Fascination -and- Charmed (59 page)

“Oh, but we will, my dear lady.”

“I am to be married.”

He fingered her throat and brought his thumbs to rest beneath the point of her chin. “You are indeed.”

“So you do understand that this is wrong? The blame is mine.” And she must turn from him, run from him.
Now.

“We will speak more of this soon.” The light that seemed to see only her did not leave his gaze. “Why did Franchot not come this morning?”

“Oh, that.” She could not concentrate.

“Yes, that. What manner of coward hides behind a woman’s skirts?” He grinned and glanced down. “Or breeches?”

Pippa straightened her shoulders. “Would you have me believe you consider a woman less your equal than a man?”

For a moment he appeared nonplussed. His hands fell to rest on her shoulders. “I merely mean that no man should hide behind a woman. There is no doubt as to the weaker of the sexes, is there, Pippa?”

The dreaminess lifted, and the spell. “There is no doubt that women are physically less strong than men, Calum. But that, I
know,
is where the disparity ends.”

He made a short bow. “I respect your right to your own opinions. In fact, I find your sprightly manner enchanting.”

Enchanting?
Really, even when one felt totally at one with a man for the very first time, he had to ruin the moment by exhibiting his ridiculous belief in wretched male supremacy.

He shook her lightly. “Come, do not be angry with me.”

“I am
not
angry.
You
are misguided, but we will not discuss this further. I know it is no use to try to persuade you of the obvious. My father always warned me that my life would be easier if I didn’t insist upon declaring my…Anyway, I have always liked my father for being so direct.”

“A wise man,” Calum remarked. “It grows light, Pippa. I want to ensure you arrive home safely. But first,
please
tell me where Franchot is.”

She marshaled her most serene countenance. “Certainly. He is in his bed…when he is not out of his bed.” She shrugged. “But then he is back in his bed. Or so I believe, for, of course, I have not seen him there.”

“Of course,” Calum said, and his deep frown assured her that he was no wiser than before she’d begun her explanation. “You intrigue me, Pippa. Sincerely, I wish to know where my opponent is. And his other second.”

“I have told you where he is. By now poor Saber will have returned to the same place. And Henri St. Luc—His Grace’s other second—is also there.”

“And where—”

“Good day, Calum. I have enjoyed knowing you for a little while.” She turned from him and began walking away.

Calum caught up and fell in beside her. “You will not be able to forget our kisses, y’know. Neither will I.”

“We must. I am—that is, I have not been myself. It was the strain of this morning’s events—and those that took place in the gardens last night.”

“If you were not yourself, I intend to help you not to be yourself very frequently.”

Fear began its cold journey through her veins. “Please leave me now, Calum.”

“Alone? In Hyde Park, while the night’s villains are still abroad?
Never.
” He took her elbow.

“Forget what has happened, I tell you. I have not been myself.”

“Ah,” he said, chuckling. “But I have been very much myself. And I should like to kiss you again and again.”

How could she have forgotten herself so outrageously? “Give me your word you will stay away from me.” She began to run.

Calum kept up by lengthening his stride. “Why would you ask such a thing?”

“Because I care about you,” she said before she could stop herself. “I mean, because I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“Thank you, sweet one.” He pulled her to a stop and swung her to face him. “Do you want to marry this man?”

She could hardly breathe at all. “I was betrothed to him at the time of my birth.”

“So you have already told me.
Do
you want to marry him?”

“It is expected of me.” Her heart hurt.

“Pippa, do you
want
to marry Franchot?”

He must stop. She covered her face. “My father always—”

“Yes,” he cut her off. “Yes, you like your father for always deciding what is best for you, and that is exactly as it should be. But, and I beg you for your honesty,
do you want this marriage?”

“No!” She fell back a step. “No, no,
no.
”

He pulled her against him so fiercely she tripped. He caught her and wrapped her in his arms. “Sweet one. What a miracle you are. If only I could tell you—” He buried his face in her hair.

“Tell me what?” Pippa managed to gasp.

