Wicked Becomes You by Meredith Duran Read Free Book Online Page A

talent. After all, where had niceness gotten her? From beleaguered to pitiable, that was where! Slobbered on and nipped by beastly men!
    The deuces with being nice, then! It profited her nothing. It was exhausting! And here was proof: only five minutes ago she’d been exhausted, while now she felt like skipping into the hallway and—yelling! No, yelling wasn’t enough. She felt like smashing something!
    She made a fist and smacked it experimentally against the desktop. Yes, she could smash something. She looked around. The clock? No, no, Aunt Elma admired that clock.
    The mirror? It seemed a bit gothic. Madwomen too often smashed mirrors. She wouldn’t want to give the wrong impression.
    The flower vase? Yes! Yes, she could smash that!
    Over his head !
    Just imagining it made her queer exhilaration redouble. It swelled up so fast and fiercely that she had to swallow to keep herself from—screaming something, maybe. It felt just like that balloon ride, exactly like it: all the strings falling away, and then the sudden giddy lift into the ether.
    Why, she would not knit those sweaters! Lady Anne had made the promise. Let her knit them! Gwen would even supply her with the yarn. Fifty skeins of quality merino currently sat in her dressing room, simply longing for the tender touch of an earl’s daughter.
    What else wouldn’t she do? Heavens above, the possibilities seemed dazzling. All the nasty small thoughts that she hid away—why not share them?
    No more purchasing gowns she disliked simply to placate sad-eyed shopkeepers.
    No more patronage of charity events when she suspected the profits were going straight into the host’s pocket.
    And no more ignoring the sly allusions to her background! Ten years, now—she was done with it! Why, Lady Featherstonehaugh, do you mean to remind these ladies that my father was once a chemist, a shopkeeper of the most common order? How kind. Let me return the favor. May I remind them of how your husband halved your allowance when he found you in bed with Mr. Bessemer?
    No more feigned obliviousness when a gentleman rubbed his hand over her breast during a dance. Did you misplace your fingers? I will misplace mine into your eye.
    No more levees at court! She always came home sore from wrists to shoulders, thanks to the nasty women who stuck pins into people’s arms to force them out of the way on the stairs. The Queen’s concerts were dead boring anyway.
    And no more kissing any man who slobbered. Really, there had to be something more to kissing, or else why would ladies giggle over it? Well, bother it, she supposed she would simply have to find out! If she wasn’t going to be nice anymore, why not be fast?
    In fact, now that being nice didn’t matter, perhaps she should also make a list of things she would do.
    But first, she must finish the task at hand. Retrieving the pen, she wrote in that deliciously aggressive and unfamiliar hand, You will return my brother’s ring immediately .
    Despite the underlining, it did not look quite complete to her.
    Ah! In giant block-print, she added:
    OR ELSE.
    Alex was beginning to wish he’d brought his own bottle of liquor. Alcohol—so said the doctor he’d consulted in Buenos Aires—interfered with natural sleep. But an hour now he’d sat listening to this nonsense, and it was beginning to wear on his patience. Meanwhile, Henry Beecham, who was Gwen’s de facto guardian and should have been out for blood, instead grew ever more cheerful. He reclined in the easy chair by the fireplace, flicking drops of his fourth or fifth whisky into the flames. With every sizzling pop, he smirked into his sleeve like a boy with a secret.
    “But Fulton Hall won’t do,” said Belinda. She sat in a nearby chair, outwardly composed; heavy lids lent her blue eyes a deceptive air of placidity, and her chestnut hair had been trammeled into a viciously tight chignon. But Alex knew her nature, so he knew where to look. Her right hand had broken free of her