One Wicked Wish by Anna Campbell

Chapter 1

Comerford House, Lorimer Square, Mayfair, London, April 1816

As she slipped through the dark garden, Stella Faulkner pulled her paisley shawl tighter around her shoulders. Like most of her clothes, including the teal gown she wore, the shawl was a hand-me-down from her cousin, Lady Imogen Ridley.

Tonight she didn’t much care that the shawl’s pattern made her complexion look like mud, she was just grateful for the warmth. The calendar might say it was spring. The temperature proclaimed that winter lingered past its welcome.

If her cousin was so determined to rush headlong to ruin, why the deuce couldn’t she pick a warmer night to do it in? However cold it was, Stella had to stop her. It was her duty as a chaperone, not to mention that she had a sincere fondness for Imogen. She was worried sick about the mess the girl was getting into.

Music and the rise and fall of talk and laughter drifted from the house behind her. Lord and Lady Lumsden hosted one of the balls of the season, so the place was packed with London’s great and good.

Not long ago, Stella had been on the edge of that glittering crowd, although nobody in their right mind would call her great. And if anyone knew of her past, they’d struggle to think of her as good either.

All the mansions lining Lorimer Square were blessed with large gardens. More in optimism than expectation, Lady Lumsden had placed torches along the paths, in case her guests wished to take the air. The garden remained unfrequented because the air, sadly, was freezing.

Stella shivered again and pulled the shawl even closer. If her cousin was indeed outside, she’d be turning blue to match her fashionable silk ball gown. If the little minx must elope in April, why the devil didn’t she have the nous to elope by daylight and wearing suitable clothes?

Although a daring moonlit flit from a ball would appeal to the girl, Stella supposed. Most harebrained romantic schemes did, plague take the silly chit.

In this distant corner of the garden, torches were fewer and farther between. Stella’s vision had adjusted to the dimness, and the full moon helped. Ahead loomed a dark construction that could only be the gazebo she sought. She marched up to it, climbed the half-dozen wooden steps and set foot inside, expecting to surprise the two lovers clasped in each other’s arms.

To her dismay, the building was empty.

Tiny flickering lamps in the ancient Roman style lit the small wooden summerhouse. But the glow from the niches didn’t reach very far. Stella assumed that was the point. Never in her life had she seen a place more designed for assignation. There was even a brazier filled with hot coals in the middle of the floor, so any adventurous lovers didn’t get frostbite.

So where was Imogen? Was Stella too late to stop her from making a terrible mistake? Surely not. It was only a few minutes since she’d seen her cousin disappear from the ballroom, and the letter Stella had discovered on the girl’s dressing table asked her beau to meet her at the gazebo in the Lumsdens’ garden at eleven.

All day, Stella had tried to get her cousin on her own so she could talk some sense into her. But Imogen had proven elusive, spending the afternoon with her friend Lily Bilson and arriving at the ball with the Bilsons’ party.

In the grip of rising apprehension, Stella glanced around the building. What in blazes could she do now?

She supposed if her cousin had already run off, she must tell her uncle, but if she did, the fat would well and truly hit the fire. Was there any chance that Imogen was yet to arrive? Was it worth waiting? Stella would much rather convince the girl in private that running away with a rake was unwise than report her to her surly father.

Her cousin was clever, if inclined to follow her impulses and rue her rashness later. But if one caught her in time, she’d listen to good advice. Sometimes.

Or was Imogen already on her way to Gretna? In that case, perhaps Stella should go back inside and find Imogen’s brother Eliot. He might have some idea how to quash a scandal, and he was renowned for his even temper.

At least Eliot wouldn’t tear strips off Stella for failing in her duties. He knew his sister was no saint. Whereas her father had far too rosy a picture of his daughter’s docility.

Extending her gloved hands over the brazier and breathing in its scented smoke, Stella struggled to decide whether to betray her cousin or look for her somewhere else. With every second, telling her uncle became the obvious choice.

Then someone would have to chase after Imogen, which meant endless ructions and her cousin’s reputation in tatters. Not to mention Stella hauled over the coals because she’d allowed this to happen.

