Wicked Little Game

by Christine Wells

  Sarah lifted her chin, tried to summon some vestige of her former self, the pride that had brought her through so many hardships and hurts intact. But her voice, when she spoke, came out as a whisper, low and trembling with uncertainty and fear. “All I want, Vane, is for you to be happy. If . . .” She took a deep, painful breath. “If our separation will truly make you happy, then I’ll go.”

  Vane watched her without speaking. She wished he’d say something, but he waited, let her stumble on.

  “But if . . .” She swallowed painfully, more terrified than she’d ever been. “If you let me stay, I vow to you that I will love you the way you deserve to be loved. I will love you as well and as wholeheartedly as you have loved me. Without reservations or conditions, without limits . . .”

  No, that was wrong. Impatiently, she shook her head. “The fact is, Vane, I already love you that way. No matter what you do, whether we’re together or apart for the rest of our lives, I will never stop.” The realization hit her hard. She’d been desperate to avoid loving him, but she hadn’t saved herself from that fate. All she’d done was drive him away.

  Still, he said nothing. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking from his expression, but regardless, these things needed to be said. She battled on. “We were made to be together, Vane. It took me far too long to accept that, but I know it now.” Her voice finally broke. “Please don’t say it’s too late.”

  She ached to put her arms around him, but using her body and her touch to try to sway him wouldn’t be fair. He’d remarked on the rare passion they shared. She mustn’t try to cloud his mind with desire when he had such an important decision to make.

  “Come here.” His voice was so low, Sarah could barely make out the words.

  With a flicker of hope despite the harshness of his tone, she crossed the room. When she reached him, he grasped her chin between thumb and forefinger and looked into her eyes. “You are a remarkable woman, Sarah. I didn’t think the lady who spurned me so coldly all those weeks ago had it in her to make a speech like that. Much less mean every word.”

  His fingertips brushed her cheek. “But I was wrong. I’ve watched you endure and surmount every difficulty life has dealt you and marveled at your strength and the stubborn pride of you. I’ve wanted you, fought for you, loved you forever, it seems. I’ve won you at last.” His voice roughened with emotion. “And I’m never going to let you go.”

  Vane’s mouth came down, hard, on hers, and she flung her arms around his neck, stretching, arching against his body as she kissed him back. Their kiss raged out of control, until they were both bruised and dazed and panting for breath. It was a fierce, fiery thing, their love.

  When Sarah could speak again, she said, “Vane, I love you. Can you forgive me for fighting it for so long?”

  He caught her hand and clasped it, warm and safe within his own. “The most precious things are always worth the wait.”

  “Oh, my love.” She brought his hand to her mouth and kissed his big, bruised knuckles. “Thank you for waiting for me.”

  Epilogue

  “I love him almost more than I can bear,” said Sarah. “But I will never do this again.”

  Vane looked up from the sleeping infant in his arms and grinned. Despite her exhaustion and the exquisite pain of the last hours, Sarah smiled back. Both of them knew she would do this again, and gladly. Many times, if God willed it.

  Her smile grew as she watched her enormous husband cradle their newborn so carefully.

  “Look how he sleeps,” she murmured. Baby Alexander had done nothing much out of the ordinary since his arrival in the world five hours ago, yet every small action amazed and delighted her. He was hers and Vane’s and that made him more unique and precious than any other child in the world.

  She’d been unprepared for the wild joy of discovering she was pregnant, still convinced she was barren despite the news that Brinsley hadn’t fathered a child, after all. Looking back, the signs had been there. The bouts of nausea in the stillroom and again on the journey to St. Alban’s with Jenny.

  She transferred her gaze to Vane’s face, saw his connection to their child in his absorbed expression, felt the ties of love bind them together, all three.

  Nurse bustled in at that moment, giving orders, and Vane reluctantly surrendered his child. When the door had closed behind nurse and baby, he turned to Sarah.

  She looked pale and tired, but her beauty and determination shone through those green eyes, more brilliant and compelling than ever. Whatever mistakes they’d both made along the way, now they lent each other strength and purpose. Together, they were extraordinary, as he’d always known they would be.

