Not Wicked Enough

by Carolyn Jewel

  “Eugenia would have been devastated to miss your visit.”

  She lifted her chin. “I was only in love for a moment, but what a moment it was.” Her laughter was a beguiling thing to hear. No titter or practiced trill, but a full on burst of amusement. “I had already imagined our ten beautiful children, all of them Gypsy princes and princesses.”

  “Ten of them?”

  “Yes.” A breeze came up, and she shivered. She rubbed her palms up and down her arms.

  “You’re cold.”

  “Perhaps a little.”

  Mountjoy arranged her shawl around her shoulders so it didn’t droop uselessly down her back. Then he curled his fingers in the cashmere and pulled her toward him. He shouldn’t do this, but it seemed he was going to anyway. Because she was beautiful and intriguing, and not at all the innocent he’d imagined when they met. “Will you let me keep you warm?”

  She smiled as if she knew a secret, and he wondered just who was seducing whom. He moved her closer to him.

  “Better?” he said.

  “Mm.”

  He brought both sides of her shawl closer around her. He could not do any of the things on his mind. He couldn’t. But if he did? “Since you did not run away with the Gypsy king, there must be more to your adventure. Or was meeting him thrilling enough?”

  Their eyes locked, acknowledging what their words did not. “He thanked me profusely and genuinely for rescuing his puppy, which he intended to give to one of his daughters.”

  Mountjoy kept her close. “If the Gypsy king had a daughter of his own, then he must have already been married, and you could not have run away with him to become his Gypsy queen.”

  “Well. I suppose you’re right.” She stood with her head tipped to one side, as if she’d never considered the possibility. Perfect, an absolutely perfect picture of innocent confusion. “It’s fortunate I did not run away.” Her eyes twinkled. “In any event, he was so grateful he gave me this medallion.” She held up the ribbon around her neck, high enough to display a gold circle the size of a guinea that hung from the end of the ribbon. “You see?”

  He leaned closer to examine it, taking the metal in his hand, angled so the moonlight illuminated it. One side was engraved with a bow and arrow. He turned it over to show a cherubic face on the obverse.

  “The medallion is magic,” she said. “He promised me that.”

  Mountjoy glanced up. They stood quite close. “Will it bring you riches and good health for all your life?”

  She took the medallion from his hand and studied it. “He told me that whoever possesses this charm will be united with the individual with whom she or he will be happiest in love. Ginny says I must sleep with it under my pillow.”

  Mountjoy said, “Isn’t that how such charms work?” Her future husband would take her to bed. He’d cover her body with his and put himself inside her and make love to her. And she would enfold her husband in her arms, kiss him, caress him, and if the man were not a dolt, she would sigh and call out his name.

  “Oh, the medallion can’t work for me.”

  He held her gaze. “Why not?”

  “I have already met the man I was destined to love.”

  “The Gypsy king?”

  “No.” She stood motionless with no sign of her previous animation.

  “If you are in love, Miss Wellstone, why haven’t you married the man?”

  “I meant to. We intended to.”

  His heart clenched because he remembered too late that she had admitted she’d lost someone dear to her. Whoever he was, she truly had loved the man. He cupped the side of her face. He wanted to stop her from hurting, and he didn’t know how. “What happened? What broke your heart?”

  “He was a soldier.”

  “I’m sorry.” Not for a moment did he think a man who’d won her love would jilt her. Impossible. “How long ago did he die?”

  “Five years.”

  Briefly, he closed his eyes. “What a terrible loss, Miss Wellstone.”

  She gave a tiny nod, and he was pleased to see some of her sorrow ease. “So you see, your grace, the medallion can’t work for me.” She tipped her head into his palm. Only for a moment. He let his hand fall to her shoulder. “I am resigned to my single state. It suits me, for I can’t love another like that. I wouldn’t wish to ever again.” She rubbed one side of the medallion. “It’s a pretty thing,” she said. “I like it exceedingly.”

  “Are you sure it won’t work?”

  “It can’t possibly when my heart is incapable of being aroused.”

  “What if you’re wrong?”

  “I’m not.”

  “Can you be sure? Who have you encountered today, Miss Wellstone?” he asked. By some miracle he injected the perfect hint of humor in his voice. She bit back a laugh, but smiled. “Any mysterious gentlemen? Any premonitions or chills along your spine? Perhaps an irresistible urge to demand an introduction to some strapping young fellow?”

  She shook her head solemnly, but he could see the laughter in her eyes. “None at all. Unless you count your butler. We nearly collided earlier.” She let a beat go by. “Is there, by any chance, a Mrs. Doyle?”

  “Yes,” Mountjoy said. “There is.”

  “Ah. A shame.”

  Mountjoy was horrified by how badly he wanted to kiss her.

  And, so, after they’d stood there staring at each other, neither of them moving, he did.

