The Wish Club

by Stella Cameron

  She needed him so.

  Fumbling, her fingers responding clumsily, she turned the key and wrenched the door open. “Max!”

  He wasn’t there.

  She turned toward his rooms but only took a few steps before she stopped again. Max stood in the doorway to his library, looking at her.

  “I’m sorry,” she cried. “I want t’talk t’ye.”

  For an instant she thought he’d carry on and leave her. He ran his fingers through his hair and hesitated, but then he retraced his steps. His walk was uneven, and as he drew close she saw how disheveled he was. He wore no cravat, and his shirt was unbuttoned at the neck.

  He stumbled, regained his balance, and reached her. He reached her, looked at her as if he’d never seen her before, and went into her rooms.

  A wise woman might choose to escape—if she’d anywhere to go.

  “Cold in here,” he said when she followed him. “What’s happened to the bloody fire?” He dropped into a chair, stretched out his legs, and rested his head on the back.

  Kirsty was no stranger to lighting fires. She went to her knees and lighted one now, moving as quickly as she could, and as quietly. Perhaps he’d fall asleep. She prayed he would, and that he’d awaken as her gentle Max again.

  “Boots,” he muttered.

  Flames sprang to life and she stood.

  “Boots,” Max repeated, more loudly.

  Kirsty stood before him. “Ye have your boots on, Max.”

  “Hah!” He jerked forward and peered at her. “Think I don’t know that? Take them off.”

  She’d helped her father with his boots often enough, and willingly enough. Her father had never been drunk and demanding.

  “Hurry, damn you!”

  Ye’ve made your bed . . .

  Max’s boots weren’t as easy to remove as her father’s. Made to fit his legs as gloves might be to fit the hands of the rich, she had to work each one, pulling first on the heel, then on the toe, over and over again until she all but fell over when they came off.

  He murmured, “Ah,” when she’d finished, and closed his eyes.

  Moving as quietly as she could, Kirsty sat in the chair opposite his, laced her fingers together in her lap, and watched him. He wasn’t still for long. Soon he turned his head from side to side and grimaced. No doubt feeling the effects of the liquor—and dreaming nasty dreams, perhaps.

  “God, to be free,” he said suddenly, opening his eyes and glaring toward the fire. “Hasn’t a man the right to be free?”

  She knew he wasn’t speaking to her.

  He pulled himself upright in the chair. For a long time he was silent, his attention still on the flames. When he spoke again he didn’t sound as drunk, but neither did he sound himself. “You think you’re the only one suffering. You pity yourself and have no pity left over for me. It’s your fault that I will never know how it feels to awaken with peace in my heart.”

  Her fault? What could he mean?

  “I’m damned. Forever damned. And I cannot turn back without hurting those who gave me everything I have. I might have been dead now if not for them.”

  “I’m sorry. Can I—”

  “Silence.” His chest rose and fell hugely with each breath. Then he stared around. He grabbed up a porcelain lady from the table beside his chair and threw her at the wall. Even before the broken pieces had finished falling, he hurled another, and another.

  Instinctively Kirsty shielded her face. Like explosions, the small treasures burst on impact.

  He didn’t stop until the table was bare. He doubled over and his breath came in sobs.

  Kirsty wrapped her arms around herself and held her bottom lip between her teeth.

  Once more he became quiet and still.

  If she moved, he might start again. She wouldn’t move.

  The urge came to rock and hum, but she quelled it and pressed her limbs tight together.

  He suffered greatly. From within him welled a vast torment she thought she might actually touch if she reached out a hand.

  “My father conducted his interview,” he said at last. “I was summoned as he used to summon me when I was a child, and I went.”

  The expression on his face, the haunted, drawn lines, struck horror to Kirsty’s heart. She held herself even more tightly lest she give in to intuition and try to comfort him.

