The Wicked Wedding of Miss Ellie Vyne (2 page)

“Nowhere,” she said. “I wander.”

A light breeze blew the sounds of the crowded ballroom toward them through the hedges of the maze—violins, laughter, the chink of glasses, and a sudden swelling blast of chatter, as if doors had swung open. How much longer did they have before someone from that world intruded? Suddenly he couldn’t bear to think of going back into the fray alone, without her.

“I’ll make a confession too,” he said. “I drank too much brandy tonight.” He sincerely wished he hadn’t, for what he needed now were his wits about him and breath that tasted of mint leaves. Then he could have kissed her the way she needed to be kissed. As he knew, instinctively, she never had been. There was too much sadness in this strange wayfarer, and the husky laughter that spilled out of her made it all the more poignant. Because he saw through it.

Amazing how brandy always made him deeply perceptive. Sober, he could be a complete numbskull, so he’d been told.

“Evidently. You won’t be holding any carriages up tonight, Mr. Turpin.”

“Hmmm?”
Turpin?
Who the devil—?

“Your costume, sir,” she reminded him, smiling.

“Aha, yes! I could take you as my prisoner. I’m known for my charming, seductive ways. You won’t be disappointed.”

She chuckled playfully and raised one hand to his chin, fingertips lightly stroking stubble. “You flirt with the Queen of France, sir. I can only suppose the drink has made you too bold. Beware what you do.”

He gazed again at the soft pink pillows that formed her lips. Sweet confectionary, made to be admired and then devoured. Dear Lord, he wanted to sink into them, kiss her hard, ruthlessly. “Let’s escape the maze together.” He meant it. This one could not get away. He wouldn’t lose this one to another man. He grabbed her wrist, bringing it to his lips. “Run away with me.”

“I am tempted, sir. You have no idea how tempted. But I know that one of us, if not both, will regret it by light of day.”

He pressed his lips to her knuckles. Her skin tasted the way it looked—warm, tender, and as mouthwatering as a sugary marzipan novelty. Very subtly perfumed. He advanced his kisses along her slender arm and under the lace ruffles that tumbled from her elbows.

“Mr. Turpin,” she chided, “you take advantage of the moonlight.”

Blood pumped faster through his veins, hot and dangerous. He skipped the rest of her arm, advancing directly to the décolletage, where he planted a damply impassioned peck to the gently heaving mounds. First one, then the other. She made no move to prevent this brazen caress. James shifted even closer, slipping just the tip of his wayward tongue into the scented valley between her breasts. He felt her shiver, heard her quickening breath. But again she didn’t stop him. Slowly his tongue wound a path upward to the side of her neck, where he kissed her excitable pulse and inhaled more of that delicious, alluring scent. His sweet tooth unable to resist, he tasted her skin, gently sucking it between his teeth.

“Mr. Turpin! I can allow this to proceed no further.”

She stood quickly, one hand to the patch of skin he’d made wet with his mouth. He almost toppled over.

“Don’t go. Stay.” He clutched for her hand and somehow caught three of her fingers. “Please.”

At the word “please” she faltered. She glanced over at the hedge. “I hear someone approach. I fear this pleasant interlude is over, sir.”

Still he gripped her fingers. He was ravenous, his need mounting. He wanted to feast on her here and now, in the grass. “How can it be over, madam? ’Tis only just begun between us.”

“Tomorrow you will wake with a sore head. You will have forgotten me.”

“No.” He envisioned his body over hers, covering her, caressing her, and teasing her clothes away. Under the moon and stars he would cast all gentlemanly constraints aside and mate with her. It was dangerously close to primal, brute need taking over.

Her free hand cupped his rough chin and lifted it, until he felt the warm moonlight bathe his face. “Then come find me again when you’re sober. Catch me if you can.”

Despite his brandy-soaked breath, she kissed him on the lips, and it was no tentative, maidenly touch. It overflowed with yearning, tore through his hazy reality, left his world reeling. And he returned the kiss with equal measure. From the first touch of her tender mouth to his, he was a lost man, the flame ignited deep within and consuming his rapt soul.

As their lips parted, she whispered softly, “You’re fortunate, sir, that although I can seldom afford it, I’m partial to the taste of fine brandy.”

