Seven Wicked Nights Read Free

not even when they were presented with their biggest tormenter of all time.
    She smiled, this time at both of them—Lady Cosgrove and her petty jabs, and Lord Westfeld, who had not so much as cracked a smile the entire time since he’d returned.
    “No,” Elaine said brightly, “there’s nothing in all the African continent that could be considered the least bit foreign.”
    Westfeld was watching her intently. That abstracted look on his face had always heralded a particularly cruel remark.
    Beside her, her mother tapped gloved fingers against her skirts. “Lady Cosgrove, Lord Westfeld—I do thank you for giving your regards. It has been so long since we’ve seen you.” Her mother paused, and Elaine could see her drawing in breath and doing her best to make polite small talk. “The stars. They’ll be bright tonight. Did you know the moon is almost new?”
    “Indeed,” Lady Cosgrove said silkily. “Tell us more of the
moon
, Lady Stockhurst. You know a great deal about it.”
    A muscle twitched in Westfeld’s jaw. “No,” he said. He looked surprised to have spoken. “No. I didn’t come here to… That is, Lady Elaine, I came here to ask you to dance.” He turned his gloved hand out—not reaching toward her, just offering it up. Incongruously, she noticed that his gloves were kidskin brown—not a fashionable color.
    How odd. Westfeld had always dressed at the height of fashion.
    Despite that lapse, she would almost have thought him handsome, if she let herself forget who he was. Since she’d last seen him, the lines of his face had grown harsher, more angular. She could almost pretend he was a different person.
    But the passage of years had not dimmed her memory of how this form of recreation would proceed. It was the game of “let’s be kind to Elaine,” and it had been played on her before.
Let’s invite Elaine to our exclusive party. Let’s invite Elaine to dance. Let’s make Elaine believe that we’ve forgotten how to be cruel to her.
    The next step was always,
Now that we’ve lured her into exposing herself, let’s humiliate her in front of everyone.
She would have given up on society altogether, except that doing so would have left her mother alone and unprotected.
    “You needn’t accept,” Westfeld said, so softly that only she could hear. “I would understand completely.”
    And that was the hell of their jests. If she refused, he would know he had the capacity to hurt her. He would know that she feared him. He would
win
. And that was the
last
thing she wanted him to do.
    And so Elaine smiled into the eyes of the man who had ruined her life. “But
of course
, Lord Westfeld,” she said. “I would love it above all things.”

Chapter Two

    A LAS. L ADY E LAINE DID
NOT love dancing with him, Evan thought ruefully. She hated it.
    Her hands were warm in his, even through gloves. She danced beautifully. She smiled the entire time. She also did not look at his face, not once. Instead, she concentrated her attention on the second button of his coat, even though she had to look down to do it.
    What Evan needed to say to her was too important to be delivered cavalierly. But with talk so momentous on his mind, his skill for small conversation seemed to slip away.
    Finally, he managed, “Your gown is lovely.” It was, he supposed, although he was hardly the judge of such things. Pink silk, large sleeves, a skirt so wide he might have tripped over it. Might
still
do so, if he didn’t watch his step.
    Her gaze flicked up, and then back to his button, its touch on his face as temporary as a hawk moth flitting by a window.
    “I’ve lost all sense of fashion myself,” he told her.
    Her perusal of his coat became more marked, and too late, he realized what he’d said—he’d praised her gown, and then implied that he had no taste. It came out as the worst sort of backhanded compliment.
    Lady Elaine raised her eyes to him. He felt a sort of shock travel through him as she did so. Her eyes