One Wicked Wish Page 3

  When an exhausted Halston offered to pay her off, she’d thrown a tantrum that they must have heard in Dover. Then she’d produced a pistol and winged him. Without hesitating to pocket the diamond necklace that he’d bought her to soothe the sting of rejection.

  For pity’s sake, he used to enjoy the chase, but these days, no woman offered much of a challenge. Since he was sixteen, he’d played the libertine. Perhaps now that he was thirty-five, the game lost its flavor.

  Everything he did to pursue a woman just seemed a repeat of what he’d done before. The initial interest. The drive to possess. The possession itself, never as satisfying as he’d hoped. The downward spiral into arguments and, on his part, an increasing lack of engagement and, on the lady’s part, endless nagging.

  When Francene shot him, he knew he’d been neglecting her. Before the final break, he hadn’t called on her in almost a month. He’d wanted to avoid her constant demands for attention. By God, he might as well get married as suffer all the inconvenience of a wife’s haranguing.

  He’d always loved women. He loved looking at them. He loved the back and forth of the games that led to surrender. He loved fucking them.

  But these days, if he set his sights on a female, her surrender was too quick. Whether she was an actress or an artist’s model or an audacious society lady, the affair followed a predictable arc. It always ended when he retired from the fray, leaving some fabulous bauble behind to pacify ruffled vanity. This last affair left him bloodied, but that was the only thing that made it stand out from the rest.

  He was spoiled with his own success, and he knew it. But knowing that didn’t restore his interest in life.

  Then a fortnight ago, Halston caught sight of a woman who wasn’t his usual prey at all. At a ball he’d attended because he was bored, he laid eyes on Stella Faulkner, and for the first time in months, perhaps even years, he wasn’t bored at all.

  In the general course of an evening’s entertainment, his attention never fell on the chaperones ranged against the wall. Why would it? He wasn’t interested in old women or paid companions or poor relations.

  But this particular night, something drew his attention. Or rather someone.

  A woman younger than the others, although she did her best to fade into the dreary crowd. A woman in a plain gray dress that somehow made every other female in the room look like an overdressed clown. A woman with a wealth of tawny hair, scraped back in a simple knot that only served to emphasise the purity of her bone structure.

  She did her best to present an appearance of modesty, but the sheer effort she made to disappear created its own whirlpool. This was a lioness trapped amidst a herd of sheep, and every cell of Halston’s body had burned to make her his. The reaction was extraordinary, unprecedented, but inescapable.

  Also inescapable, to his irritation, were the tight restrictions placed around a woman in Miss Faulkner’s position. He soon discovered her name and role in the Ridley family, although despite his best efforts, he learned little more about her.

  Apart from what his eyes told him. What he found out only made her more intriguing. She seemed determined to behave like the perfect companion. She regarded society with a sardonic amusement that she did her best to hide. She seemed to like her cousins Imogen and Eliot. She had difficulty concealing her contempt for that posturing windbag Lord Deerforth.

  Halston would wager every penny of his vast fortune that she’d noticed him, too. The powerful connection between them made his skin tingle whenever her eyes were on him. Over these past two weeks, his skin had tingled frequently.

  Perhaps Stella Faulkner just watched him because of the latest scandal. But he didn’t think so. He was used to people talking about him. He was rich. He was a rake. For God’s sake, his mistress had just shot him, a fact that must have enlivened many a conversation over Mayfair’s breakfast tables. Yet he couldn’t help believing that Stella Faulkner watched him for the same reason that he watched her.

  Because she couldn’t look away.

  He’d spent the last fortnight, trying to work out the best way to approach her. Which immediately made this affair more interesting than his last dozen.

  Halston wasn’t chummy with her cousin Eliot, who was altogether a more upright citizen than his disreputable self. Even if he moved in Eliot’s circles, he couldn’t ask her cousin to forward the seduction.

  Miss Faulkner hadn’t made friends with any women who might introduce him to her. When she sat with the old biddies, she kept very much to herself.

