Wicked Game 02 - Something Wicked Read online

  Greg felt his frustration boiling over as he approached her. She was playing with him but he wasn’t amused at all. “How many times do we have to have this discussion? It doesn’t matter if you care. All that matters is—”

  She pouted her lips playfully and put her hands on her hips. “Are you saying my feelings don’t matter?”

  “I am absolutely not saying anything of the sort. I’m merely commenting on the fact that your actions have consequences. And those consequences are reflecting on me, as well.”

  “Oh.” She waved her hand dismissively for the second time.

  Now that he was closer, Greg reached for her dismissive arm but she dodged him and ran up ahead of him in the hall. She turned to face him as she spoke now, obviously trying to tease him and test his patience all at the same time. She loved to toy with him this way and usually he loved this infuriating game of hers too.

  “You’re too stiff,” she’d told him time and time again.

  And over the years she’d worked at his defenses and helped him relax. Right now though, Greg was not amused in the least bit and he knew she could see this. But—God love the bloody, exasperating woman—she continued her game anyway in an attempt to force him into a more jovial mood.

  “Well, they can shove it Greg!” She finally said as she skipped back closer to him. “How many times do we have to have this discussion?”

  He sighed and rubbed his temples with his thumb and forefinger.

  “It’s not like it matters. I’m not going to be here long anyway…” she mused.

  By now he caught up to her in this game of cat and mouse and in one swift move, he took a hold of his best friend’s arm.

  “Oww!” She whined as she pasted a phony frown on her face.

  “Mary, you can shove it! I’m barely touching you! Now let’s go!”

  “Alright, alright.” She tried to pull her arm away but he just grasped her tighter and began to pull her down the hall.

  “We will be on time for this party, you will stay for at least an hour, and you will make your exit inconspicuous!” he hissed.

  “Oh will I, now?” Mary drew her lips into a straight line and set her jaw strong as stone. He knew she didn’t like being told what to do even if it was the truth.

  “Mary, I mean it. If you want my help, then you need to listen.” Greg felt his jaw tighten as well.

  “I don’t need your help. I can take care of myself!” Mary finally pulled herself free of his grasp and crossed her arms in front of her.

  “Oh, is that so?” Greg angled his head to the side made a little hmph sound as he looked her over. “I remember a conversation in which you told me just how much you did need—”

  Mary eyed him insolently. “I’ve grown since then. Learned. Matured.” But she could not keep her face stern and she let out one squeaking laugh.

  “Matured have you? Learned? I suppose that’s the reason I had to pay such a sizeable sum to Lord Weston: because you’ve learned to take care of yourself?”

  “Greg…” Mary exhaled quickly as she shrugged her shoulders. “Must you keep bringing that up? It was once, years ago, and it was such a trivial occurrence that I always forget about it until you insist on reminding me. I mean for Heaven’s sake, Greg, that old man is practically blind… and deaf too! I don’t think he had the faintest idea why you were paying him…”

  “You’re right, most likely anyway, but we can’t be too careful. It only takes once, my girl.”

  “He probably wondered outside accidently because he couldn’t see! No one should have been anywhere near the gardens that night…”

  “Well, Mary, what can I say? Sometimes people do things they shouldn’t do…”

  “You wound me, Greg.” Mary stuck out her tongue at him and turned away. “You know, where do you get off anyway—

  “Mary—” Greg leaned his head back and shook his fists in the air above him.

  “—judging me—”

  “Judging you? What are you talking about—Mary!”

  “Gregory!” She said his full name as she pressed her lips together tightly in another effort to hold in a laugh.

  “What?” He plopped his hands onto her shoulders and gave her one friendly shake.

  “Why don’t you find a woman of your own to trouble yourself with?”

  Greg rolled his eyes and sighed and took her in his arms. He kissed the top of her head as he embraced her tightly. “Because right now, my dear, you are more than enough woman for me to be troubled with.”

  “Trouble? Me?” Her face twisted to prevent a laugh.

  “You are absolutely infuriating.”

  “As are you!”

  “I thought you liked it when I called you infuriating. You once told me it was a great compliment, if I recall.”

  She scoffed. “And had I known you would have taken such advantage of it and continued to call me infuriating for all of these years then I should have chosen a more fitting word.”

  “Frustrating?”

  She scoffed again.

  “Irritating?”

  She pushed him away with a light touch of her hand. “Fine. I suppose ‘infuriating’ will do.” She sighed.

  “What?” he asked as the corners of his mouth curled upward.

  “I do love you, Greg.” A smile framed her face as she stood on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek.

  Greg pulled her into a hug as he replied, “I love you too, my girl.”

  He continued to hold her as he breathed in deeply. She smelled of rose water and lemon and woman.

  “Greg?” he finally heard Mary say. The soft hum of her voice reverberated through his chest.

  “Yes?” His noticed his voice was dreamy. He had drifted off with her touch.

  “They’re announcing us.”

  “Oh! Yes. Yes. I suppose they are,” he responded as he composed himself. “We wouldn’t want to be late now would we?”