The extraordinary woman fled, disappearing through the shadowy hedge in a blur of silk. James made one lunge after her but caught his foot on a tuft of grass and fell forward onto his face, where he stayed, finding it too much effort to move again.

***

Lucky for him, his pockets were empty this evening, or she could have relieved him of more than his kiss, just for a lark. Drunken fool.

Ellie Vyne ran through that maze as if Lucifer’s minions were at her heels. Reckless, she chose turns without the slightest idea which direction she traveled. A fragile laugh bubbled out of her, snagged and shattered on each jolting breath. Of all the men in the world, why did it have to be James Hartley who kissed her that way? Why was he—her long-sworn enemy—the one man who kissed her just the way she wanted? Now he’d got her in a most irritating and irrational state of confusion.

He was a Hartley, she was a Vyne, and as such, they were heirs to a feud that began years before. In addition, he was the most infuriating, hypocritical rakehell she’d ever met, and the man who never thought of her as anything but a nuisance.

The man who was hopelessly in love with her best friend.

Now she’d gone and kissed him, like a complete and utter lackwit. Good thing he wouldn’t remember it by morning.

Perhaps James Hartley’s worst sin was that he once, within her hearing, referred to her as “a girl with neither beauty, grace, nor sense.” And then he took it a step further. “Ellie Vyne?” he’d remarked loudly to a roomful of guffaws, “or Ellie
Phant
?”

She was just sixteen at the time and had never forgotten it. How could she? Well aware of her shortcomings as a rather plump girl who always seemed to be where she was least wanted and never around when she was required, the last thing she needed back then was James Hartley pointing her faults out to the world at large. She’d always sworn she’d get her vengeance one day. Perhaps, she mused darkly, that was why she kissed him. What other reason could there be? In truth, his spiteful comment all those years ago had done her a favor. It made her determined not to be crushed, never to let another word wound her. After that, she made certain to dance every dance, no matter who asked her, never to seem as if she cared about anything beyond a jolly good time. Most often it worked. She had only the occasional lapses in confidence.

Her skirt brushed against the privet, making the crisp leaves rattle with a ghostly shiver. There was a break in the hedge. She ducked through it, still running, and saw the house ahead of her. Aglow with candlelight, crystal, and mirrors, it was a treasure box overflowing, held in the curved sleeve of dark blue velvet sky.

A woman swathed in ruby tassels and amber silk, reminiscent of a gypsy fortune-teller’s tent, flew across the lawn. Tripping over curly toed slippers, she called anxiously, “Oh, James! James darling, where have you gone?” Once in sight of Ellie, she cupped a hand to her mouth and shouted, “Have you seen a gentleman in the guise of a highwayman?”

The poor woman looked quite desperate—and foolish, in what might only be described as a harem girl’s costume. Apparently dignity had gone out the window this evening. James Hartley had that effect on women.

Ellie jerked a backward nod over one shoulder. “He’s in there. Lost.” Someone was going to have to rescue him, and it couldn’t be her.

The slave girl waved her thanks and scurried onward. Before Ellie had taken another step, a second woman appeared, this one dressed as a nun but with a little too much paint on her cheeks and a brassy, unnatural shade of red hair peeping out from her wimple. She trotted giddily down the terrace steps. “James? James, I wish you did not hide from me like this.” The unlikely nun let out a sharp curse as she stubbed her toe on a stone planter. Then she noticed Ellie. “I say, have you seen a tall, handsome fellow in a tricorn hat and a leather mask? Did he come this way?”

Ellie struggled to quell the mischievous smile that pulled on her lips. “Oh yes. Dick Turpin’s in the maze, Mother Superior.”

The second woman ran on, lifting her habit to show a pair of ankles in fine silk stockings.

Again Ellie moved forward, only to be stopped by yet another searching young lady, this one dressed as a shepherdess, plainly in want of a sheep. Before the third woman even spoke, Ellie pointed over her shoulder. Frowning fiercely, beribboned crook clasped in both hands, the angry shepherdess marched off in the same direction as the other two women.

Ellie watched the figures retreat and suddenly caught a shadow, a flutter in the corner of her eye. Someone, hovering behind her, had retreated hastily from the moonlight and merged with the tall hedge. She waited, but whoever it was, they did not approach to get her attention.

