When You Wish

by Jane Feather

  Cool-voiced, and with extreme deliberation, he said, “You can depend on it.”

  Softly spoken though they were, his words seemed to bring her entire capacity for thought and action to a shuddering halt. She gripped the edge of the table with her hands and hung on for dear life. The knot in her stomach nearly bent her double.

  She wanted to touch her lips, which felt as though they still carried the burn-print of his mouth.

  She wondered suddenly if there was a chance Henry Lamb’s kiss had satisfied the bottle. Good God, it ought to have! She went to the door and rattled the handle. When it wouldn’t give way, she shook it savagely, like Roger tomcat with a mouse in his teeth. She gave it a kick, for good measure.

  Breathing hard, she stared at the door.

  “You’ve got to admire the engineering,” he said. “An ordinary door would’ve been in splinters by now.”

  She stared at her hands, at the floor. She unwished, and unwished.

  She couldn’t believe it. That hateful bottle.

  It was actually willing to have her ravished.

  Her mother was so right. Wishes were a poor counterfeit for prayer. God knows whether or not to answer a prayer. God screens out the folly.

  The bottle didn’t care. She had wished to be in the arms of a notorious rakehell and the bottle had arranged it, willy-nilly, without the slightest compunction. It was utterly literal. A juggernaut.

  The most eerie aspect of the whole thing was that the bottle had overcome her expressed aversion to what she’d asked for by creating a situation where she could not escape her own wish. It was as if the bottle had brought her here by the scruff of the neck and said, Here’s what you’ve wished for. You’re going to have it whether you like it or not. The bottle’s malevolence stunned her.

  Henry Lamb thought his only avenue to leave this room in a timely way was to carry out his threat. And he was so right. But it was not because he had to galvanize her friends. It was because he had to appease The Bottle.

  She sank to the floor and sat on the circle of her yellow chintz skirt with the heels of her hands covering her eyes. The plank floor was cold as a frozen pond.

  The room was so quiet, she could hear the unsteady pattern of her breath. At length, she said, “Mr. Lamb?”

  “Rest assured, I haven’t gone anywhere.”

  “If you wouldn’t consider it importune, could I ask you a personal question?”

  “I consider everything you and your hooligan friends do importune. Don’t let that stop you.”

  When she tipped up her head to meet his eyes, the cool room air hit her hot cheeks like windburn. “What will happen to you if you don’t keep your appointment?”

  “I’ll lose a large sum of money.”

  “Why?”

  The green eyes considered her. Then, abruptly, he said, “That floor must be colder than hades. If you’ll come sit up on the bed, I’ll tell you.”

  “I’m not ready to sit on the bed yet.”

  “Fair enough,” he answered.

  Now that she matched his gaze directly she saw something in his eyes she had missed previously. She saw in them a warm gleam of humor.

  She tried again. “Why would you lose money?”

  He stirred restlessly. Exhaled. “It’s a long story.”

  “Well,” she said. “I’ve got one hour and fifty-four minutes.”

  That made him laugh. Which changed him completely. All the sweetness time had not torn from him was evident in his face, as though laughter was its only repository. She felt a strange tickling sensation inside the hard lump her stomach had become, as though something had touched her there.

  “I would like to know,” she told him.

  “Why not?” he shrugged, half smiling. “As it happens, last month, a wealthy man from Italy visited London, where he had the misfortune to meet a man who cheated him at cards.” Lamb drove both hands into the pockets of his breeches, dropped a hip on the edge of the table, and sat there, swinging his foot. “In this game, the man from Italy lost a small castle he owns, near Florence. Even though the man from Italy has other houses, he is particularly fond of the little castle because his mother is buried there. He also doesn’t like being cheated. So he offered me a small fortune to find proof the British man had won by cheating. It wasn’t easy, I promise you.”

  She had previously thought her stomach had gotten about as tight as it was going to get. She’d been wrong. Dismay building in her, she said, “I can imagine it wasn’t.”

