When You Wish

by Jane Feather

  Activity outside the door ceased.

  Lucy heard Rupa say, “Charlotte, you’ve been following the wrong man this afternoon. Because believe me, we put Lord Kendal in this room.”

  “I was not following the wrong man.” Charlotte spoke with careful patience. “Lord Kendal was identified for me by the apprentice of his tailor, by the shop assistant in his cravat shop, and by his coachman. How did you identify Lord Kendal?”

  Rupa volunteered, “We climbed the rose trellis near their bedchamber and saw him undressing Lady Kendal.” Then, in a puzzled tone, “Are there two Lord Kendals?”

  “No.” This from George. “There’s only one Lord Kendal.”

  Elf said, “You’ve known him for years, George. Did you take a look at the man we dragged up here?”

  “No. I didn’t think I had to. Rupa’s brothers had him rolled up in his greatcoat and—”

  “Elf, please—” Lucy’s throat was tight. “He’s moving. Open the door.”

  “I don’t know who you’ve got in there,” Charlotte said, “but it’s not Lord Kendal.”

  “Elf, he really is moving ….”

  “I’m sorry, Lucy. This lock is a lot more complicated than I thought. I need time. You’re going to have to knock him out again.”

  Weakly, Lucy repeated, “Knock him out again?”

  “You can do it, Lucy.” This from Rupa. “Give him a good whack. Pretend he’s a fish.”

  “Have a little sense, you two.” Charlotte sounded thoroughly exasperated. “Lucy’s never struck anyone on the head in her life. She won’t be able to bring herself to do it. Don’t tell me you didn’t bother to bind him! Lucy! Whoever he is, he’s going to be in a pretty ugly mood when he wakes up. You need to tie his hands. What have you got on you? Pull off your sash. Do it now.”

  “Charlotte,” Lucy said in a helpless whisper, “he’s awake.”

  With a sense of icy foreboding, she watched the man she had thought was Lord Kendal roll over. Pull off the greatcoat. Sit up. Rest his head on the cradle of his outspread palms.

  Lucy felt the world heave under her feet.

  Henry Lamb. Of course it was Henry Lamb.

  Her pulse beat like a wren’s wing.

  She thought, The Bottle.

  CHAPTER NINE

  HE HAD OBVIOUSLY taken a powerful blow. Minutes passed before he was able to lift his head. He gazed blindly at the room for a time before he seemed able to take it in.

  She had nothing else to do but to study him at leisure.

  One remembered, instantly, that he was famous for his looks. “After God made that face,” the queen once had said, “he rested for a week.” It was a sculpture made by an immaculate hand, a face undoubtedly, explicitly male but beautiful in a way few men get to be after they attain manhood. It was not, however, the countenance of a choirboy. There was no describing his mouth. You saw it, you wanted it to kiss you. That was all.

  His coloring was striking also, his skin pure and light-colored, his hair dark as jet, and his eyes … For the first time, she was able to see the color of his eyes—sea-green with dark brown circling the irises. Hold fine colored glass to the sunlight and you’d get a sense of the brightness of his eyes.

  Lucy realized with despair that she was taking pleasure in looking at him.

  She was acutely aware of the moment his gaze began to focus on her. After a pause, a quizzical smile tipped the corner of his exquisite mouth.

  “Hullo,” he said. “Have we met?”

  She answered, “No.” But the obstinate lump in her throat made it a two-syllable word.

  He stood up, wincing, one long, elegant hand pressed to the back of his neck. “I don’t suppose you happen to have any brandy?”

  “Not”—gulp—“at present.”

  He was rubbing his neck, his eyes shut in a brief point of agony. She tried to stop herself—but instead she felt herself longing to feel that light, sure touch against her own skin. Against her own neck. Perhaps lower, perhaps caressing her shoulders, her uncovered shoulders.

  She thought, I am really in very serious trouble here. But she had apparently said some part of it aloud because he opened his eyes and focused again on her. Taking in, it was clear, far more than she would have wished him to.

  “I’m sure,” he said, “when you find yourself able, you’ll explain why you’re in here with me.” His tone was pleasant. His undertone, however, was anything but. “Which are you, by the way, victim or perpetrator?”

