Lady Wicked

by Sabrina Vance

  Lady Wicked

  Copyright: Sabrina Vance

  Published: November 2011

  Lady Wicked

  The right of Sabrina Vance to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by her under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any format.

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  Find out more about the author and upcoming books online at www.sabrinavance.com, via Facebook or @SabbyVance.

  Also by Sabrina Vance:

  Anything She Wants

  Her Very Personal Assistant

  Chapter One

  London, 1816

  Amelia fingered the stiff card of the invitation, smiling. Lord Hamilton’s Masquerade ball was the highlight of the social calendar with only a select slice of society invited. She had been on the guest list the past two years but even then she didn’t know what to expect.

  This year Lord Hamilton had promised the most exquisite, most exciting evening his guests could possibly have. That, of course, was not hard to believe. The finest wines flowed at each one of the handsome Lord’s parties; there was the best in entertainment, and the most delicious food. Society would gossip about the ball for weeks beforehand, clamouring for a rare invitation. Of course, the gossip would continue for weeks after too, in hushed voices by the favoured few who had been there, and repeated and embellished by the fevered imaginations of those who had not.

  Amelia had been somewhat surprised the first year she had been invited to the Masquerade. She had kept a low profile as befitted a single young woman of that time. Though without family, she had considerable funds. It was that which enabled her to enter society graciously, without making any great waves. That had been her intention. Already, she was considered a great beauty, but one with pleasant manners, good breeding and that crucial several thousand a year.

  Her past was something of a secret. Through the rumour mill Amelia had seeded her own tragic background: rich parents who had died on the continent and left their beloved daughter everything. It wasn’t too far from the truth. Well, only by a few hundred years, and who was counting?

  Everything Amelia did was designed to not draw attention to her, so that when the time came that she had to move on, she would do so quietly, without fanfare, enabling her to re-invent herself in some new city, moving on again when her lack of aging would point her out as something other.

  Lately, she had been thinking the New World of would be where she would settle next, once the early pioneers had done the hard work. America sounded like a terrifically exciting place after her years travelling through Europe.

  Living quietly was dull, but necessary, and it was part of what made her love the Masquerade so much. Some would call what happened on Hamilton’s estate, beyond the long driveway and the closed doors of his mansion, debauched. Amelia considered it the most freeing night of her life, the only time when a nineteenth century woman could be truly free, without repercussions.

  The beauty of the Masquerade was the masks that Hamilton insisted all the guests wore. It was a given that each mask would be beautifully crafted, paired with the finest costumes that would ensure every guest was a true enigma. They were encouraged, nay, it was demanded, that they become a different persona that night, and allow that persona to do what they liked… to whomever they liked.

  So on one night a year, Amelia became Lady Wicked.

  Reaching for the costume laid across her bed, Amelia fingered the fine material of her costume. The silk had been sent from Paris, created into the exquisite dress by her favourite London dressmaker who had sewn delicate bands of lace around the low cut neck, adding ribbons to the neat capped sleeves. Dispensing with society’s rules on colours, Amelia had selected a deep midnight blue, with gloves to match.

  The most important piece of her costume, however, was her mask. It was a delicate gold, perfectly fitted to mask her upper face and trimmed in black brocade with jewels pressed to the edges. She would wear it with a ribbon, tied it over her long near-black hair. Compared to the feathers, lace, filigree metals and grotesque casts, her mask would be a simple thing but it was exactly what she wanted. It was just enough to fit the rules, enough to blend in without attracting too much attention from the other revelers.

  Her mind drifted to what Lord Hamilton would wear. The first year she had attended, she had thought he was the man in the peacock feathers, then the man in lion face, and others. It had occurred to her in the second year, that he simply changed costumes throughout the evening to ensure that his guests were never entirely certain which man he was. Perhaps he switched costumes with his brother too. They were a similar build so it would add to the confusion.

  And that was all part of the fun. If no one knew who they were, the guests could do almost anything they liked, to anyone they liked, behind closed doors where there were so many secrets that no one would dare reveal what went on. It was a self-perpetuating secrecy act. No one would confess because no one wanted to be shunned… and everyone loved the illicit nature of their partying.

  As Lady Wicked, Amelia would play her part. She would eat, drink and make merry. And if she saw someone she chose to know a little more intimately, there would be no society rules telling her she could not be forward. She had seen many intriguing, lurid, things at Hamilton’s Masquerades. She couldn’t help wonder how often the handsome and enigmatic Hamilton brothers participated. Perhaps, she mused, this would be the night she would take one to her bed, providing she could identify him.

  A knock at the door made Amelia start. “M’lady?” called her maid, a young, solid-looking girl called Beth. “Your carriage will arrive in one hour. May I help you dress?”

  “No, Beth. Return in a ten minutes to attend to my hair.”

  “Yes, m’lady.”

