I’m Only Wicked with You by Julie Anne Long

“You like towers, if you’ll recall. You can pretend you’re Mary in the Tower, to make it more interesting,” Lillias’s father said mordantly the following morning. “Only infinitely luckier than Mary, of course . . . as long as you stay on the premises.”

And then he’d gone off with Mr. Delacorte to speak to a man who “knew how to coax snakes out of hiding”—how one acquired that skill she could not begin to guess, as it didn’t seem like something one could or should practice, like shooting at Mantons. St. John had gone for a ride in The Row in order to be admired by young ladies in carriages as not enough of that was taking place at The Grand Palace on the Thames. And her mother and Claire had gone to Leicester Square to view an exhibit of Miss Mary Linwood’s exquisite needlework.

Lillias had smoked a cheroot, and this, like original sin, threatened to haunt her for the rest of her days.

She could lay this, and the fact that she would not see Miss Mary Linwood’s needlework, at Hugh Cassidy’s door. His transgressions were piling up like wood about Joan of Arc’s ankles.

She could now add to them the fact that she hadn’t slept much at all the previous night. Not that she’d slept much in recent weeks. She’d become accustomed to using the time between sliding under her blankets at night and the time the maids came in to poke up the fires for calculating the hours, minutes, and seconds remaining until the Landover Ball. Much more effective than counting sheep and practical, too: Why not use her encroaching doom to improve her math?

She’d begun to dread going to bed.

Last night she lay awake, all but winded, exhilarated as though she’d survived a climb up a crumbling, narrow mountain road, around whose corners stunning vistas or fanged predators were just as likely to appear. She felt she could not take her eyes from Hugh Cassidy when he was near. It was some combination of wariness—as though he were indeed feral—fascination, and irritated wonderment that such an arrogant, self-satisfied man should possess such a riveting collection of features. Skirmishing with him had demanded the kind of wily strength of wit she’d all but forgotten she’d possessed. She so rarely encountered a will as strong as her own.

He was entirely too pleased with himself, and this could not stand.

“Ball locks.” Her mouth slowly curved into a reluctant smile. Very well, that was funny. And if she was being honest with herself, so was the way he’d orchestrated her trip to the epithet jar. She might have done something similar to one of her siblings.

The way he’d watched her walk to the jar wasn’t at all funny. It was perhaps the most soberingly adult thing to happen to her in her twenty years of life.

She wasn’t unfamiliar with lust. Nor was she naive about where it led. But she could not deny there was no relationship between the occasional thrill that traced her spine when she waltzed with a handsome blood and the inexplicable all-out siege Hugh Cassidy’s mere presence had waged on her senses. Even now, in this empty, quiet suite, her skin hummed like a crystal glass tapped with a fingernail. The caress of her silk dress along her shoulder blades as she pulled it over her head, the cool glide of sheets against her bare legs, the warmth of the fire on the back of her neck—she was suddenly acutely reminded of her capacity to experience pleasure.

Doubtless the death of her dreams had left a vacancy in her soul and lust, like an opportunistic demon, had seen an opportunity to move in when she was at her weakest. What other reason could there be?

Inexplicably, it was the most alive she’d felt in weeks. There was a good deal of unworthy satisfaction in knowing that Hugh Cassidy would not be getting what he wanted, either.

And what he wanted was her.

She sighed, drank another cup of growing-cold coffee, and contemplated what to do with the empty, quiet hours ahead of her.

She would never dare tell anyone in her family that she’d come to rather enjoy having them underfoot. She liked all the bickering, laughing, and rustling about in the mornings and evenings. There was so much echoing space, so much coming and going in their London home and their country home, and so many servants to tidy them and manage them as they moved through their days so that no evidence of actual living—crumbs, a stray stocking, an open book—was left to linger for long.

Although it was admittedly convenient to come in the door from a walk and hold out her pelisse and have an arm take it away at once to be hung in her wardrobe. That sort of thing.

