One Wicked Wish by Anna Campbell
Chapter 19
A week later, Stella remained raw after that grueling encounter with Gray. She’d feared Imogen might make a fuss about her early departure from the Tierney ball, but the girl had been uncharacteristically reticent. And much less demanding than usual. She’d even taken to knocking and waiting for permission before she came into Stella’s room.
Given that since she’d made a final break with her devilish lover, even the act of breathing hurt, Stella was grateful. The signs of maturity she’d noticed in her cousin when they visited Prestwick Place were still in evidence.
Today, they were in the drawing room, spending a rare afternoon at home. There was another ball tonight. Stella’s appetite for the season’s entertainments, never robust, had waned even further since her return to London. Warmer weather meant late nights in a close, noisy atmosphere until she felt like screaming. Today, like most days, she battled a headache.
And weeks of hectic social activity extended ahead.
At least she was spared one ordeal. Since that fraught scene in the Tierneys’ small salon, she hadn’t seen Gray. She waited in agony to learn that he’d set up with a new mistress. But for once, the notorious Lord Halston did nothing to stir up talk. He remained in London, she gathered, but beyond that, she heard no news of him.
Speculation was rife on whether Halston’s house party heralded a proposal to one of the young ladies he’d invited. But as he was yet to make his choice, if any, known, and his disappearance from ton festivities deprived curious eyes of further information, nobody had anything fresh to report.
The problem was that Gray’s absence didn’t stop Stella thinking of him and missing him. And crying herself to sleep in the early hours, when at last she could shut the door on the world and stop pretending that nothing important had happened at Lord Halston’s beautiful country house.
Imogen shut the lid on the pianoforte that she’d been tinkering on without any great enthusiasm. She drifted across to join Stella who sat on the chaise longue with Lord Byron’s latest poem open in front of her. In reality, the words massed together into unreadability.
Stella had spent most of the last hour staring into space, wondering whether she should have cut off the chance of continuing her affair with Gray. She reached a point where she didn’t much care about her good name or the future. In return for one more kiss from the man she loved, she’d give up every claim to virtue.
“Good book?” Imogen asked.
Stella shrugged. Byron’s unhappy hero couldn’t hold her attention when she was so busy yearning after her own wicked lover. “I don’t know.”
Imogen’s blue eyes softened with compassion. “You miss Lord Halston.”
Stella turned away on the pretext of putting the book on the table. “Let’s not talk about it.” The last thing she needed was for her uncle to come in and find her bawling.
“I’m sorry you’re so sad,” Imogen said.
Stella gave her eyes a surreptitious wipe and faced her cousin with what she hoped was a brighter demeanor. “I’ll get over it.”
Imogen’s expression hinted that this attempt to make light of her misery failed. “Will you?”
She very much feared that she wouldn’t get over it. But surely time would blunt the worst of her unhappiness. It was a mere week since she’d seen Gray, a week before that that she’d shared her body with him for the last time. Give her a decade or two, and with a bit of luck, she’d be back to her old self.
Her gesture was apologetic. “I’m not much fun at the moment.”
Imogen didn’t smile. “You don’t have to be fun all the time.” She paused. “I’ve got something to talk to you about, but we’ve been so busy that I haven’t had the chance.”
Stella tried to summon some interest in what Imogen might say. Sorrow, she learned, was a supremely selfish emotion. Right now, it was a struggle to care about anything except her futile longing. Perhaps her cousin meant to confess her penchant for some young man.
“We’re alone today. For the rest of the week, you’re back to being the toast of the season.”
Imogen didn’t smile at that either. “I was talking to Eliot about you.”
Horror flooded Stella. With a strangled cry, she lurched to her feet. “I can’t believe you broke my confidence. I don’t want anyone to know about Gray. This is too bad, Imogen. I thought better of you. I really did.”
“Don’t be a henwit, Stella.” Imogen glanced at the closed door and lowered her voice. “As if I’d say anything about that.”
Stella sucked in a deep breath and tamped down her panic. The idea that she might suffer all this lonely anguish and still end up sparking a scandal was too much to endure. “I’m sorry. I’m on edge at the moment. Of course you didn’t tell Eliot.”
“Of course I didn’t. So sit down and let me finish, before you fly up into the boughs again. You are on edge.”
“At least your papa hasn’t noticed.” Feeling sheepish, Stella sank down beside Imogen. “I don’t think I could take one of his scolds right now.”
Imogen took Stella’s hand. “You must hate being beholden to him.”
“Your father has always been very good to me,” Stella said, cringing at how insincere she sounded.
“No, he hasn’t. He treats you like a servant, not like a niece. I’ve been thinking about your situation ever since the Lumsden ball.”
“Have you?” Stella was surprised. She’d known Imogen was preoccupied with something. She hadn’t imagined that it might be with her companion’s circumstances.
“Yes. I should have thought long before this. But at Hamble Park, you didn’t seem quite so oppressed. Or perhaps you were and I never noticed. Coming to London has made everything much clearer.”
Stella pressed her cousin’s hand. “You’re just getting older and wiser.”
Imogen released a puff of self-derisive laughter. “Not before time.”
“I told you I don’t mind serving you.”
“But you shouldn’t have to.”
“I have no choice.”
“That’s what I talked to Eliot about. And he agrees with me, or at least he does now that I’ve told him how Papa takes advantage of you.”
Stella bit back a sigh. “Are you about to offer me a home again?”