“You’re not who I expected to see,” a drawling baritone said from the shadows. “At least at first.”

Stella started and backed up a few steps on shaky legs. Her eyes darted around the dark space.

A point of red flared from the window seat beneath one of the latticed windows. Whoever shared the space was smoking a cheroot. If the brazier hadn’t been filled with perfumed pastilles, she’d have smelled the tobacco.

“Show yourself,” she said sharply, although a queasy feeling in her stomach told her she knew who this was.

A long-suffering sigh was the response. She had no difficulty in picturing the superior expression on his high-bred face.

A black shape unfolded from the seat and rose with a languid ease that was an insult in itself. Stella could make out enough of the man now to confirm that she was right about his identity.

So she felt no surprise when he stepped into the light. Or what light there was, which wasn’t much. “Lord Halston.”

Her perfunctory curtsy made his long, expressive mouth curl in sardonic appreciation. “Very polite.”

“I’ve been taught to respect my betters,” she said grimly, and knew that neither of them would describe him in those terms.

The earl was tall and lean, and his every movement expressed lazy grace. He was dressed in black, although his white shirt and neckcloth created pale patches in the gloom.

In this light, his saturnine face was all angles and hollows. But she didn’t need illumination to recall those sculpted features and the hooded green eyes that seemed to notice everything. After two weeks of observing him across crowded ballrooms, she was well aware that his indolent air was deceptive.

“I’m waiting for your fair cousin.”

Stella was so flustered to find herself alone with Lord Halston that only now did the true significance of his solitude strike her. She released a gasp of relief. Imogen hadn’t turned up for the rendezvous. “I’m looking for her.”

“If you find her, pray tell her that it’s bad form to invite a gentleman to a tryst, then fail to appear.”

Imogen must have come to her senses before she did anything silly. Thank God. “A pity that she disappointed you,” Stella said with a hint of irony.

As he fixed that unreadable gaze on her, the hand holding the cheroot made a dismissive gesture. A black silk sling supported his left arm. For the last few weeks, London had buzzed with tattle about Halston’s latest mistress shooting him after he handed out her marching orders.

“I wouldn’t exactly say I’m disappointed. I’m sure you can amuse me perfectly well in your cousin’s place. In fact, I might even say I’m delighted with how events have turned out.”

Just like that, threat bristled in the air. Nerves pinged in Stella’s midriff, as she drew herself up to her full height and glared at him. She was a tall woman, but to her regret, she didn’t measure up to Lord Halston who was well over six feet.

“I doubt it, my lord.” Her voice was almost as cold as the air. “How will your reputation as a rake survive, if people find out that you wasted your masculine wiles on me? There’s not much cachet in flirting with a middle-aged governess of no attractions and no distinction.”

“How wrong you are. Anyway I’m amused already.” His low chuckle sent another wave of unease washing through her. This shiver had nothing to do with the perishing cold. “But I’m touched to discover that you have my welfare at heart.”

He stopped as if expecting a reply, but wisdom kept her silent. She needed to bring this discussion to an end, but not just yet. First, she had to discover how far things had progressed between Halston and her cousin.

When she didn’t speak, he went on. “Nor would I precisely say that flirtation is my goal.” He paused again, which gave her time to worry about what he meant. “Or not flirtation for its own sake, at any rate.”

“You wanted to seduce my cousin?”

“Not at all. I want to seduce you.”

Dear God, that was unexpected. Every hair on her skin lifted, and fear coiled in her stomach. Fear, and a reluctant fascination. Because she’d noticed him and wanted him, however out of reach he was. He was so dark and dangerous and forbidden. How could she resist?

Through her astonishment, she realized that he couldn’t mean it, so she returned a light answer. “It’s too cold to contemplate sin.”

“It’s never too cold to contemplate sin. Although I didn’t mean that I planned to jump on you this minute.”

“Well, that’s a mercy.”

Her dry tone made him laugh. “Not to mention that these wooden seats would be damned hard on the knees.”