  His mouth twisted. “He told me I’m a fool, a romantic fool.” Glancing at her quickly, he narrowed his eyes to glittering slits. “Because I had been unable to put my feelings for you behind me and replace them with ambition. Given my early childhood, I should have been able to do that. That’s what he told me. I should have learned that softness is useless in this world.”

  She tried to speak, but at first her mouth was too dry. Instead she coughed and swallowed. Then she asked timidly, “Your early childhood, Max? What of it?”

  His attention returned to the fire. “I never told you, did I? No, I didn’t. I have trusted you with more than I have trusted any other human being, except my sister. And my sister and I lived through those days—we had the same things in common. Well, it will do no good to tell you now. Don’t mention it again.”

  From a pocket inside his jacket he withdrew a thin silver flask. He unscrewed the cap and swigged thirstily at its contents. Then he sat with the flask open against his belly, a slight smile on his beautiful mouth. He blinked slowly while the bleak shapes and shadows settled around his features once more. Kirsty felt she saw ghosts in his eyes. His long-fingered hands curled around the flask in a grip so tight it turned his knuckles white.

  “Father is angry with me.” His voice was distant. “Disappointed. I have lacked judgment. He insists I should return you to your old position in this household. And that you should live with your family again.”

  “They willna have me,” she said, barely above a whisper. “I asked Mother if that’s what they’d like, but they don’t want me. I’ve shamed them, they say.”

  His sneer wasn’t a pretty thing. “So we are both in the same predicament, you and I. Both a disappointment to the people we have sought to please. How ironic. Yet we have done nothing wrong—not really wrong. I told Father as much. He believed me that you could not go back, but not, I think, that I have not bedded you in the real sense.”

  He drank again.

  Kirsty moved forward in her chair and extended a hand.

  Without looking at her, he said, “Hold your tongue, woman. Hold your tongue, or I will bear no responsibilities for my actions.”

  They needed each other, but he wouldn’t open himself and allow her in as he always had in years gone by, years she would never forget.

  “I hate myself,” he said, slouching deeper in the chair. “I hate what I have become because of you.”

  She could not bear that he blamed her when she’d had no choice but to love him, yet she’d made no move to do anything about that love until he’d come to her.

  He leaned forward to work off his jacket, then fell back again, and fell into a silent brooding. The lamps burned lower, but Kirsty hadn’t the will to tend them.

  Alone. Oh, yes, he was right, she was alone. He would only have to take her into his arms and hold her, to share his warmth and strength with her, and she could laugh at the cruelty of men. But between outbursts he hardly seemed to know she was there.

  He’d said he was come to give her what she wanted, and he’d meant that he’d come to take her as his mistress. She was no unlicked puppy. She knew what he meant. There might have been a time, a wonderful time, when to join with him would have crowned her life. No more. Now he would only take her in anger.

  He was devilish handsome in his white linen, the red lights in his wild dark hair glinting, a growth of dark red beard upon his cheeks and jaw.

  And he had such substance.

  And he had such a familiarity for her.

  She needed his strength, to feel his arms around her so tight they squeezed out her breath.

  There was no goin
g back. Her position here was untenable but she could make a success of her work for him, and . . . and she could learn to ignore the sly looks of the servants, and the pity of his family. No doubt that pity would turn to contempt as time went by, but there was no choice.

  Max’s eyes had closed, and he’d left the flask upon his belly. His hands were relaxed, and the tension had seeped from his face. He slept.

  Kirsty eased herself from her chair and slipped into the bedroom. There she took out her best nightgown, a poor enough thing of white cotton. Her mother had embroidered tiny roses around the neck. Lengths of the same fabric had been fashioned into ties there, above an opening to make the neck large enough to go over her head. The garment was voluminous, with many little tucks where the body of it joined a plain yoke. The only richness was in the narrow lace at the edge of the yoke and around the cuffs. That lace had come from the bottom of a chest her mother kept by her bed—the bed she shared with her husband.

