A Mask, A Marquess, and a Wish Upon a Christmas Star (Be Careful What You Wish For Book 1)

by Ingrid Hahn

  His insides clenched involuntarily as he came dangerously close to thinking of that frightful “w” word.

  He cleared his throat. He’d have cleared his entire being if doing so were possible—a full-bodied cough to expel the sticky residue left by the word. The bad taste lingering on more than his tongue, the souring of his stomach, and the clenching of his hands.

  True—it would be his duty to marry. Someday. In ten years, perhaps. And he would—just never mind the fact that seven years ago he’d also told himself he’d marry in ten years.

  What he should be doing was falling to his knees in gratitude that the woman hadn’t wanted more from him.

  One dance with her, that’s what he’d had. The footman strode purposefully, only a dozen paces away. This was his last chance to decide whether or not it would be enough. It should have been enough. But was it?

  His insides pulled with a previously unknown yearning.

  There it was inside of him—his answer. Harland had to know.

  The footman bowed before him.

  4

  Abigail’s pulse still struck hard blows in her veins. The Marquess of Harland… The Marquess of Harland…

  Had that happened? Had she danced with him? Him?

  Or had it all been a dream? A lovely, wondrous, wholly impossible dream?

  She made her way around to the other side of the house passing through the proper gardens this time on her way to gather the things she’d left. The air seemed colder than it had when she’d arrived, the gown having been made for well-heated spaces, such as the ballroom.

  One night. One chance.

  No Edward. Was she sorry? She should have been. He’d been her reason for everything. They’d loved each other.

  But not enough.

  Stars gleamed and glinted in the serenity of the black heavens.

  What foolish nonsense. It was like she was a girl of fourteen instead of a grown woman of—well, of an age to know better.

  The only thing that mattered now was returning home to the welcome of a warm bed and a blissful sleep. Tomorrow she’d claim to be unwell in order to rest and recover from her foolish night. Her mistress wasn’t overly compassionate on the subject of illnesses, being of a robust constitution and the sort of character who wondered loudly at those doing what she could never imagine doing herself, but Abigail was too ragged to care.

  She stopped beside a stone fountain, water turned off for the season, for a last look at the back of Mandeville house. She turned her head up to the nymph frozen in a graceful twist above the empty basin, form all but abstract monochrome planes under the cover of so deep a night with nothing but a low moon and starlight shining above. “Did that really happen? Did I really dance with him?”

  The ghost of his body brushing up against hers elicited a shiver. It’d happened only once, and yet each time the memory played through her mind, it was like living the moment for the first time all over again.

  The windows of the ballroom still glowed. Would he think of her as she would think of him? What was he doing this very moment?

  She brushed her first two fingers over her mouth, her trembling breath warm through the gloves. The idea of never meeting again was heavy with melancholy. Never knowing what the pressure of his lips upon hers would feel like.

  But that was foolish. She’d risen from the status of her low birth to become a respectable companion—that was as far as she would ever go.

  To think of daring to dream about herself and a marquess engaging in a kiss—in even just one kiss—well, such things didn’t happen. She might as well have wished to be crowned Queen of the Fey.

  Besides, a man like him probably kissed with an urgency her body wouldn’t be able to withstand. He’d coax things from her, responses too lurid for contemplation—the sort for which she wouldn’t want to have to apologize.

  It was time to put away wishes. Put away dreams and fairytales. She had a fine life. She had plenty to eat, good clothing, all the heat she pleased, and even a bit of savings, small, but growing. For all her mistress’s faults, she treated Abigail well. Even perhaps esteemed her on good days. Her mistress’s occasional foul humor aside, Abigail genuinely enjoyed the woman’s company, oddities of character and all. She had no need of wanting more. None at all.

  At last, she dared a glance upward, speaking in a low whisper to that little sparkling heavenly gemstone she’d picked out above all the others. “I understand now. I have my answer.”

  Flesh erupting in tiny bumps, she rubbed her arms up and down. It was too cold not to keep moving.

  A few minutes later, she found where she’d hidden her things and placed the cloak about her shoulders. She shivered, the cloak almost as cold as the night air itself.

  Without quite meaning to, her eye fastened back on the star she’d wished upon before setting out on this mad quest. With a sigh, she dropped her head. “So much for last chances, I suppose.”

  Instead of Edward’s face coming to the forefront of her mind at the whispered words, however, another man’s features appeared.

  Time to tuck the dream of Edward away forever. Why had she clung to false hope long past the time when hope had been extinguished?

  Just as she was about to do away with her mask, a large figure strode from the shadows.

  Hope sprang in her breast, warm and dizzy with all the foolish absurdities she’d not five minutes ago been trying abandon forever.

  The night was dark. But enough light shone to reveal the line and height of him. Harland.

  Heart in her throat, Abigail’s lips parted. She might as well have been struck mute by a god of old for all words could have been coaxed from her tongue just then.

  He stood above her. The Marquess of Harland himself, in all his perfect, masculine glory.

  A half-smile touched his mouth. “Come back for me have you, my fair one?”