  “If you say so.” She smiled at him as she pulled away.

  He smoothed his jacket and breathed deeply. “Are you ready?”

  She nodded. “Aren’t I always?”

  He held out his arm to her and she looped hers delicately though his. They entered the ballroom then as they always had for many long years: together, but not really together.

  ***

  The party hall smelled like pastries; a sickly sweet aroma that made the mouth water and the emotions rise up. A warm breeze billowed out from the kitchen and enveloped the house and its dozens of occupants in a comforting blanket of tranquility. With so many people inside the home it had already become warm enough to offset the night’s frigid temperatures, but the added warmth from the sweets baking in the kitchen was always a welcome blessing during such festive events.

  Mary felt the warmth too, the moment that it entered the room, but her rising temperature was due to much more than the pastries. She sipped her drink slowly as she glanced over in his direction. His name didn’t matter any more now than it had a few days ago, despite the now intimate nature of their relations. To public eyes, their shared glances were coy and well within the acceptable standards of society. But the masses never saw everything, and knowing what to hide and what to present was a precious and valuable skill at which Mary was highly gifted in.

  Her eyes fluttered shut as the sweet aroma filled her nostrils; pastries, hot and fresh from the oven, and then there was also something more which set her skin to tingling. She knew what she would find when she opened her eyes, and a smile crossed her face as she did so.

  “Lady Mary,” he said. He was there in front of her, as if by magic.

  Carefully, he fitted her hand in his own and ever so gently brushed his lips across her fingers. Shivers riveted her body and she did her best to hold her composure though she knew he felt her reaction and that it pleased him. And that knowledge pleased her. With a smirk on his face he inclined his head to her and let her hand gently fall before he left the grand hall by the east door. Their eyes lingered for a moment and
the radiance of physical tension beamed between them. Then a few minutes later Mary left by the west door.

  Despite the fact that it was the heart of summer, the night air was exceptionally cool and it stung her face as she moved through it. It wasn’t hard to combat the chill, however, as she had plenty of thoughts to occupy her mind and plenty of memories to keep her warm. As she walked, her mind drifted to thoughts of previous nights caught up in the moment with her gentleman companion.

  The soft brush of skin, the naughty twinkle of an eye, and a flirtatious laugh: none of it quite as innocent as it looked. Her public demeanor was that of a lady, and a well-regarded lady at that, but most of all she was a woman rebelling against the constraints of that restricting word.

  “Lady,” she said to herself with a hiss.

  Nearly all women strived to be one. But what did that word even mean? To society it was a pleasant and wonderful thing bringing to mind images of grace and poise. It was soft voices and delicate clothes. It was tender hands and gentle minds. It was smiles and giggles and cheerful obedience.

  And absence. Being a lady was also the absence of being a person.

  Mary gritted her teeth in firm conviction of her choices. No matter what it took, she refused to stop being a person.

  To Mary, her choices were well thought out and purposeful, but her closest friends made a habit of analyzing those choices. When he wasn’t lecturing her about playing with fire, Greg liked to tease her and tell her that she was an exhibitionist. In her letters, her cousin, Angela, blamed it on the fact that her father had died when she was only thirteen. Priscilla had another theory all together about the pent up desires of women. But it was really much simpler than all of that.

  It was freedom.

  It was civil rebellion.

  It was life itself.

  After all, what better way to incorporate free will and excitement into the colorless life of a society woman than by excelling at its own game: the game of affections? Mary knew she could have chosen a less risky escape like most other women of her status and fallen victim to something such as wine or food. But Mary was not most women. Most women spent their lives avoiding risk. Mary actively sought it out.

  A life without risk was no life at all, she thought with conviction. A life without the game held no freedom at all.

  Mary sighed loudly.

  She supposed though, if she had to choose between the three analyses, that Angela and Priscilla—damn them both!—were the closest to being right. Priscilla had fostered Mary’s path. But long before Priscilla had found that first seed inside of her and cultivated it, Mary supposed—as strange as it was—that her father had been the one to plant the seed inside of her in the first place.

  Her father’s death hit her hard. Of course the death of a family member is always difficult for those who love the person, but for Mary she felt the loss more deeply than most. She was the youngest of four daughters, the baby of the family by more than a decade, and her father’s favorite.

  “You have my spark,” he always told her with a smile that melted her heart. He would wrap her in his arms then and kiss her cheek and then they would continue on with whatever lively conversation they were previously having that prompted the remark in the first place.

  As a child these conversations and this encouragement were common place to Mary: she expressing her mind, brazenly, loudly, and confidently and her father listening wide eyed with a crooked smile and a twinkle in his hazel eyes. It wasn’t until she grew older, met more people, and saw more of the world, that she learned that this treatment, this way of life, was an anomaly. A beautiful, wonderful anomaly. But an anomaly none the less.

  This revelation came as quite a shock to her when she finally saw it firsthand. Fathers, as it turned out, simply did not treat daughters the way her father treated her, and society—that heartless mass—simply did not treat women the way her father treated her. And it was at this point that Mary began curiously and studiously observing other women of her status to see if they were aware of this contradiction in their treatment.

