Once Upon a Wicked Night by Jennifer Haymore Read Free Book Online Page A

direction, and he’d thought they must be a light shade.
    God. He nearly groaned. She captivated him. She had from the first moment he’d seen her. She was simply lovely.
    “… leaving London soon.”
    Fenwicke stopped talking, and Max’s attention snapped back to him.
    Fenwicke sighed. “Did you hear me, Hasley?”
    “Sorry,” Max said, then gestured randomly about. “Noisy in here.”
    It was true, after all. The orchestra had begun the opening strands of the next dance, and laughing couples were brushing past them, hurrying to join in at the last possible moment.
    Fenwicke gazed at him appraisingly for a long moment, then motioned toward the ballroom’s exit. “Come, man. Let’s go have a drink.”
    If it had been an ordinary evening, he would have declined. He and Fenwicke had a long acquaintance, and Max had always found the man oily and unlikable. They’d been rivals since their school days at Eton, but they’d never been friends.
    He glanced quickly back to the lady.
Olivia.
At that moment, she looked up. Her gaze caught his and held.
    Blue eyes. Surely they were blue.
    Those eyes held him in her thrall, sweet and lovely, and sensual too, despite her obvious innocence. Max felt suspended in midair, like a water droplet caught in a spider’s web.
    She glanced at Fenwicke and then quickly to the floor, and Max plopped back to earth with a
splat.
But satisfaction rushed through him in a warm wave, because just before she’d broken their eye contact, he’d seen the first vestiges of color flooding her cheeks.
    “Very well,” he told Fenwicke. Tonight he didn’t politely excuse himself from Fenwicke’s company, because tonight Fenwicke appeared to have information Max suddenly craved—information about Olivia Donovan.
    He turned away from her, but not before he saw another gentleman offering her his arm for the dance and a bolt of envy struck him in the gut. Thrusting away that irrational emotion, Max followed Fenwicke down the corridor to the parlor that had been set aside as the gentlemen’s retiring room. A foursome played cards in the corner, and an elderly man sat in a large but elegant brown cloth armchair in the corner, blatantly antisocial, a newspaper raised to obscure half his face. Other men lounged by the sideboard, chatting and drinking from the never-ending supply of spirits.
    Fenwicke collected two glasses of brandy and then gestured with his chin at a pair of empty leather chairs separated by a low, glass-topped table but close enough together for them to have a private conversation. Max sat in the nearest chair, taking the glass Fenwicke offered him as he passed. He took a drink of the brandy while Fenwicke lowered himself into the opposite chair.
    Holding his glass in both hands, Fenwicke stared at him. “I gather you haven’t had the pleasure of observing the Miss Donovans prior to tonight.”
    “No,” Max admitted. “Do they plan to reside in London?”
    “No.” Fenwicke’s lip twisted sardonically. “As I was saying in the ballroom, I believe they’re leaving before the end of the month. They’re off to Stratford’s estate in Sussex.”
    “Too bad,” Max murmured.
    But then a memory jolted him. At White’s last week, Lord Stratford had invited a few men, including Max, to Sussex this autumn to hunt fowl. He’d turned down the offer—he’d never been much interested in hunting—but now…
    Fenwicke gazed at him. The man had always reminded Max of a reptilian predator with his cold, assessing silver-gray eyes. “You,” he announced, “have a tendre for Miss Donovan.”
    It was impossible to determine whether that was a question or a statement. Either way, it didn’t matter. “Don’t be absurd. I don’t even know Jessica Donovan.”
    “I’m speaking of Olivia,” Fenwicke said icily. It sounded like Fenwicke was
jealous
, but that was ridiculous. As the man had said, the lady had been in Town for less than a month.
    “I don’t know either of them,” Max