  He couldn’t wreak this torture of temptation upon her. They should have been parting, not giving in to secret wishes. She drew herself up and tried to sound haughty and affronted. “Most certainly not.”

  “I have but one question for you—one thing I ask.” He took in a trembling breath. “Can I have tonight? Only tonight, that’s all I want. Give me until dawn.”

  “What—what precisely are you asking?”

  “Nothing untoward, I assure you. Stay with me.” His voice was rough and low with vulnerability that struck Abigail in a low, tender place deep within her.

  What he was asking, though—however much she yearned to say yes, she could not. Such things…well. They weren’t done. “Stay with you?” Abigail shook her head, a battle raging within her that she might not betray her true feelings. “I really don’t think—no. It’s—it’s—” What was it? She licked her lips and leveled her chin. “It’s inappropriate.”

  Harland paused at her refusal. “I think you want to.”

  “You want me to want to, you mean.”

  The longing in him—it was assuredly not one-sided. “I don’t deny, I wish for your company more than anything. And being here with you, it feels good. It feels right.”

  Harland must know the woman. He must. To have such an immediate reaction to a stranger—no, it was impossible. The sort of pulling sensation inside of himself drawing him closer to her—that didn’t happen between people not previously acquainted.

  “Well, what if I did? We can’t all go about taking whatever we please whenever we please. The world wouldn’t work.”

  “I’m not asking for the world to work, I’m asking for you to stay with me…only for the next few hours. Nothing more.”

  “I’m not going to go to bed with you.”

  He could hardly blame her. Though the need coiled tight and warm and a little bit hard between his legs, it was, rather surprisingly, not what he wanted most. “Pity that, of course. But that’s not my aim, I promise you. I want to be near you a while longer. I know a place we could go where we’ll be completely alone. Whatever you say, I shall abide by. You have
my word.”

  “And then?”

  “And then you shall never have to see me ever again. I promise.” The tenor of his voice shifted. “Tell me, fair lady, what is it you please?”

  “I should please for this vice to be driven from my soul.”

  “Truly?” Harland’s lungs went tight. He was unused to rejection. From anyone else, it would have been either an annoyance or an impertinence. With her, something else hung in the balance. Something he wouldn’t examine too closely.

  Her demeanor relaxed, and, giving her head a little shake, her mouth bent into wistful pleasure. “No. Not truly.”

  “Should you like to stay with me?”

  She reached for his hand. Taking it, their fingers knit. She squeezed. “I think—I think I would.”

  5

  When he spoke, his voice was a caress upon her skin.

  Who was going to save her from herself?

  God help the person who tried. Let whatever was to happen happen. All she wanted was to fall. If she found herself at the bottom of an abyss, stranded and alone, she’d have no regrets—the certainty of it resonated through to the very center of her bones.

  “Come.”

  It was all Abigail needed to hear—all he needed to say. This was her one chance to grasp for a dream, even if it could only be for a single night.

  She took his arm and skittered to match the length of his steps as they disappeared into the still silence of the gardens. Her skirts fluttered about the hem, clinging to her legs. By the nymph fountain, they veered in a new direction, turning off the main footpath to take another, narrower course.

  Where they were going—well, it didn’t matter. So long as they were together.

  The eastern sky bore no hint of what was to come. Impending doom. The end of their time.

  But it would. As surely as she drew her next breath, so too would a new day.

  Abigail pushed her gaze forward. She wouldn’t think about that. Not now. Not when they had their few precious hours all ahead of them.

  The farther they went, the darker the gardens became. The setting moon’s light caught on the white stones covering the way. It crunched below the twin footfalls. The marquess didn’t hesitate or stumble.

  The land behind the Mayfair house was unusually extensive. Most of her employer’s property on the outskirts of a little village in Sussex would be contained within the walls of what was only a London garden to the marquess.

  A breeze came up, rustling the growth surrounding them, replete with the scents of a fine section of town about to turn over to winter’s embrace. It was a world sheltered from rot and stink, the odors of the river, and the people who lived far too close together, one atop the other.

  They might still exist. Somewhere. But not here. Not tonight.

  This was an enchanted land far away from those things.

  “Where are we?” They’d stopped before a small structure, indistinct in the night but for the waxy surface of rustling ivy leaves shaking off the glint of moonlight. Over the building stood a willow, the tree sashaying gently as the gracefully sweeping bare branches caught the breeze.

  “I want to show you something.”

  There was the sound of a key in a lock, then a latch lifting, and the door opened.

  Abigail drew back. “I’m about to go into a strange place with a man I don’t know. Am I the most foolish creature in the whole world?”

  Yet if he and Edward stood together, she’d be hard pressed to choose which of them she knew better.

  It wasn’t as if Edward had died. She heard reports of him from time to time through a well-meaning mutual acquaintance who knew nothing of what they’d secretly carried on between them. Edward was a man of the past. The one whose clandestine correspondence had gradually subsided.

  By contrast, the marquess’ recent kind attentions lingered fresh. The way he’d brought lemonade, realizing before she did that she was overheated and quite parched. The way he’d waited with her while she watched the crowd. An accord had grown between them, a harmonious resonance that even in her hesitation rang no less consonantly.