  “To be completely honest with you—”

  When she stopped to swallow, he said, “Complete honesty. Now there’s a novelty. Keep trying. I’m sure the words will find their way out eventually.”

  “Perpetrator.”

  “Well, well.” He examined the room, the small windows, the fearsome iron doorway, the puddle of her on the floor, all with an alarming degree of intelligence. He indicated the door with a gesture. “I suppose it’s locked?”

  She nodded, watched him check the pockets of his greatcoat, consult his pocket watch, withdraw a small handful of banknotes.

  “Evidently,” he said, “not a robbery.”

  He returned the notes to his coat, dropped it on the feather bed, and approached her, studying her from a much nearer vantage. “So what have we here? I must be here at someone’s behest. Let me guess—extortion?”

  “Oh, no!”

  “Act of vengeance? Debt collector? Stop me, darling, if I’m getting warm. Jealous husband? Good God, not my father!”

  Shaking her head, holding a hand to her increasingly sick stomach, Lucy could hear that outside in the corridor, the Society had predictably, infuriatingly, called an emergency meeting.

  Henry Lamb said, “Do you know what, my dear? You really are on the wrong side of this lock.” He banged the door once, vigorously, with the side of his fist. If Elf had been faceup to the lock, it would probably have made him deaf. With every veneer of patience wiped from his voice, Lamb said, “Are you idiots ready to have a conversation?”

  Lucy heard Rupa say, “He’s not going to get any more wide-awake than that!”

  George said, “In any case, from his accent, he’s clearly a gentleman. We may brush through this with no harm done, after all.” More distinctly, obviously to Henry Lamb, he spoke. “Sir, we would be most appreciative if you would be so obliging as to inform us whom we might have the honor of addressing?”

  Lamb, rather carefully, replied, “Do you mean you dragged me into an alley, knocked my head half off, locked me up, and you don’t even know who I am?”

  George addressed the door with painful diplomacy. “Sir, my comrades and I have shown an unpardonable lack of discernment in this case that we most freely admit. Please be assured we will do everything in our power to compensate you for your inconvenience. I think I speak for—”

  Diplomacy, apparently, had its limitations. Lamb interrupted. “Open the door, you twit. This is becoming more inconvenient by the minute.”

  Daunted, but game, George persisted. “It is our goal to oblige you in every particular, sir, however—”

  “Oh, heavens, George, stuff it,” Charlotte interrupted. “If that’s the way you gentry talk to each other then God knows how you get a thing said.” Louder, addressing the door: “Look, you inside. Here’s the truth. We’ve kidnapped you by accident, locked you in a room with one of our friends, and lost the key down a cistern. My friend here has been trying to open the lock but you broke his hand and he’s having a rough time of it.”

  Lamb digested this, his forearm resting on the door. It was obvious to Lucy he had a monstrous headache. He said, “You with the broken hand. Believe me, that is not the last bone in your body I’m going to break if you don’t come back to the door and get it open.”

  Elf said simply, “It’s a very complicated lock. You’d better give us your name so we can send someone to tell your family you’ve been delayed.”

  “There’s definitely no one I want you to inform of it, but my name is H
enry Lamb.”

  “Cousin Henry?” This from George, sounding astonished. From the amplification of his voice when he spoke again, Lucy could tell he’d approached the door. “Are you my cousin, Henry Lamb?”

  “Don’t tell me—George Pennington? I haven’t seen you since you were in short skirts. Here I thought I was the bad seed of the family and you’ve fallen in with a gang of Gypsies.”

  “They’re not a gang of Gypsies and—well, actually, some are Gypsies—but—my God. Henry Lamb.”

  “Yes. Social pariah. Expunged from the family Bible. Outcast, wastrel, and slut.” Lucy could see the reunion with his kin was affording Mr. Lamb no enjoyment whatsoever. “Tell me, do you take part in abductions frequently or is this your first time?”

  George sounded defensive. “What we’re trying to do here is to accomplish a great deal of good.”

  “Are you? What do you do when you want to make mischief, burn Rome? Listen to me, George. I’ve got”—he struck the door—“to get out”—he struck it harder—“of this room.” The final blow was so loud it set Lucy’s ears ringing like sleigh bells.