Curious. Perhaps she’d imagined it.

She quickened her steps toward the brightly lit house and gave in to another burst of laughter, thinking again of her enemy, stranded and hapless in the maze. For just a few moments she’d made him want her. Sweet victory for the girl he’d once dismissed. It was a powerfully good feeling. But such rare sensations were best in moderation. Wouldn’t want it to go to her head.

London, six months later

Ellie Vyne never had much sympathy for men, until she temporarily became one. Disguised as the “count de Bonneville,” donning satin breeches and an old-fashioned powdered wig to gamble among Society’s decadent rich, she discovered a surprising fact. Contrary to previous conjecture, the male animal did not necessarily have all the fun. True, they could burp as they chose without reprimand, and sit with their legs in any pose comfortable. But they too had pitfalls to dodge, because the female sex could be just as single-minded in pursuit of sport and just as reticent to take no for an answer.

For instance, the “count” was lucky to get away with his true identity intact—likewise his trousers—since Lady Ophelia Southwold proved herself such an overeager strumpet that evening. While pressing a lavish diamond necklace into the count’s gloved hand in payment for her IOU, the lady also extended a startling offer, whispered so hotly in his ear that the steam nearly wilted his wig. An offer he was obliged to refuse for reasons obvious only to himself.

It was fortunate Lady Southwold’s fingers never ventured any higher along the count’s breeches, or she would have shared his secret and suffered a nasty shock.

Followed by disappointment of severe magnitude.

Ellie could laugh over the incident now she had safely retreated to a rowdy inn on the outskirts of London. Kneeling on the bed, in the count’s lace-trimmed shirt, she counted out the guineas won after another night of fleecing unsuspecting aristocrats and rich young bucks about Town. She carefully lifted Lady Southwold’s necklace and studied the five enormous diamonds hanging on little clips. Ellie never wore much jewelry, other than the pearls left behind by her mother—and those were elegant and understated. But this necklace was nothing like that. She’d never seen diamonds so large. And heavy. They would surely drag a woman’s shoulders down by the end of an evening. It really was possible to have too much of a good thing.

While this had been a fruitful outing for the charming, elusive “count,” when Ellie looked at those ugly diamonds, a shimmer of foreboding lapped at her senses. It ruffled her nerve endings like the tongue of a sly, cooling zephyr. Perhaps tonight had been
too
fruitful. It could be time to hang up the count’s breeches before the ruse was discovered. Truthfully, she was surprised she got away with her masquerade as long as she did. It didn’t say much for her looks, Ellie mused, that she was so easily disguised as a man. Or else it said little for the masculine appearance of today’s aristocratic gentlemen.

Her winnings packed safely away, she peeled the itching theatrical eyebrows carefully off her face, finished a glass of brandy, blew out her candle, and tumbled back across the bed. Sprawled in the moonlight, she yawned heavily, listened to the general ruckus from below, and pondered the strange direction her life had strayed. As the main caretaker of her family since the age of eight, she’d always known something different waited in her future, but she never imagined the road she traveled would be quite like this.

Tomorrow morning she must become plain Ellie Vyne again, in muslin, petticoat, and bonnet, expected at the very proper, well-ordered house of her half sister and brother-in-law. They took her in reluctantly, hoping—according to her sister’s last letter—that she would not mortify them too much while she was in London. No one reading her sister’s sharply penned missive could realize the truth: that it was Ellie who single-handedly funded both her younger sisters’ debuts and provided their wedding dowries. Had they left all that to their father, they would have been gray and rheumatic before their first foray into Society. But in the minds of her sisters, Ellie was an embarrassment, a woman who refused to live within the constraints of propriety and instead made her own rules. Frequently her sisters lectured her about the importance of fitting in, but although Ellie made it her life’s work to do the very opposite, she did so in such a good-natured, merry way that no one really knew how to stop her.