He was incorrigible. She didn’t for a moment believe that Halston had any serious designs on her virtue, although some imp inside her enjoyed the back and forth between them. “I’m not worthy of your attention, my lord.”

“But then you’re not seeing with my eyes,” he responded with a smoothness that stirred her disquiet. She knew this was a game, but he sounded like he meant what he said.

Lord Halston raised the cheroot, drew on it one last time, then dropped it to the marble floor. As he extinguished the stub with one elegant foot, Stella studied him. Was he so lost to morality that in her cousin’s absence, any female would do instead? Even a lowly governess?

She decided that must be the case. If only that knowledge made her despise him, but she was no angel herself. The shameful truth was that she’d noticed Lord Halston’s louche attractions from the moment she saw him at her first London ball.

How could she not? He prowled through the ton like Satan seeking congenial company to drag down to hell with him. Those sensual features promised endless pleasure to the lucky woman he chose to steal away.

Nonetheless Stella was no fool. She knew which side her bread was buttered on. A dalliance with Lord Halston, however appealing, was a diversion she couldn’t afford.

To her regret.

“Yet you came out here to meet my cousin. I didn’t even know you were acquainted with her.”

One of the greatest shocks in finding that letter was learning that Imogen had linked up with this reprobate. Stella had never seen them dance together. She’d never even seen them speak.

In general, Halston didn’t seem interested in debutantes. Stella recognized Imogen’s many qualities, but something inside her insisted that an innocent like her cousin wasn’t Halston’s usual quarry.

Although perhaps, given the interest he expressed in Stella, he wasn’t as discriminating as she’d assumed. She didn’t know him beyond what she’d seen. She’d never spoken to him before.

Almost every night since she’d arrived in London, Stella had attended a ball, but not as a guest seeking an evening’s pleasure. She’d been relegated to sit against the wall and observe the gaiety. Such was the role of a companion.

She reminded herself once more that Halston could be nothing to her, other than a face to fit to her overheated fantasies when she lay in bed at night. In his presence, memories of those sultry dreams made her stomach pitch with secret embarrassment.

Which still didn’t explain when he and Imogen had cooked up an elopement.

“I don’t know your cousin,” he said calmly. He stopped as if he considered further. “I mean, I know who she is. She’s pretty and an heiress and accounted one of the catches of the season. But we’ve never been introduced.”

For pity’s sake, what was going on? None of this made sense. And in the meantime, Stella turned into an icicle. She shifted closer to the brazier, even if that meant shifting closer to the libertine lord. “So what are you doing here?”

“She wrote me a note, asking me to meet her in the gazebo in the Lumsdens’ garden at eleven.”

“And you came? Are you hoping to get your hands on her fortune? I imagine your habits are expensive.”

“You don’t pull your punches, do you?” To her surprise, that sounded like praise.

Stella stamped down a traitorous spurt of pleasure. “I hadn’t heard of you being in Queer Street.”

He gave a short laugh. “To Hades with you, this is none of your damned business, but as they stand, the Maddox coffers are adequate to my needs.”

She was glad that in this light, he wouldn’t see her chagrin. He was right. It was the height of bad manners to discuss a man’s financial affairs. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not.”

No, she wasn’t. Not really.

Stella frowned and spoke before she recalled that she was a staid poor relation and not this man’s social equal. “If Imogen’s a complete stranger, why in the name of all that’s holy are you planning to elope with her?”

“Elope?” He’d come close enough to the brazier for her to make out his expression. For the first time, genuine surprise wiped the mocking amusement from his face. “Why in hell would I elope with your cousin?”

It seemed that Imogen had been busy with more than just her correspondence. At last, Stella understood what happened here. She should have twigged that some scheme was afoot when she found that indiscreet, unfinished letter to Halston left out in the open.

She cursed herself for not being awake to her cousin’s antics. Most of the time she was. But the mention of Lord Halston had turned her usually reliable brain to porridge. Much as his presence now threatened to do.