  Elf tried for the next quarter hour to pick the lock, to break the lock, to dismantle the lock, to pry the lock out of the door. It was useless.

  George said, “I suppose we’d better have a meeting to decide what to do next.”

  “Yes,” Charlotte rapped out. “That’s just the ticket. Let’s have a meeting so we can introduce a motion to send Mr. Lamb a note of apology. Let’s form a committee to debate the wording of it! And in the meantime, I’d like to add to the Orders of the Day a resolution to censure George Pennington for losing the only key to this room down a storm drain!”

  Henry Lamb listened to the ensuing row, one shoulder propped against the wall, and from his expression, Lucy could see the last of his patience had evaporated. His gaze fell upon her in a considering way she didn’t much like, under the circumstances.

  After an uncomfortable moment, he said, “Take off your hat.”

  “My … hat?”

  “Yes. I’m going to kiss you. It’s in the way.” He pounded his fist once on the door, and got their immediate attention. “George, let me help you with your priorities. Shortly, I have to be somewhere else. This is an appointment I absolutely cannot miss. Are you taking this in? You have two hours to get me out of here. Two hours. That’s all. If you don’t get me out of here in two hours, I’m going to deflower this—this girl in the hat.”

  An alarmed outburst started behind the door.

  Outrage lifted George’s tone an octave. “Oh, no—you wouldn’t—”

  “Since clearly you know me by reputation, then you know very well I would. Why don’t you explain to your felonious cronies what I’m capable of.”

  “Cousin Henry, if you lay so much as a finger on her, I swear I’ll kill you.”

  Lamb said, “You’re going to have to be on this side of the door for that, aren’t you?”

  “Sir, you were at least born a gentleman! This is an innocent girl!” George was banging on the door. “You can’t possibly—”

  “I can,” Lamb said, “and I’m going to.” Lamb’s attention found its way back to Lucy. “My love, you haven’t taken off your hat.”

  Lucy felt the world shudder to a halt on its axis. It must have done. What else could explain the fact that she could no longer feel the floor level beneath her feet? It was terrible to search in the desolate sea of his eyes for the sweetness she had seen in him with the two street children. And find it was still there. It was a tragedy, that life had ruined this man.

  She felt the cool room air tickle through her scalp as he slowly withdrew her hat and set it behind him on the table. He stood before her, so close her quick breath disturbed the white fabric of his shirt.

  “This,” he murmured, “is what happens to kidnappers.”

  Gasping and fearful, she put out a hand, to stop him or to steady herself. It landed heavily on his shirt, and she could feel him beneath the fabric, the unexpected warmth and strength of a male chest.

  He took her hand in his, touched a kiss to the tip of her middle finger, and tucked her hand back against his chest. She shivered, receiving the light touch of his fingers on her skin, and shivered once more as he began an unhurried exploration of her, learning her cheekbones, the curve of her jaw and, moving lower, the line where her gown opened at her throat.

  She thought, I really, really have to stop wishing for things. Her breath stuck around a swallow. She closed her eyes.

  And felt the touch of his breath, and then, as softly, the pressure of his mouth. A touch only, and then more. A faint, questing pressure.

  The soft pressure of his mouth increased, withdrew, teased. Pressed hard. Tasted.

  His lips left hers and found the side of her neck, brushed her collarbone, the base of her neck. Again, her mouth … her mouth. More than she could ever have imagined, it was wonderful and disturbing, unfamiliar and intimate.

  Beneath her palm she felt the slight quickening of his breath and became genuinely frightened.

  Against his lips, she said, “I might fall down, I think.”

  His mouth left her and he drew her into his arms, steadying her until she felt the world reappear beneath her feet with a jolt. She opened her eyes.

  Looking down at her, he just said, “Hmm.”

  Gently releasing her, he returned to the door, and said, “You might as well give it up, George, and try something else if you haven’t made it through yet. While you’ve been wasting time, I’ve kissed your lady friend and she’s fainted dead away.”

  “Lucy!” Charlotte called. “Is he telling the truth?”

