I’m Only Wicked with You by Julie Anne Long

The look Lillias fixed him with was fueled by the fires of a thousand silent epithets.

And then she had her revenge on him.

Lillias did not so much rise as bloom from her chair in a way that compelled him to watch every moment of that motion, which seemed to last forever and yet not long enough.

And regally as a queen about to go to the gallows, she squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, and moved.

And time seemed to slow in a both merciful and punishing way as Hugh watched the silk of her dress fall into soft folds and contours which would have prevented Galahad from ever setting eyes on the grail, so impure would have been his thoughts.

She moved across the room, and every one of his muscles tensed as though they were getting ready to pin her to a mattress.

And he knew with almost a sense of doom how Hades must have felt when he’d seen that girl in a meadow picking flowers. I must have her or die. It was that simple.

She put a pence in the jar, neatly.

Then returned the way she’d come.

Watching her return offered the same baffling, exquisite torment.

“Satisfied, Mr. Cassidy?”

“It was well done, indeed,” he said softly. Subdued and baldly earnest.

Color moved into her cheeks again. She turned away abruptly, offering him a three-quarter view of her profile.

“I’m satisfied,” muttered Mr. Delacorte.

“Well!” said Mrs. Pariseau. “Now that we’ve settled that, shall we read the story, or save it for another evening?”

“To be truthful, Mrs. Pariseau,” Lillias said suddenly, sounding a trifle peevish, “I don’t know why a myth about a young woman being held prisoner against her will is entertaining reading.”

Her mother snorted.

“Yet aren’t most novels about people compelled to be where they don’t want to be?” Hugh said. “No doubt because we’ve all had that experience at one time or another. If they weren’t, we’d hardly have any stories at all. For instance, Robinson Crusoe made the best of things. He even had a pet parrot.”

“Oh, certainly every story would be improved by the addition of a pet parrot,” Lillias said at once, rather reflexively.

Their gazes clashed in shock, then ricocheted away from each other.

They were shaken and none too pleased by this awkward moment of accord.

A little silence fell.

“How clever of you, Mr. Cassidy. And then there’s The Ghost in the Attic,” Mrs. Pariseau chimed in. “Certainly our heroine had reservations about going into the attic.”

“It gave me shivers, that book,” Dot declared. “She should not have gone up into the attic! She was ever so brave.”

“Ever so stupid, that is,” Mrs. Pariseau muttered. “It’s right there in the title.”

Dot cast her eyes up from the chess game and met Mrs. Pariseau’s in a mutual brief, stubborn glare.

“Oh, I should like to hear a story about the ghost in the attic. Have you any ghosts here at The Grand Palace on the Thames, Mrs. Durand and Mrs. Breedlove?” Claire was diverted.

“We’ve none at all,” Delilah assured her as Angelique said sweetly, “Eleven or twelve.”

The truth was probably somewhere in between, given the building’s history before it was resurrected as a charming inn. But none had made themselves a nuisance, or even known, yet. Perhaps Gordon the Cat had seen them.

“Perhaps The Grand Palace on the Thames has an attic or a secret stairway?” Claire asked hopefully. “I saw a very tall ladder propped against the wall in the ballroom when I walked by.”

“Well, the ladder is there because I’m helping to finish repairs to the Annex roof, Lady Claire,” Hugh explained. “At the moment, if you climb that ladder, you can see right through to the stars and across the tops of roofs and ships.”

He smiled at her.

Claire’s face went utterly blank.

And then before everyone’s eyes, a sheet of scarlet furled up her face like a venetian blind and her eyes turned to hazy stars.

“Oh for God’s . . .” Lillias muttered.

“We’ll read The Ghost in the Attic again,” Mrs. Pariseau assured Claire. “We’re all quite fond of it.”

As she was still recovering from the cudgeling beauty of Mr. Cassidy’s smile, Claire could not reply.

“I saw the ghost of the word ‘rogue’ on the sign hanging outside,” Lillias said. “Did you perhaps change your mind about the nature of your business, Mrs. Durand, Mrs. Hardy, or did you think it would be helpful to label the contents of the building?”

She aimed this right at Hugh.

