Love and Other Wicked Games (A Wicked Game Novel) (8 page)

She frowned. She probably shouldn’t be thinking about beds. That just made her think more about him.

“You’ve forgotten how to talk now?”

“No, I was just—” but she couldn’t very well tell him what she was doing and so she cut herself off abruptly.

The man leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees with a smirk.

He knew. She could tell. But now she could also tell that he’d been looking at her too.
Whatever for?
She wondered. Was he thinking the same things about her that she was thinking about him? She felt her cheeks get even hotter.

The man continued to smile and patted the bed next to him again. “I won’t bite.”

She felt something warm and tingly growing in her belly and for just a moment she considered going to sit next to him. In this room. Alone. On the bed.

But instead she shook her head rapidly and said, “No, I couldn’t possibly.”

“There’s nowhere else to sit.”

Ellie laughed and wiped off her forehead with the back of her hand. “That would be so far beyond inappropriate and scandalous.”

“This whole situation is beyond inappropriate and scandalous. And yet, here we are.”

“Yes. I suppose so. But I think it would be best if I stand.” She bit her lip and pointed to the ground where she stood. “Over here.”

“As you wish,” he nodded with a twinkle in his eyes. “But the offer remains open. We’ll be here for a while and you might get tired—”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Suit yourself.”

“So how much time do we have to occupy?” Ellie frowned.
Well that sounded a bit improper
, she thought. “Well—What I mean is—how long
will
we have to be here?”

“Oh, I’d say no more than an hour. Two tops. That should be plenty of time to keep them from finding…” The man trailed off and cleared his throat, clearly not wanting to tell her anymore right now. “But it’s going to get pretty boring if we just sit here and twiddle our thumbs…”

“Well, then what do you suggest we,” Ellie gulped, “do?”

The man leaned back against the bed with a satisfied look on his face. It was clear he could tell how edgy she was and that he enjoyed watching her squirm. What was more, Ellie was beginning to enjoy it too and she didn’t know how long she could hide it from him.

“Well, you could start by finally telling me your name,” he responded. “I’m growing rather tired of referring to you as ‘the woman’ in my thoughts.”

Ellie raised a brow. “Your thoughts? And do you think of me so often that this has become a hardship?”

“Often enough.” He rolled his mouth around. “So, let’s have it.”

“Alright then. It’s Mary.” She frowned.

“Something wrong with the name Mary? I always thought it was a rather nice name.”

“Well, it’s not that. It’s just that… Well, it’s just—that’s my name but it’s not my name.”

“Already lying? That’s not anyway to begin a relationship!”

“
A relationship?
” Ellie croaked.

The man gave her a rakish grim. “Is that not what a friendship is?”

“Oh. Why yes. I suppose so.” She paused. “We’re friends?”

“After all we’ve been through together I’d say so, yes. Unless you have another name for… this?”

Ellie gulped. “No. I suppose not… But as for lying, you’re one to talk.”

He pursed his lips. “Fair enough. So what
is
your name?”

“Well, it
is
Mary. That’s the truth. It’s just that. Well, it’s Mary—but it’s Ellie—Mary—Mary Wilson—” The longer she was here with him in this room with nowhere to sit but a bed, the more nervous and flustered she felt herself becoming. She shook her clasped hands in front of her as she inhaled and exhaled deeply. Then she carefully articulated her speech to punctuate each word. “Mary Isabella Angela Wilson—Wilson-Dillard, that is...”

On the other side of the room the man laughed and slapped his knee.

“Do you find my name amusing?”

“Such a big name for such a small woman...”

“Oh, yes... Well, I do go by a smaller name. That’s what I meant when I said that Mary was my name… but also wasn’t my name. Does that make sense?”

“Of course.” He chuckled again. “Lots of people have nicknames. I do. So, what’s yours?”

“What’s yours?” Ellie shot back.

The man paused for a moment. “Cal.”

“Cal. Is that it?”

“It is for now.”

“But I’ve gone and told you my full name.”

“You have.” He nodded. “But I didn’t ask you to. And I’ll request that you don’t ask for mine.”