  The heavy dress Kirsty wore wasn’t easily removed, but she accomplished the task and stripped to the skin, then pulled on the nightgown. Before the mirror, she undid her braids and brushed her hair until it sprang out around her shoulders in shiny waves. Her face was pale, but she wasn’t practiced in the art of paint and didn’t think she ever would be.

  Her feet were bare. She possessed none of the soft little house shoes of the rich.

  She looked at the bed. If she went there, he might simply sleep until morning, then leave when he awoke with the headache he was bound to have.

  But she needed him. He was all she had and her love of him had only grown. Her desolation cried out for his comfort. Perhaps she could persuade him to lie in her bed again as he had before. To sleep until morning when she would tend him until he felt well enough to tend himself.

  With dread in her heart, and in her belly, she went quietly back into the sitting room.

  Max wasn’t asleep anymore.

  Kirsty hesitated and almost turned back. She’d not be a ninny. “May I help you?” she asked. “Ye’re troubled, and ye need your rest.”

  Idly, he waggled the flask to and fro. He set his head on one side and regarded her from head to toe until she burned all over.

  She could entice him.

  The thought made her weak. There had been opportunities to observe how females went about such things, but she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t appear foolish if she copied them.

  She smiled and approached him until she stood, almost touching his knee. And she extended a hand. “Come, let me lead ye. Ye can get out of those clothes and lie down. I’ve clean water and soap. I’ll wash ye if ye like. Ye’ll sleep like a babe soon enough.”

  His brows rose. “Why, Kirsty, I didn’t know you had the seductress in you. Even in your little-girl gown and bare feet.” He jerked forward and raised her gown far enough to reveal her ankles and feet. “Very nice bare feet, too.”

  She couldn’t move.

  He raised the gown a few more inches. “And beautiful limbs. Strong. Just what we need when you wrap them around me.”

  Flustered, she clamped her hands on her thighs lest he decided to explore much farther.

  He laughed at that and dropped the gown in favor of taking another drink. When he was done he rested his head back and studied her. “You’ve beautiful hair, Kirsty Mercer. And the face of an angel. All blond innocence.”

  “I’m no’ so innocent.”

  That seemed to fuel his humor even more. He laughed aloud, and drank again, then looked at the flask in disgust as he must have found it empty. He tossed it aside.

  “It’s been a terrible day,” she said. “A day of revelations and losses.”

  “You might say that. And I, so my father says, will marry the Rashly woman and like it. He tells me I am an ungrateful cub who has behaved irresponsibly. Now I am to cover for that irresponsibility.” She saw his eyes close and open slowly. He appeared momentarily confused. “Irresponsibility, that’s what I was talking about. He tells me I am to fulfil my duties to you because it is my fault that you are in such a predicament. Those responsibilities apparently mean that I must be exceptionally rigorous in my training of you for the job in which you will be seen publicly.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you, Little Miss Goldenhair? I doubt it.”

  “I am more than capable of being your right hand in business matters.”

  “I believe you are. And in the other? Do you think you can help me to train you as a fine, discreet mistress?”

  She thought she must be suffering punishment for some indiscretion she’d forgotten. “I’ll do my best.”

  “You will, will you?” He smiled, and shot out a hand to take her by the arm and place her before the fire. The smile faded instantly. “Light and shadow. Such beautiful light and shadow.”

  He did want her. He would be glad to hold her, and he’d hold her through this dreadful night and chase away the demons of desolation.

  She shook back her hair. “Should you like to lie with me?”

  His silence was terrible. He looked at her face, and she felt as if he could see inside her head. “Why would I want to do that, Kirsty? Perhaps you should make me want to.”

  Was it the thing the dowager had taught her that he asked for? She didn’t think she could do that again, not just yet.

  Max liked her body. She’d seen it in his eyes, felt it when he’d touched her. Her breasts tingled now at the thought of his touching them again. And the place between her legs . . .