  He curled his fingers into her shawl and used that to bring her closer. She came to him with a soft sigh and then lifted her arms to his shoulders. He’d broken, amicably, with his mistress when he was last in London, for no reason other than boredom. Therefore, it had been some weeks since he last held a woman in his arms. He was randy as hell. So he told himself.

  Lily Wellstone did not kiss like a virgin.

  Jesus, no.

  He held back nothing. He was far too wound up for a circumspect kiss. From the moment he touched her without either of them pretending nothing would happen, the possibility of restraint flew from any list of his abilities. The world, it so happened, had just become limited to the two of them. He was lost to every selfish and sexual urge a man might have in respect of a woman and to the scent of her, the taste of her, the feel of her body against his.

  She took his hat from him, and if she dropped it to the ground, he surely didn’t give a damn because she buried her fingers in his hair and, oh, yes, indeed, she was kissing him back.

  Her hips pressed into him, gently against his erection and then the moon disappeared behind some clouds and they stood there in the dark of the garden, still kissing, breathing in each other and the scent of roses.

  By the time she drew back, and it was she who did, one of his hands cupped her bottom. The other was curved around the nape of her neck. He took a deep breath, but at the end, though she had put a few inches’ distance between them, he leaned toward her and kissed her again. She allowed the kiss to linger, a light touch of their mouths, and then no more.

  “Goodness,” she said, looking at him from under her lashes. “That was lovely.”

  “I do know how to properly kiss a woman.”

  Her secret smile reappeared. “You do, your grace.”

  He kissed her again. She pressed her hand to his cheek as this kiss lingered, too, but she drew away too soon. Far too soon. She dropped her hand to his chest and kept it there.

  “I don’t mean for you to get the wrong idea,” she said.

  “What would the wrong idea be?”

  “This.” She shook her head. “The two of us.”

  “It doesn’t feel wrong.”

  She leaned against him, her hand pressed to his chest. “I confess I find you extremely attractive.”

  “Thank you.”

  She pushed on his chest and stepped away. “This is not wise, your grace. We can’t. Much as I like…all that— Well. You understand.”

  “What do you like?”

  “Don’t be obtuse. You know precisely what
I like. Kissing you.” She placed a finger across his lips. “Touching you. You’re so very lovely, which I am sure you know, but it would be unwise to continue this when more is impossible between us.”

  He wrapped his fingers around her wrist. “Are you certain?”

  “Your sister is my dear friend,” she said. “And you are to be married.”

  “I am aware,” he said. Lord, yes, he was aware now. He hadn’t been when he was kissing her.

  They stood there, in the darkened garden. Lily looked away, and he bent to retrieve his hat from the path, and there they stood again, mere inches apart. She looked like a woman who’d been kissed. Thoroughly.

  She let out a short breath. “Despite what you must think of me, I’m not a woman of loose morals.”

  He nodded his agreement.

  She met his gaze. “I wanted to kiss you.” She brushed a hand over her face, then to her throat. “I suppose that makes me wicked. Wanting you to kiss me. Then allowing you to do so.”

  “It doesn’t.” He reached out and took her Gypsy medallion between his fingers. “I blame this,” he said.

  She laughed, and the sound lightened his heart. “Of course.” She plucked another leaf. “That must be the cause. We had no power to resist the magic.”

  “You see? We are not at fault here.”

  “Better you than Doyle, I daresay.”

  He let go of the medallion and laughed outright. Quiet descended, and during the silence, she adjusted her shawl over her shoulders and closed the distance between them. Mountjoy slid an arm around her waist, and the tension was back, singing through him. But all she did was lean in to kiss his cheek.

  “I’ll tell you good night, your grace, and see myself inside.” She touched his cheek. “Thank you for your company.”

  He didn’t let her go. Not until she cleared her throat. “The pleasure was mine, I assure you.”

  She curtseyed to him and then left him. Alone.

  He watched her walk away, and since the moon had come out from behind the clouds he had no trouble discerning the sway of her hips until, at last, the shadows hid even that.

  She was right. They couldn’t when nothing would come of it. He was going to marry Jane. He could not seduce his sister’s friend. Affairs always ended. Eugenia would never forgive him when their inevitable break cost her Lily’s friendship. His sister had few enough friends as it was.

  He wanted to, though.

  Chapter Five

  JUST BEFORE LILY BLEW OUT THE CANDLE AT HER bedside, she took off the Gypsy’s medallion and slipped it underneath her pillow. Not that she believed in the power of the medallion; she just didn’t want to lie to Ginny about whether she had done so, and Ginny would ask. She marked her place in her novel with an ivory bookmark and set it on the table beside her. The candle was barely an inch tall. Her inability to sleep at night meant she would have to ask the housekeeper to see that there were extra candles in her room.

