Once Upon a Wicked Night

by Jennifer Haymore

  “Do you miss him?” Meg asked after a moment’s pause.

  “I despise him.” Serena’s voice hissed through the gloom. She blinked away the stinging moisture in her eyes.

  Meg gave her a sidelong glance, the color of her eyes matching the mist that swirled up behind her. “You’ve said that over and over these past weeks, but I’ve yet to believe you.”

  Pressing her lips together, Serena merely shook her head. She would not get into this argument with her sister again. She hated Jonathan Dane. She hated him because her only other option was to fall victim to her broken heart and pine over him, and she wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t sacrifice her pride for a man who had been a party to her ruin and then turned his back on her.

  She’d never admit—not to anyone—that every time she looked over the stern of the Victory, she secretly hoped to see a ship following. And Jonathan would be on that ship, coming for her. She dreamed that it had all been an enormous mistake, that he really had loved her, that he’d never meant for any of this to happen.

  She dragged her gaze to the bow of the ship. The lantern lashed to the forestay cast a gloomy light over the fog billowing up over the lip of the deck.

  Smiling, she turned the tables on her sister. “You miss Commander Langley far more than I miss Jonathan, I assure you.”

  Meg didn’t flinch. “I miss him very much,” she murmured.

  Of course, unlike her own affair, Serena’s sister’s had followed propriety to the letter. Serena doubted Commander Langley had touched her sister for anything more than a slight brush of lips over a gloved hand. They danced exactly twice at every assembly, and he’d come to formally call on Meg at their aunt’s house three times a week for a month.

  In the fall, Langley was headed to sea for a two-year assignment with the Navy, and he and Meg had agreed, with her family’s blessing, to an extended courtship. He’d done everything to claim Meg as his own short of promising her marriage, and Langley wasn’t the sort of gentleman who’d renege on his word.

  Unlike Jonathan.

  Serena groaned to herself. She must stop thinking about him.

  She patted her sister’s arm. “I wager you’ll have a letter from him before summer’s end.”

  Meg’s gray eyes lit up in the dimness. “Oh, Serena, do you think so?”

  “I do.”

  Meg sighed. “I feel terrible.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it seems unfair that I should be so happy and you…” Meg’s voice trailed off.

  “And I am disgraced and ruined, and the man who promised he’d love me for all time has proved himself a liar,” Serena finished in a dry voice. It hurt to say those words, though. The pain was a deep, sharp slice that seemed to cleave her heart in two. Even so, Serena hid the pain and kept her face expressionless.

  Meg’s arm slid from her own, and tears glistened in her eyes. It didn’t matter that Serena struggled so valiantly to mask her feelings, Meg knew exactly what she felt. Meg always knew. She always understood. It was part of being a twin, Serena suspected.

  Gently tugging Serena’s arm to draw her to a stop, Meg turned to face her. “I’ll do whatever I can… you know I will. There is someone out there for you, Serena. I know there is. I know it.”

  “Someone in Antigua?” Serena asked dubiously. Their aunt had made it quite clear that she would never again be welcome in London. And Meg knew as well as she did that there was nobody for either of them on the island they’d called home since they were twelve years old. Even if there were, she was a debauched woman now. No one would want her.

  “Perhaps. Gentlemen visit the island all the time. It certainly could happen.”

  The mere idea made Serena’s gut churn. First, to love someone other than Jonathan Dane. It was too soon to even allow such a thought to cross her mind, and every organ in her body rebelled against it. Second, to love anyone ever again, now that she was armed with the knowledge of how destructive love could be. Who would ever be so stupid?

  “Oh, Meg. I’ve no need for love. I’ve tried it, and I’ve failed, through and through. A happy marriage and family is for you and Commander Langley. Me? I’ll stay with Mother, and I will care for Cedar Place.”

  A future at Cedar Place wasn’t something she’d been raised to imagine—from the moment they had stepped foot on the island, the Donovans had told one another that Antigua was a temporary stop, a place for the family to rebuild its fortune before they returned to England.