  Carefully, Vane sat on the bed next to Sarah and bent to kiss her. The familiar jolt of desire surged through his body, but he easily turned it aside. Now was not the time, of course. Even if he couldn’t stop wanting her or wondering how soon he might enjoy her lush body again, he wasn’t mutton-headed enough to mention it now.

  He raised his head and stared into those wicked, knowing eyes.

  “Soon my love,” she murmured, twining her arms about him, drawing him back down for another kiss. “Oh, I hope, very soon.”

  He studied her as he stroked the dark hair from her brow. Her lips were pale and the roses absent from her cheeks. She looked worn to the bone, despite the resilience of her spirit.

  Even at this moment, her mere presence lent him calm. He fought less often now, and less desperately. He maintained his training because he enjoyed it and it made him feel healthy and strong, but the driving need to punish his body and work out his frustration by pounding human flesh had gone.

  His soul was at peace for the first time. Stirred and excited by Sarah, his wife, but secure in the knowledge and warmth of her love.

  The tenderness that swept over him must have shown in his expression, for Sarah’s face lit with a devastating glow. “I love you, Vane,” she said in that clipped, decided tone of hers. “Never doubt it.”

  “No,” he said and smiled. “No. I’ll never doubt it again.”

  Turn the page for a preview of

  the next historical romance

  by Christine Wells

  Sweetest Little Sin

  Coming soon from Berkley Sensation!

  London, Spring 1817

  IN the early hours of a damp London morning, a glossy black barouche slowed outside a Mayfair house. The carriage’s door swung open. Without stopping, the vehicle ejected a long black bundle and sped away, wheels kicking up an arcing spray of water in its wake.

  The bundle hit the pavement and rolled a couple of times before coming to rest against a boot scraper at the foot of a flight of shallow steps.

  As the iron instrument dug sharply into his ribs, the Marquis of Jardine gave a soft groan. His body was a mass of unidentified agonies. His head pounded with a vicious, fiery pain, as if a blacksmith had plunged it into his furnace, then set to work with an anvil.

  The flagway was damp from a recent downpour. He sank his lean cheek into the blessed cold, relishing the icy shock that distracted him, if only for a second, from the pain. They’d damned near killed him this time. Hell, but he’d had enough of this game.

  Buttery light waxed over him as a door opened above and footsteps clattered down the stairs. Pride urged him to launch to his feet, but he couldn’t summon quite enough will for that.

  He bared his teeth in a ferocious snarl of a smile. The pain had been worth it, hadn’t it? Because at last—at last—he’d found the missing piece of a puzzle that had eluded his grasp for years.

  When his footmen hauled him up between them, his legs couldn’t seem to do the job they were paid for. He was a tall man, with long, loose limbs—an awkward burden—and it was bloody ridiculous that he couldn’t seem to rely on his own two feet. His footmen half dragged, half carried him up several teeth-chattering flights of stairs, then heaved him through a doorway and tumbled him onto his bed.

  The exquisite pain of this process s
ent Jardine reeling toward unconsciousness. He longed for that relief, wished to hell they’d just kill him and be done with it.

  But no, there was a reason—a damned good reason—he needed to hang on to his wits. Vital importance. The fate of nations—no his fate, come to that—was teetering in the balance, dangling by a thread. And he must do this thing, take care of this utterly crucial piece of business. . . .

  Louisa.

  His body arched off the bed, riding another wave of pain. A sweeping tidal wave of agony that swept a man up and dashed him against a cliff of jagged rock.

  The fuzz of black dots at the edge of his vision swarmed and thickened. He groaned and someone nipped in with ruthless efficiency to tilt a noxious mixture down his throat.

  Torpor spread through his limbs, his brain. The light dimmed, then snuffed altogether.

  “No, no,” he muttered. “Don’t let me sleep.”

  Then he fell, spiraling into darkness.

  LADY Louisa Brooke moved through the ballroom with a smile fixed beneath her loo mask and a tight ball of apprehension lodged in her breast. She’d waited for a sign all day, but none had come. She’d thought perhaps tonight . . . but he avoided entertainments when he knew she’d be there, just as he treated her like the scantest acquaintance when they met unavoidably, as they often did in town.