“You
will
see me again,” Calum said. “Again and again. You and I are sealed together, do you understand?”

“No…yes, perhaps.”

“Oh, yes. You and I are sealed by fate to walk together through life. And I will make your life very good, sweet one. Just as you will make my life all that it can be.”

She did not understand. “I will do what I must do, Calum.”

“Yes.” But he looked
happy.
“You will do what you must do. What you were always intended to do.”

“I will never disappoint my father.”

“How could you disappoint anyone?” Catching her hand, he led her quickly through the trees to a horse that quietly cropped the shaggy grass. “I’ll get you back,” he said, lifting her to the horse’s back and leaping up behind her.

“We can’t go like this,” she protested. “We might be seen.”

“Ah, yes.” At that he rode a distance and dismounted to retrieve her top hat. Seated behind her once more, he plopped it on her head, arranged her in the most intimate manner between his thighs and set off. “I am a man no one knows, riding with a boy no one knows. Possibly a man with his son? Fear not. I shall release you a distance from Franchot House.”

Pippa’s doeskin breeches stretched much too tightly over her bottom. And her bottom fitted much too neatly against That part of Calum Innes that had so fascinated her from their first touch.

“You will send for me if you need me?” Calum asked, bending his head beside hers. “Do not doubt that I will come to you at once.”

“I will not need you.”

“Then I will come as soon as I’ve done what must be done.”

He was such a puzzle. “You will never be able to come for me. This must be enough. This must be all.”

She felt him laugh. They had reached a corner that was perilously close to her destination.

“I will set you down here,” he told her, drawing his great horse to a halt. “But I will watch until you are safely inside the house.”

“I must enter from the gardens,” she said.

“Just so.”

His arm tightened around her and he shifted to dismount. Without meaning to, Pippa gripped the horse’s mane in one hand and Calum’s sleeve with the other.

“What is it?” he asked, concern heavy in his deep voice. “Are you afraid? Only say so, and I will take you with me now.”

He was headstrong. She must be wise for both of them. “I am not afraid.”

“There is something you want, then? Tell me.”

“I want to…” Oh, she could
not
believe herself. “I want to thank you for your kindness,” she said quickly and slackened her grip.

He dismounted and lifted her to stand before him. “You’re certain that’s all you want to say to me now?”

“Yes.” But what she wanted to do was run her hands over him. All of him. A heaviness pressed downward inside her lowest places. Goodness, what could it be that made all this happen? She wanted to run her hands—and her lips—all over him, and she wanted to do so when he wore no clothes. Not a single item. Not a
stitch.

“Good-bye, then, Pippa. For now.”

“Yes. Good-bye.” She began to run. “Good-bye!”

She was completely mad. Only a mad female would have such evil thoughts, and she knew they were evil even from the rather peculiar teachings the dowager had given her on the subject of intimate behavior between husbands and wives.

At the entrance to a passageway leading to the rear of Franchot House, she paused and glanced back. Calum stood there, bareheaded, his hand raised in a wave.

Pippa gave the most insignificant of waves in return, ducked her head and sped to the little gate in the high wall around the gardens.

Mad, mad,
mad!

An evil, carnal spirit. Why, the dowager had informed her that all men were evil, carnal spirits who required the sacrifice of a woman’s body to satisfy the appetites of those spirits. The dowager had said, in a voice one might use to discuss a nuncheon menu, that it was a woman’s duty to lie supine, retaining only those garments her husband permitted her to retain, whilst he “did with her what he would.” The inference—or so it had seemed to Pippa—was that “what he would” might entail a considerable amount of touching one—with various parts of himself. She visualized Franchot’s moist lips and equally moist palms, and shuddered.

Shunning the unpleasant thought of going into the house by the nasty potting shed again, she had decided to trust the activity she knew prevailed inside Franchot House as an adequate diversion and use the conservatory for her departure and return.

She crept along in the shadow of a tall hedge. Then came the part that was most critical. This was where she had to leave the cover of the topiary gardens and dash across open lawns to the terrace and the conservatory.

Pippa began to run.