From the window she could see, down below in the courtyard of The Grand Palace on the Thames, an improbably lush little garden about the size of four picnic blankets sewn together, complete with little trees and blooming flowers, enclosed in a wrought iron fence. She hadn’t yet visited it.

“Even the poor flowers are in jail,” she muttered.

Surely it wasn’t violating the spirit of her sentence if she were to have a look? Of a certainty, it was on the premises. She hesitated.

Then she snatched up her sketchbook and a packet of pastel crayons and a holder, and made her way down the stairs and burst into the cool, clear morning.

She lifted the latch on the gate and ventured in. The shortest little flagstone path led to a pair of wood and wrought iron benches arranged across from each other. A dense little thicket of tall, healthy trees stood at one end. Some of them were the fruiting sort, and were now breaking out in blooms; flowers on stalks were crowded chummily between them, and arranged in a circle at the center.

She settled on one bench sporting a little engraved plaque and stared down at her sketchbook.

Perhaps she would draw a flower.

The impulse to move her hand across the page, a sensation once so delicious, seemed to have deserted her. She wondered if it was because it had once been born of joy.

She stared at the blank page until she saw black spots before her eyes. Then she shaded her eyes with her hand very briefly, a fleeting, despairing gesture of the sort she seldom allowed herself to indulge in. And certainly never when anyone else was about.

She let her hand heavily fall to the blank page again, sighed, and raised her eyes absently toward the cluster of trees.

Her heart leaped into her throat.

Standing as still as a tree—in fact, looking like a cousin to a tree—was Hugh Cassidy.

He was wearing buckskins, boots, a black coat, and a gradually growing, rather wicked smile.

In his hand was what appeared to be a letter.

“Well, good morning, Persephone. Something about your expression suggests you wouldn’t mind if Hades would burst through the earth right now to pull you under.”

It was a moment before she could pull enough air to speak.

“Forgive me for disturbing you, Mr. Cassidy. It’s just that I might have easily mistaken you for a tree if you hadn’t been staring so intently at me.”

He offered a gently solicitous smile. “My apologies. Would you prefer that I do something else to you, instead?”

Her heart thunked as though toppled from a turret. Blood rushed into her cheeks. The backs of her arms went hot.

She couldn’t speak.

His sympathetic smile was the sort a master fencer would aim at a novice.

Mr. Cassidy, she realized, always came out fighting. Which she supposed was flattering: it was a measure of the sort of adversary he saw in her.

He moved toward her slowly. Then lowered his large self slowly, gracefully, down on the bench across from her, as if he didn’t want to spook her.

They regarded each other.

A flake of gold sat next to the pupil of one of his eyes. Something made her want to hoard this discovery as if it were actual gold.

“You want very badly to tell me to go to the devil right now, don’t you, Lady Lillias?” He was all hushed sympathy. “There’s no epithet jar or witnesses. Go right ahead, if it will make you feel better. I shall withstand it manfully.”

“I’m not as prone to histrionics as all of that, Mr. Cassidy. Or as easy to shock.”

“I’ll certainly have to try harder, then, won’t I?” More seriously he added, “I am sorry if I frightened you. I didn’t mean to. Would you like me to leave so that you can be alone with your sketchbook?”

What she would like was for his eyes to stop being so interestingly blue so she wouldn’t be compelled to look at them. He was unfortunately no uglier by daylight than he was by lamplight or by the dim light of the under-construction Annex.

She knew how to handle the bloods of the ton. After all, they’d been raised with the same manners and mores and institutions as she had, and they essentially adhered to the same rules. The lines of propriety were distinct and kept her safe.

She didn’t know what the rules were here.

All Americans are feral.

“You didn’t frighten me. And it seems I was intruding upon your private time, Mr. Cassidy. I should be the one to leave.”

