Fascination -and- Charmed (58 page)

“Her?” Arran peered at the retreating figure.
“Her?”

“Yes, Arran,” Struan said. “That is a woman. Come away. We’ll await you, Calum. Do nothing foolish.”

“Trust me,” Calum told him. “And later we shall discuss bats in bags and other uninvited diversionary tactics.” With that, he set off after Lady Philipa Chauncey.

Men were such arrogant fools.

Pippa reached the trees and began threading her way among them.

Men were nothing more than overly large boys. Boys did nothing but think up nasty games from morning till night, and the fact that they grew large enough to be called men did not stop them from thinking up nasty games. Only when they were men, their games could become deadly.

“Hold up, there!”

Pippa heard Calum’s voice and, at the same instant, the sound of his boots on wet ground.

Despite the fog, young daylight seeped down in shafts. If he got too close, he would know her for sure.

She began to run.

“Hold!” Calum shouted. “Please. You know you have nothing to fear from me.”

Pippa had
everything
to fear from him—and from herself when she was near him. “I’ve got to get home, sir,” she managed to croak. “Please don’t detain me. I’ll lose my place if I’m late.”

“I think we’ve played this game long enough”—his hand descended upon her shoulder—“don’t you, my lady?”

“Yes.” She stood still. “I probably didn’t even need to come. I wanted to be certain there’d be no repeat of this morning’s foolishness, that’s all.”

“I had not expected to see you again so soon…Pippa.”

Heat built in her face and she remained with her back to him.

“Very well,” he said, slowly turning her to face him. “We will not speak of our last meeting—yet. What on earth would cause the duke to risk his precious honor by failing to meet me as arranged?”

She didn’t know how to answer—not honestly.

“I don’t trust him, y’know,” Calum said. “Pardon my referring to your fiancé in such terms, but I don’t. This is all to gain him some advantage he didn’t think he had today.”

“No, it isn’t,” she told him flatly.

“He’ll demand satisfaction at a later time. That is the only likely outcome. He has deliberately sought to try my nerve. And he has lost. You may tell him that.”

“He did not send me,” she said in a small voice. “He has dishonored himself. The upper hand is now yours, Calum. Should the duke seek to prove otherwise, you have only to call upon your friends, who can prove—together with Saber Avenall—that you were here and the duke was not.”

“You seem certain of all this.” He stood very close to her. “What of the letter you gave to Avenall?”

Pippa stared directly at his white shirtfront and austerely simple cravat. “I am certain.” Of the letter she said nothing. “You discussed this with him.”

“In a manner of speaking.”

With a gloved forefinger, he gently raised her chin. “Will you please confide in me? I am not your enemy, Pippa. I think we are both very well aware of that. Explain what has happened here.”

His voice, so deep yet so soft, curled warm and tingling into her stomach.

“Pippa?”

She would not look up at him. “This is such a bother. Such foolishness.
I
feel so foolish.”

“Don’t.”

“How can I do otherwise? Running about dressed as a boy, like some character in a bad romantical novel. I wouldn’t have considered such silliness, but I didn’t know what else to do. For a moment when you were with me last night, I hoped you would agree to…Yes. Well. I did think I had a chance of getting away with it if I spoke quickly and left quickly.”

“But Avenall spoiled your theatrics, is that what you mean? You are fortunate. Had he not been so obviously physically distressed, he’d doubtless have recognized you—as I did.”

This time she did look up into his black eyes. “I am not fond of being treated like an annoying child, Calum. Kindly adjust your tone and your choice of words when you speak to me.
If
you ever have cause to speak to me again.”

There, she had told him and she sounded most collected.

His hand, tightening on her shoulder, ensured that she could not march away as she’d intended.

“Good day to you, sir.”

She looked at his firm mouth with its ever-so-slightly up-tilted corners and did not feel at all collected.

“It is not a good day,” Calum said. “It is, and has been, one of the worst days of my life. Although it does begin to show a little promise again now. Could you perhaps remember to call me Calum rather than ‘sir’? At least when we’re not in the company of others?”