Delacorte pivoted eagerly, delighted to be able to enlighten her. “It’s such an interesting story. Once upon a time this place was called The Palace of Rogues because OW!”

Delacorte glowered at Dot. She’d kicked him. She’d been present for the naming of The Palace of Rogues and it was a sacred moment for her.

“Not a single rogue has ever set foot through the door of The Grand Palace on the Thames,” Delilah assured everyone in the room, which was more or less true, give or take an interloper, and depending upon how one defined the word, and given that it had been christened that only when she’d inherited the building. But she crossed her fingers in her lap beneath her knitting all the same. “Our interview process is very thorough for that precise reason.”

“They even interviewed us, Lillias,” her mother reminded her.

Hugh coughed unsubtly at that.

Everyone’s heads turned at the sound of footsteps in the foyer. They heralded the arrival of the Earl of Vaughn, back from a meeting with his Man of Affairs, and he swept into the room cheerfully.

“Good evening, all! And well, well, if it isn’t Mr. Cassidy! Welcome back from . . . Dover, did you say when we last met?”

They’d only met briefly a fortnight ago, long enough for Hugh to tattle on Lillias for smoking a cheroot.

Hugh was on his feet at once. “Yes, sir. Thank you. It’s a pleasure to see you again. I hope you’re enjoying your stay at The Grand Palace on the Thames.”

“We are, thank you. It’s been an adventure!”

Delilah and Angelique exchanged a look. This wasn’t precisely how they preferred to characterize The Grand Palace on the Thames. Though admittedly the description fit more often than not.

“As it so happens,” Hugh said, “I recently had the pleasure of meeting with your cousin, Sir Bentley Tigmont. I found him altogether amiable and knowledgeable. He mentioned your name when we discussed horses.”

“Ah, Tiggy!” The earl was thrilled. “Good man, good man, indeed. Bought a gelding from him just last year. We were at Eton together. Dear Tiggy. Are you also in imports and exports, like Captain Hardy, Lord Bolt, and Mr. Delacorte, Mr. Cassidy?”

“No, sir. I was flattered—and tempted indeed—when they invited me to join the Triton Group. And while my business interests are similar, I’ve long intended to run for mayor of my hometown of Wolfdale when I return to New York. And then, one day, for the United States Congress.”

The little silence that followed this sentence was total and impressed. Some of them were already aware of Mr. Cassidy’s ambition. It was the utter cool confidence and conviction of his delivery that made Mrs. Pariseau surreptitiously fan herself.

Lillias’s eyes were fixed on him suddenly in speculation.

“How very enterprising of you, Mr. Cassidy,” Lady Vaughn said. “Tell me, do they have gentlemen in America, or does every man work for a living?”

Hugh went still. Then he slowly, gingerly turned to her, his expression carefully neutral. In an instant, he could see at once that her question held no malice. It was entirely born of curiosity.

Lillias had one sardonic eyebrow up as if she wanted an answer to this question, too.

“Everyone is considered a gentleman until he demonstrates otherwise, Lady Vaughn,” he said gently. “And that goes for the ladies, too.”

“It must get lonely there in New York, with just trees and those little fellows with masks for company—raccoons,” she delivered brightly, but almost . . . tentatively. As though it was the first time she’d said “racoons” and she’d been looking for an excuse to say it out loud.

He narrowed his eyes. As surprises went, it was a good one. How on earth would she know about raccoons, of all things? They weren’t native to this part of the world. What other secrets was she harboring? She’d likely meant to startle him with quite a specifically American reference.

She looked a little triumphant.

“My best friend the bear and I sit on the porch and play the fiddle. And occasionally play chess. He lets me win. Unlike my friend Mr. Delacorte.”

“Well, that’s rather sweet of your friend,” the countess ventured, after an uncertain silence.

Lillias smiled slowly in sheer delight.

“It’s an actual city,” Hugh said gently to the countess. “We’ve shops. A pub. A church. Taxes. I’ve human friends.”

“Oh, shops!” The countess was relieved on his behalf, which was rather touching. “I don’t suppose it’s anything like London, though.”

“Is anything truly like London?” Hugh decided to say, with a smile that made the countess visibly melt.