“It’s no intrusion at all,” he said smoothly. “I am awaiting the arrival of a cart full of lumber and decided to take the opportunity to read a letter from my Uncle Liam, sent to me by my sister.” He lifted the letter. “As it so happens he’s sailing into Portsmouth on the Tropica from India. I’ll be off to meet him there.”

She was so arrested by the warmth of the words, that for a moment, she couldn’t speak for wondering what it would be like to actually be at peace in Mr. Cassidy’s presence, as Uncle Liam presumably was.

“‘You won’t believe what I’m about to tell you,’ Uncle Liam always says,” Hugh continued, when she said nothing. “Which, coincidentally, is how I always begin when I tell the story of finding the daughter of an earl smoking a cheroot.”

She gave a soft snort. “You seem to believe I’d be appalled to hear that.”

He grinned fleetingly at that. “You’ll be relieved to learn that I only told your father,” he said, with mock conciliation.

“And that was well done of you, too, Mr. Cassidy. That’s one woman saved from perdition. Now to do something about the ones who want to sit on your lap in pubs.”

“Oh, I’m not certain those ladies want saving,” he said with wicked sincerity.

She stared at him.

“‘Ladies,’” she muttered to herself, ironically. She cast her eyes upward in a near roll.

That quick grin flashed again, and it was a thing of beauty. He seemed much more at ease this morning.

Perhaps he’d had a decent night’s sleep. Perhaps last night’s encounter was as routine in his life as swinging an axe, or whatever it was Americans routinely did.

The notion made her feel a little peevish.

“What brings you to Helene Durand Park, Lady Lillias?”

She paused, wondering whether entering into a civilized dialogue with Mr. Cassidy was signaling détente and whether she ought to encourage it.

“I thought I might draw,” she said stiffly.

Although she half suspected she might never draw again.

He looked at her sketchbook. Then up at her.

After a moment, he arched a skeptical brow.

He was probably beginning to think she was a looby who merely carried about an empty sketchbook for effect, but so be it.

With an extraordinary effort, she turned her head away and pretended to scrutinize an apple blossom as though she intended to render it. As if anything could be more fascinating than what was sitting on the bench opposite her.

While she studied the blossom, he studied her. She could all but feel the rays of his attention illuminating her.

“Perhaps . . . you’re mourning your ruined sketchbook?”

The question sounded serious. Almost tentative. And was so startlingly astute that she could only turn to him in speechless, somewhat hunted surprise.

He didn’t pursue it.

“Did you just use the word ‘histrionics’ because you thought I wouldn’t understand what it meant?” he said at once, instead.

She was still a little rattled. The truth was: she had. Unworthy of her, perhaps. It was interesting to know how swiftly she was willing to play dirty in order to retrieve the upper hand from him.

“I said it because it was the right word for that particular sentence,” she hedged.

“Mmm. Well, I approve of exactitude.” He wasn’t blinking.

“And your approval means everything to me, Mr. Cassidy.”

His smile was slow, and contained such a combination of genuine amusement, self-deprecation, and appreciation for her that for an instant every part of her felt illuminated, warmed, and too exposed.

She remembered poor Claire and the scarlet furling up her face.

She looked quickly away, at the apple blossom, in order to avoid that fate.

It was a point for Mr. Cassidy, and he knew it.

He leaned back against the bench. She watched, out of the corner of her eye, the grace of the lines of his body as he settled in and stretched an arm across it.

It seemed entirely rational to want to sit in his lap.

“Why raccoons?” he asked suddenly.

She was unaccountably flattered. It meant he’d listened carefully—and remembered—every word she’d said last night. Men were often such terrible listeners.

“They seem like charming animals.”

“They are charming. Clever and clownish. Did you know their name comes from a Powhatan word? They also make fine warm hats, should the need arise.”

She had no idea what to say to this. She suspected he was being very American in an attempt to unnerve her.

“I ask,” he continued, “because I didn’t go to Eton with ‘Tiggy,’ Lady Lillias. I learned ‘histrionics’ the same way you learned about raccoons, no doubt.”