  It was not hard to see, Mary realized quite dismally, that for the most part, yes, the women were very aware. But these women did not push the issue publically, and instead silently accepted life as it was. Something was holding them back, she sensed. These were strong, intelligent, well-bred, society women after all! Mary simply did not understand what appeared to be such a blatant lack of care and self-worth on their part. In her eyes this error of social ambiguity was absolutely unacceptable.

  I am worth something. You are worth something. We women are worth something so much more.

  It was not until she exasperatedly broached the subject with her father one day that the answer hit her in one swift blow.

  She had her father. She had a champion. She was a woman and a person and she had never been treated as anything less.

  Yes, Mary reflected as she wiped at her eyes, if she had to pick, Angela and Priscilla were correct. The loss of her father was a difficult thing to stomach. When he went she feared that she would go with him—not in the morbid sense that she would physically go with him and die as well. What she feared was that she would lose her sense of self.

  What would she do without her father there to foster her as a person? How would she navigate the cruel social world and keep her sanity? For weeks after his death this fear ate away at her as she struggled to figure out who she really was and what it all meant. But sometime not too much later, as she splashed cool water over her blood-shot and puffy eyes, she remembered his words again.

  “You have my spark,” he said—and so she did. He planted this seed in her when she was just a child, and fostered it and cultivated it as one did a precious flower, until at last, its roots were so deeply entwined in all the things it touched that one part could not be distinguished from another. It was a symbiotic relationship, this spark and her. It would live as long as she did, and her as long as it. And she would never be without her father.

  Then sometime not too long after that day—she sometimes thought it fate—she met Greg. With him she was always a person as well. Just Mary. Nothing more, but certainly nothing less. And Greg had the spark too: a shared understanding, a deep, unbreakable connection. He understood her when no one else in the world ever could.

  But there was one thing he had never understood.

  He had never understood this game she played, or rather her participation in it. She didn’t blame him though, the game was not for everyone, and a lesser woman might have lost herself. But not Mary. For Mary, the game was where she found herself.

  The game. Yes. From the moment she had discovered it, the game had always been her greatest pleasure. Ladies flirted and teased and men loved it… or so she had always been told. But as it turned out, that advice was all wrong. Men of society did not like teasing or the game at all. Men liked winning and it wasn’t long before Mary decided to let them win… or at least let them think so.

  For still Mary was not like other women as she alone recognized the one key difference between the game of affections and other social constructs: in the game of affections she was in charge. In the game of affections a woman could make the rules. In the game of affections a woman could remain a person.

  “Whoa!”

  A gust of wind caught her off guard and in mid thought as she struggled to maintain control of her wrap. She pulled it tightly around her now and fashioned a small knot as she continued her superficially innocent stroll. The moon cast a speckled shadow over her and she quickly corrected her gait to fall back into the darkness of the night. Only then did she allow herself to move back into her mind.

  When playing the game, a simple stolen kiss may have been the culmination for others, but a kiss was only the beginning for her. The touching of lips, so beautiful and soft, was only part of an elaborate puzzle to Mary. It was the beginning of the game, where the real fun began, and it was as addicting as wine and pastries. And besides the thrill of the game, there
was also the thrill of the acts themselves. Just because it was only a game did not mean that she couldn’t enjoy it!

  “And so I do…,” she told herself with a secret smile.

  The first time she had set her eyes upon her current companion, the effect within her body was an immediate one. Her pulse increased, her body went numb, and her fingers tingled. In the beginning, butterflies occupied her belly so feverishly that she could barely eat. But after so many days the feeling was now dwindling, as it always did. Such intensity of emotion never lasted forever and it was beginning to decline more quickly these days. This game was ending and Mary knew it. But there were always more men and more opportunities to play the game…

  “There will always be more games,” she tried to reassure herself as she reached her final destination deep within the garden.

  “My dear!” A voice as sweet as the honey flooded her mind and before she knew what was happening, she was drawn in. His fingers intertwined with hers and a shock propelled their bodies together. Lips touched and fire burned. She was caught, willingly, but still on guard, her mind turned off to anything but physical emotion.

  ***

  Parties, dancing, the strict social atmosphere of the masses: it all drove Greg crazy. His attendance at these parties was more of a formality than a personal desire, a requirement of his status, and he accepted it all reluctantly. Other men found the social season a time of much welcomed pleasure and frivolity. They combed these parties for companionship of both the decent and the indecent kind.

  Not Greg.

  If it was up to him he’d be home right now with a stiff drink and a good book. A year ago he might have said a good woman instead of a good book, but when a companion was only for a night or two at the most then how did one really judge what was “good”?

  There was a time when Greg thought he could actually reach this goal of a “good” temporary companion, or better even, he thought he could reach the goal of an amazing one. At that time he pursued each woman with a keen eye and a sound mind until he was absolutely sure he found the perfect companion. But this satisfying result of perfection was rarely the case, as Greg discovered the hard way more than once.