Fascination -and- Charmed (55 page)

“No,” Milo shouted. “Get out.”

“One thing,” Miranda agreed.

Calum stared hard into her clear eyes. “Do you believe I am the rightful Duke of Franchot?”

Her lips parted, and for an instant he thought she wouldn’t respond. Then she said, “Yes.”

“Pippa!” Lady Justine entered Pippa’s chamber without knocking, closed the door and leaned upon it. “Something very dangerous is occurring.”

“What is it?” Pippa asked, going to Justine and tentatively touching her hands. “Has something gone wrong with our plan?”

“Not yet,” Justine said. Her face showed signs of desperate strain. “Nelly is standing guard.”

“But it is not time for us to start dealing with—”

“Do not speak aloud of that,” Justine implored. “Not when so much depends upon the outcome. Not when we shall, very likely, find ourselves banished to the dungeons beneath Franchot Castle if we are discovered.”

“Ooh, bother!” Pippa bounced in her agitation. “I shall not allow any such thing to happen to us. And I cannot bear to wait another moment.”

Justine held up an imperious finger. “We will commence soon enough.” The words were reasonable. Her voice held barely restrained panic. “It is not time, but there is someone below—in the gardens—who must be persuaded to leave forthwith.”

Pippa grew quite still. “In the gardens?” she squeaked. “At past midnight? How do you know there is someone in the gardens who must be persuaded to leave?”

“Because he had his servant come to the kitchens and ask for Nelly. The man asked for Lady Philipa’s maid, mind you, as plain as that!”

“Oh,
my.
” Pippa’s hand went to her throat. “It’s him, isn’t it? Calum?”

“Calum, indeed,” Justine agreed. She looked away. “He pleases you a great deal, doesn’t he?”

Pippa felt herself redden. “He is gentle and kind…and manly,” she finished quickly, casting aside caution.

“Yes, I see that you do indeed
like
Calum Innes. The man is charming and I liked him on sight myself, but he shows very poor judgment in coming here so late at night—particularly on
this
night.”

“I have put you in a most difficult position,” Pippa said unhappily. “Only bear with me tonight and I shall not press you into further intolerable service on my behalf.”

Justine smiled and her dark eyes glistened. “I do not find service on your behalf intolerable. I am happy to help you. You are the brightest creature who has ever entered my life and I want the best for you. I only wish—” She broke off and looked away.

“You wish?” Pippa pressed.

“I…I only wish I were more brave,” Justine said, sounding remarkably brave already. “But we really must persuade Calum Innes to leave our gardens. Tonight, of all nights, it would be catastrophic if he were as much as glimpsed in the vicinity of this house by someone who then told Etienne.”

“Oh,
my,”
Pippa whispered. “This calls for extraordinary measures. I must persuade him to leave without delay.”

“I agree,” Justine said. “Put on a cloak over your gown and run down the back stairs. I will watch in case someone comes looking for you. There is a little door at the bottom of the stairs that leads into the potting shed. Only I seem to remember it is there.”

“Is that the door you—” Pippa changed her mind about asking that question.

“It’s the door I used to enter the house after Etienne’s return this morning,” Justine said matter-of-factly. “Let us not dally with further discussion. The potting shed is hidden from the rest of the gardens by a hedge. Calum Innes is waiting for you there. If he goes nowhere else, he will not be seen.”

“I will make him leave at once.”

“He should use the door by which he entered from the alley. The one in the side wall near the shed.”

“He will. I’ll insist.”

Donning a gray wool cloak, Pippa swirled out of the chamber and slipped along the corridor. From lower regions of the house came the raucous bellows of the Duke of Franchot and his friends, who had been gambling and drinking for many hours.

Justine followed Pippa as fast as her lame leg would allow and showed her the way to the back stairs. Very soon Pippa pushed through a stiff door into a dusty shed where the air was thick with the smells of earth. Old, dry earth. Evidently the shed was not used much anymore. As Pippa went toward grimy windows that shone dully in the moon’s light, thick swags of cobwebs caught at her hair and brushed her face.