“Because my father has a large library and books on many subjects and I . . . read them.”

“As does my friend, Mr. Augustus Woodley. He allowed me the use of it while I worked for him, building out his library shelves and stables.”

A reminder that Mr. Cassidy was a laborer.

Or had been. Albeit an ambitious one.

There was an awkward little silence, during which she realized that nearly all of her interactions with men to date had been governed by the kinds of rules and assumptions that kept her, like a train, on a track, rolling toward one destination and quite blinkered, to boot.

Doubtless there were very good reasons for this. She probably ought not be isolated in a little garden by the docks with a laborer from America, even if he harbored political ambitions.

“Are you a great reader then, Mr. Cassidy?” She gave this a doubtful lilt, lest he be lulled into thinking she was enjoying this conversation.

“Apart from Robinson Crusoe, of course, which my uncle”—he raised the letter—“gave to me, I read in order to learn everything I’ll need.”

“Need for what, pray tell?”

“To build an empire.” He said it easily, matter-of-factly.

But the words had the ring of prophesy. She almost felt them in her chest, as one might feel the vibrations of a church bell.

She stared at him.

Unaccountably stirred, she swiftly looked down at her sketchbook again. It was inconvenient to have no drawing to pretend to inspect.

She simultaneously and equally wanted nothing more than to ask questions and to not ask any questions at all.

Curiosity killed not only cats.

“What manner of ‘empire’?” She gave this last word an ironic lilt, too, for the same reasons.

He took a breath, as though he were about to embark on a story. “Well, it began with my friend, Mr. Woodley. He’s in shipbuilding, and American ships are the finest in the world. I’ve learned a good deal about trade and imports and exports from him and I’ve been tempted to join Delacorte, Hardy, and Bolt in the Triton Group. But I think railroads are the future. I’d like to build a consortium in New York to bring the railroads to the United States. Canals we have, and they’re a start, but moving goods and people across a growing country will be a perpetual and increasing need. I want to be part of building it—and shaping laws and policies—which is why I want to run for mayor, and then Congress. Everything is new in America. The possibilities are infinite.”

She’d heard both awe and relish, flavored with the faintest hint of censure—even condescension—in those words: “New.” “Infinite.”

The implication was that everything in England was old and had been done, of course.

No man had ever really spoken like this to her before—about trade and business and plans. She was at once full of more questions; ideas of her own began to form. And perhaps that was the reason no one had spoken to her like this—in her experience, few men liked to answer to much, particularly to women. But she could see how each of Mr. Cassidy’s ambitions connected to and supported the next. His plan was like a well-drawn map or a network of roads that fanned outward. She was impressed despite herself. She suddenly wanted very much to hold such a map in her hands.

She’d been sheltered from his world of work and trade and men and striving and ambition. But it existed parallel to her own; it in fact made her world of elegant ease—well-sprung carriages, servants, marble floors, new dresses every season—possible.

But she had a point to make.

“I’ve always found a sense of strength in being surrounded by centuries of history and tradition, Mr. Cassidy. England feels eternal. As if it has always been and always will be. I find all of this quite safe and . . . peaceful.”

“Mmm,” he said again. He paused at length. “Do you?” he asked quietly. It seemed a genuine question. Flustered, she dropped her eyes again, briefly to her blank page.

He noticed. “Speaking of tradition, what does Heatherfield look like?”

Interesting that he’d remembered that, too. Speaking of Heatherfield would be like grinding her thumb into a bruise. But it would help her to illustrate her point, and for this opportunity she would suffer.

“The house is . . . well, as stately in its way as St. Paul’s Cathedral, or Westminster Abbey. Its history stretches back more than a century. And when you step inside . . . you can feel the age of it, and sense the centuries of Bankhams who’ve lived there. Carrera marble and Savonnerie and Axminster carpets are everywhere, and vast windows hung in yards of brocade and velvet . . . and the grounds are comprised of miles of soft grass, and fine, lush gardens. There’s an oak forest surrounding it . . . and it’s quite old. A long drive lined in cypresses leads up to it, and they always reminded me of soldiers. I am not doing it justice, I’m afraid.”