She felt him, his strength and the powerful life within him. He made her want to
touch
him! Pippa held herself rigidly straight and replied, “I’m very glad you are of an optimistic turn of mind.” She ignored his request for her to use nothing other than his given name.

“It is you who make the day brighter, dear one,” he said clearly. “I find that when I look at you, there is this certainty that no obstacle would be too large for me to overcome. I do believe I could fight several duels in a morning for you.”

Her heart turned completely over and stopped. Yes, she was certain—her heart had stopped.

“This is most odd,” he continued conversationally. “I don’t recall ever feeling quite like this before. What do you suppose it means?”

She swallowed, shivered, shifted from foot to foot in the boots that had evidently belonged to Saber Avenall when he’d been a boy and which were too big for Pippa. At least Saber hadn’t shown signs of recognizing his cast-off clothes.

“What, I ask you?” Calum pressed. “I’m asking for your help in diagnosing this condition.”

“Arising too early,” she suggested. “Or possibly not going to your bed at all. And you may be hungry. Did you have breakfast?”

He didn’t respond to her suggestions, but merely swept off her hat and regarded her with his head tilted to one side. “Duels would be nothing,” he declared. “Wrestling with lions might be more of a challenge.”

He did not sound at all like himself. “The duke was wrong to bring about a duel,” she said. “And when he did so, he produced a desperate situation. A shocking
bother.
All I did was deal with that situation. It’s my way, d’you see—dealing with bother in a sensible manner.”

“Is it?”

“Oh, yes. I’ve had to learn to do that. My father has always been a busy man. I like him for that, of course, but there was never any time for him to deal with foolish female nonsense, so I simply had to learn not to allow it. I do not tolerate female foolishness, or any foolishness at all—in myself or in any other.”

“I’m impressed.”

“People are.”

“You’re so humble.”

She nodded. “My father has always believed in humility. I like him for that.”

“Arran would approve of your coiffure,” he told her.

“That large man?” She touched her severely drawn-back hair and checked the ribbon that restrained it at her nape. “Who is he?”

“The Marquess of Stonehaven.”

“Ah.” She recalled some mention of him at the Esterhazy ball. “The Scot?”

“The same. Could you, do you suppose?”

She missed his meaning. “Could I what, sir?”

“Always call me Calum when we are alone? Until you are comfortable using my name in front of others, too.”

“We should not be alone again,” she told him testily. “But…Calum, I should return to Pall Mall.”

“Do you want to?”

“I want—” Her eyes felt alarmingly as if they were filling with burning tears. How could that be? “I am glad—no
grateful
that there was no duel.”

One of his hands closed over hers where she’d pressed it against her stomach. “I cannot forget our kisses, my dearest Pippa. Yesterday morning, or last night. You are so warm where I’ve touched you—and so
hot,
I think, where I have not touched you. As yet.”

Pippa breathed in sharply. Some of what he said was plain; much was a confusing riddle.

His thumb stroked the back of her hand, traced the rise and fall of each knuckle. “Are you at all happy?” he asked so softly that she leaned a little closer. “I know you do not admire your fiancé. But is he—is Franchot kind to you?”

A lump swelled in her throat until she felt she might never swallow again. She coughed and averted her face.

“Is he? My dearest—”

“If we were ever to be alone,” she said rapidly, “as we were last night and are now, but probably never shall be again, then I should always enjoy hearing you say my silly little name. Pippa. Very silly, but the name my friends like.”

“I like it, too. There is nothing about you that I do not like.”

She glanced quickly up at him. His lips remained parted to show the edges of square teeth. Where his mouth tilted at the corners, curved lines formed. Had he smiled a great deal in his life? She liked to think that he had.

“Does that cause you any happiness?” His breath raised his broad chest inside the simple but perfectly cut black coat he wore beneath a many-caped cloak. “That to me you are perfect?”

“I like the way your voice sounds when you tell it. And I like the way your eyes grow even darker.”

The lines beside his mouth deepened, but his smile didn’t narrow his eyes. Moistness in the air glistened in his curly hair and on his eyelashes. The same moisture wet his skin.