On the one occasion when Franchot had attempted to kiss her, she had turned her face away and his wet mouth had slithered across her cheek to her ear—which he proceeded to bite rather painfully. And whilst he did all this, he contrived to clutch—equally painfully—at one of her breasts. Pippa wrinkled her nose and felt quite sick at the memory.

She gained the terrace, and then the conservatory door. Then she was inside with the door closed behind her. Blessedly, there was no one in sight.

As a wife, she was supposed to submit to beastly pawing from her husband, and she did not like the thought of that one bit.

With such haste that she began to pop buttons, Pippa ripped off Saber’s green coat and divested herself of the woolen cravat.

Really, she was
so
puzzled by herself. She considered the idea of her husband touching her bare skin abominable, yet…Oh, dear, what a bother all this was.
She wanted to run her hands all over Calum Innes’s bare body. She wanted to “do with him what she would.”
Whatever that might be.

Lady Philipa Chauncey was an evil, carnal spirit.

Really! Who would have thought it?

She retrieved the apricot velvet mantle she’d hidden in a cupboard where the gardeners kept supplies and slung it around her shoulders. Sitting on the edge of the nearest planting bed, she hauled off the boots.

Before she could pull on her slippers, the door into the conservatory from the little salon opened. Shaking in her agitation, she finished putting on her shoes and turned to stuff Saber’s coat and boots into the cupboard.

“Pippa!” Justine whispered hoarsely. “Thank goodness. I was so afraid you wouldn’t get back before someone came looking for you. I’ve had to put that poor little maid of yours to bed and have the housekeeper told she’s ill.”

“Why?” Pippa asked, alarmed.

“Because she’s frantic with worry about you, of course. As am I. What exactly did you do to them?”

Pippa shut the door on the evidence of her escapade and faced Justine. “It will all work. There will be no duel.”

“Certainly not
this
day,” Justine said severely, but her pretty mouth began to twitch. “I cannot believe I have involved myself in this. It is not at all like me.”

Pippa tossed her head. “On the contrary, I think it is probably exactly like the real you. The you that you were meant to be.”

“We will not discuss that notion further.” Justine slipped her hand beneath Pippa’s arm and limped beside her into the salon. “We must be careful getting you to your rooms. The entire house is in an uproar, people rushing hither and thither. The physician has been here for several hours.”

“They will live,” Pippa said, but she did feel a little ashamed. “What of the dowager?”

“Grandmama has also taken to her bed. She says she will not come down until all this nonsense is over.”

“Very wise. Perhaps we should follow her example.”

A careful reconnaissance of the vestibule outside the salon confirmed the confusion that reigned in Franchot House. “They will never notice us,” Pippa said, thinking aloud. “Come, we will go to my rooms together.”

She was right. Servants dashed up and down staircases. Folded linens or steaming jugs of water filled their hands and arms and they scarcely spared a glance for the two women.

They gained Pippa’s lofty chambers and Justine immediately turned upon her future sister-in-law. She plunked her fists on her slim hips. “Now,” she said. “I thought you said you intended to use some
mild
device to accomplish our ends. I want you to tell me exactly what you did to my brother and his friends.”

Pippa gestured airily. “Very little, really. I merely employed one or two remedies my nanny found cause to administer to me when I was a small girl. Senna was for those times when everything that went into me did not seem anxious to leave me in an acceptable period of time.”

Justine’s cheeks turned fiery red and she whispered,
“Pippa.”

“And then there was ipecac. My nanny found that necessary when—through my own headstrong nature—certain things went into me that should not have done so and which she wished to retrieve.”

“Pippa.”

“Mmm. One doesn’t tend to forget such moments. Anyway, in order to ensure that my fiancé and his friends were completely—er—emptied of anything undesirable they might have partaken of last evening, I added the appropriate substances to their final four bottles of hock. And to the two bottles of cognac with which they completed their revelry. How fortunate for them that I had the foresight to save them from the dreadful headaches they would have suffered today.”

“Oh, Pippa. Oh, my, they are so…
unwell.
”