  But now Cedar Place was all they had left, and it was falling into ruin. Long before her father had purchased the plantation and brought the family to live in Antigua six years ago, Cedar Place had been a beautiful, thriving plantation. Nine months after their arrival, Father died from malaria, leaving them deeply in debt with only their mother to manage everything. And Mother was a well-bred English lady ill equipped to take on the responsibilities of a plantation owner. Serena had doubts Cedar Place could ever be restored to its former glory, but it was the one and only place she could call home now, and she couldn’t let it rot.

  Meg sighed and shook her head. “I just think—oh!”

  The ship dipped into the trough of a wave and a boom swung around, trailing ropes behind it. A rope caught Meg’s shoulders, and as the boom continued its path to the other side of the deck, it yanked Meg to the edge of the deck and flipped her over the deck rail.

  Serena stood frozen, watching the scene unfolding before her in open-mouthed disbelief. As if from far away, she heard a muffled splash.

  With a cry of dismay, she jerked into action, lunging forward until her slippered toes hung over the edge of the deck and she clung to the forestay.

  Far below, Meg flailed in the water, hardly visible in the shadowy dark and wisping fog, her form growing smaller and finally slipping away as the ship blithely plowed onward.

  After living for six years on a small island, Serena’s sister knew how to swim, but the heavy garments she was wearing—oh, God, they would weigh her down. Serena tore off her cloak and ripped off her dress. Clad only in her chemise, she kicked off her shoes, scrambled over the deck rail, and threw herself into the sea.

  A firm arm caught her in midair, hooking her about the waist and yanking her back onto the deck. “No, miss. Ye mustn’t jump,” a sailor rasped in her ear.

  It was then that she became conscious of the shouts of the seamen and the creaking of the rigging as the ship was ordered to come around.

  Serena tried to twist her body from the man’s grasp, roaring, “Let me go! My sister is out there. She’s… Let me go!”

  But the man didn’t let her go. In fact, another man grabbed her arm, making escape impossible. She strained to look back, but the ship was turning and she couldn’t see anything but the dark curl of waves and whitecaps and the swirl of fog.

  “Hush, miss. Leave this one to us, if ye please. We’ll have ’er back on the ship in no time at all.”

  “Where is she?” Serena sprinted toward the stern, pushing past the men in her way, ignoring the pounding of sailors’ feet behind her. When she reached the back of the ship, she tried to jump again, only to be caught once more, this time by Mr. Rutger.

  She craned her neck, searching in vain over the choppy, dark water and leaning out as far over the rail as the sailor would allow, but she saw no hint of Meg.

  “Never worry, miss,” Mr. Rutger murmured. “We’ll find your sister.”

  The crew of the Victory searched until the sun was high in the sky and burned through the fog, and the high seas receded into gentle swells, the ship circling the spot where Meg had fallen overboard again and again.

  But they never found a trace of Serena’s twin.

  And look for

  Secrets of an Accidental Duchess,

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  A whisper of scandal is only the beginning…

  Prologue

  She was an angel.

  Maxwell Buchanan, the Marquis of Hasley, had observed many beautiful women in his t
hirty years. He’d conversed with them, danced with them, bedded them. But no woman had ever frozen him in place before tonight.

  He stood entranced, ignoring people who brushed past him, and stared at her, unable to tear his gaze away. With her slender, slight figure, delicate features, and crown of thick blond hair, she was beautiful, but not uncommonly so, at least to the other men populating the ballroom. As far as Max knew, the only head that had turned when she’d entered the room was his own.

  The difference, he supposed, the singular element that clearly set her apart from the rest of the women here, was in the reserved way she held herself. There was nothing brazen about her, but nothing diffident or nervous, either. It was as though she held a confidence within herself that she didn’t feel any desire to share with the world. She didn’t need to display her beauty like all the other unattached ladies present. She simply was who she was, and she made no apologies for it.

  Her small, white-gloved fingers held her dance partner’s, and Max’s fingers twitched. He wanted to be the man clasping that hand in his own. He wanted to know her. He would learn her name as soon as possible. He would orchestrate an introduction to her and then he would ask her for a dance.

  “Lovely, isn’t she?”