Lillias snorted quietly.

But her father heard the snort. “Daughter, perhaps you’d like to knit or draw or something rather than snort at things.”

In truth, he sounded a little concerned. It was as much question as admonishment.

“The devil makes work for idle hands, Lady Lillias,” Hugh said gravely.

He was rewarded with a dagger stare from beneath her straight, dark brows.

“How very on theme, Mr. Cassidy,” Mrs. Pariseau approved.

“Lillias is a talented artist,” her mother said proudly. “Her watercolors are exquisite and her teacher says she has a gift! All the ones she did of Heatherfield over the years are—”

“Ruined,” Lillias said so flatly and abruptly it echoed in the room a bit like a door slamming.

There ensued an awkward silence.

“Heatherfield is the Bankham estate in Richmond,” the countess explained benevolently, and though none of those words meant anything to him, their inflection made it clear that they were synonymous with “money” and “power” and he was meant to be impressed. “We’ve spent many happy days there as a family with the Earl and Countess of Bankham and their son, Giles, and her drawings were rather a chronicle of that. It’s disappointing to lose them.”

Lillias did not concur. She in fact had gone curiously motionless, like an animal who hopes a predator won’t notice it. Quite as though she hoped all questions along those lines would stop.

Intriguing.

“Ah,” Hugh said sagely. “Have you any new drawings in your sketchbook, Lady Lillias?”

Lillias looked up. “Oh, yes. It’s a chronicle of all the fascinating things I’ve experienced during my stay here,” she said earnestly. “Would you like to see it, Mr. Cassidy?”

She raised her brows and extended the sketchbook to him.

He hesitated. And when he took it, his bare knuckles just scarcely—but quite deliberately—brushed her bare fingertips.

Skin against skin. Just that much was as potent as a shot across a bow.

Their eyes met, held. It was an absurd moment before either recovered.

And then he slowly took temporary custody of the sketchbook.

Carefully, and with a sort of held-breath anticipation and, truthfully, respect—drawing was a talent he would have in fact loved to possess—he opened the cover of the sketchbook to the first page.

It was blank.

So he delicately turned to next page.

It was also blank.

He did that, carefully and deliberately, for every page of the book. About twenty of them.

Every last one was a clean, white blank.

He handed it back to her.

“You are very talented,” he said softly. “I look forward to seeing my face on every page.”

He flashed Lillias a wicked, crooked little smile, turned his back, and made for the smoking room without another word.

The Gentlemen’s Smoking Room looked and felt like an animal den in its scale and color—snug and primarily brown. The carpet was scrolled in cream and brown, the furniture was brown, the curtains were velvet and brown. A man could heave his boots up on the table, smoke, curse, or, as was often the case of Delacorte, silently break wind with impunity, in such a room. Hugh was touched by his proprietresses’ thoughtfulness every time he set foot in it. It was quite lovingly masculine.

Delacorte had followed him in. The Earl had not. At least not yet.

Hugh leaned against the wall and inhaled his lit cheroot into smoking life.

No one looking at him would have known that his entire being was vibrating as though all of his cells were little gongs that had been individually assailed with little mallets.

Lady Lillias Vaughn was a problem. He’d confirmed that much.

A unique-in-his-lifetime problem.

There seemed to be only one solution to this problem.

Which meant the problem was unsolvable, because he could not avail himself of this solution. Which involved the two of them, a bed and no clothes.

Cheroot tucked between two fingers, he pondered. She was a worthier competitor than perhaps he had anticipated, but he liked to think he’d won this round. He’d at least gotten the last word. But in truth there would be no winners, and he understood there would never be peace, not even in this cozy smoking room, until she was gone or he was. And he wanted to be gone, and to do that he needed to find Woodley’s daughter, and none of this did anything to sand the jagged edges of his mood.

There was some minute comfort in the absolute certainty that he was also Lady Lillias Vaughn’s problem.

Neither he nor Delacorte spoke straightaway, but that was usual. For the male guests of The Grand Palace on the Thames, the first moments in the smoking room were rather like unbuttoning one’s trousers after a big meal. A spiritual exhale.