  Still with the faint wry smile, he continued. “It took me a month to find the proof I needed, but this evening at six the Italian man will sign over the deed to the castle to the man who cheated him and after that, my information will become worthless. Which is unfortunate because I owe a lot of money.”

  She felt terrible. Absolutely terrible. Because of her wish, people who were owed money would not be paid. Because of her wish, a man would lose a castle to a cheater. A castle where his mother was buried! Miserably, she asked, “What will you do then?”

  “I’ll have to go after the deed.” A note of asperity entered his voice. “Which will undoubtedly cause me to get my skull broken for a second time in one day.” Then, “Oh, no, don’t hang your head again. I’m getting tired of looking at the top of that damn hat.”

  She took off the hat, held it across her knees, and faced him squarely.

  “That’s better,” he said. “Now look, I don’t know how long you’ve been up here before I woke up, but you look to be chilled to the bone.” He levered himself off the table and offered his hand. “Come and sit on the bed.”

  His hand was so beautiful, it could have been painted on the Sistine Chapel. She stared at it. “I think I ought to stay here so I won’t be ravished.”

  “Much you know about it.” Then firmly, “I’ve ravished dozens of women on the floor.”

  “That doesn’t seem likely to me. With all the fuss you’ve made about how cold it is.”

  His eyes were alive with amusement. “Up with you. Before you grow icicles from your chemise. Don’t be stupid.”

  “‘Don’t be stupid’?” she repeated. “What sort of thing is that to say? I thought you were a famous seducer. Is that what you say to women?”

  He laughed again and she felt her heart turn over and over.

  “Actually, no,” he admitted. “But allow me to point out you’ve been misled by gossip if you think I go around seducing people. I’m completely nonplussed by resistance.”

  She hugged her knees nervously. “I don’t see that you’re remotely nonplussed. But that you’re unaccustomed to resistance, I do believe.” His smile began to burn her, as his lips had done. “If I’m to have my resistance overcome, I want to be read sonnets.”

  Never once breaking contact with her eyes, he said, “I don’t know any sonnets. But come to me anyway. You’re tired and frightened and cold and I can make you warm and happy.”

  “Yes, well—” The color was flooding her face at the memory of the pressure of his mouth against her. “I’ve already been made ‘happy’ by you once and I don’t know how much more ‘happiness’ I can bear in one day.” She placed her hand hesitantly in his, allowing him to haul her to her feet. “But I suppose I’d rather be made happy than ravished.”

  “That’s the spirit,” he said encouragingly, the green eyes vivid. “Would it help if I promised not to treat you unkindly?”

  “I doubt your definition of unkindly matches my definition of unkindly”

  He had retained her hand, and she would have stared in fascination at the pale, long-boned fingers enclosing hers, but with his free hand he cupped her chin and brought her gaze back to his. Softly, he said, “Then teach me yours.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  SHE COULD NOT negotiate with the bottle. But perhaps she could with Henry Lamb.

  “Sir? If you’re quite intent on this”—and she knew he would be because that horrible bottle would somehow make sure of it—“could you engage to be
have … I don’t know how to put this … with finesse?”

  He studied her face intently for an extended time. At length, he said gently, “My dear, I understand you’re trying to convey to me something important, and something you find it difficult to express, but I’m afraid you’ll have to narrow this down. I don’t have a clue what you mean.”

  “I know there are arts. Between men and women, I mean.” She could see he was keeping his expression meticulously empty, though something flickered in his eyes that was no longer humor.

  “Arts,” he repeated.

  “Yes. I don’t know what they are but I’m sure you must.” She saw that his eyes had widened slightly. “Can you see what I mean?”

  “No.”

  “To prevent the creation of a child. Can you do that? It would be wrong for you to make a child you would not love as a father. I know how such a child would feel, you understand.” Then, with simple dignity, she said, “I am my mother’s natural child.”