“Alright then. I won’t. But I’m glad I can at least call you ‘Cal’.” Ellie smiled, feeling uncharacteristically devilish. “I too was getting tired of not having a name for my thoughts.”

Cal returned her devilish smile and Ellie immediately felt embarrassed.

Thank God she was just a worker in a dress shop. She didn’t know how she would have survived in the social world.

“So, Miss Mary. I’ve told you my nickname. What’s yours?”

“Ellie. I go by Ellie.”

“I like that much better than Mary. It’s more fitting. Short and cute… Like you.”

“Oh…” Ellie looked down at the floor as her face grew even warmer. “It’s short for Isabella, my grandmother’s name... though I never did quite understand why my mother gave it to me since they didn’t get along. They still don’t. Perhaps she thought it would help their relationship... It didn’t, but it’s my name none the less...”

“Wait, wait. Just a minute.” Cal held up his hand and his eyes grew wide. “Did you say Wilson Dillard? As in ‘Wilson-Dillard-the-run-away-Earl’ who gave up his title to escape the wickedness of the social world?”

“Yes, the very one. That’s my father.” Ellie smiled. She always felt a surge of pride when she was reminded of her of parents’ past. “They did it for me, you know.”

“You’re alright with that, then?” Cal gave her a curious and concerned look. “Seems like quite a large and life changing decision to lay on you.”

“I’m alright with it now. But I wasn’t always. There was a time when I felt rather guilty. My parents make a respectable living, they always have, but we’ve had our struggles. And sometimes I would wonder…”

“What about?”

“How things might have been different if only my father had kept the title. It was the money I thought about mostly. There was a time when I thought that if only we’d had more money, then maybe we wouldn’t have to worry about anything ever again.” Ellie hugged herself tightly. “I mean I know now that’s not the case. A title is so much more than money and it would have changed our entire lives in ways I can’t even begin to imagine, but as a young girl, I didn’t understand that. I only saw the possible positives. And for a long time I thought that if he’d kept the title then maybe our lives would be perfect. And easy… but he didn’t keep the title, because of me, and so it was all my fault that our lives weren’t perfect or easy…”

“Life is never perfect or easy. For anyone, no matter what they try to tell you.” He kicked his feet up on the bed and leaned back with his hands behind his head. “Titles are one thing but money is a whole other monster. It always seems to complicate things more than it helps…”

Ellie twisted her lips remembering the bag full of money he’d given the barkeep for their room. He seemed to truly mean and understand the words he said, but from the way he said them Ellie knew she shouldn’t press the matter at this moment no matter how curious she was.

“What do your siblings think about it all? Did
they
ever blame you?”

“Oh,” Ellie looked down and fiddled her thumbs. “I don’t have any siblings.”

“No? Didn’t your parents want any other children? Weren’t they—” He cleared his throat. “I mean from the stories I’ve heard I thought they were… very much in love.”

Ellie felt her face redden. “They are. And they wanted more children. But it just never happened. Only me.” She paused. “Do you have any siblings?”

“Two much older sisters from my father’s first marriage. Though he wasn’t frond of them since they weren’t boys—as if that would have made a difference—and they weren’t fond of him either. They married and left home as soon as they could, which was before I was even born. Never really knew them and haven’t seen them in years.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“I’d say they’re better for it.” He wrinkled his nose and appeared to be silently cursing himself for the self-deprecating slip.

Ellie felt the tension in the room grow thick and saw him slipping into it. “The guilt aside, I’ll admit that I did find it an amusing pastime as a child, thinking about what might have been…”

“How so?”

Ellie crossed her arms and looked out the window for a moment before turning back to him with a little smile on her face. “Sometimes… sometimes I thought about the parties and the fabulous dresses and the dancing. I thought about who my parents might have been… And who I might have been.”

“Oh, don’t do that…”

“Why not?”

“Why would you ever want to be anyone else besides Ellie?”

“Well,” she blushed. “I suppose I wouldn’t.”

“I’m glad.”