Her cousin hated London and wanted to go home. Not only that, but her father had already chosen a suitable suitor in John Jerrold, Baron Chippenham. A power broker in parliament with prosperous estates in Cheshire. From the first, Imogen had made it clear that she didn’t share her father’s preference for the stout, self-important lord.

Stella could almost admire the girl’s ingenuity in trying to spoil her father’s plans, even if her ill-conceived plot had landed her chaperone in Halston’s disreputable company. “You and I are victims of my cousin’s scheming, my lord.”

One dark eyebrow tilted in enquiry. “Oh?”

“I believe I was meant to catch the two of you alone together and report the indiscretion to Lord Deerforth.”

“With what purpose?” Halston frowned. “I’m too downy to let some presumptuous miss gull me. I’ve weathered plenty of scandals. I can weather another one. If she relied on me to propose to save her reputation, she relied in vain.”

“I very much doubt that she expected you to propose. It’s your dreadful reputation that made her settle on you.”

Another grunt of laughter escaped him. “By all means, don’t spare my feelings.”

Stella didn’t bother apologizing. Her manners or lack of them didn’t matter at this stage. “She wants her father to send her back to Hamble Park in disgrace. She’s been begging to leave London since she arrived.”

Amusement creased his cheek. “She’s an unusual debutante, then.”

“She is. And clever, if at times impulsive.” She might have plumbed the reasons behind Imogen’s behavior. But the puzzle remained of what Lord Halston was doing out here alone in the cold. “Why on earth did you agree to meet her?”

This time, his chuckle held a rueful note that she couldn’t help but like. “Perhaps because I hoped that if I drew the ewe lamb aside from the herd, the sheepdog might follow.”

“The sheepdog?”

“You’re not that slow, my dear Miss Faulkner. I’ve already told you that I want to seduce you.”

He had, hadn’t he? And she’d dismissed his statement as purely opportunistic. Imogen wasn’t here. She was. But now his intentions toward her sounded much more calculated. And to her alarm, they sounded like they predated this meeting in a freezing gazebo. “Me?”

“Yes, you.”

Something vague that had worried her earlier suddenly clarified in her mind. “You know my name.”

“Of course I know your name.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, backing away and wrapping her arms around herself. Against the cold, and against the stirring awareness that if she’d noticed Lord Halston, Lord Halston had also noticed her. It was frightening. It was unacceptable. It was gratifying.

She couldn’t let it be gratifying.

He shrugged. “It’s quite simple. One lady in your family has escaped ruin in my company. I’m hoping you’ll offer yourself up in your cousin’s place.”

Shock had her regarding him wide-eyed. “You…you’ve never given any sign that you noticed me.”

He shrugged. “My attention would single you out, and that would only result in your banishment from London’s ballrooms.”

One shaking hand rose to her throat where her pulse pounded like a drum. “I can see that you’ve devoted some thought to this.” Her voice hardened. “But I’m still not sure why you’d be interested.”

“In a middle-aged spinster of no distinction?”

Stella wasn’t insulted. After all, she worked very hard to be unobtrusive. “As you say.”

“Except a diamond remains a diamond, even when it’s hidden at the bottom of a dark hole.”

“A diamond?”

He smiled. “Chasing compliments, Miss Faulkner?”

“No, I’m doubting your sanity, my lord.”

“How old are you?” Through the gloom, she felt his gaze focus on her. “Thirty?”

“Twenty-nine,” she said shortly. It was lunatic to mind that his guess added a year to her age.

“Still a few years away from middle-aged.”

“On the shelf, though.”

“Only because that’s where you place yourself.”

“I have no fortune. I have to make my way as best I can.”

“As a paid companion?”

“If I must.” Although her uncle never paid her in actual money.

“Which means wearing drab clothes and torturing your lovely hair and biting your tongue.”

She was surprised – appalled – at how much Lord Halston had noted without her registering his curiosity. Over the years, she’d learned to identify and discourage unwelcome male interest. Yet she’d have wagered every penny of her paltry savings that Lord Halston didn’t know she was alive.

Now the question was whether the male interest was indeed unwelcome.