The door to the garden had a window. Through it Pippa saw the dark shape of a tall man. While she stared, he turned and his profile was sharply etched by moonlight.

How could two men be more different than Calum Innes and the Duke of Franchot?

How could it be that one—unwittingly, it was true—held her heart in his very hands, while the other was about to own every part of her
but
her heart?

How could she send away the man she…the man she could probably love?

Pippa approached the door, turned the handle and pulled it open. Cool, clean air bathed her.

Calum was already striding to meet Pippa. Before she could take another step, he arrived before her and pushed back her hood. “I had to see you,” he said, his voice deep with some emotion. “Thank you for coming to me.”

She must not admit that she wished she need never leave him again.

Gently, so gently, Calum touched her hair. “You cannot know how this moment feels,” he murmured, his gaze settling on her mouth.

“I—”

Whatever she might have said was obliterated by the sealing of her lips by Calum’s. His enfolding arms held her in a crushing embrace, but she discovered she enjoyed being crushed by him.

He kissed her long and deep. Every slanting stroke of his mouth upon hers searched for her response, and as best she could, she gave him what he searched for.

Pippa rose to her toes and twined her arms about his strong neck. Calum’s chest was a warm, solid, unyielding wall that absorbed the pressure of her soft, slight form and made her feel as she had never felt before. His big, hard body made Pippa feel very feminine and very protected—and she found she liked those feelings a great deal.

“Did I bring you from your bed?” he asked gruffly when he finally lifted his face a scant inch or so from hers. “I told your maid she must bring you at any cost. She is a clever girl. She understood my urgency without a lot of questions.”

“Nelly is clever,” Pippa agreed breathlessly. She touched his lips with shaky fingers and he kissed their sensitive tips. “Oh,” she murmured, and her eyes drifted shut.

The next kisses she felt were on her closed eyelids. “I wasn’t in bed,” she told him. “I have been too worried about tomorrow to sleep.”

“I—want—you,” he said against her cheek. He slid his arms beneath the cloak and pressed her against him. “I tried to stay away, but I had to come because I cannot bear to think of you here. Here, with
him.”

And she could not bear that either, but what choice did she have? Pippa nuzzled her face beneath his jaw and tasted salt on his skin. She loved the feel of him, the smell of him. He was big and hard and warm, and his scent was of leather and clean linen and something undefinable that was unique to Calum Innes, something totally male and totally intoxicating to Pippa.

She parted her lips to touch her tongue to the strong pulse in his neck and he groaned.

That groan excited Pippa. Heat began to gather low in her body. A most surprising sensation. “Calum,” she said, holding his shoulders. She tested the contours of his neck with the very tip of her tongue—all the way to the cleft in his chin.

Calum groaned again. There was satisfaction in that groan, and something more—or something that asked for more.

Pippa felt suddenly bold. Leaning away for a moment, she looked at his face. His eyes were closed. Making the best of her advantage, she bobbed up to her tiptoes, urged his face down and kissed him full on the mouth.

Instantly his lips parted and with yet another groan, he slipped his tongue deep into her mouth and rocked her face with the force of his ardor.

And he did something else, something most extraordinary. Calum’s hands went to Pippa’s bottom. They went there and held her in a shockingly intimate manner. And while his hands spread, the fingers surrounding and pressing and molding her, he brought “That” part of him against her belly.

He was very large and very hard—and very hot. And Pippa was mad with the desire to know a great deal more about That.

“Come with me,” he said, and drew her lower lip between his teeth. Gently, he nipped and slowly released her tender flesh. “Come away with me now. I came here direct from Hanover Square. I left my friend Viscount Hunsingore there and had the cab bring me on. We should return to set Struan’s mind at ease, then make our escape.”

Pippa could not get any air into her lungs. His fingers were steely, but she craved that steel. And she craved it probing her.

“The hackney is in the mews. We can be away before anyone misses you.”

Pippa had never drunk intoxicating liquor. If she ever did, she was certain it would make her feel like this. “Kiss me again, Calum.”

It grows very late, dear one. Someone is bound to notice your absence and raise the alarm soon. Let it be an alarm that should be raised. Let it be because you have left and they cannot find you.”

