Seven Wicked Nights

by Courtney Milan

  The chairs had been set up in the ballroom, but tonight Elaine had no desire to contemplate the walls. Instead, she took pleasure in hearing the brilliant Lady Stockhurst speak. Everyone else might giggle at the light that came into her mother’s eyes, or the excited way she jumped from topic to topic. But Elaine drank in the sight.

  Still, she was all too aware of Westfeld, sitting a few chairs behind her. He was close enough that she could imagine the heat wafting from his body, could almost feel the echo of his kiss on her mouth. She’d given herself leave not to care if he insulted her. But aside from sketching her a tiny bow from across the room, he’d not made the slightest attempt to seek his revenge. That seeming benevolence made her nervous. After last night, his vengeance would come. It had to.

  And sure enough, when her mother had come to a breathless halt, and she asked if there were any questions, he was the one who stood.

  He could not hurt Elaine. But if he hurt her mother, she would claw his eyes out in front of the entire crowd.

  “Lady Stockhurst,” he said, and Elaine cringed—the respect in his voice must have been false. “In your calculations of the periodicity of the orbit, you assumed it was purely elliptical. What effect does the gravitational pull of the larger planets have on your calculation?”

  Was that an insult? Did it hurt? Elaine held her breath and frowned.

  But a sunny smile burst over her mother’s face. “What an excellent question! I have been calculating second-order perturbations since February, and…”

  And she was off, bubbling over with excitement and mathematics that Elaine scarcely comprehended.

  Westfeld simply watched. He was still standing; instead of exchanging looks with his cousin, he nodded as she spoke. His civility made Elaine feel uncomfortable. What was he planning?

  Her mother’s explanation had devolved into one of those uncomfortable moments where she simply listed the formulae in her head—she could perform derivations aloud almost as easily as on paper. This was often the point when people started laughing into their hands. And when Lady Stockhurst started in on a string of x-noughts, Westfeld finally did look away: he glanced at Elaine. She saw no mischief brimming in his eyes.

  The worst possibility of all occurred to her.

  What if he wasn’t planning anything? What if he had meant it when he’d apologized to her? What if…what if he’d kissed her because he wanted to do so?

  Those thoughts started a nervous flutter in her belly.

  And then Lady Cosgrove yawned audibly and stretched. “Goodness,” she said, “How we do indulge our elders in their foibles.”

  Lady Stockhurst stopped mid-phrase and glanced uncertainly at Elaine.

  “Don’t be rude, Diana,” Westfeld said mildly. The expression on his face hadn’t changed, not one bit, but Elaine felt her stomach knot. “I was hoping that Lady Stockhurst would be so kind as to forward me a copy of her remarks. I have a friend who might have some interest.”

  In response to this, her mother gave a gracious nod.

  What if he didn’t hate her? If he didn’t, then last night…

  But she was not the only one thinking along those lines. “Don’t tell me you’re interested,” Lady Cosgrove spat. “Everyone knows what you think of Lady Elaine and her mother. We’ve all heard it before.”

  Westfeld’s eyes darkened. He turned to face his cousin. “No. Nobody knows. But as you’re bored with mathematics, perhaps I should tell you that story instead.”

  The entire room went silent. Elaine didn’t dare breathe, for fear that her dress would shift and the sound would interrupt him. Her heart had seemed to stop in her chest.

  “You see,” Westfeld said, “ten years ago, I met a lady. She was very pretty and quite fearless. She spoke her mind, and she laughed with abandon. I fell in love with her over the course of about an evening.”

  It had to turn into a joke.

  But he didn’t look like he was joking. “I was nineteen at the time, and therefore foolish. And so, to my mind, there were two important things I had to do. First, I had to make her notice me in the way I noticed her. I wanted her to look for me every time she walked into a room. I wanted her to miss me when I wasn’t there. I wanted her to be aware at every second of where I stood.” He paused. “Also,” he said, “being a young man, and thus having no thoughts to speak of, it seemed of utmost importance that nobody know I had fallen in love. If they knew, I would be embarrassed. And that would have heralded the end of the world.”