There was an illicit thrill in bandying words with this clever devil, just as there was an illicit thrill in eating him up with her eyes without fearing censure. “I haven’t bitten my tongue with you.”

“I’m sure that’s been a relief.”

It had, plague take him. She’d always been aware of his surpassing physical appeal, but this strange freedom she felt in his presence was even more disastrous to good intentions. She had to keep reminding herself that they’d never met before. This felt too much as if she picked up an engrossing conversation that had gone on for years.

Stella straightened. Despite the danger – or perhaps even because of it – she’d enjoyed these last few minutes with Lord Halston more than she’d enjoyed anything in years. Which was a signal to bring the meeting to a close. All that could happen now was that she’d start to yearn for what she could never have.

She’d had quite enough of that, thank you.

He might talk about seducing her, but it was never going to happen. If she was wise – and to her regret, she had to be – this was the last time she’d even speak to Lord Halston alone.

Her arms lowered to her sides, and she curled her toes to restore the circulation to her feet. While she wasn’t wearing flimsy dancing slippers, her shoes weren’t thick enough to keep out the cold. “My lord, all of this has been intriguing and rather flattering, but I must find my cousin.”

Lord Halston was a diversion. Right now, she needed to find Imogen and give her a blistering lecture. Although the question remained that if the girl wasn’t here risking her reputation in Lord Halston’s company, where was she?

A wry smile curled his lips. His humor was too cursed appealing. The man she’d fantasized about in the privacy of her bedroom had been a cardboard cutout lover. The real Grayson Maddox, Earl of Halston, was considerably more interesting. Which only undermined her hard-won acceptance of her humble status and the dreary years to come.

“For shame, Miss Faulkner, you’re running away. I thought you were made of stouter stuff.”

Stella didn’t smile. She knew enough to understand that sharing jokes was the first step on the road to ruin. And while her uncle’s house mightn’t be heaven, it was at least a roof over her head. “Then you mistake me, sir. I’m too dull to hold your interest.”

She was still astounded that he’d noticed her at all. His taste ran to pretty opera dancers and racy society widows. Even when she was younger and wilder, she hadn’t been in his style.

How it irked that she’d paid him enough attention to pinpoint what sort of woman he liked to bed.

Her interest in this notorious rake had been difficult enough to curb when he remained a stranger. Now she knew that against all the odds, he was curious about her, too.

Trying not to think about Lord Halston promised to take over her life.

He made another dismissive gesture. “We’ve already put paid to that ridiculous statement.” Before she could argue, he went on. “When can I see you again? I realize that if you stay out here too long, people will remark on it, and there’s always the chance that we may be discovered.”

The unflattering truth was that he probably feared that anyone who found them together would question his taste. As a rule, he didn’t waste his time on unimpressive creatures like her. “I assume we’ll attend the same balls. Imogen seems to be invited to all the parties this season.”

That brought on another grunt of amusement. “I don’t mean when will I see you sitting against the wall with all the old tabbies.”

Stella knew that he hadn’t meant that, but it was time to bring this disturbing conversation to an end. Already every reckless cell in her body yearned toward him. Once before when she’d followed her wayward impulses, she’d barely escaped disaster. Never again.

“Then I fear this delightful encounter is to be our lot, my lord.”

Although her tone was ironic, the sad fact was that the encounter had been delightful, even if unnerving. For the first time in years, she felt alive. She’d forgotten how her blood sang when she played flirtatious games with a good-looking man. Tolerating her role as Imogen’s sedate companion would be harder than ever now.

Damn Lord Halston and his perfect profile and his powerful shoulders and his commanding height. And his smile and his humor, and the way he seemed to understand her the way nobody else had in years.

Her denial didn’t chasten him. She didn’t expect that it would. “That would be a pity,” he said in a neutral tone.

“But inevitable.” It took far too much effort to turn away. Whatever magic this dissolute man possessed, it was powerful. And bewildering. Leaving him seemed wrong, yet what was wrong was remaining in his presence. “I bid you good night.”