A still place formed in the center of all her hot, whirling wanting. “Left?” Surely he was funning her. “Me? I cannot leave.”

His grip on her bottom slackened. “This is not a good place for you. The man you are engaged to marry is not a good man.”

“No…” What was she saying? “The duke is my fiancé.”

“Yes. And I’m asking you to leave him and come to me.”

Cold reason doused every vestige of warmth within Pippa. “I’m sorry,” she said, pushing very firmly on his chest. “What can have happened to me? What can I be thinking? Please, I beg you, step away from me.”

Moonlight showed her the play of emotions on his handsome face. “You were thinking that you feel something for me, Pippa. That is what you like to be called by your friends, isn’t it? Pippa?”

“Yes,” she murmured, beginning to shiver. “Please. Leave at once by the side gate and do not make any sound. The duke must not know you have been here.”

“Why?” He laughed aloud as if to thwart her warning. “Because he may
hurt
me? I am not afraid of your dashing duke.”

“He is not dashing,” Pippa said in a small voice. “He is not nice at all. But he is the man my father has told me to marry. The choice is not mine. We both know as much. What I have done here tonight, with you, has been wrong. The fault is mine and I beg your forgiveness.”

“My forgiveness?” he snorted. “That’s rich. You are an innocent. You know nothing but the natural yearnings of your own passionate body and soul. There is no
fault.
If there were, it would be mine. Leave him.”

“He would hunt you down and kill you.”

“I want you to be my wife.”

She gasped, and the beating of her heart was so furious she was certain he must hear it. “You are rash, Calum. And you are a danger to yourself, which is all that truly concerns me. Leave me, I beg of you. And never try to see me again. Leave London this very hour and return to Scotland.”

He grew quite still. “Return to Scotland? You mean, turn and run from your proud betrothed because I should fear him?”

“I mean,” she said, each breath searing her throat, “that I cannot have what I want, but I can implore you to make sure the duel does not take place in the morning.”

“You deny my proposal?”

“I am already promised to another.” Her speeding heart would surely break.

“You will not reconsider and come with me?”

Never could she have imagined a man such as this caring for her, caring for her so much. “I will not consider coming with you,” she told him. She would not consider placing him in the mortal danger such folly would surely draw in its wake.

“I see,” he said quietly. “Will you tell me one thing? In complete honesty.”

Pippa nodded.

“Have my attentions caused you pain?”

She bowed her head. They had caused her joy that was agony—and pain that was an unbearable pleasure. “No,” she told him. “No pain.”

“And you will not regret sending me away without you?”

“I—” She must say what was necessary, then deal with what must be done once she had dispatched him. “I am much enamored of you, Calum, but I am a sensible female. I shall not dwell on what might have been.”

“I see.”

She knew he did not see at all. “Will you do as I ask and leave England?” she asked.

“No.”

Her fists clenched against her middle.
“Please.”

“Never. My honor is greater than that man’s. I shall never run from him unless it is with you at my side.”

And if she were at his side, the duke would surely track them until he could destroy Calum and “forgive” Pippa, who would have been “lured away against her wishes.” The words might be different, but she knew that whatever words he used, the duke would find a way to keep what he considered his. After that and with Calum dead, Franchot would magnanimously marry her, and her life would be every bit as empty as it would be in a few moments when Calum walked away from her.

“Pippa?” he said.

She pulled the hood over her hair once more and wrapped the cloak tightly. “Go,” she told him, shaking with the effort of holding back tears. “My destiny was made before my birth. Obedience to my father demands that I fulfill that destiny.”

“Is that your final word?”

Pippa raised her chin. “It is.”

“As you will, then,” Calum said. “I’ll take my leave of you, my lady. And I’ll look forward to meeting your future husband with the dawn.”

Through a film of tears she watched him leave. At the sound of the door to the alley closing, she started after him. “Calum,” she whispered urgently.

The voice that answered her came not from the alley but from the potting shed. “Pippa, Pippa, come quickly.” Looking around, Justine hurried toward her. “He’s gone?”