  Max whipped around to face the intruder. The man standing beside him was Leonard Reece, the Marquis of Fenwicke, and not one of his favorite people.

  “Who is lovely?” he asked, feigning ignorance, curling the fingers of his right hand into a fist so as not to reach up to adjust his cravat over his suddenly warm neck.

  Fenwicke gave a low chuckle. “The young lady you’ve been staring at for the last ten minutes.”

  Damn. He’d been caught. And now he felt foolish. Allowing his gaze to trail after a young woman, even one as compelling as he found this one, was an imprudent enterprise, especially at Lord Hertford’s ball—the last ball of the London Season. If Max wasn’t careful, he’d find himself betrothed by Michaelmas.

  The dance ended, and the angel’s dance partner led her off the floor toward another lady. The three stood talking for a moment before the man bowed and took his leave.

  “Most people believe her sister is the great beauty of the family,” Fenwicke continued conversationally. “But I would beg to differ with them. As would you, apparently.”

  “Her sister?”

  “Indeed. The lady she’s speaking to, the one in the pale yellow, is the youngest of the Donovan sisters.”

  Max looked more closely at the woman in yellow. Indeed, she was what most people would consider a great beauty—taller than her sister, and slender but rounded in all the proper places, with golden hair that glinted where the chandelier light caught it.

  “The Donovan sisters?” he mused. “I don’t know them.”

  “The lady in yellow is Jessica Donovan.” Fenwicke murmured so as not to be heard by anyone in the crowd milling about the enormous punch bowl. “The lady in blue is her older sister, Olivia.”

  The angel’s name was Olivia.

  Due to his position as the heir of a duke, Max was acquainted with most of the English aristocracy perforce. Yet from the moment he’d caught his first glimpse of the angel tonight, he’d known he’d never been introduced to her, never seen her before. He’d never heard Olivia and Jessica Donovan’s names, either, though their surname did sound vaguely familiar.

  “They must be new to Town.”

  “They are. They arrived in London last month. This is only the third or fourth event they’ve attended.” Fenwicke gave a significant pause. “However, I am quite certain you are acquainted with the eldest Donovan sister.”

  Max frowned. “I don’t think so.”

  Fenwicke chuckled. “You are. You just haven’t yet made the connection. The eldest sister is Margaret Dane, Countess of Stratford.”

  That name he did know—how could he not? “Ah. Of course.”

  A year ago, Lady Stratford had arrived from Antigua engaged to one well-connected gentleman, but she’d ended up marrying the earl instead. Like a great stone thrown into the semi-placid waters of London, the ripples caused by the splash she’d made had only just begun to subside. Even Max, who studiously avoided all forms of gossip, had heard all about it.

  “So the countess’s sisters have recently arrived from the West Indies?”

  “That’s right.”

  Max’s gaze lingered on Olivia, the angel in blue. Fenwicke had said she was older than the lady standing beside her, but she appeared younger. It was in her bearing, in her expression. While Jessica didn’t quite strut, she moved like a woman attuned to the power she wielded over all who beheld her. Olivia was directly the opposite. She wore her reserved nature like a cloak. She stood a few inches shorter and was slighter than her sister. Her cheeks were paler, and her hair held more of the copper and less of the gold, though certainly no one would complain that it was too red. It was just enough to lend an intriguing simmer rather than a full-blown fire.

  Olivia’s powder-blue dress was of an entirely fashionable style and fabric—though Max didn’t concern himself with fashion enough to be able to distinguish either by name. The gown was conservatively cut but fit her perfectly, and her jewelry was simple. She wore only a pair of pearl-drop earrings and an austere strand of pearls around her neck.

  Her posture was softer than her sister’s, whose stance was sharp and alert. However, their familial connection was obvious in their faces—both perfect ovals with full but small mouths and large eyes. From this distance, Max couldn’t discern the color of her eyes, but when Olivia had been dancing earlier, she’d glanced in his direction, and he’d thought they must be a light shade.

  God. He nearly groaned. She captivated him. She had from the first moment he’d seen her. She was simply lovely.