  Her good name would be in shreds if he took the shocking step of crossing the room and asking her to dance. So a direct approach was out of the question.

  Halston didn’t wish the woman any harm. He wanted to seduce her to their mutual pleasure, then leave her with some happy memories. But as a poor relation, she was exposed to the world’s judgement in a way most of his inamoratas weren’t.

  He’d reached the point of deciding to pay a servant in the Ridley household to spy on her so he could engineer a meeting. Then out of the blue, a note arrived from another woman he’d never spoken to. A rather presumptuous little message, that suggested a rendezvous in the garden at the Lumsden ball. Halston was so notorious that women often propositioned him, but he’d never expected the popular debutante Imogen Ridley to be among their number.

  In most cases, he ignored such blatant invitations. This time, his shout of triumph made his butler Philpott drop the breakfast tray with a great crash.

  Because while Lady Imogen held no appeal for Halston, Lady Imogen was the path to the woman he wanted with increasing desperation.

  Fate must be on the devil’s side tonight, because he hadn’t even had to deal with the pretty innocent. To his jubilation, he’d made contact with Miss Faulkner at last.

  He wasn’t a fool. His cynical side suggested that he convinced himself into this infatuation because it diverted him from his lethargy. The most likely outcome was that a woman who appeared to be so dull might in fact be dull.

  But Stella Faulkner had met his expectations, and more. She was clever and brave. And willing to put herself out for someone she loved, which he admired. She was also beautiful, but he’d recognized that from the first.

  She wasn’t sure about pursuing the acquaintance. While she might find him attractive, his interest left her far from dazzled. This was a woman who knew herself and the world.

  Her self-possession intrigued him, impressed him. Their meeting in a chilly garden showed him that she was a prize worth winning. Even better, Halston had decided just how he meant to achieve that.

  He’d spent two weeks picturing her in his bed. Slender. Naked. Long-limbed. Passionate. After tonight, she’d still feature in his extravagant fantasies, but now he’d dream with the certain hope of possessing her.

  ***

  Breathless, Stella hovered on the terrace, keeping to the shadows. Again, the cold night worked in her favor. In more clement weather, the Italianate balcony overlooking the lamplit garden would be crowded with guests taking the air or seeking a moment’s privacy. Tonight it was empty, as the garden had been empty of everyone except Lord Satan peddling temptation.

  Her heart was racing, not just because she’d fled Halston with humiliating haste. The fear that made her take to her heels still thundered through her. The fear and the reluctant excitement. Satan might have been peddling temptation, but this particular daughter of Eve had without doubt been listening.

  Even worse, she still had to venture back into the garden to look for Imogen. And give the irresponsible miss a scolding on the dangers of being too clever for her own good. Stella drew the shawl closer around her shoulders, but it didn’t keep out the cold. If she ended up with the sniffles, thanks to Imogen’s scheming, she’d have even more to say to the chit.

  Her gaze ranged across the glittering crowd. A quadrille was in progress. Her uncle danced with Lady Lumsden, his hostess. The Lumsdens were active in politics, and Deerforth fancied himself as a man of influ
ence in the nation.

  Heaven help the nation if that came to pass.

  If he hoped his skills as a dancer might forward his ambitions, she suspected he hoped in vain. He was already puffing and red in the face and while she watched, he missed one of the changes, earning him a glare from his partner.

  In another set, her cousin Eliot danced with the notorious widow, Lady Verena Gerard. Deerforth wouldn’t approve of his son and heir seeking such disreputable company. Eliot was meant to maintain an unsullied reputation to further his political ambitions.

  Stella’s gaze sharpened on her cousin. As he smiled at his ravishing partner, he looked quite besotted. With a muffled sigh, she predicted trouble on the way. Her uncle had a dominant personality. If things didn’t go his way, he wreaked his displeasure on everyone in his vicinity.