  Amelia listened for obedient Beth’s footsteps fade away before she approached the bed. Stripping her simple blue day dress and undergarments, she laid them over the velvet chair, changing into her specially commissioned evening petticoats. The silk gown slipped over her body easily. Cut low on the bosom as was the fashion and skimming over her hips, it was demure and elegant but still whispered expensive.

  Opening an exquisitely decorated box, Amelia fingered the jewels she’d collected over the years. Rubies, emeralds, pearls… ah, these were the ones she wanted. A glittering diamond necklace and matching drop earrings would be her only adornments other than the mask. They were far too precious for general wear, but the Masquerade was far from general. Hamilton expected the best, and he was going to get it.

  The senior Hamilton brother was a fixture at various functions Amelia attended but he’d barely spoken to her over the few years she had lived in London. She often found him looking at her intently, his piercing blue eyes seeming to bore into her very soul. His dark hair was cut in waves, but that was the only gentle thing about him. Everything else about him spoke of raw masculinity, from his square jaw to the powerful set of his shoulders.

  His brother was like a copy punched from the same mould, with similar brooding eyes and commanding body, but he seemed more outgoing than the older, brooding Hamilton. She had even spoken with the younger Hamilton
a few times and found he had a quick humour that made him enjoyable to verbally spar with. She found them both strangely captivating and they made her heart race whenever she was fortunate to catch a glimpse of either. It was strange; she hadn’t been this attracted to any man in decades, never mind two.

  Trying to glean information about the brothers was a different matter entirely. Everyone seemed to have a slightly different tale to tell about the brothers, and Amelia had soon given up trying to fathom what was truth and what was rumour. It was almost like they didn’t want anyone to know their true selves. She knew the feeling.

  When the maid knocked again, Amelia admitted her and waited patiently while Beth’s nimble fingers wound their way through her air, creating pretty curls that would hang down her back, long and loose in defiance against current styles which favoured short curls and buns.

  By the time the carriage arrived, Amelia was tapping her silk slipper on the parlour floor, black velvet cloak tied about her shoulders, the mask concealed in her reticule. That was another instruction of Hamilton’s. No guest would reveal their mask until they were in the confines of the carriage, away from public view. Even Beth hadn’t seen it. It was just another measure of how tightly Hamilton held the privacy of his guests. Scandal could wreck lives, and Amelia preferred to move on only when she was ready. Not when someone else decided for her. She hoped that one day, society would move on from such scandal.

  The Hamiltons’ estate was a twenty minute ride through the bustling streets. Amelia kept herself concealed in the dark recesses of the carriage counting down the minutes until she heard the call of the gatekeeper. Only then did she peek through the curtained window, breathing deeply. The Hamilton’s house sprawled in the distance, torches flaming as carriages circled. Her heart pounded in anticipation.

  Fiddling with the ribbons of the mask, she placed it carefully over her face, adjusting it until it was comfortable then tied it firmly in a knot, then a bow with trailing ends over her long curls. As the carriage rolled up the long driveway, she checked her reflection in the window and Lady Wicked smiled back.

  The masquerade was about to begin.

  Chapter Two

  Lord Jeremy Hamilton paced the length of his library while his brother reclined in a larger leather chair and looked on in amusement. Finally Jeremy stopped, swiveled on his heel and aimed for the decanter of whiskey, pouring himself three stiff fingers.

  “She’ll come,” said James, leaning forward to reach for his own tumbler.

  “She’s late,” was Jeremy’s curt answer. “Why are women always late? They’ve had centuries to learn how to be on time.”

  “Not every woman has had centuries to learn,” James chastised his brother. “Besides, I believe it is called ‘fashionably late’. No woman wants to be seen as so eager that she is first to the party.”

  Jeremy tossed the amber liquid back and resumed his pacing. “She’s not the first. There were four and twenty at my last count.”

  “She came to the last two Masquerades, brother. She will attend this one. Intrigue will call to her.”

  “Maybe I should have called on her?”

  “Maybe I should have,” echoed James, a teasing glint in his eye.

  Jeremy lurched to a halt, staring at his brother with brooding eyes that made ladies swoon. After several hundred years, they still didn’t do a damned thing for James.

  “I saw her first.” Jeremy’s voice was loaded with possession.

  “She’s not a toy, brother.”

  “No, no she isn’t. She’s precious. She is the first woman of our kind we’ve come across; the first of any asides from ourselves. How can that be?” Jeremy wondered. For several months he had observed Amelia quietly. At first he thought it was her startling beauty that attracted him, but he’d soon realised there was a scent of otherness about her that called to the very center of his being. He had hardly dared believe what she was: an immortal, a quirk of fate that had given him and James forever life… and apparently this beauty too.