  “… leaving London soon.”

  Fenwicke stopped talking, and Max’s attention snapped back to him.

  Fenwicke sighed. “Did you hear me, Hasley?”

  “Sorry,” Max said, then gestured randomly about. “Noisy in here.”

  It was true, after all. The orchestra had begun the opening strands of the next dance, and laughing couples were brushing past them, hurrying to join in at the last possible moment.

  Fenwicke gazed at him appraisingly for a long moment, then motioned toward the ballroom’s exit. “Come, man. Let’s go have a drink.”

  If it had been an ordinary evening, he would have declined. He and Fenwicke had a long acquaintance, and Max had always found the man oily and unlikable. They’d been rivals since their school days at Eton, but they’d never been friends.

  He glanced quickly back to the lady. Olivia. At that moment, she looked up. Her gaze caught his and held.

  Blue eyes. Surely they were blue.

  Those eyes held him in her thrall, sweet and lovely, and sensual too, despite her obvious innocence. Max felt suspended in midair, like a water droplet caught in a spider’s web.

  She glanced at Fenwicke and then quickly to the floor, and Max plopped back to earth with a splat. But satisfaction rushed through him in a warm wave, because just before she’d broken their eye contact, he’d seen the first vestiges of color flooding her cheeks.

  “Very well,” he told Fenwicke. Tonight he didn’t politely excuse himself from Fenwicke’s company, because tonight Fenwicke appeared to have information Max suddenly craved—information about Olivia Donovan.

  He turned away from her, but not before he saw another gentleman offering her his arm for the dance and a bolt of envy struck him in the gut. Thrusting away that irrational emotion, Max followed Fenwicke down the corridor to the parlor that had been set aside as the gentlemen’s retiring room. A foursome played cards in the corner, and an elderly man sat in a large but elegant brown cloth armchair in the corner, blatantly antisocial, a newspaper raised to obscure half his face. Other men lounged by the sideboard, chatting and drinking from the never-ending supply of spirits.

  Fenwicke collected two glasses of brandy and then gestured with h
is chin at a pair of empty leather chairs separated by a low, glass-topped table but close enough together for them to have a private conversation. Max sat in the nearest chair, taking the glass Fenwicke offered him as he passed. He took a drink of the brandy while Fenwicke lowered himself into the opposite chair.

  Holding his glass in both hands, Fenwicke stared at him. “I gather you haven’t had the pleasure of observing the Miss Donovans prior to tonight.”

  “No,” Max admitted. “Do they plan to reside in London?”

  “No.” Fenwicke’s lip twisted sardonically. “As I was saying in the ballroom, I believe they’re leaving before the end of the month. They’re off to Stratford’s estate in Sussex.”

  “Too bad,” Max murmured.

  But then a memory jolted him. At White’s last week, Lord Stratford had invited a few men, including Max, to Sussex this autumn to hunt fowl. He’d turned down the offer—he’d never been much interested in hunting—but now…

  Fenwicke gazed at him. The man had always reminded Max of a reptilian predator with his cold, assessing silver-gray eyes. “You,” he announced, “have a tendre for Miss Donovan.”

  It was impossible to determine whether that was a question or a statement. Either way, it didn’t matter. “Don’t be absurd. I don’t even know Jessica Donovan.”

  “I’m speaking of Olivia,” Fenwicke said icily. It sounded like Fenwicke was jealous, but that was ridiculous. As the man had said, the lady had been in Town for less than a month.

  “I don’t know either of them,” Max responded, keeping his tone mild.

  “Regardless, you want her,” Fenwicke said in an annoyed voice. “I’m well acquainted with that look you were throwing in her direction.”

  Max shrugged.

  “You are besotted with her.”

  Max leaned back in his chair, studying Fenwicke closely beyond the rim of his glass, wondering what gave Fenwicke the right to have proprietary feelings for Olivia Donovan.

  “Are you a relation of hers?” he asked.

  “I am not.”

  “Well, I was watching her,” Max said slowly. “And, yes, I admit to wondering who she was and whether she was attached. I was considering asking her to dance later this evening.”