  She had never seen a man keep his expression so carefully washed of emotion. And yet somehow, she could see she had dealt him a body blow. His hands withdrew from her slowly; his gaze, more slowly still. Finally, she heard him exhale.

  He took a step back, and gently lifted one of her curls, which slipped, glinting like holiday tinsel, between his long, pale fingers.

  It seemed to her as if a long time passed before he took another breath. With a slight rueful smile that made mincemeat of her pulse, he said, “We have something in common.” His smile became so gentle she felt briefly as though it had stopped her heart. “I can only explain myself by telling you that I’m not used to very young women. Yes, there are arts. And yes, I would have employed them. I apologize both for making you fear it, and for making you say it.”

  Enthralled as she was with gazing into his magnificent green eyes, it took her a moment to realize that he had said would have. Aloud, stupefied, she said, “‘Would have’?”

  Mistaking her expression, he said reassuringly, “Please don’t look so stricken. I know it’s taken a while but I have come to my senses. You’ll take no further hurt from me, I swear it.”

  She thought, Oh, dear God, that bottle will keep throwing us together till Judgment Day.

  Frantically, she crossed the space he had made between them and grasped him by the lapels. “Sir,” she said, “you must make love to me. Because I have wished it so.”

  She could see she had startled him speechless. Having left everything so much up to him before, it was difficult for her to know where to begin now. But even standing on her tiptoes, she couldn’t reach his mouth, so she pulled hard on his coat, dragging him down toward her, and slid her hands up his chest and neck, into the midnight of his curls. Grabbing two thick, satiny handfuls, she tugged him by the hair down to her. She heard him say, “Jesus!” just before his mouth met hers.

  Touching her mouth to his, she felt at first no response, so she tried awkwardly to imitate the kiss he’d given her earlier, light at first, then harder. She pressed slow kisses along the length of his mouth. She nuzzled him with her lips. She slid her lower lip along his.

  She could feel his confusion in the taut resistance of his body, felt the resistance turn to indecision as she took one hand out of his hair and grabbed his wrist, placing it low on the small of her back. She felt him try to lift his head, to say, “No. You don’t want—” She smothered his response with her mouth, twisting her hands deeper into his hair, feeling the vibrant strands work between her fingers, stroking the sides of her fingers, her palms.

  She felt his mouth melt open over hers, and his warm breath quicken against the moisture on the inside of her lips. And then, because she’d wanted to so badly earlier and had not, she pressed herself against him, all of her, from her knees up to her chest, and rubbed herself lazily against him, learning for the first time the unyielding warmth of a man’s chest, the flat plane of his stomach, the sinews of his thighs.

  His resistance had by now evaporated. His hands closed on her back, crushing her closer, into the hot bone-cradle of his body. His mouth, urgent and nuzzling, opened hers, and his tongue slipped inside, tasting her gently, a caress tracing the inner edge of her lips. Chills moved like dancing fingers down her spine but the rest of her was fire.

  It was at that moment that he put her from him, disentangling her fingers from his hair, drawing back from her body, and when she tried to stop him, whispering breathlessly, “No, no, no. No, my dear. Really.”

  He scooped her up in his arms and deposited her on the bed, where he pressed a single soft kiss on her lips. And giving her a smile of heart-lifting charm, he retreated from her, until he was stopped by the wall, where he propped himself, his hands braced on his knees, laughing and breathing hard.

  After a moment, she said, “At least this time after you kissed me, you didn’t say ‘Hmm.’”

  She could see it cost him to get the words out, but he said, “I only said ‘Hmm’ because it surprised me you didn’t seem to realize your role was to move things along by crying out to your friends for help. I wasn’t thinking ‘Hmm.’”

  She said, “What were you thinking?” but unaccountably, her teeth had started to chatter, so the question came out sounding rather strange.

  Nevertheless, he had understood, because as he came toward her, he said, “I was thinking I wanted to tell you your hair smelled like violets.”