“There is something…” What did she mean to say? That there was something mystical in this moment? “I am a very sensible female,” she said instead.

“I’m certain you are, Pippa.” His smile widened even more, and with the backs of his fingers he stroked her cheek, stroked away escaped strands of her damp hair. “Oh, yes, I’m sure you are most sensible. If being
sensible
can make a woman the most desirable creature in the world to a man—to this man—to me.”

“This should not be happening again,” she told him, but when he spread his hand over the side of her head and bent to press his lips to her brow, her eyes closed. “I was most determined that there would never again be such an unseemly closeness between us. And I have gone to so much trouble to ensure Franchot cannot hurt you.” And she leaned closer.

“Tell me about your trouble.”

Reason struggled to stay alive. “I cannot.”

“You can.”

“I must never speak of this again. And I must go back.”

His lips moved to her temple, to the hollow in her cheek, to her jaw. “Could it be that you came this morning merely to fulfill an obligation?”

“Obligation?” She felt…
drugged.

“To see me again. We agreed you owed me another time with you to erase your insult to my honesty at the ball.”

He was attempting to trick her in some manner. “I have already seen you again—at Pall Mall.
Twice.
” To be tricked by Calum Innes was to be in heaven. “The first meeting was dangerous and caused a great deal of bother. The second meeting was simply…
dangerous.”

“No, no,” he whispered against her ear. “That will not do at all. Our last meeting was far more than simply dangerous. It was ecstasy. You sent me away, but I do not think I am ready to give up on you quite yet, my Pippa. But as to the other, I’m certain your admirable father would expect nothing less of you than that you accept responsibility for the discharge of your own obligations.”

“To see you again?” Pippa inclined her head, the better to feel his mouth upon her ear. “I did see you. You know I did.”

“I saw you,” he told her, and there was laughter in his voice. “
I
came to you.
Twice.
That is not at all the same thing.
You
were to see me, don’t you know?”

“Words, Calum Innes. Only words. I do not muddle easily.”

“I cannot forget the feel of your lips on mine. Or their taste.”

This was so reckless, but she could not make herself care. “I cannot forget, either.” Pippa opened her eyes and looked at him direct. “I have been receiving instruction on the ways of the world, Calum. It is entirely wrong for me to say so, but I would like, just once more, to feel…I should like to do it again, please.”

Shades of darkness shifted within those black eyes, and mist-slicked lashes flickered, a little. Without a word, Calum Innes’s eyes closed and a singular expression passed over his features. Sweet, intense ecstasy? Pippa wondered if she knew what sweet ecstasy was. Her heart speeded. Sweet ecstasy that became sadness—or aching need? And then his mouth pressed hers and she saw nothing more, only felt, only felt the supple shifting of his lips against hers, only tasted the sweet, mist-dampened taste of his lips on hers.

Pippa tried to sigh, but could not find new air. Heated, flushing, she started when Calum threaded his fingers between hers and held her hands tight against her thighs. His face moved hers, raised hers, brushed hers with skin so subtly different from hers. Male skin, a little rough where his jaw grazed her tender skin.

His lips parted—slightly—parted, so that the edges of his teeth touched the sensitive inside of her lower lip. And then his tongue sought the same spot—so very carefully, so lightly.

There was more.

Just beyond her reach. Just outside what he knew she wanted, there was more. Why didn’t he know what she wanted? Why couldn’t she tell him?

“I…” she murmured.

“Mmm?” He breathed softly, dipped to place a dozen tiny kisses along her pulsing throat. “What is it, Pippa?”

She could not tell him what she wanted, because she did not know.

He released her hands and held her waist. “That man is a fool,” he said.

She did not understand.

Calum shook his head and brought her fingers to his lips, then kissed—with great concentration—each one. “This will not be enough, you know.”

Pippa looked up at the treetops. The fog had almost dissipated. Patches of sky showed. “It’s all going away,” she said. “But it has to, doesn’t it?”

“No,” he said, as if he understood her perfectly. “No, it doesn’t have to go away. Not yet and not forever.”

“We will not meet again after today.”