“Sounds very nice,” he damned with faint praise.

She looked at him askance. A little silence followed, which would have been a fine time for either of them to depart.

“Do you know, Lady Lillias . . . the first thing I did with the money I earned was buy land.”

“I suppose one would have to do that if one doesn’t inherit land with a title,” she said offhandedly.

“Yes. One would,” he said, ironically amused, after a pause during which he clearly decided against saying something he was tempted to say. “And . . . well, we haven’t churches like St. Paul’s . . . and cypresses don’t line my drive, as I haven’t a drive and cypresses don’t just spring up out of nowhere in New York. But the trees on my land, Lady Lillias . . . they’re like cathedrals.” He lifted his hands up, like a God summoning rains. Illustrating. “Ancient. Their spires reaching high, up into an endless sky. I’ve oaks, too. My land is surrounded by these magnificent trees . . . and it overlooks the Hudson River Valley.”

She was riveted.

He closed his eyes briefly, as if he was in fact dreaming of it. There was a tension in his face, very like yearning, and it started in her a surprising ache she could not name. “The mountains begin their days in deep blues and purples—the colors of the sky around midnight—and the sun paints gold light right up them as it rises. And then when it’s high in the sky all you see is dense green velvet mountains, fields and forests as far as the eye can see, and the colors change with the season. The scale of everything is . . .” He gave a short, awed laugh, and spread his arms wide. “. . . majestic. As if everything is aware of how much room it has to grow and breathe. It’s beautiful and unforgiving and mysterious. Makes a man want to . . . tame it and worship it all at once.”

The words sifted down around her like a shimmering net. She was transfixed. She half suspected if she closed her eyes now, at once, she would see it, too. But she would need to do it quickly, before it drifted away.

She didn’t. But she knew he was going to be a gifted politician. He was even more formidable than she’d thought. Mainly because she was certain he not only sincerely felt every word he’d just said, but also knew precisely the effect they would have. Which is why he’d said them.

Particularly that last sentence. Tame it and worship it all at once.

She ought to look away just to prove that she could.

She could not. Nor did he.

She wondered how he’d gotten the little crescent-moon-shaped scar next to his lip. She imagined tracing it.

She realized she was already absently running her fingertip in a slow caress over the little plaque on the bench. And he was watching this rather fixedly.

“I wonder who Helene Durand was?” she said idly.

She stopped tracing the plaque.

He lifted his head with apparent effort.

His eyes looked somnolent. Rather stunned. He’d clearly been imagining something, too.

He took a breath. “She was the mother of Lucien Durand, Lord Bolt. Mrs. Durand’s husband. You’ve met him, no doubt. His father, as you likely know, is the Duke of Brexford. And the duke was . . . ah . . . not married to Bolt’s mother. He was unkind to both of them.”

“While your attempt at discretion is both touching and wholly inadequate, I have heard the word ‘bastard’ before, Mr. Cassidy.”

He smiled slowly. “But you probably never truly felt like using it until you met me.”

She quirked the corner of her mouth wryly. “I think it’s very sad, though. I don’t understand how he could be so callous to his son and his . . . er . . . Helene Durand. Family is family. My own father knew his father, and his father knew his father, on back for centuries. It’s extraordinarily comforting. After all, the strongest trees have the deepest roots.”

“My father didn’t know his father at all,” Mr. Cassidy said offhandedly.

She was silent.

“Now you’re shocked,” he noted accurately.

She was. An entire branch of Mr. Cassidy’s family tree was all but invisible to him. For an instant, she could almost feel the wind of the abyss under her feet. This seemed nearly inconceivable to her. And yet there were likely many people just like him.