  When her attention slid to the right, surprise and irritation rose in equal measure. It seemed that she’d wasted her time, combing the garden to find Imogen. It seemed, from what she could see, that she hadn’t needed to brave the dark and cold to find her pestilential cousin at all.

  Imogen, pretty and smiling in her azure gown, was dancing with Anthony Comerford, the Lumsdens’ oldest son. She’d grown up with the Comerfords. Harriet Comerford was her best friend and made her debut this season, too.

  Skipping across the floor to the lilting music, Imogen looked happy. Which was more than could be said for Imogen’s governess, standing fuming on a freezing terrace. Stella really would strangle the little minx before she was done.

  She smoothed her hands over her severe hairstyle and straightened her skirts. Then, praying no trace remained of her brush with a dissolute rake, she found a door that led into an anteroom instead of the ballroom, and slipped back inside.

  ***

  “That was a rotten trick you played on me tonight,” Stella said in a hard voice, as she and Imogen shared the carriage back to the house that Lord Deerforth had rented for the season. Because of the traffic in Lorimer Square after the ball, they’d be stuck together for a while. Which seemed nonsensical when she could walk across the square in less than ten minutes.

  But traveling to a social event on foot wasn’t the done thing. Stella had never been to London before, and many of its ways struck her as contrary to good country common sense.

  This was her first chance all night to talk to her cousin alone. She meant to take advantage of it to ring a peal of bells over that pretty, empty little head.

  A quieter than usual Imogen was staring out the window. Perhaps she tried to avoid a reprimand, now that her cousin had worked out her rattlebrained scheme.

  “Trick?” she echoed, facing Stella with an exaggerated innocence that only confirmed her guilt.

  Imogen was an entrancing creature with milk-white skin and big blue eyes and masses of glossy black hair. Blondes might be in style, but nobody remembered that when they caught sight of Lord Deerforth’s exquisite daughter.

  “Yes, trick. Leaving that letter out where you knew I’d see it and sending me off into the cold to save you from a disastrous mistake.”

  “Why…why would I do that?” She still tried to act the offended innocent. It worked on most males, including her father. Stella however was wise to her cousin’s games.

  “So I’d catch you with Halston and tell my uncle, and he’d send you home in disgrace. I know you want to go back to Hamble Park, but destroying your good name to achieve that end is using a cannon to kill a fly.”

  Imogen looked sulky, although at least she stopped trying to pretend that she had no idea what Stella was talking about. “Papa doesn’t listen when I say I want to go home.”

  “This isn’t the way to change his mind,” Stella snapped, thoroughly annoyed with her cousin and also nervous about what she might try next. Tonight’s tomfoolery had been dangerous enough. “What if I hadn’t seen the letter? What if someone else had caught you together? What if Lord Halston took you up on what you were offering?”

  “Was he there?”

  “He was.” And the rogue had proceeded to remind Stella that she was a woman with wants and needs that life as a governess didn’t satisfy.

  “Was he angry that I stood him up?”

  “I have no idea. When I saw you weren’t there, I left.” Liar. Liar.

  “I wasn’t sure he’d even come. We’ve never met.”

  “I know. I couldn’t work out how you’d managed to reach the point of an elopement, when as far as I was aware, you’ve never spoken a word to him. But then he’s a rake, and rakes have their methods.”

  “I picked him because he’s so infamous. If you told Papa that I’d fallen into Halston’s clutches, he couldn’t fail to exile me back to Gloucestershire.”

  Stella’s lips tightened. As she’d told Halston, Imogen had a good heart, but her desperation to escape London had become such an obsession, she wasn’t thinking about consequences for herself or the people around her.

  “He couldn’t fail to try and force Halston to marry you. Is that what you want?”

  Imogen’s snort indicated her disregard for that idea. The inelegant reaction would have shocked her admirers, who all treated her as if she was made of spun glass. “Halston wouldn’t marry me.”

  “No? Then perhaps you’d prefer to see Eliot or your father shot with a dueling pistol, when they defended your honor against the man who had ruined you.”

  Imogen’s confidence faded. “It wouldn’t have come to that.”