  He wasn’t here tonight. Despite the anonymity of the masquerade, and the crowded state of her sister-in-law’s ballroom, she knew that. She’d sense his presence if he were here.

  Thoughts of feigning a headache and making her excuses flitted through her mind, but she dismissed them. No one would believe the staid Lady Louisa was subject to invalidish megrims. They’d question her and fuss. That would be worse than enduring the attentions of her legion of suitors.

  A small huff of exasperation escaped her lips. There were times when one simply despaired of the male population. Years ago, when she’d no dowry and no prospects, the beaux of the beau monde wouldn’t touch her with a very long barge pole. Now that her brother had succeeded the distantly related Duke of Lyle, they swarmed like flies around a rotting sheep’s carcass.

  She grimaced. An apt simile. She was alone, abandoned and moldering into dust. A dried-up old maid.

  “Don’t curl your lip like that, darling.” Kate, Duchess of Lyle, magnificent in a confection of emerald green and peacock feathers, handed her a glass of champagne. “You’ll scare off poor Lord Radleigh.”

  Accepting the glass, Louisa bared her teeth. “If only.” She glowered across the ballroom at the tall, fair-haired man who had chosen to dress as Sir Walter Raleigh tonight. “The gentleman is persistent.”

  Tilting her head, Kate surveyed her guest.She blew out a breath when she saw him paused to exchange greetings with a matron in bombazine and an enormous turban. “He’s rich, they say.”

  “Mmm. Unique, in fact.”

  “Unique? How so?”

  “He’s the only one of my suitors who doesn’t want my money.” Louisa paused. “I wonder what it is he does want.”

  Kate gave a gurgle of laughter. “Well, could it be . . . um, don’t be shocked, darling, but could it possibly be . . . you he wants?”

  The idea made Louisa slightly nauseous. Only one man had ever wanted her. And he was . . . Impossible. Dangerous. Devastating.

  Not here.

  Repressing a shiver of equal parts fear and yearning, she firmly shook her head. “There must be some other reason. Radleigh’s probably in the market for a pedigree. I believe he’s very proud.”

  Kate screwed up her pretty mouth in a moue of disapproval. “Cynical, Louisa. And shockingly dismissive of your charms. I won’t allow it.”

  Smiling a little at her friend’s staunch support, Louisa said nothing.

  “Lord Radleigh is not so very bad, though, is he?” Kate continued to speculate. “His bow is all it should be.”

  They both watched Radleigh flourish in the direction of Louisa’s approving mama. Turning her up sweet, Louisa thought. It was hardly necessary. Millicent Brooke would be perfectly happy to marry off her difficult daughter to any gentleman with a pulse at this juncture. Radleigh fit the bill rather better than most of the hopefuls Millicent had thrown in Louisa’s path. Influential, no known vices, good family, good breeding. Any mama would approve of him.

  Dispassionately, Louisa remarked, “Lord Radleigh’s figure is pleasing enough, I daresay. And his features are attractive, if you admire fair men.” She didn’t.

  “He seems amiable and well-bred,” Kate agreed. “And there is that fortune.” She flicked open her fan with her characteristic restless elegance and plied it rapidly. “There is only one thing wrong with him, as far as I can see.”

  “What’s that?”

  Kate’s voice was gentle, compassionate. “Well, he’s not the Marquis of Jardine, is he?”

  The sharp, visceral stab of pain, excitement, and terror stole Louisa’s breath for a moment. What terrible power in a name! Particularly when spoken aloud, unexpectedly, as if Kate read Louisa’s thoughts, sensed the anticipation that lent an added tension to her erect posture tonight.

  Before she could respond, Kate’s wandering gaze snagged on some point in the crowd and her fluttering fan stilled. “There’s that horrible Faulkner. Look! The man dressed as Mephistopheles over there.” She snorted. “An appropriate guise, indeed. Can you believe Max would invite him here?”

