Free Wicked, My Love by Susanna Ives Page A

already memorized the address. “The first train leaves at eight thirty. I expect you to be on it while I’m huddled on one knee in the orangery, shackling my black heart and soul for life.” He reached for his crowbar and bag, drawing them over his shoulders, and began to walk away. “Godspeed.”
    â€œRandall,” she whispered.
    He spun around. The pale moonlight poured over her creamy skin and reflected off her lenses. Her fallen black hair curled around her bosom. He stood, arrested at the sight. Despite the tension wracking his body, a small measure of peace washed over him. He remembered the touch of her lips, the rise of her breasts against his chest. Again he marveled at the paradox that was Isabella—as sensual as she was awkward, as tender as she was hard, as yielding as she was stubborn.
    â€œThank you,” she said quietly.
    He nodded. “Just don’t miss the train.” He gazed at her for a second more, then turned and headed, weary but resigned, for battle.

Five
    Isabella couldn’t sleep. She had read about an Oriental phenomenon called a tsunami, a huge tidal upsurge formed after a volcanic explosion or earthquake. In the early hours of the morning, as she tossed and turned in her bed, she imagined an enormous wave rolling across the ocean, growing bigger and bigger, its rippling foam spelling out her name.
    Milton strolled in a little after four and curled up on her pillow, exhausted after a long night of tomcatting on the town. At five, she woke him up out of spite. “I’m leaving for a few days. Don’t you dare wet t he bedcovers.”
    He gave her a nasty flick of his tail, rolled over, and fell back asleep.
    She slid out of bed, lit her desk lamp, and opened her wardrobe. She began pulling out her frumpier gowns, which seemed to be most of her wardrobe, and laid them on her bed, talking aloud to her snoozing cat in the barely lucid manner of an anxious woman who hadn’t slept in eighteen hours. “I’ll tell Judith that I’m leaving for the Wollstonecraft meeting a few days early to speak with my stockbroker and the bank manager. That’s a good excuse because it’s not exactly a lie, as I do plan to make a beeline to Mr. Harker’s as soon as I set foot in London.” Milton’s ears, notched about the edges from numerous cat brawls, slanted back as he gave her a green-eyed, will-you-just-be-quiet-crazy-woman glare.
    She dug beneath her winter petticoats, muffs, and heavy woolen cloaks until she located her bag. “I must travel alone. Our servants have the loosest tongues in England. If they get even a tiny whiff of this scandal, the news will travel to the nether reaches of Russia in a matter of days.” For all her love of carefully orchestrated order, in her agitated state, she shoved her clothes willy-nilly into her bag. “On the train, I’ll pretend I’m a drab, inconspicuous spinster who is visiting her dear sister and her children in Belgravia.”
    But you are a drab, inconspicuous spinster, she reminded herself. You don’t have to pretend that no man wants to have a thing to do with you. The only reason Randall kissed you was to keep you quiet. Her face heated with embarrassment as she remembered thinking that, for one stupid moment, her touch had elicited the same tingling in the baby-making regions as his had done.
    â€œIdiot,” she muttered.
    Now she could add “ruined my first and probably only kiss” to the long list of wrongs the viscount had committed against her.
    By seven, when the sun was up and finches tweeted from the trees outside, she had mentally completed a detailed plan of action with several possible outcomes. The worst case involved sewing stones into her gown and sinking into the reeking waters of the Thames. She composed the first lines of her obituary as she stood on the bed and jammed her foot into the opening of the bag, forcing down the contents.