  “Wouldn’t it?”

  “Anyway, I didn’t meet Lord Halston.”

  “No, you just left me to deal with him.”

  “You said you didn’t stay to talk to him.”

  “I didn’t. But it was a nasty trick you played on him, too.”

  At last, Imogen had the grace to display a trace of guilt. “Actually it wasn’t a trick when I offered to meet him, although I wasn’t sure he’d turn up. Most of the time, he doesn’t bother with debutantes.”

  “What if he’d tried to seduce you?”

  “Oh, I knew you’d be on my heels. He wouldn’t get very far before you turned up to rescue me.”

  “You placed a lot of trust in my power to stop him.”

  Imogen gave a huff of laughter. “I’d back you against any rake in England, my dear cuz.”

  “You took an awful risk.” The compliment didn’t mollify her. She sucked in a breath and tried to get a grip on her anger. The girl seemed blithely unaware of the danger she’d been in tonight. “At least you saw sense and abandoned the scheme before any harm was done.”

  When Imogen looked uncomfortable, Stella’s voice sharpened. “You did abandon the scheme, didn’t you?”

  “Not altogether.”

  “Imogen…”

  She sighed and made an apologetic gesture. “You know how I hate London.”

  “You’ve told me often enough.”

  Imogen started to pleat her filmy blue skirts. “I realize now that perhaps I was a little reckless to risk scandal.”

  “A little?”

  “But I was frantic, and this seemed a solution.” Imogen avoided her eyes. “When Harriet mentioned the gazebo, I decided it was the perfect place for a rendezvous.”

  It had been. Stella hid a shiver as she recalled the building’s isolation.

  Where on earth had Imogen disappeared to, if she hadn’t been in the gazebo with Halston? A host of wild possibilities rushed through Stella’s mind, including the horrible idea of Imogen hiding in the bushes and overhearing that charged conversation with Halston.

  “So?”

  “So I went out and I found the gazebo, but nobody turned up. After a while I was getting cold, and I came back to the ballroom.”

  “Two gazebos?” Stella hadn’t thought of that.

  Her cousin responded with a miserable little nod. “There must be. Because if Halston waited in one and I waited in the other, there is no other explanation, is there?”

  Stella released a relieved breath. “Don’t you dare try a
nything like this again. Lord Halston may have been occupied elsewhere when you were in the garden on your own.” Expressing an interest in her unsuitable self. “But he’s not the only rake in London. Who knows who else you could have run into in the dark? You’ve taken twenty years off my life.”

  Imogen ventured an uncertain smile. “I promise I’ll behave.”

  “You must know your father won’t send you home. He’s gone to so much effort and expense to give you a season. Most girls would be in alt to attend all these parties and put gentlemen in a spin over their beauty and charm.”

  “You must think I’m very ungrateful.”

  “I think you’ve set your mind against enjoying London.” And wedding Lord Chippenham. An opinion with which Stella harbored a certain amount of sympathy. Not that she meant to share that conclusion with Imogen. “Give yourself a chance. Give London a chance. Because I fear you’re stuck here for the duration.”

  “I know,” Imogen said. “I’ve decided home will still be waiting in a couple of months. I may as well settle down and accept my fate.”

  To Stella’s surprise, she sounded reconciled to her situation. Ever since they’d arrived, Imogen had bewailed her dreadful misfortune as one of the most popular girls of the season. Imogen’s perpetual complaints about what was in fact her great good luck had prompted several lectures from Stella about her lack of gratitude. All had fallen on deaf ears.

  If tonight’s escapade had convinced Imogen to throw herself into London life with better spirit, Stella was almost grateful that it had taken place. With no great conviction, she told herself that there would be no major repercussions.

  Imogen’s reputation remained intact. Her father was ignorant of her foolhardy actions, which would save the household from a tantrum. And while Stella might have come to a rake’s notice, Lord Halston would find it impossible to pursue her. That was if in the light of day, he decided he was still interested.