  Crossing her arms in front of her, she grasped handfuls of the modest gown and pulled it over her head until she stood, naked, before him. With as much nonchalance as she could accomplish, she tossed the gown aside and settled her weight on one leg.

  The look in his eyes turned hot.

  Kirsty put her hands on her hips and took a deep breath, thrusting her breasts high. Her hair parted at her shoulders, and some of it slid forward again, but she left it where it settled, some of it all but covering one of her breasts.

  “Will ye come wi’ me, Max?” she said, extending a hand. “Will ye let me take ye to my bed and comfort ye?”

  He leaned forward and took her hand, but when she made to pull him to his feet, he drew her between his knees instead. All expression left his face—except for his eyes, and she could not tell what he was thinking.

  With his hands spanning her waist, he pressed his face against her belly. She felt his mouth open, and the dampness of his tongue in her navel. Slowly he slid his hands downward and inward. He parted her already moist folds with his thumbs and darted his tongue between.

  Horror weakened her knees. Horror, and pleasure—and shame.

  She held his shoulders but he released her long enough to knock her hands away before returning to his task. Back and forth his tongue moved.

  “No, Max. No, please. Not like this.”

  He continued, speeding the strokes. When he paused for breath, he looked up at her and reached to pinch her nipples, to cover her breasts, to pull on them as if they were fruit to be picked from a tree. With a hand behind her neck he drew her down until he could suck each nipple, and play the end of his tongue over it.

  She grabbed for his shoulders again. Again he shrugged her off.

  Such sweetly exquisite sensations, but made tawdry because he was only causing them to put her in her place, to remind her that he could control her at his will—and control himself.

  “Please, Max,” she breathed. “I need the comfort o’ ye.”

  He let a nipple pop loudly from his mouth. “And this is not comfort?”

  “I need to feel ye, really feel ye with me.”

  “Ah. Forgive me. I was diverted for a moment.” He sank to his knees and returned at once to pleasuring her most private place, but he kept his hands on her breasts, squeezing and pinching. His breath came in gusts.

  Tension mounted for Kirsty.

  He moved suddenly, and she would have fallen if he hadn’t caught her. She clutched for a hold an
d found his thick hair while he hooked her knees over his shoulders, held her bottom, and buried his face deeply.

  She was open to him, and helpless to resist. His was not love play, but domination. He was making certain she knew he could do as he wished with her.

  A dart of sensation drove into her. It drove, and spread, and grew hotter and hotter. Her hips rose and fell of their own volition, and her body forced itself ever closer to him.

  He drove her to the edge and it all broke wide, like ripples in the water when a stone has fallen. She cried out.

  He set her on her feet so abruptly she flung out her arms for balance.

  Max laughed, but she was helpless to do anything but sink to her knees before him. And for seconds the sensations washed over her, making her jerk, jerk and throw her head back.

  The uncontrolled magnificence of it weakened, faded away, but not Max’s laughter.

  Bathed in sweat and pulsing from deep within, she opened her eyes to find him standing in front of her.

  “You are passionate,” he told her. “Passionate and a willing pupil. Quite a combination.”

  “Please hold me,” she asked.

  He looked down into her face, but didn’t answer. His cool assessment of her brought deep humiliation.

  “Max,” she said, “will you come to my bed and lie with me?”

  “My little mistress,” he said, stepping away from her. “Ready to perform her duties.”

  “Max. Please.”

  “Well,” he said, catching up his coat, retrieving his boots and going to the door, “it’s pleasant to know you’ll be here when I want you. But not tonight, thank you.”

  And he left her.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  “This household is beyond all,” the dowager said. “I have summoned you two men because I need, no, I demand your support. I simply cannot tolerate another interview such as the one I had with that other strumpet unless I have your presence from the outset.”

  “Hush, now,” Blanche Bastible said, fussing around the old lady. “You are not to upset yourself like this. I’ve told you that I will be more than glad to dispose of—what was the name given for this one?”