“When she’s in the parlor I feel as though . . .” Delacorte tipped his head back, exhaled, consulting the wreath of cigar smoke about his head like an oracle. “I feel as though the back of my neck isn’t quite clean enough.”

He didn’t have to explain who “she” was.

Nor was Hugh going to describe how she made him feel, which was, at this very moment, as though her nude body was pressed against his skin but his hands and legs were tied.

It would have shocked even the well-nigh unshockable Delacorte.

He said instead, “What a strangely specific thing to feel.”

“I don’t know quite how else to describe it.”

Hugh stared at him.

Delacorte gazed back.

“Is it clean enough?” Hugh asked.

“Have a look.” Delacorte twisted about.

Hugh heaved a resigned sigh and peered. “Like new-fallen snow back there.”

“I don’t quite cut the same dashing figure as you or Bolt or Hardy. Clean is all I’ve got.”

“Oh, you’ve likely one or two other as yet undiscovered charms, Delacorte.”

“Ha!” Delacorte loved being teased and quite liked himself. “And it’s not so much what she says. It’s about her whole . . .” and he gestured again with the cigar and the smoke.

And Hugh could almost see the shape of her in that smoke, like a succubus conjured. He had a feeling he would see the shape of her stamped on his eyelids when he closed his eyes.

And all that made him want to do was close his eyes.

“She’s just a woman, Delacorte,” Hugh said shortly. “And bored, spoiled women are a danger to themselves and everyone around them.”

Delacorte’s furry brows launched upward. It would never occur to him to use the words “just” and “woman” in the same sentence.

“I expect you’re right,” he said cheerfully enough. “She’s like one of them goddesses. Not one of them seems the type to want to sew a button on a bloke’s waistcoat.”

This was remarkably astute.

Since Delacorte had moved into The Grand Palace on the Thames, his waistcoat buttons were always securely sewn on, and they were taxed, indeed. From the side, he rather resembled the letter “D” on legs.

“What do you think of the others?” Hugh asked. As if anyone else mattered at the moment.

“Well . . . I’d say the Earl and Countess are decent enough for being an earl and countess, but it’s a near thing. The younger daughter, Lady Claire, asks a good many questions and laughs quite a bit and gets on with the others. The boy seems to like himself a good deal. Doesn’t know how to play chess.”

Those last sentences were about as close to a character indictment as Delacorte had ever uttered. Rather like a spaniel, Delacorte tended to like everyone and ultimately gave people no choice but to like him back, despite themselves. Hugh was intrigued.

A polite rap on the door heralded the entrance of, one after another, Lucien—Lord Bolt, Mrs. Durand’s husband—and Captain Hardy—Mrs. Hardy’s husband—both of whom had been out at the ship on business with the Triton Group.

Followed by the Earl of Vaughn.

Hugh tried not to look as though he’d freshly imagined taking the earl’s daughter from behind.

“Cassidy. Good to have you back.” Captain Hardy and Bolt shook his hand and brandies were poured. The new entrants lit cigars and all at once they all leaped into satisfying talk of the business of the day—hiring new crew for the ship, discussion of adding another cutter to their fleet down the road, silk prices.

“Have enough money to run for mayor, Cassidy?” This was a question from the earl.

“Is there truly such a thing as enough money, sir?”

The earl laughed. “I knew I liked you, Cassidy.”

“As it so happens, I believe my endeavor will be quite adequately financed. I’ve been fortunate in my investments. The Triton Group here being one of them.” He gestured expansively to the other men in the room.

Hugh always looked for opportunities to champion his friends.

“Lord Vaughn, I may know a fellow who can help you capture that snake,” Delacorte said suddenly, to no one’s surprise except Vaughn’s. Delacorte always knew somebody who could do something unusual.

“You don’t say?” The earl was intrigued.

“Chap hails from India. He says he can do it without hurting the snake at all—seems you need to entice it with dead snakes or other tasty tidbits and whatnot and a brazier for warmth. I’ll take you to go and have a chat with him, if you’d like.”

The earl hesitated. “Well, that’s big of you, Mr. Delacorte. Thank you. I’d like that. How did you meet this fellow?”