  Dawn was just touching the windows as she pulled the covers to her shoulders. The room was no longer dark, and at last, sleep dragged her eyes closed. Her sheets smelled of lavender, and while she breathed in the scent, she imagined the coolness of the Gypsy’s medallion lay not beneath her pillow but beneath her fingers. She could still feel the duke’s mouth on hers, the solidness of his body. The taste of him. The bewildering response of her body to him. He was not Greer, and she could not help feeling she’d betrayed the man she loved. And yet, to be held like that. Kissed like that. She tried to summon Greer’s beloved face and she couldn’t, and her heart broke anew.

  She fell asleep as the first light of morning filled her room, turning dark shadows to gray, and gray to palest lilac. She dreamed. Vividly. She was outside, a spade in her hand, looking into a hole in the ground. In her dream, she knew she was searching for treasure.

  Footmen stood around her, wilting in the afternoon heat, soon dirty and sweaty from the work of digging the trench. They’d cast off their coats and rolled up their sleeves, though it was she who held the shovel. Ginny and the so very young and handsome Lord Nigel Hampton stood to her right. Across from her, on the other side of the trench, stood the Duke of Mountjoy, his eyes green as moss.

  Their gazes connected, hers and the duke’s, and her heart beat hard in her chest. He wasn’t as lovely as his brother, but there was a look in his eyes, a certainty about him that appealed to her immensely. Surely, she thought, he would not ask more of her than she had in her to give.

  She broke from his gaze and returned to her digging. After turning a few spadefuls of dirt, her shovel hit something that was not dirt. Carefully, she reached in to scrape away the dirt. Gold gleamed from the shadowed trench. She bent closer and the shadows resolved into an iron pot full of gold coins that, even in her dreaming state, she thought looked suspiciously like her medallion. Why, with these, the whole unmarried population of High Tearing would be able to find their truest and happiest loves.

  The footmen applauded as she bent to touch the coins, and she grinned with triumph. She stood up, the pot in her arms, and no one, least of all herself, remarked that such a pot would be too heavy for her to lift, though she held it easily. She gave everyone present one of the discs. Except for the duke, who stood on the other side of the excavation, his arms crossed over his chest. Refusing to accept one.

  She walked the perimeter of the trench until she reached Mountjoy. There, she handed him the pot of coins. “You see? We succeeded. Look at your sister.” Ginny stood beside Lord Nigel, wearing a sky blue frock instead of a black one. “Do you see how happy she is? She ought to wear colors all the time.”

  “Yes,” he said. “She ought to.” Mountjoy turned away from the crowd, but she followed him, and they were soon in the library, quite alone. The coin-filled pot sat on the largest table. Each disc in the pot exactly resembled her medallion. She smoothed one of them between her fingers. They were heavy enough to be solid gold and therefore must be worth a fortune.

  Mountjoy stood beside her, silent. Brooding.

  “Are you angry, your grace?” she asked.

  “No.”

  She gave him a disc and this time, he accepted it.

  “Thank you, Lily.”

  In her dream, his voice sent a shiver down her spine. Yes, the man did have the loveliest voice, edged with smoke and silk. She touched his coat, poorly cut for a man whose shoulders were so broad. Mountjoy was an active man and his body reflected that. One heard things, if one paid even the least attention. On occasion, the duke worked alongside his tenants, and the plain truth was that with his advice, crop yields were up. He had a reputation as a horseman able to turn even the most bad-tempered mount into an obedient ride. He was not considered an approachable man, but his neighbors solicited his opinion about horses and farming. The Duke of Mountjoy was, if not well liked, then well respected.

  “You ought to hire me on as your valet.” She was perfectly serious, and Mountjoy took it as such.

  His eyes stayed on her face. Such a pure and intense green, framed by dark, thick lashes and a tilt at the edges that made her think of his kisses. Her pulse raced out of control so that she could scarcely breathe. “I won’t pay you more than twenty pounds per annum.”

  “So long as I have room and board, that is acceptable.” Since she would be working for the duke, she’d have to close Syton House, though the garden tours must continue. Syton House was famous for its gardens and that brought visitors who spent money at the local establishments. If enough of her staff agreed to stay on even though she no longer lived there, the public tours of the house could continue. The moment she had the chance, she’d write to her steward to put that into motion.

  “Then the position is yours,” the duke said just as if there was nothing unusual about hiring a woman as his valet. “You’ll start immediately.”

  “Excellent, your grace, since you require an entirely new wardrobe.”

  He picked up one of the discs and spun it on its edge. “Do I?”

&nbs
p; “Indeed, sir, you do. You won’t regret it. I’ll make you the envy of every man in England. Everyone will beg to know the name of your tailor.”

  “Make it so, Wellstone.”

  She laughed, tickled that he should have fallen immediately into calling her by her last name. Oh, yes, she would be the most excellent valet in the Empire and the Duke of Mountjoy would be her triumph.

  “Wellstone.” He caught the still spinning coin between his fingers.

  “Yes?”

  “There is one other duty you’ll have.”

  “Yes?”

  “This.”