  It wasn’t a joke. Elaine felt the palms of her hands grow cold.

  “Somehow,” he continued, raising his head and looking directly into her eyes, “what started with those simple requirements—make her notice me, but guarantee that nobody understood how I felt—turned into the cruelest thing I have ever done to another human. I started to poke fun at her laugh. At first, it was one of those things I said to explain why I was staring at her—‘Good heavens, have you all noticed how Lady Elaine laughs?’ And then, as everyone eagerly took part, I found myself helpless to stop it.”

  It wasn’t an excuse. It wasn’t an apology. It just was, and she didn’t know how to take this much truth.

  He stopped and shook his head. His lips thinned. “No. I wasn’t helpless. I could have stopped at any time. I was merely too weak to do so. I wish I could say I just kept my mouth shut, but I didn’t. I was the worst of the lot. I made up half the cruel names. I would go up to her, speak to her face, just for the thrill of talking with her—and as soon as someone looked my way, I’d slip in an insult, so nobody would think I cared.”

  Elaine’s entire world had been upended. Right had become wrong, and had turned back to right again.

  “She never did look at me. But I could tell that she knew when I was present, because over the course of that year—over the course of that horrible year, when I hurt her time and time again, she gradually lost her fearlessness. It was near the end of the Season when I realized how completely I had succeeded in my aims. She came into a room. She looked around—just as I had wanted, when I’d first fallen in love with her. Her eyes passed over me. And yet she knew I was there because she turned and left. She was aware of me, every second of every day. I was the man who tormented her, and for her, knowing my whereabouts had become a matter of self-preservation.”

  Did it make it better or worse that he’d understood what he had done to her? She couldn’t decide.

  “So I did what any young, senseless idiot would do. I ran away. A retreat to the country wasn’t enough; I couldn’t bear to stay in England. I had to outrun the person you all believed me to be. I spent a summer in Greece, but every woman I saw brought me back to Lady Elaine. Finally, while passing through Switzerland, I talked to a man who had attempted the ascent on Mont Blanc. He told me that he’d nearly died in the process. To my mind, that seemed like the best thing I could do with myself.”

  Westfeld gave the entire room a tight smile. “And so that was why I started mountaineering: because I was too cowardly to come home, apologize, and try to make things right.”

  Right. She didn’t know where right lay any longer. But what he’d said was irrevocable. This gossip would race through polite society. She’d wanted him vulnerable, unable to hurt her…and here he was.

  “And so here I am,” he echoed, as if he’d heard her thoughts. “Older, wiser, and I hope a good deal braver. Lady Elaine, you have my sincerest apologies for what I did to you. I don’t hope for your forgiveness, but I am in your debt. Deeply. Should you ever need anything—anything—you have only to ask, and it is yours.”

  “You see,” her mother said into the resounding silence that followed. “I told you Westfeld was sweet on you. And I was right!”

  Elaine could almost see the rising speculation in the eyes of those around her. After a declaration like that, she could guess what would come next. She could feel the future pressing against her, like a crushing weight of humid air overpowering her lungs.

  He was looking at h
er. His eyes had always fascinated her, and this time she could see nothing of the snake in them. No lies. No jokes. Just a painful, awkward, humiliating truth. He was going to ask in front of all these people, and…and they would all expect her to say yes.

  She stood so swiftly her chair was knocked over behind her. And without saying a word, she turned and left the room.

  She knew even as she did so that he would follow.

  Chapter Six

  EVAN FOUND HER IN THE GARDEN, sitting on a bench amidst a quiet symphony of cricket calls. She looked at him as if she were holding court—regal and unattainable. There was almost no moon to speak of, but the stars were bright, and her eyes were, too.

  Finally, she spoke. “How did you escape last night?”