  “I’ll take you back if you’ve changed your mind.”

  Abigail stared hard into the night, trying to pierce the shadows to see his half-covered face. She reached out and somehow, despite the cover of darkness, their hands met. He squeezed her fingers. She squeezed back.

  “No. Not at all.”

  And she stepped to follow him.

  “Careful.” He reached out just as she was about to cross the threshold, guiding her to duck under the stone frame.

  Within the room’s interior, the pressure of the mask still upon her face intensified, almost as if it were stifling something. Which was absurd. Nothing had changed except that she was indoors.

  The air smelled of him. Leather and dry stone. Maybe a hint of autumnal smoke.

  A spark flashed and a lamp flared to life. The space was small, humble, but perfectly appointed as something between a cottage and an attic. Old furniture, worn and well out of date, was arranged about the room, not a single piece excessive. Each item worked together to create a whole. A miniature whole, with no consideration for more than two people, but a whole. Books lined the wall opposite the fireplace, old volumes with worn spines, as if each had seen several generations of hard use.

  The marquess crouched at the hearth and soon a small wood fire burned, the dry logs crackling and popping.

  Abigail stood watching. “You’re quite self-sufficient, in your way, aren’t you?”

  “I can’t abide a man who can’t take care of his own basic needs. Even if he doesn’t choose to do so all of the time, which I make no claim to doing, he ought to have the capacity for simple tasks.”

  “What is this place?” She walked around a tall-backed red morocco chair, running her hands over goatskin worn soft.

  “Used to be the head gardener’s cottage.”

  It was a testament to the size of Mandeville House that they housed a gardener—a head gardener, no less—on the grounds. And not for the kitchen gardens, either.

  “Poor man. You turned him out?”

  “Hardly. Though if you’ve guessed that these are my things you see, you’d be right.”

  “What happened to him? Pensioned him off with an annuity?” Of course a man of standing like the marquess would care for the servants who’d lived past the age of work.

  “Old Mr. Foster died while I was away at school—a good number of years ago, as you can see.” Harland smiled. “I wasn’t brought to London much as a child. My parents didn’t think the air in town healthy for my constitution, so when I was allowed to come, it was a great treat, but I was left largely to my own devices. Mr. Foster was the head gardener here for—Lord, what had to have been forty years. He knew every inch of the place. He showed me every plant, every bird, every tree, every insect, every stone.”

  “He took rather an enthusiastic interest in you, I daresay.” What must this great man have been as a child? Keen and bright and brimming with a hungry curiosity to devour every last drop of knowledge about his world, no doubt. And what information wasn’t available, he probably studied until he could form his own understanding.

  “Had the patience of a saint, the man did, I’ll tell you that.”

  “I’d wager a goodly sum he enjoyed the company of the young master. If you didn’t give him as much or more than he gave you, I’d be surprised—very surprised, indeed.”

  At that Harland didn’t answer—only turned to look into the fire, smile gone wistful.

  A moment later, he stood and faced her. “Your turn.”

  “For what?”

  “I told you something about myself, now you tell me something of yourself.”

  Abigail hesitated. Her first two fingers trailed back and forth over her lips again. She’d said she hadn’t wanted him to take her to his bed. She didn’t usually say things she didn’t mean. In this instance, the insincerity was required. Oh, who was she fooling? It
had been more than insincerity. It’d been a rank lie.

  But acting on the brazen impulses born of a single night’s acquaintance…well, it wasn’t done. Removed from her life she might have been—that life still existed somewhere out there, even without her, and it wasn’t something she could turn her back upon.

  “How about we make it a game?” There. She’d said it. The words were out. Couldn’t take them back now.

  “A game of questions?”

  Abigail’s heart thudded a pounding warning in her ears. She might as well have been knocking flint together over a dry pile of leaves. When the spark caught, consuming flames were soon to follow.

  The room was so small. So intimate. And they were so terribly, wonderfully, and wholly alone.

  This was the chance. Should she take it?

  If she didn’t make a play, would she spend eternity suffering the regret?

  Yes. Yes, she would.

  She smiled, charged with her own sense of daring. “A game of demands.”

  6

  A game of demands?

  Harland’s mouth went so dry, it was like he’d eaten an entire loaf of bread without swallowing a single drop of water.

  The undercurrent of her tone stirred sultry thoughts. Hot blood pumped new life into him as images of their naked bodies locked together in sacred embrace rolled through his mind like fluttering silk. His hands wanted to sink into the flesh of her backside as he pressed himself into her warmth.

  Who was this woman?

  …and would his soul survive the night intact?

  Her words had reduced him to such a lack-wit, all he could say was, “A what?” He cleared his throat. “A game of demands. You mean—that is to say—well, what do you mean?”

  She smiled as if she knew only too well what a rare sight it was to see him flustered, and was even more pleased with herself that she had been the cause of his fleeting befuddlement. “Don’t you know?”

  “I think you’d better say.”