“Works for an apothecary friend of mine. Met him the other day. They took a dozen of the new impotence cure I’ve just got in from the orient. I don’t suppose you could use some of those, too?”

And then he winked at the Earl.

The earl appeared immobilized by astonishment.

A faint spasm in the area of one of his eyebrows signaled they were undecided about diving in outrage.

All the men in the room held their breath in hushed, anticipatory glee.

“Thank . . . you?” the Earl said finally, very, very carefully. “It’s kind of you to ask, but at the moment I don’t anticipate a need.”

All of which made everyone in the room rather like him.

There was a little relieved silence.

“But . . . you wouldn’t happen to have anything to . . .” the earl cleared his throat “. . . er, calm . . . the female nerves, would you?”

“Mmmm . . . not as such,” Delacorte said, exhaling smoke. He was often the deliverer of shocking questions, but a question hadn’t been invented that could shock him. “Females all being different people, you see. Perhaps if I knew more about the complaint.”

Not one other man in the room wanted to know more about the female complaint and they prayed the earl wouldn’t expound.

The earl hesitated. Then sighed. “My oldest daughter. She’s grown into such a fine young lady over the past several years, you know . . . perhaps you’ve read an item or two in the gossip columns?” He looked up, half proud, half abashed. Everyone just smiled politely. “They do like to write about her. She has been everything that is proper and elegant, and we are so proud. But lately she’s been a bit . . . unpredictable.”

He glanced at Hugh, who was the only one in the room who knew about the cheroot.

Hugh suspected the earl had no idea of the true scope of Lillias’s capacity to surprise.

“The only predictable thing about women is their unpredictability,” Lucien said knowledgeably.

“Well, out of the blue a few weeks ago Lillias suddenly climbed the church tower. Bolted right up it after church.”

Of all the things Hugh had expected to hear in the brown smoking room, this was perhaps last on the list.

“Did she say why?” He shouldn’t have asked. It occurred to him that it was better that she remain a problem akin to an irritating noise on the periphery of his awareness, and not evolve into a person who would take deeper root in his imagination.

“Said she suddenly wanted to see as far as she could see. And while she was up there . . . she rang the bell.”

There was a nonplussed little silence as they all pictured this. It was difficult to reconcile with the lovely, imperious young woman who sat so quietly in the drawing room with someone enthusiastically yanking on a bell rope.

“I should think the temptation to ring the bell would be irresistible once you’re up there,” Delacorte said, quite reasonably and charitably, given that she was, after a fashion, his enemy.

Imagining Lillias succumbing to temptation made Hugh want to ask Delacorte about remedies for male nerves.

“Has she ever done anything like that before?” Hugh asked before he could stop himself.

“Not as such. She was a bit of an adventurous child. Never a tomboy, mind. She loved her dresses and ribbons and whatnot. Just not a shrinking violet. Not afraid of much of anything, not fussy. Loved to read and still does. I encouraged it, and I . . . well, I sometimes wonder if that was wise, because you get notions when you read, don’t you?”

He looked about the room for approbation.

Hugh was recalling how touchingly pleased she’d looked to say the word “raccoons.” This must be how she’d learned it.

He was irritated to realize that it frankly . . . charmed him.

On the heels of this, unbidden, that sweet little smile she’d exchanged with her sister winked in him like a light in the dark. It came with an odd jab in his solar plexus.

“But a few weeks before the church bell nonsense, she was out for a ride and tore off on her horse without warning. Nearly scared the life out of her groom.”

Hugh was silent.

He thought about her stillness in the sitting room. As he viewed her through another lens, it occurred to him that there was something stoic about it. As if she were waiting for something. Or waiting out something.

He found himself frowning faintly, then willed the frown away.

Everyone was regarding the earl with gentle sympathy. He was clearly concerned about his daughter.

“No doubt it’s just an excess of high spirits,” the earl said absently. “It’s probably just time for her to get married.”

“That’ll fix ’er,” Bolt said absently.

Captain Hardy stifled a smile. They both counted themselves lucky to have married complex, utterly singular, perfectly imperfect women.

No one man in that room truly suffered from the delusion that a remedy imported from any continent could solve women.