  He hoisted his sleeve and turned back his cuff. In the darkness, it was almost impossible to see where the rope had rubbed his skin into agitated redness. “A middleman’s noose can be converted into a slipknot. With a good bit of effort, it turns out. I’d never done it one-handed before.”

  She looked at his wrist and then glanced away.

  He sat next to her on the bench.

  “I feel as if I should apologize for that,” she said, “but…but I can’t quite bring myself to do so. What was I supposed to think? You were talking about seducing me. That wasn’t a sign of respect.”

  “I’ve wanted you for years.” He scrubbed his hand through his hair. “Respect doesn’t enter into it. Had anything happened, I surely would have married you.”

  She hid her face. “Oh, Westfeld. Don’t.”

  “But I must. Will you marry me?”

  The silence stretched into awkwardness.

  “I know you’ll have a hard time believing that I am serious. But please—I beg you to see that what happened all those years ago is in the past. I’m not the same man today.”

  She raised her face to his. The starlight reflected in her eyes, gray and silver together.

  “Do you really think I would want to marry you?”

  No. Still, it was a blow to hear it out loud.

  “I had hoped—I had so hoped I might convince you. Let me court you, then. You don’t know who I am now, and perhaps once you come to know me…”

  He reached over to take her hand. The contact was inadequate—after last night’s intimacy, the mere feel of glove-on-glove seemed confining. She didn’t respond to his caress. But at least she didn’t push him away.

  “I don’t think it matters what I know of you,” she said simply. “Do you know what you did to me?”

  He could feel the tips of his ears flush. “I remember.”

  “No.” She pulled her hand from his now. “You only saw the public moments. You cannot know.” Her voice dropped. “You are handsome and wealthy and titled. Perhaps I might someday believe that you are kind, too. But let me tell you what I feel when I look at you. In my first year out, two months into the Season, I tasked my maid to tell me a series of jokes. We filled a bath. And every time I laughed my laugh, I told her to duck my head under the water. I hoped I might cure myself.”

  He didn’t know what to say to that.

  “The first few times, it was just funny. And that made me laugh all the harder. So I asked her to hold my head under longer and longer.”

  “No,” he breathed.

  “Yes.” Her voice was sharp. “But it never worked. After the eighteenth time, I couldn’t stop laughing. Not for anything. I inhaled water into my lungs and was bedridden for days on end.”

  “Oh. God.”

  “What did you think you were doing to me when you called me those names? When you egged on your friends to poke fun at me?”

  “But you were so serene. I wasn’t even sure you heard me half the time. You never—” He swallowed his protests. She shouldn’t have to break down in public for him to have a conscience.

  “I’ll be the first to admit, Westfeld, that you’re an attractive man. When you’re not being cruel, you can be quite charming. You’re handsome.” Her voice dropped. “And I’m very curious about what we spoke of the other night.”

  Such a bare recitation. Any other lady would have gladly accepted him for half as much reason, and he’d be kissing her already. Too bad he didn’t want any other lady. He wanted this one. He was only beginning to realize how much.

  “But none of that matters. When I see you, I remember that you made me want to drown rather than be myself.”

  He’d known he had been cruel. But this was the first time he’d really felt it, a deep ache that went straight to his bones. He didn’t want to believe that that could be chalked up to his account. How could he ever make up for that?

  You can’t, you ass.

  He’d never understood what regret meant until now. It wasn’t the pallid sort of wish he’d entertained before. He wished he could reach inside himself and take back what he had done. He didn’t want to be himself any longer.

  No words could make it up to her. And perhaps that was precisely what struck him at that moment. He was always going to be the man who had done that to her. No matter how hard he wanted, his past followed him around as faithfully as his shadow. He would always cast darkness on her.

  “Well,” he said eventually. “That’s it, then.”

  She met his eyes. She didn’t pretend to misunderstand him. “That is it.”

  When a man was nineteen, he felt invulnerable—as if nothing could touch him. That stupid belief had been the basis of a great many idiotic things that Evan had done in his life. But this notion that all the hurt he’d caused could simply disappear because he wanted it to—that had been the last childish dream he’d held on to. He let go of it now. What you did when you were young could kill you. It just might take years to do it.