Her mysterious beginnings did not help matters. Her mother was a shipwrecked, pregnant widow when she married Admiral Vyne, and nothing much was known about Ellie’s deceased father. Her mother, Catherine, had been too brokenhearted to talk about him, and Ellie never dared raise the matter in case it disturbed the fragile disposition of Catherine’s marriage to the admiral—a much older man, who, although vain and proud himself, must frequently hear how lucky he was to have a wife so much younger and fair of face. As if no one could understand how he managed it. Then along came Charlotte and Amelia, her mother’s children by the admiral, and Ellie had a new family. After her mother died, they were all reliant on Ellie to look after them, but lately her half sisters took it into their heads to reverse the roles. They had the joint idea of getting her married to the first dull fellow willing, and shuffled off into obscurity before she caused them any further worry.

Ellie’s future schemes, however, involved only a well-earned rest with no meddling man sticking his nose in. The money she won tonight as the count would pay off the last bills incurred by her sisters’ wedding trousseaus, and if she found somewhere discreet to pawn that diamond necklace, she could even begin repairs on her stepfather’s roof at Lark Hollow. Then, at last, she might enjoy some peace. She planned a visit to her aunt Lizzie in the tranquil village of Sydney Dovedale, where she could fill her lungs with some good, honest air.

For some time now, Ellie had felt herself rushing along a bumpy road, her horses very nearly out of control, the reins slipping through her fingers. If she could only slow down a while, sit where it was quiet, do nothing but breathe! In the country, one might ponder the beauty of nature without actually having to do anything in it, just feel. She would soon be rejuvenated. Wandering the pleasant lanes of Sydney Dovedale, she could let the count disappear for a while, if not forever. She might even write her exploits one day in an anonymous book and put him to rest officially.

She was twenty-seven—the same age her mother was when she died—and really too old to wreak any more havoc. It had been fun while it lasted, but now it was time to settle into spinsterhood. The only thing she could possibly regret about her life was missing out on children. She liked the idea of a child very much, but one could not be had without a husband. Well, strictly speaking, a babe could be had out of wedlock, but she had enough problems without causing more scandal for herself.

Resolved to retirement and the end of mischief, she’d just let her eyelids drift shut when a sudden commotion rattled down the hall, and her chamber door was almost ripped from its hinges. Ellie bounced up, wide awake again, clutching the shabby coverlet to her shoulders.

“Where is he? Where is the villain?” Lantern swinging from one fist, riding quirt brandished in the other, a tall figure climbed over the ruins of the door and peered angrily at her through a trembling swathe of bronze light. A fine, ethereal mist rolled off his wide shoulders where the frigid night air met the heat of his body. He might have been a monstrous dragon from some dark fable coming to feast on a sacrificial maiden—had he not been a very real human being, identifiable by the coarse mutterings of complaint about his bruised knuckles. Only a man could complain at something of his own doing.

Besides, she was no virginal maiden.

And in the next breath, they both exhaled the same startled word: “
You?
”

Ghostly strands of mist formed around his lips, and his face was flushed. He’d come out without a hat, and his hair, faintly gilded by a summer that now felt so long ago, sprung up from his head in all directions. He must have dressed in great haste, for his shirt was more off than on. She wondered whose bed he’d just rolled out of to embark upon this madcap chase. Adding to his undone appearance, he sported a bloodied lip and a blossoming bruise on the upper ridge of his right cheekbone. Apparently he’d put himself through the gauntlet to get here.

Ellie’s heart was thrusting like the paws of a fox with hounds hard on his tail. For the past six months she’d stayed out of his way, and since the social Season had yet to begin, she didn’t expect to see him in London so soon.

“James Hartley! What are you doing here?”

***

He might have known he’d find
her
there, in the thick of it.

Mariella Vyne, brazen strumpet and notorious menace, had the audacity to sit up in that bed and question
him
. Somehow he bit down on a large slice of his anger, although not all of it could be swallowed at once. “The count,” he demanded, striding up to the bed, floorboards groaning indignantly under the weight of his feet. He almost hit his brow on the low beams but ducked in the nick of time. “Where is he, Vyne? I know he’s here somewhere. I tracked him to this inn.”

She shook off what appeared to be a sleepy haze and pointed at the window. “You missed him. He’s gone.”

He raised his lantern higher, and the arc of light swung over a pair of riding boots by her bed. “Barefoot?”

“He heard you coming and fled in haste.”

He looked at the brandy bottle and empty glass, then quickly assessed the rumpled sheets before returning to the woman wearing the count’s lacy, extravagantly ruffled shirt. “What the blazes are
you
doing here with him?” Stupid question. It was quite clear what she was doing there with that villain.