  The intimacy of the observation shocked her. It hadn’t occurred to her that her hair had a smell, or that anyone might notice what that was. She hadn’t given much consideration to how she smelled. Most of the time, probably like fish bait. Was this how it was to have a lover? That he noticed things about you as if he were your mother?.

  When he lifted his greatcoat from the bed and began to tuck it around her shoulders, she covered her nose with his collar and inhaled. It smelled of brandy, of the outdoors, of street fog and pine trees and, faintly, of him.

  Looking up into his face, she said, “Could you try to open the door once again, please?”

  Quizzical but unquestioning, he went to the door and tried to rattle it open. Nothing.

  That bottle. What on earth could it expect?.

  Lamb was watching her, assessing her in that way he had. After a moment he said, “In the company you keep, I can’t imagine how you’ve remained so untried. George never tried to kiss you? Or that handsome boy who broke a wristbone on my jaw?”

  She studied him right back. “Never. Probably, it was because of my hat.”

  On the way back to the bed, he swept up the hat from where it had fallen, looked it over, and tossed it onto the table. “It’s the only thing I can think of to explain it.”

  He sat at the base of the bed and began to untie the lash in her sandal.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to warm up your feet. Try not to let it worry you.” He drew off her sandal and dropped it on the floor.

  “It doesn’t worry me at all. I’ve been raised with a lot of freedom.” His touch, even in this simple chore, was making her light-headed.

  Working on the other sandal, he said, “Yes. I can see you’re the fruit of a progressive parent.” He tossed the other sandal off the side of the bed, and then gently began to rub her stocking-covered feet, starting with her toes. “No one has suppressed the high spirits that move you to make your way around London locking up strangers.” While he spoke, he separated each toe, massaging them one at a time. “See where this freedom has gotten you. Not in an enviable position.”

  “Absolutely I’m not. No one could envy the position I’m in right now.”

  He glanced up quickly, in time to catch her bashful grin, his gaze lingering on her mouth. She said, “I’ll bet my feet don’t smell like violets.”

  “Actually, they do.”

  She was about to tell him she’d been picking violets that morning in her stockings when she heard running footsteps in the corridor.

  Then Charlotte called out anxiously, “Luc
y, my poor dear, are you all right? What’s happening to you?”

  Lucy replied, “He’s warming my—” and got Henry Lamb’s hand clapped over her mouth.

  “Warming?” Charlotte asked.

  “She said warning,” Lamb answered. “I’m warning her of the terrible things that will happen to her if you don’t release me in time.”

  Charlotte said ferociously, “I want you to stop that at once! Tormenting her won’t get you out of there any faster. And things are well underway downstairs. It turned out there was no need to waste time draining the cistern. We’ve discovered that by turning a wheel in the side wall, a hatch opens and dumps all the water out through the grate at the bottom.”

  Henry Lamb said, “For God’s sake then climb down and retrieve the key.”

  Charlotte responded, “There’s been one small problem with that. When we opened the hatch, the key dropped through the grate along with the water.” She hastily interrupted Henry Lamb’s uncomplimentary rejoinder. “There’s no need here for profanity, sir! Every contingency has been planned for.” With triumph in her voice, she announced, “Elf has gone home for the ferrets and Mr. Frog.” Finally, with menace, “But know, sir, if you continue to terrorize Lucy, we will deal with you later!”

  Removing his palm from her mouth as Charlotte’s footsteps quickly retreated, Lamb placed a light kiss there.

  “How in the world,” he said, “did you become mixed up with these bandits anyway?”

  She watched him sit down again and draw her feet onto his lap. “We have a Society (Or Club) together.”

  “A society or club?”

  Misunderstanding his expression, she explained, “Rupa thinks the word club sounds elitist. But George says if we call ourselves a society, we sound like dilettantes. So our name is a compromise.” She remembered his earlier question. “We met at a hanging ten years ago.”