  “We can still be friends,” she was saying calmly. “Just…not anything else.”

  “Friends.”

  “Even…even back then, there were times I almost thought I could like you.”

  “You are too generous.” The words came out sounding bitter, but he didn’t intend them that way. He wasn’t bitter. He wasn’t. Friendship and kindness from her—it was more than he deserved. Less than he wanted, true, but…

  “I haven’t got it in me to give you any more trust than friendship. I’m still not sure I can trust you past three minutes.”

  He swallowed. If he’d been his young self, he’d have stalked away in a fit of pique, furious that she’d thwarted him. He would have had his revenge upon her for rejecting him. But he was a great deal older now. And he’d cast enough shadows.

  “Good.” He leaned closer to her. “Then in three minutes, we can be friends.”

  “Three minutes? Why wait three—”

  “Because friends don’t do this,” he replied, and leaned toward her. This time, he didn’t put his arm immediately about her. His lips touched hers. She was still—too still—and for a moment he thought he’d read her wrongly. But then she kissed him back.

  She tasted like mint and wild honey. She was soft against him. And, oh, how easy it would be to let his control snap. To see precisely what he could do in the three minutes he’d given himself.

  She liked kissing him. He could tell by the tenor of her breathing, by the sound she made in her throat as his tongue traced the seam of her lips.

  He could tell because she hadn’t slapped him.

  He set his arm around her and pulled her close. When she opened up to him, it felt even better than any of his fantasies. His mind could only envision one part of her body at a time—lips or breasts or buttocks, but never all three together. But here in the flesh she was a solid armful, an overload of good things. He could not break her down into constituent parts. It was just Elaine leaning against him, Elaine that made that sound in her throat, and then, by God, she moved closer, until her chest brushed his. He was on fire for her.

  Still, in the back of his head, he could almost hear the inexorable tick of clockwork, as if this tryst were timed by the watch in this pocket. Three, and his
other hand crept down her waist, cupping her close. Two, and his tongue sought hers out. One…

  One kiss, and he’d come to the end of her trust.

  He pulled back. Her fingers had slipped under his elbows, and they bit into his arms, ten little needle points of pressure. He wasn’t sure if she was holding him close or keeping him at arm’s length.

  “Westfeld.” Her voice was just a little rough. “I…I…Please don’t do that again.”

  He wanted to ask if she’d liked it. He already knew the answer. She’d liked it, but he’d reminded her, once again, of drowning. He wanted to curse.

  “No,” he said softly. “We’re simply friends now, and friends don’t do that to each other. Not ever again.”

  Chapter Seven

  London, nine months later.

  WHEN WESTFIELD HAD FIRST OFFERED HER FRIENDSHIP, Elaine hadn’t believed it. Friendship was a concept men bandied about to save face when they were rejected.

  But he had nonetheless become her friend. He didn’t dance continual attendance on her, but he talked to her on regular occasion and he made her laugh. He introduced her to his friends—all his friends, that was, save Lady Cosgrove—and he talked with hers. As word spread of what he had said, she simply stopped being an object of fun. For the first time in a decade, she could go to a ball and breathe.

  She couldn’t forgive him—how could she?—but was it so awful to enjoy his company?

  “I think,” he said to her on this evening, his voice barely audible over the roar of the crowd at the soirée, “that your seamstress needs a new palette.”

  A year ago she’d have bristled, hearing an implied insult. Today she smiled at him indulgently. “Why ever is that? Just because I happen to like pink doesn’t mean you must wear it.”

  “That wasn’t why.” He grinned. “Although I’ll have you know that I turn out very nicely in pink. And purple. Any man can don white and black. It takes a truly masculine fellow to manage lavender.”

  She laughed. And that was the best part of it: she could laugh without flinching. It was still too loud and still too long, but she no longer drew whispers from around the room.