“So am I.” Ellie smiled warmly. She wasn’t used to this sort of compliment. Compliments usually came to her with caveats about how if she’d only do this thing or that thing differently, it would make her oh so much more likeable. Cal seemed to like her quite a bit as is and that felt very good indeed.

“And you know, it wasn’t your fault, either,” he added. “So what if they did it for you? That was what—twenty-five years ago?”

Ellie nodded.

“You were a baby when your father gave up the title. Even if you hadn’t been, you have no control over the actions of others. You can only control how you react and how you feel.”

“I know that now. I don’t know what might have been but I do know what was. And I’m glad for the way our lives turned out without the title. We never had a lot, but we had a lot of what mattered.”

She heard him make a little
hmm
sound and saw him nod his head. “Well, said,” he acknowledged. His face was pleasant but his eyes were distant and looked slightly pained. Ellie got the impression that he did not grow up having a lot of what mattered.

“You know, I don’t know why I even told you about any of this. I don’t go by that name, Dillard, I mean. I never have. Though it is part of my full Christian name and I suppose I’m just a bit nervous and so I guess it...” She shrugged “I guess it just came out. I do that you see. When I’m nervous. I say things. They just come out... And... And what are you laughing at?”

“You,” he chuckled, the pleasant smile now back on his face.

“What about me?” But she knew exactly what he meant. She was getting all nervous and flustered again. She smoothed her green dress to try to calm her nerves but instead frowned upon seeing the grime that now covered it. “My mother is going to be terribly furious about this. More so that I won’t be able to tell her how it happened...”

And what had happened, indeed. Ellie was still having a hard time wrapping her brain around it all. She was having a difficult time determining what was real and what was not, as if all of this might just be a dream. As she considered the possibilities she looked back to Cal, letting her eyes lock with his. For a moment she was lost inside of their emerald depths, and that was when she knew this could not possibly be a dream. Because no matter how she tried to cast it from her mind and how far away from him she stood, she could not stop thinking about their kiss and the way it made her feel.

She remembered heat, lots of it, which flooded her lips the moment his mouth touched hers. From there it reached out, further and deeper, higher and lower, until the top of her head was on fire and the bottom of her feet were hot as coals. But it didn’t burn, not in the way that heat and fires normally do. Instead it was like ice. It was so hot it was cold. It was so cold it was hot. Like sitting in an ice bath and having boiling water poured over her head all at once. Her muscles tensed and contracted. She shivered and she gasped. And she wanted more.

Nothing had ever felt so real to her. Nothing had ever felt so needing.

As she continued to look at him, into him, a strand of his hair fell across his face and for just a moment she thought about going to him, reaching out, and brushing that hair away. And then kissing him again. They had been far too busy running after the first time for her to take everything in. She’d taken in a good deal, but something told her there would be so much more if only they had a chance to take their time. What exactly this “more” could be was only speculation to her, but the possibilities made her tingle.

She’d never felt more wicked in her life, but she’d never felt more alive.

Cal cleared his throat and Ellie looked away, embarrassed.

“Your
mother
will be furious, will she? You don’t think your husband will care about your dress? Or that you’re here with me? Or that we… you know…” he asked in a rather satisfied manner. He was still sitting on the bed, legs up, hands behind his head, but his smile had turned into a dashing grin. “Or am I going to have to worry about hiding from him too?”

Ellie was unable to help herself. She broke into a small fit of laughter.

Cal raised a brow. “Is there something funny about all of this?”

“No. Not at all,” Ellie managed in between laughs. “But the idea of me having a husband… me…”

“You’re not married?”

“No.” She shook her head quickly as if to show the absurdness of the idea. “No, of course not.”

“How old are you? Five and twenty, right?”

“Yes. Not that it’s any of your business.” She crossed her arms. “Why?”

“Five and twenty. You never thought
you
should get married?”

“Why should I be married?” she shot back with wide eyes. “How old are you? You never thought you should get married?”

“One and thirty. And yes. Yes, I have thought about it.”

“Why?” Ellie was genuinely curious now.

“Well, I—” He raked his hand through his hair and shrugged. “Well, I suppose because that’s just the way things work. That’s the order of things. Marry, start a family…”