  When Jeremy and James had been reborn, amidst the carnage of an ancient battle, they had thought immortal life would be a wonderful thing. The chance to see the world and everything in it, but in truth, never ending life wasn’t what they thought. Instead they had watched helplessly as their sibling’s along with their families eventually died out. Friends needed to be left behind. They grew close to no one. Eventually everyone would wonder how they stayed so perfect. Lovers questioned their never aging looks with jealously and wonder, then succumbed to age while their statue-perfect lovers lived on. It was a harsh ‘gift’ they had received.

  Despite the never-ending unknowing, they adapted well throughout the years, reinventing themselves time and again until their original names and selves were distant memories.

  There were some things that proved more interesting in others, whatever the year. James relished in romping through women over the centuries, enjoying the delights of fashions and society. Current morals and immoral behaviours had intrigued him, until recently. Now he found he was tiring of the constant games, the attempts to get society to loosen their stays, or at least get them into trouble.

  Jeremy had always been a more introspective sort, the type to fall deeply and irreversibly in love, but he had learned to shield his heart from the pain of loving and losing the few women who had gained his attention over the years. Long ago he had declared he could never love a mortal woman again.

  Spying Amelia had been a jolt from the Gods.

  When he and James had settled in London, only a few years before, they had been determined to maximise their time in a city that they had avoided for some five score years until everyone they had known previously were long gone. Walking in Hyde Park one day, he had seen her, the merest glimpse as she rode by in a simple carriage, her gloved hand laid on the open side, a parasol shielding her from the sun. It was like something in him awoke.

  Jeremy had tried to follow the carriage but it was too quick, and so he had gone in search of James instead, telling him in almost awe of the woman whom he thought might be one of them. They had gone in search of her together, but it hadn’t been until much letter that they had seen her again, and later still that they had their suspicions confirmed.

  After centuries of roaming the earth, thinking they were the only two afflicted with this curse, they had found another, and she had been presented in the most breathtaking form.

  Amelia wasn’t just any woman. She took Jeremy’s breath away with her glossy near-black curls, porcelain skin punctuated with a Cupid’s bow mouth and startling blue eyes that contained hidden depths. And her voice, like spun silk, called to his soul.

  Some investigation had turned up that she was an orphaned heiress, a manufactured story no doubt, to appease society’s appetite for rumour and breeding. It also helped him realise that she must know exactly what she was; that she was skilled in creating a new identity for himself. Unlike he and James, however, she was alone and for that, his heart ached for her.

  The Masquerade had been James’ idea during their second year in London, an amusing diversion from the minutae of life, and a way for him to chase supposedly chaste young women far away from their fathers’ shotguns. Of course, James couldn’t help push it a little further to see how far their guests would go when presented with an atmosphere of absolute discretion, where identities were concealed and anything could, and would, happen. Over the past few years, their vast house had borne witness to adultery, the loss of maidenhood to rakes who didn’t deserve it, the crossing of social and sexual boundaries, and all manner of illicit trysts. It was all part of their current reinvention as rich, rakish brothers. Plus it amused the hell out of James.

  Yet it had all ceased to matter the moment Amelia had arrived in London. Now all Jeremy could do was think about her. Night and day she invaded his mind, yet he’d never been able to summon the courage to approach her. It wouldn’t be seemly to openly introduce him to an apparently young, unaccompanied, woman, an
d they didn’t travel in the same circles. He could have pressed the point but that would have called attention to both of them.

  Inviting Amelia to the ball had been James’ idea.

  On the first ball she had attended, while they were both under assumed names and masks, they had danced together, strolled together and neither had mentioned the other’s state of immortality. By the end of the evening, after Amelia had slipped away, her lips tingling with kisses, Jeremy had realised with near horror, that she did not recognise him as he could recognise her. Even worse, he wasn’t sure she knew what he was. He wondered how she had existed so long without falling into a desperate state of confusion.

  The second ball had seen James taken a sudden interest in Amelia, one that made Jeremy force himself to manage the temper building within him. To make matters worse, James had subsequently succeeded where he hadn’t. Somehow he had garnered an invitation to a party, then tea amongst friends, and other affairs where he would constantly bump into Amelia. James never failed to include him with an invite, but he was hesitant to push Amelia into confessing who she was. Jeremy hadn’t wanted to frighten her even though his mind urged him to take her, his body simultaneously urging him to claim hers.

  Adoring her from afar, imagining their life together was not enough anymore. Tonight he aimed to make Amelia his. There would be no more abiding by society’s rules. They simply didn’t matter on his estate this night. No, he intended to bind Amelia to him, and take her for a wife. With their immortality, and the love already cresting his heart, he finally saw a future. One that had everything he yearned for.

  Looking out of the window, his second whiskey in hand, he saw a young woman being helped from the carriage. With her long cloak and simple gold mask tied over her ebony mane, there was no mistaking her. Amelia had arrived.

  “James.” Jeremy turned from the window just as the air blew through the open door opposite. He looked to James seat, finding it vacant. Damn his competitive brother!