He didn’t move to stop her. “Good night, but not goodbye.”

Her stupid heart leaped around like a drunken grasshopper, and she did her best to quell the excitement bubbling in her veins. Excitement was poison. Lord Halston was poison.

It was almost impossible to resist such a man. But resist she must. “You’re doomed to disappointment, sir. There can be nothing more between us than a brief conversation in the moonlight.”

He stepped past the brazier. He was within touching distance, although he didn’t touch her. “You sound very certain.”

Stella turned back for a few forbidden seconds, imagining how it would feel if he swept her up against that hard-muscled body and kissed her. Did more than kiss her.

It had been so long since a man had touched her in passion.

She pushed the image away and when she spoke, her voice rang with sincerity. “I am certain. I beg you as a gentleman to abandon any thought of pursuing me.”

His lips stretched in one of those devilish smiles that made her stomach clench in wanton longing. He might be wicked, but by heaven, he was beautiful, too.

All the urges that Stella had spent ten years ignoring and deriding and crushing howled in protest. Common sense demanded that she run, that she should have run the moment she realized that Imogen wasn’t about to elope with this handsome libertine. Yet every feminine instinct insisted that she stay to find out whether Grayson Maddox could make her shake with pleasure.

With the moon shining full on his face, his speculative expression was clear. “Whoever told you that I was a gentleman was a damned liar.”

“And don’t you sound so proud of that?” Her tone was flat.

He shrugged. “I take what I want. I suspect that’s one of the things you like about me. You don’t strike me as a woman who wants a man to fuss and hesitate and play propriety, my dear Miss Faulkner.”

Lord above, how could this man read her secret soul? Several times during this astonishing exchange, she’d been afraid. And intrigued and amused and attracted.

But hearing him speak to her hidden desires turned her blood to ice. If he’d paid that level of attention, no appeal to convenience or manners, let alone a spurious claim to indifference, would put him off.

Against every dictate of self-preservation, Stella was interested. However heartily she might wish she wasn’t.

One unsteady hand lifted to clutch the shawl tight to her throat. Through stiff lips, she responded. “I’m not your dear Miss Faulkner, sir. I’m a woman of no fortune, with nothing to smooth my way in the world but my good reputation. If you deprive me of that, you destroy me. It’s unworthy to pester a penniless lady who has so much to lose.”

She tried to shame him into retreat. But when those clever eyes subjected her to a thorough inspection, she felt as if he ran his elegant hands over her naked body. This time, her shiver was more desire than dread. Halston, so experienced with her sex, would know that, curse him.

“It’s a damned pity that a magnificent creature like you has to play nursemaid to a spoiled child like Imogen Ridley and pretend respect to a puffed-up jackanapes like Deerforth.”

Magnificent? How utterly ridiculous. She was nothing of the kind.

“Imogen isn’t spoiled,” Stella retorted, knowing that Halston would note that she didn’t defend her uncle. “If anything, she’s too good-hearted.”

The earl’s striking face was only part of his charm. He possessed a sharp mind, too. Too sharp for her liking. Like now when he observed her with a perceptiveness that made her shift from one icy foot to the other. “And you have a loyal heart.”

She shrugged. “My cousin is easy to like.”

Except at this moment, she wanted to strangle the little cat for getting her into this situation. The girl’s scheme might yet cause a scandal that would ruin her in the world’s eyes and see Stella tossed out onto the streets.

“Most women in your position would be jealous of her good fortune and resentful of her privileges. After all, you’re as wellborn as she is, yet you have to take her orders and serve her fancies.”

Stella’s mouth opened in amazement. He really had found out a lot about her. She struggled to respond. “Most women in my position are grateful to have a home and three meals a day. You have an unrealistic picture of the choices available to a poor gentlewoman. Blue blood doesn’t fill an empty stomach.”

“You speak as if your life is over.”

“I have my entertainments.” She shot him a pointed glance. “Although I’ll wager they wouldn’t impress a sophisticate like you.”

