’s company, where was she?

  A wry smile curled his lips. His humor was too cursed appealing. The man she’d fantasized about in the privacy of her bedroom had been a cardboard cutout lover. The real Grayson Maddox, Earl of Halston, was considerably more interesting. Which only undermined her hard-won acceptance of her humble status and the dreary years to come.

  “For shame, Miss Faulkner, you’re running away. I thought you were made of stouter stuff.”

  Stella didn’t smile. She knew enough to understand that sharing jokes was the first step on the road to ruin. And while her uncle’s house mightn’t be heaven, it was at least a roof over her head. “Then you mistake me, sir. I’m too dull to hold your interest.”

  She was still astounded that he’d noticed her at all. His taste ran to pretty opera dancers and racy society widows. Even when she was younger and wilder, she hadn’t been in his style.

  How it irked that she’d paid him enough attention to pinpoint what sort of woman he liked to bed.

  Her interest in this notorious rake had been difficult enough to curb when he remained a stranger. Now she knew that against all the odds, he was curious about her, too.

  Trying not to think about Lord Halston promised to take over her life.

  He made another dismissive gesture. “We’ve already put paid to that ridiculous statement.” Before she could argue, he went on. “When can I see you again? I realize that if you stay out here too long, people will remark on it, and there’s always the chance that we may be discovered.”

  The unflattering truth was that he probably feared that anyone who found them together would question his taste. As a rule, he didn’t waste his time on unimpressive creatures like her. “I assume we’ll attend the same balls. Imogen seems to be invited to all the parties this season.”

  That brought on another grunt of amusement. “I don’t mean when will I see you sitting against the wall with all the old tabbies.”

  Stella knew that he hadn’t meant that, but it was time to bring this disturbing conversation to an end. Already every reckless cell in her body yearned toward him. Once before when she’d followed her wayward impulses, she’d barely escaped disaster. Never again.

  “Then I fear this delightful encounter is to be our lot, my lord.”

  Although her tone was ironic, the sad fact was that the encounter had been delightful, even if unnerving. For the first time in years, she felt alive. She’d forgotten how her blood sang when she played flirtatious games with a good-looking man. Tolerating her role as Imogen’s sedate companion would be harder than ever now.

  Damn Lord Halston and his perfect profile and his powerful shoulders and his commanding height. And his smile and his humor, and the way he seemed to understand her the way nobody else had in years.

  Her denial didn’t chasten him. She didn’t expect that it would. “That would be a pity,” he said in a neutral tone.

  “But inevitable.” It took far too much effort to turn away. Whatever magic this dissolute man possessed, it was powerful. And bewildering. Leaving him seemed wrong, yet what was wrong was remaining in his presence. “I bid you good night.”

  He didn’t move to stop her. “Good night, but not goodbye.”

  Her stupid heart leaped around like a drunken grasshopper, and she did her best to quell the excitement bubbling in her veins. Excitement was poison. Lord Halston was poison.

  It was almost impossible to resist such a man. But resist she must. “You’re doomed to disappointment, sir. There can be nothing more between us than a brief conversation in the moonlight.”

  He stepped past the brazier. He was within touching distance, although he didn’t touch her. “You sound very certain.”

  Stella turned back for a few forbidden seconds, imagining how it would feel if he swept her up against that hard-muscled body and kissed her. Did more than kiss he
r.

  It had been so long since a man had touched her in passion.

  She pushed the image away and when she spoke, her voice rang with sincerity. “I am certain. I beg you as a gentleman to abandon any thought of pursuing me.”

  His lips stretched in one of those devilish smiles that made her stomach clench in wanton longing. He might be wicked, but by heaven, he was beautiful, too.

  All the urges that Stella had spent ten years ignoring and deriding and crushing howled in protest. Common sense demanded that she run, that she should have run the moment she realized that Imogen wasn’t about to elope with this handsome libertine. Yet every feminine instinct insisted that she stay to find out whether Grayson Maddox could make her shake with pleasure.

  With the moon shining full on his face, his speculative expression was clear. “Whoever told you that I was a gentleman was a damned liar.”