“That offer still stands. But you’d still be taking charity from a relative. And living at someone else’s behest.”
“Are you going to marry me off to some worthy gentleman?” Stella tried to lighten the discussion, but still Imogen didn’t smile.
“I would, if you weren’t head over heels in love with Lord Halston. You deserve a chance at a husband and children and a home of your own. If I hadn’t been so selfish, I’d have seen that long ago.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself.” Once perhaps Stella might have settled for a steady marriage that offered some small independence. Her uncle’s dismissal of those previous suitors still rankled. But how could she wed some respectable lawyer or merchant or military man when her heart lay forever elsewhere?
Imogen studied her face. Stella had the odd feeling that the girl saw more than she ever had before. “Grandpapa set aside a large dowry for your mother. She was quite an heiress.”
Stella’s lips turned down in wry acknowledgement. “Until she ran away with an artist and found herself disinherited.”
At last, Imogen smiled. “Well, Eliot and I are going to un-disinherit you. It turns out he’d already decided to settle some money on you if you married. Because I’ve explained your situation, he’s going to give it to you now.”
Stella’s stomach lurched. An independent income? A chance to break free and decide her own future? Was it possible? “It’s more charity.”
Imogen’s delicate jaw set with the stubbornness that Stella knew so well. “We knew you’d say that, but it’s not charity. It’s a restitution of your rights.”
“Your father won’t like it.”
“No, he won’t. But even if he cuts off Eliot’s allowance, Eliot inherited a fortune from his godmother. He could set you up a hundred times without noting the lack.”
It was true. Without factoring in the riches that came with the Deerforth title, Eliot was plump in the pocket.
“That’s…that’s very kind of him.”
“Once I’m twenty-five and I come into my portion of Godmamma’s money, I’ll pay my share, too.”
Her cousins’ generosity staggered her. Stella blinked as she strove to imagine an existence where she chose where she went and what she did. Perhaps she could buy a cottage in the country. Or at the seaside. Perhaps she could go back to Italy. Or visit France. Ever since coming to England, she’d missed the Continent.
“It’s too much to take in.”
Imogen shot her a narrow-eyed look. “Don’t go all proud and self-sacrificing and say you won’t take it. Eliot and I both want to do this – and I owe you so much. I know Papa bullies you and I haven’t always been the most considerate of cousins, but I think of you as a sister. While I have a say in her future, my sister shall never be a pauper.”
Stella blinked away tears. She’d cried so much over the last fortnight that her eyes stung. But this time, she cried because Imogen and Eliot’s gift moved her so deeply.
“You know,” she said in a raspy voice, “I should tell you that I can’t accept this wonderful offer. But I’m not going to. You’re giving me the chance at a life of my own, and only a fool would say no. Thank you so much. I’m overwhelmed.”
“Really?” Imogen regarded her wide-eyed. “I don’t have to beg you to take the money?”
Stella shook her head. “No. I’m just grateful from the bottom of my heart. I must thank Eliot, too. Neither of you had to do this, and I’ll never forget how you came to my rescue.”
Imogen laughed. “You’ll embarrass him. You know how he shies away from emotional demonstrations.”
“He’s just going to have to put up with it.” Gray’s loss was a seeping wound that Stella feared would never heal, but setting her own agenda for the future might offer some fragment of salvation.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you.” She caught Imogen in a fervent hug.
When they drew apart, they were both teary. A soggy little giggle escaped Imogen as she wiped her eyes. “I’m making a return on ten years of uncomplaining devotion. Will you please stay for the rest of the season? I’m not quite ready to send you off into your new life yet.”
Stella fought back the urge to protest. After what Imogen had just done for her, it would be ungracious to complain about a few more weeks in London, no matter what pain it promised her.
“I’ll stay. I imagine it will take a little while to make the financial arrangements anyway.” While every minute of every day honed the agony of living without Gray. Her only hope of finding peace was going far away to some place where she’d never see or hear of the licentious earl. Thanks to Imogen and Eliot, she might soon make that a reality.
Imogen looked very pleased with herself. “Eliot plans to see his bankers over the next couple of days. Unless there’s some hiccup, you’ll be a woman of means by the end of next week.”
A woman of means.The words settled in Stella’s mind as if they belonged there. She’d always been poor, although in Naples that hadn’t mattered so much until after her parents died. But Gray was right to call her proud. Her spirit had died a little every time her uncle treated her as a useless burden on his resources, even while he wrung as much work out of her as he could.
And she’d feared what would happen once Imogen married, as she was sure to do. Hamble Park with nobody but her overbearing uncle for company would be unendurable.
Now she didn’t have to stay with Deerforth. She drew a breath that tasted of freedom. It wasn’t the freedom she’d known as Gray’s brazen lover, but it was freedom all the same.
“I like the sound of that,” she said, feeling a shred of genuine hope for the first time in years. When she laughed, she heard sheer relief in the sound. “I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to repay you.”
Imogen went back to looking solemn. “It’s actually me repaying you. I love Papa, but I loathe how he exploits you. While you haven’t said anything, I know you loathe it, too. Yet you’ve never taken that out on me. That would have been so easy for you to do.”
“You weren’t at fault.” Appalled, Stella regarded her cousin. “You must know that I…”
The door slammed open, and Lord Deerforth barged in. “Imogen, Lord Halston has sent in his card. He’s here to ask for your hand. Go upstairs at once and make yourself presentable.”