“How dare you break into our room, Hartley? Get out!”

Instead, he set his lantern down, held his quirt in his teeth, and proceeded to check beneath the bed before searching under the coverlet, his gloved hands clutching at her bare legs. She scrambled up the mattress, away from his reach.

“You won’t find him
there
, will you, for pity’s sake?”

Abruptly he felt the sharp pain of something shattered against his back, accompanied by a loud “crack.” A shower of broken pottery rained across the bed. When he retreated, he saw the handle of the broken ewer still in her hand, her eyes gleaming with victory. As he opened his mouth to curse, the quirt fell to the bed, and he slid backward, shaking pieces of clay from his coat and hair.

“I’ll bring that crook to justice, Vyne.” His hot temper slithered farther out of reach—just as she did. “I give you fair warning.”

She snorted. “What has he done to get your drawers in such a knot?”

“Stolen something of great value to me.”

“Your mirror?”

James glared at the vixen in the rumpled bed. “Very droll. I see no civilized man has yet taken you in hand, Vyne.”

“Oh, they wouldn’t dare try.”

Angry breath oozed out of him in a cold laugh. “I’d advise you to steer clear of the count—if I ever thought you’d listen to good sense.”

Faint amusement twinkled from beneath hastily lowered, long, dark lashes. But her haughty lips were set in their usual stubborn moue, poised to argue. “As if
you
have any right to lecture me, Hartley! Your own history of mistakes with the opposite sex would require more bound volumes than the
Encyclopedia
Britannica
. Tend to your own affairs before you meddle in mine.”

They both sprang across the bed for his fallen quirt at the same time, but he got there first. She leapt to her feet on the mattress, clutched the coverlet to her seminaked body, and primly ordered him, once again, out of her room.

He stood firm, holding the quirt across his thighs. “Where has he gone, Vyne?”

She raised her chin, tossed her dark, tangled hair over her shoulder and, in a grand flourish that put the actress Sarah Siddons to shame, exclaimed, “You’ll never find him, Hartley. Torture me all you like, I’ll never betray him.” He rather got the impression the wench was enjoying herself now. Well, he’d soon nip that smug expression in the bud.

“It might interest you to know, Vyne, the lover you so gallantly protect was witnessed this evening flirting excessively with Lady Ophelia Southwold. Not so loyal to
you
, eh?”

To his surprise, she merely laughed. “Encroaching on your property, Hartley? Wasn’t she your latest hussy? One of them at least.”

He ignored that. “I came here to retrieve the diamonds he stole from that lady. They belong to me.”

“To you?”

Aha. That got her. Unless he was very much mistaken, a half pint of impertinent, rosy bloom had just drained from the dratted woman’s cheeks. “The Hartley Diamonds,” he explained. “Priceless antiquities that French villain stole from Lady Southwold.”

“He
stole
them? Is that what she told you? I don’t suppose she mentioned what else she offered him? It seems your fair lady is not so faithful either.”

He gave his quirt a practice swing, letting his gaze wander upward over her disheveled form. The ruffled collar of the count’s shirt framed her long, slender neck and drew attention to a bosom undeserving of his notice or his admiration. Although it received both, in some very dark, disobedient part of his being.

It was a very good thing she clutched that coverlet around her waist, for she was evidently not wearing anything but the shirt. Not another stitch. Naked as the day she was born under that bit of lace and silk.

James cleared his throat. Back to business. “Get your clothes on, Vyne. I’m taking you with me. Someone should save you from your own stupidity.”

“Don’t fool yourself, Hartley. I do not need rescuing.”

“Have it your way then, shameless hussy.”

“Thank you. I shall. Pompous, hypocritical twit.”

Half-turned away, he regained a breath and then looked back at her. “You are, quite possibly, the most irritating, truculent creature I’ve ever known. In the fifteen years of our acquaintance, you haven’t changed.”

“Seventeen,” she corrected. “And your existence is equally trying on my nerves.”

“You’re an ill-mannered, brazen—”

“And you’re a vain, mean-tempered—”

“Lying, scheming—”

“Arrogant wretch.”

The lacy shirt slipped down over one shoulder, leaving her flesh bared.