It was another thing that felt like a challenge, like raccoon hats and manual labor.

And perhaps this was why he liked the newness. He would need to create something of lasting value, and he could do it where everything was new. A person needed a foundation.

“In other words”—he stretched his arms casually above his head, reaching for the sun, and Lillias watched that movement because she was helpless not to—“my father was a literal bastard, Lady Lillias.” His implication being, that he, Mr. Cassidy, was of course being the figurative sort. “It seems reprehensible treatment of women isn’t confined to the upper classes.”

“I suppose it isn’t,” she said politely, after a moment. She was freshly, acutely certain she should not be participating in this conversation.

There was a lull.

“Do you perhaps need a cheroot for your shaken nerves?” he said with gently ironic solicitousness. “Perhaps a half of the light ale at The Wolf and . . . ?”

She supposed no one knew what that fourth word on the sign used to be.

She craned her head toward the little pub. She half wished she could, just to see the inside of it.

Still, she didn’t speak. She’d already been given a good deal to think about.

He seemed to sense this. Mr. Cassidy pressed his lips together, and looked off toward the end of Lovell Street. Then he returned his gaze to her. “Well, all’s well that ends well, Lady Lillias, because my father met my mother and they are responsible for my presence here before you, for which I know you are grateful.”

She had the sense that he was inspecting her as closely as she’d been inspecting him, and similarly wishing he did not want to ask more questions.

“I suppose it’s a fortunate thing there was only ever one of you, Mr. Cassidy.”

He offered a quick, crooked smile. “I have some devastating news for you. I had a brother, and he was even better looking than I am.”

Just then a cart pulled by a stocky gray horse clattered into the courtyard. It appeared to be filled with lumber.

They both shot to their feet.

And just like that, they found themselves standing mere inches apart, just about a single exhale away from touching. In seconds, those inches evolved into a trap. Dense as velvet. Subject to its own natural laws.

Because surely this was the only reason that neither of them seemed able to move even as the elapsing time . . . five seconds . . . ten seconds . . . twenty . . . became officially unseemly.

And then undeniably a contest.

It was long enough for the heat radiating from his body to join the heat radiating from hers until her eyelids felt weighted and she yearned to close them. Long enough for her breathing to go shallow, and rather spiky.

She was close enough to see herself reflected in his coat buttons.

And to see that reflection rise . . . and fall. Rise . . . and fall.

One inch. A slight forward tilt of her head. And then her cheek would be against his chest. She could feel the beat of his heart. This seemed an eminently reasonable thing to do.

And she knew, too, that his view from where he stood was the pale swell of the tops of her breasts, and the little shadowy divide between them.

And so she continued standing absolutely motionless. It might have been the most wanton thing she’d ever deliberately done.

He would not win this.

Suddenly there was his voice. Low, slow, far too intimately close. “I imagine it’s maddening when something comes along to disturb those centuries of peace you described, Lady Lillias. Something that causes you to lose sleep. To toss and turn . . . toss and turn. Something over which you’ve no . . . control . . . at all.”

He no doubt noticed how the breath she took shuddered.

She needed it in order to get the last word. She knew she would.

“I wouldn’t know, Mr. Cassidy. But Odysseus lashed himself to the mast, if you’re looking for a solution to your current dilemma.” She addressed this to his waistcoat buttons.

“Adorable suggestion. You’ll be disappointed to learn that I have greater trust in my powers of resistance than that poor bastard did.”

And then she mustered all of her courage—which was in truth considerable—to tip her head back. The sudden sight of the sensual curve of his mouth so close caused a jolt right between her legs. She found his eyes were heavy-lidded. Inscrutable. And as hot as the lit ends of two cheroots.

“Perhaps that’s only because they haven’t yet been sufficiently tested, Mr. Cassidy.”

She stepped back just as his expression changed to something more fierce.

And the only thing that kept her from turning around as she walked away was the certainty that he would watch her, helpless not to, until she was no longer in view.