  “Well”—she made an effort to recover herself—“partly.”

  Lamb looked at his watch. “You now have one hour and fifty-five minutes.”

  Lucy heard Elf’s voice. “George, stop throwing yourself at the door. You’re not doing any good. Look, I’ve been thinking this over. There may be a way to get the key out of the cistern.”

  George, utterly furious, commanded through the door, “Don’t you touch her again. Do you understand? This whole mess is half your fault anyway. Rupa never would have taken you for Lord Kendal if you hadn’t been have-at-you with his wife to begin with.”

  Rupa said, “George, you idiot. Don’t make him any madder than he is already.”

  Which Lucy was fairly sure Henry Lamb could only have heard as, “Gorge, chew eat yet. Donna mock hymn matter tin hiss oil ready.”

  “Rupa, take George downstairs.” This from Elf. “No, George, you have to go. Rupa is absolutely right. Find rope and buckets so we can start bailing the cistern.”

  George was anguished. “We can’t go and leave her alone with him.”

  “The faster we find the key,” Elf said, “the faster we can get her out. For God’s sake, George, get downstairs and start to work, will you? All you’re doing up here is giving the man an audience. If we’re not here he’s much more likely to leave her alone. Charlotte, you also. I’ll be right down.”

  “Lucy—” Charlotte sounded helpless.

  Elf said, “Charlotte, just go.”

  Charlotte called out, “Lucy, hang on. Whatever it takes, we’re going to do.”

  Over the swiftly retreating footsteps, Elf spoke through the door. “Sir, as angry as you are about this, don’t harm her, please. You can’t imagine. She really is the gentlest girl.”

  Henry Lamb said, “One hour and fifty-four minutes.”

  Elf took off at a run.

  Lucy noted that Henry Lamb looked a shade less wrathful. “Finally, I think they’re motivated,” he said. “Don’t you?”

  CHAPTER TEN

  FINE-BONED, SLENDER, ENGAGINGLY disheveled, Lamb stood with a shoulder hunched against the wall. A thin line of pewter light from the window traced out the breathtaking architecture of his face, the careless grace of his posture.

  He was a man who owed no part of his appeal to the hand of fashion. His russet jacket was w
orn loosely across the breadth of his shoulders; his dove-colored buckskins were soft from long use. His riding boots, she saw, had never been solaced with a smudge of polish.

  It took no more than a single uneasy glance at his face to see he was still thoroughly out of temper.

  Desperately, she wondered whether he planned to do as he had said, and whether he had kissed her only to scare George.

  She wondered, also, if she should put back on her hat, since it appeared hats got in the way of kisses. This, she had never realized. Was this the reason that when she left the cottage with George and Elf, her mother always said, “Don’t forget your hat”?.

  Not able to lift her gaze higher than his buckskin kneecaps, she asked, “Do you think they’ll be able to get us out of here in one hour and fifty-four minutes?”

  “Not if they have to empty a cistern.”

  His tone was so unpromising she seized her hat from the table and thrust it over her curls. Plucking up spirit, she hotly addressed the bruised toe of his riding boot. “I want you to know I think deflower is an odious word. What could be more medieval? It sounds like something that would be done by a”—she cast shakily for a historical example—“by a Visigoth. I think it’s entirely hypocritical for men who have no intention whatever of remaining virgins themselves to comment in a fulsome way about the virginity of women.”

  “You,” he said dryly, “are eloquent on the subject. You should consider writing a pamphlet.”

  She bravely persisted. “Look at the worry you’ve put my friends to!.”

  “It grieves me.” His voice dripped irony. “Your friends are so incompetent, the need to rescue you promptly is the only thing I can see that will galvanize them to do anything effective.” He shouldered off the wall. She fled behind the table. “Did you not think if you participated in a kidnapping something bad might happen to you?”

  “It never has before,” she answered.

  “Before? Are you saying you’ve actually made a habit of this?”

  His tone was so incredulous she decided the question was better left unanswered. For a long, harassed pause, she stared at his shirt buttons. Then she whispered in a suffocated voice, “And if we haven’t managed to open the door in one hour and fifty-four minutes, do you mean to do with me as you’ve threatened?”