  “And don’t you sound so proud of that?” Her tone was flat.

  He shrugged. “I take what I want. I suspect that’s one of the things you like about me. You don’t strike me as a woman who wants a man to fuss and hesitate and play propriety, my dear Miss Faulkner.”

  Lord above, how could this man read her secret soul? Several times during this astonishing exchange, she’d been afraid. And intrigued and amused and attracted.

  But hearing him speak to her hidden desires turned her blood to ice. If he’d paid that level of attention, no appeal to convenience or manners, let alone a spurious claim to indifference, would put him off.

  Against every dictate of self-preservation, Stella was interested. However heartily she might wish she wasn’t.

  One unsteady hand lifted to clutch the shawl tight to her throat. Through stiff lips, she responded. “I’m not your dear Miss Faulkner, sir. I’m a woman of no fortune, with nothing to smooth my way in the world but my good reputation. If you deprive me of that, you destroy me. It’s unworthy to pester a penniless lady who has so much to lose.”

  She tried to shame him into retreat. But when those clever eyes subjected her to a thorough inspection, she felt as if he ran his elegant hands over her naked body. This time, her shiver was more desire than dread. Halston, so experienced with her sex, would know that, curse him.

  “It’s a damned pity that a magnificent creature like you has to play nursemaid to a spoiled child like Imogen Ridley and pretend respect to a puffed-up jackanapes like Deerforth.”

  Magnificent? How utterly ridiculous. She was nothing of the kind.

  “Imogen isn’t spoiled,” Stella retorted, knowing that Halston would note that she didn’t defend her uncle. “If anything, she’s too good-hearted.”

  The earl’s striking face was only part of his charm. He possessed a sharp mind, too. Too sharp for her liking. Like now when he observed her with a perceptiveness that made her shift from one icy foot to the other. “And you have a loyal heart.”

  She shrugged. “My cousin is easy to like.”

  Except at this moment, she wanted to strangle the little cat for getting her into this situation. The girl’s scheme might yet cause a scandal that would ruin her in the world’s eyes and see Stella tossed out onto the streets.

  “Most women in your position would be jealous of her good fortune and resentful of her privileges. After all, you’re as wellborn as she is, yet you have to take her orders and serve her fancies.”

  Stella’s mouth opened in amazement. He really had found out a lot about her. She struggled to respond. “Most women in my position are grateful to have a home and three meals a day. You have an unrealistic picture of the choices available to a poor gentlewoman. Blue blood doesn’t fill an empty stomach.”

  “You speak as if your life is over.”

  “I have my entertainments.” She shot him a pointed glance. “Although I’ll wager they wouldn’t impress a sophisticate like you.”

  He didn’t react to the sting in her comment. Instead, he countered her direct glance with a direct glance of his own. “I find myself contemplating entertainments, too. Of a variety that would entertain us both.”

  The word “entertain” in that lazy drawl made her skin prickle with sensual curiosity. “I doubt you mean entertainments…” She added bitter emphasis to the word. “…that befit a virtuous spinster, my lord.”

  He arched expressive black brows. “You understand what I mean.”

  She did indeed. She was no naïve miss, convinced that a man’s interest meant poetry and flowers and a chaste kiss in the rose garden.

  He hitched one hip higher than the other in a casual stance that told her he wasn’t serious about any of this. Why would he be? Stella was well beneath his notice. This was a connoisseur of fashionable beauty. The present taste favored pretty little blondes with sweet expressions. Stella had always been slender and tall, and possessed of features that people praised for their character, rather than their winsomeness.

  Which meant his lordship’s interest in her couldn’t be real. He was just playing cruel games. What a fool she was to read anything more into their conversation.

  She sucked in a relieved breath. Lord Halston was just passing the time because Imogen had let him down. He might speak nonsense about wanting to engineer a meeting with Stella, but Halston would no doubt be just as happy to flirt with Imogen as with Stella.

  “You can’t help yourself, can you?” she said in a considering tone.

  She’d startled him. He stopped looking like Lucifer contemplating the potential of hell’s latest recruits. “Can’t help myself from wanting you?”