  Exhaling a shaky breath, Louisa turned her head to see, glad of the distraction. “Yes, of course. Why wouldn’t he?” Faulkner was the head of the secret service and her brother’s former superior. Max had retired from the service upon inheriting the dukedom, but obviously, he hadn’t cut the connection.

  “Well! Faulkner needn’t think he can lure Max back into the fold.” Kate vibrated with a fury Louisa didn’t fully comprehend. “Max is finished with all that cloak-and-dagger nonsense. He gave me his word.”

  “I’m sure it’s purely a social connection,” said Louisa soothingly. If her brother had given his word, he would keep it. On the other hand, Faulkner struck her as the kind of man who never did anything without a purpose, and that purpose was usually Machiavellian. Kate had good reason to be suspicious.

  But was Faulkner here for Max or for Louisa? After the affair of Kate’s stolen diary, Faulkner had required Louisa to sign a paper in which she gave her oath not to reveal any official secrets she’d learned in the course of her involvement. She’d discovered nothing while translating the document, save the extent of Kate’s rather risqué fantasies. However, Louisa had signed rather than pass that potentially embarrassing information to Faulkner.

  And then he’d asked her for one small favor. . . .

  One small favor often led to other, larger ones, in Faulkner’s line of business.

  Apprehension skipped down Louisa’s spine. Yet, mingled with that emotion was a healthy dose of intrigue. She murmured to Kate, “Tell Max you don’t want Faulkner here. He’ll take care of it.”

  “Certainly not!” Kate declared. “I shall deal with him myself.”

  She would, too, thought Louisa with amused satisfaction. The last Louisa saw of her sister-in-law was the jaunty bob of a peacock plume as she made her way through the crowd. Louisa had no doubt Kate would succeed in ejecting Faulkner. She wished, however, that Kate hadn’t chosen this moment to desert her. Not with her mother and Lord Radleigh heading toward her.

  She glanced at the clock on the mantel behind her. An hour till midnight.

  She had to get away.

  WITH a quick glance over her shoulder, Louisa slipped out to the terrace overlooking the square. She needed to breathe.

  The air was fresh with the scent of recent rain. She gazed out into the night, watched thick clouds part like curtains in the stiffening breeze, revealing the glint of the heavens. Where was he?

  Lost in her thoughts, she jumped when a sound behind her pierced her reverie. Quickly, she turned to see the heavy curtain at the window swing open and the figure of a
man step out of the ballroom.

  “Lady Louisa.” The gravelly voice was familiar. He moved toward her, and the moonlight struck his face, painted to look like the Devil. It was Faulkner. So Kate hadn’t succeeded in rousting him from her ballroom, then.

  Inexplicably nervous, Louisa fell back a pace and felt the wrought iron rail, cold and hard at her back.

  “Good evening, Mr. Faulkner,” she said, as coolly as she could manage. “I came out for a breath of air, but I should be getting back—”

  He caught her by the elbow as she tried to slip past him. “I think you’d prefer me to say what I have to say to you out here. Never fear, your reputation is safe with me.”

  She halted, staring pointedly at his grip on her elbow. Her reputation didn’t concern her. Tonight, his manner gave her a creeping feeling of unease she couldn’t explain. “What is it?”

  His hold slackened and she pulled away, relief pouring through her.

  Faulkner paused, glancing back at the ballroom. “You are quite the belle of the ball this evening.”

  Dryly, she said, “You flatter me, sir.”

  His gaze ran over her, not in a lascivious way, but coldly assessing. “Not at all, not at all. I noticed one gentleman in particular is very clear in his intentions. Lord Radleigh is smitten with your charms.”

  Smitten with her aristocratic connections, more like. But it was true. Radleigh had grown even more particular in his attentions this evening, ably assisted by Louisa’s mother.

  Still, she wasn’t about to discuss her marital prospects with Faulkner. “Lord Radleigh has been kind. What of it?”

  “I believe he has invited you to spend part of the summer at his estate. A singular honor.”

  How did he know that? A cold trickle of unease slipped down her spine.

  Slowly, Louisa said, “He has asked me. I have not said yes.” To agree to attend Radleigh’s house party was tantamount to accepting his proposal. She couldn’t possibly . . .