He didn’t react to the sting in her comment. Instead, he countered her direct glance with a direct glance of his own. “I find myself contemplating entertainments, too. Of a variety that would entertain us both.”

The word “entertain” in that lazy drawl made her skin prickle with sensual curiosity. “I doubt you mean entertainments…” She added bitter emphasis to the word. “…that befit a virtuous spinster, my lord.”

He arched expressive black brows. “You understand what I mean.”

She did indeed. She was no naïve miss, convinced that a man’s interest meant poetry and flowers and a chaste kiss in the rose garden.

He hitched one hip higher than the other in a casual stance that told her he wasn’t serious about any of this. Why would he be? Stella was well beneath his notice. This was a connoisseur of fashionable beauty. The present taste favored pretty little blondes with sweet expressions. Stella had always been slender and tall, and possessed of features that people praised for their character, rather than their winsomeness.

Which meant his lordship’s interest in her couldn’t be real. He was just playing cruel games. What a fool she was to read anything more into their conversation.

She sucked in a relieved breath. Lord Halston was just passing the time because Imogen had let him down. He might speak nonsense about wanting to engineer a meeting with Stella, but Halston would no doubt be just as happy to flirt with Imogen as with Stella.

“You can’t help yourself, can you?” she said in a considering tone.

She’d startled him. He stopped looking like Lucifer contemplating the potential of hell’s latest recruits. “Can’t help myself from wanting you?”

Stella shook her head, on firmer ground with every second. “No, from attempting to gain the interest of any woman you meet. My cousin isn’t here, so at a pinch, her plain companion will do. Even though she’s not up to your usual standard.”

His laugh was low and knowing. “I have a dreadful suspicion that I’m the one who doesn’t meet your standards, Miss Faulkner. In every way except the worldliest, you’re a superior person to my sinful self.”

If only he knew the truth. “You don’t mean that.”

This was a man at ease with himself. If he’d sinned – and he most definitely had – he wasn’t eaten up with remorse about his misdeeds. “Don’t I?”

“I must find my cousin, my lord.” She stepped back, determined to go, if only because the lure of staying was so strong. “If she’s not here, she could have come to grief on her way to this rendezvous.”

His audible exhalation expressed contempt for that remark. “I doubt it. This is a very respectable corner of London. Lorimer Square isn’t exactly Seven Dials.”

“There are dangerous men everywhere. It doesn’t matter whether they’re wearing rags or evening dress.”

He bent his head as if she made a point against him. She did. She couldn’t imagine him forcing himself on her cousin. He wouldn’t have to. One glance from those heavy-lidded eyes would make any woman melt.

“It’s been an enchanting interlude.” He straightened. “I look forward to furthering our acquaintance.”

“I’m sure,” she said with a hint of sarcasm.

“You don’t believe me?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Ah.”

On the verge of leaving, she couldn’t resist questioning his strange response. “What does that mean?”

“That means now I understand why you stopped looking like a frightened sheep.”

She gave a short laugh, much as she resented the sheep comparison. “You’ve got better targets than a shabby governess from the provinces. I spoke of my reputation. But what of yours? Gossip says that only diamonds of the first water catch your eye. I’m beneath your touch.”

“You will be beneath my touch, my appealing and far too certain of herself Miss Faulkner. You’ll be beneath me before I’m done.”

Her brief rush of confidence fizzled away to nothing. The cold that overwhelmed her had nothing to do with the wintry air.

She had no idea why, but London’s greatest rake had set his sights on lanky, undistinguished Stella Faulkner. His tone told her that he didn’t like the way she dismissed his blandishments. More than that, his answer vibrated with a sincerity she couldn’t mistake.

Although how she wished she could.

Her knees turned to water and those grasshoppers in her stomach grew into elephants, as she realized that she was in genuine danger out here alone with Lord Halston. If only because what he offered her was so infernally tempting.

This time when she spoke, nerves made her voice quaver. “I must go.”

Without waiting for a response, Stella made her unsteady way down the steps. Then abandoning dignity, she picked up her skirts and sprinted along the dark path until the French doors leading to the ballroom appeared in front of her.