  Stella shook her head, on firmer ground with every second. “No, from attempting to gain the interest of any woman you meet. My cousin isn’t here, so at a pinch, her plain companion will do. Even though she’s not up to your usual standard.”

  His laugh was low and knowing. “I have a dreadful suspicion that I’m the one who doesn’t meet your standards, Miss Faulkner. In every way except the worldliest, you’re a superior person to my sinful self.”

  If only he knew the truth. “You don’t mean that.”

  This was a man at ease with himself. If he’d sinned – and he most definitely had – he wasn’t eaten up with remorse about his misdeeds. “Don’t I?”

  “I must find my cousin, my lord.” She stepped back, determined to go, if only because the lure of staying was so strong. “If she’s not here, she could have come to grief on her way to this rendezvous.”

  His audible exhalation expressed contempt for that remark. “I doubt it. This is a very respectable corner of London. Lorimer Square isn’t exactly Seven Dials.”

  “There are dangerous men everywhere. It doesn’t matter whether they’re wearing rags or evening dress.”

  He bent his head as if she made a point against him. She did. She couldn’t imagine him forcing himself on her cousin. He wouldn’t have to. One glance from those heavy-lidded eyes would make any woman melt.

  “It’s been an enchanting interlude.” He straightened. “I look forward to furthering our acquaintance.”

  “I’m sure,” she said with a hint of sarcasm.

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Ah.”

  On the verge of leaving, she couldn’t resist questioning his strange response. “What does that mean?”

  “That means now I understand why you stopped looking like a frightened sheep.”

  She gave a short laugh, much as she resented the sheep comparison. “You’ve got better targets than a shabby governess from the provinces. I spoke of my reputation. But what of yours? Gossip says that only diamonds of the first water catch your eye. I’m beneath your touch.”

  “You will be beneath my touch, my appealing and far too certain of herself Miss Faulkner. You’ll be beneath me before I’m done.”

  Her brief rush of confidence fizzled away to nothing. The cold that overwhelmed her had nothing to do with the wintry air.

  She had no idea why, but London’s greatest rake had set his sights o
n lanky, undistinguished Stella Faulkner. His tone told her that he didn’t like the way she dismissed his blandishments. More than that, his answer vibrated with a sincerity she couldn’t mistake.

  Although how she wished she could.

  Her knees turned to water and those grasshoppers in her stomach grew into elephants, as she realized that she was in genuine danger out here alone with Lord Halston. If only because what he offered her was so infernally tempting.

  This time when she spoke, nerves made her voice quaver. “I must go.”

  Without waiting for a response, Stella made her unsteady way down the steps. Then abandoning dignity, she picked up her skirts and sprinted along the dark path until the French doors leading to the ballroom appeared in front of her.

  Chapter 2

  As Halston watched Miss Faulkner dash away, he returned to propping his shoulder against the wall. Her sure-footed speed belied any claim to being middle-aged. Although two weeks of observation told him that she did her best to appear dull and respectable.

  Some deep-seated instinct had always insisted that beneath her modest demeanor, she was pure flame. His instincts never led him astray.

  This meeting just now proved him right. Sexual awareness had crackled between them like lightning in a stormy sky. He hadn’t touched her, not because he hadn’t wanted to, but because he feared that if he laid his hands on her, he’d never let her go.

  Every gossip in London attended the Lumsden ball. It wasn’t the place to further this seduction. When he and Miss Faulkner came together – as come together they must, because whatever she said, those honey-colored eyes betrayed her hunger for him – he wanted time and privacy to enjoy her.

  In a furious scene that had culminated in her shooting him, he’d broken with his last mistress. He’d spent a week, licking his wounds and wondering if perhaps he should steer clear of actresses and dancers.

  The recent barks of frailty he’d taken under his protection hadn’t been a roaring success, however decorative they were. Hetty had shown a tendency to droop and weep and whine. In comparison to Sally, a brick would come across as another Isaac Newton. And Francene, a soprano rather than a dancer, had lived up to her reputation as a diva and proven temperamental to the point of mania.