Samantha James (7 page)

“If you were a man,” said Aidan, “I believe I’d consider you the brooding sort. Which makes me most curious as to why such a thought should even enter my mind.”

Placing his chin on the heel of his hand, he studied her.

Disturbingly aware of his scrutiny, Fionna fought the impulse to squirm in her chair. “And I, too, for I am neither a man nor the brooding sort.” Her tone was light, yet ironclad. Holding her teacup in both hands, she met his gaze across the top and feigned nonchalance.

One corner of his mouth curled upward. “What say we play a game?”

“A game?”

“For every question I pose and every question you answer, you are free to pose the same. and I promise to answer as well.”

Damn the man! She didn’t trust him, not for an instant. If she refused, she would appear to be as distrusting as he thought. Why, the wretch!

So much for keeping the details of her life private. “Very well then,” she stated coolly. “Your first question?”

He wasted no time. “Where were you born?”

“In Kent.”

“Kent is rather vague. Where in Kent?”

“A village named Southbourne. And you?”

“Gleneden. The family seat in Scotland.” He finally ceased that disagreeable stare and reached for his coffee. “Do you have brothers? Sisters?”

“None,” Fionna replied. “And you? Though I already know about your brother, the duke.
And
the fact that he is unmarried.”

He was nodding. “Yes, Alec. And I have a younger sister, Annabel. Or Anne, though everyone close to her calls her Annie. And she
is
married, to a man named Simon Blackwell. They live in Yorkshire.”

“And your brother the duke? Would I find him devastatingly handsome?” Fionna now embraced the game with relish, particularly when he revealed his answer almost grudgingly.

“Apparently most women do,” he said. “My
sister wrote to me that he’s still considered a most eligible bachelor, sometimes called the Black Scotsman. However, with regard to his looks, I cannot speak to your particular fancy—”

“Oh, I shall take your word for it.” Fionna clasped her hands together for an instant. “Mmmm, a devastatingly handsome Scottish duke. An
unmarried
, handsome Scottish duke. Would I swoon if I should ever chance to meet Alec McBride, Duke of Gleneden?”

Aidan’s smile had long since vanished. Indeed, his brows had drawn together in what could only be perceived as annoyance. “You wouldn’t swoon, Fionna. You’re too levelheaded.”

“Nonetheless, perhaps I should set my cap for him. Could I capture the handsome duke’s eye? What do you think?”

It was great fun to turn the tables and watch him scowl.

“I think it is my turn to ask a question. In fact”—she saw him counting in his head—“I believe I’m now entitled to five more before you are entitled another.”

Fionna opened her mouth. “Your family,” he continued before she could say a word. “Do they reside in Southbourne? Or here in London?”

Her smile froze. “My father died three years ago,” she said quietly.

She was unaware of Aidan’s eagle-eyed gaze on her profile. “My sympathies,” he said softly.
There was a small silence. “I do not wish to pry, but you mentioned your mother earlier. I trust she is well?”

Fionna looked down. She swallowed hard. She stared just as hard at the intricate pattern in the tablecloth, but all she could see was her mother’s face when she’d left her this morning, her expression so vague, as if she stared at her through a shroud.

“I—lost my mother sometime ago.” It was difficult to say. Difficult to lie, for Fionna abhorred liars. But she was a liar now, she admitted bitterly. Guilt seized hold of her, grabbed at her insides and refused to let go. It was if she were being strangled, little by little. For one horrible moment she truly could not breathe.

She knew Aidan would think her mother was dead. And yet, wasn’t it true in some measure? nagged a voice in her mind. At times she felt as if Mama was gone forever. The nature of her affliction—Fionna couldn’t bear to call it anything else—had caused Fionna to hold her feelings, along with her alternate identity, close. So very close.

She valued her privacy; her mother deserved it, and it was up to her to preserve it. She didn’t want her life or that of her mother inspected; she would not have gossip plague either of them or ruin her career.

Resolve burned within her. She and her mother were the only ones who knew she was F.J. Spar
row. It must remain that way.
She
must remain anonymous. Fionna was aware that a flurry of speculation abounded about the true identity of F.J. Sparrow. And, perhaps it sounded cold, but such mystery and speculation were good for her pocketbook. She could not—
would
not—risk conjecture that
she
was F.J. Sparrow. She could not see her livelihood falter, not now. She would not see her mother in the likes of Bedlam. The thought made her shudder.

No, she couldn’t risk Aidan or anyone else discovering that she made her true living as F.J. Sparrow.

Lord, but she was a fool. She should never have come here with him. Her every sense had warned her to keep him distant. She should have heeded it.

“I’m sorry, Fionna. I can see that you must have been very close to your mother. Truly, I didn’t mean to distress you.”

His quiet sincerity made her throat clog tight. She swallowed, staving off stupid, foolish tears, busying herself by pouring more tea, her eyes downcast.

Finally, she raised them. It was time to close the subject. “What about you? You said you’d spent a number of years in the Punjab. What took you there?”

There was a momentary hesitation before he answered. Fionna had the feeling her choice of question surprised him.

“The Royal Highland Regiment,” he said.

“Oh, I knew I was right!” She nearly chortled. “You
are
a military man.”

“I
was,
” he corrected. “I resigned my commission.”

“What rank did you achieve?”

“Colonel.”

“I should have known, that confounded air of command you possess. At first I thought it was because you were a duke’s brother. Now I doubly understand why you are the way you are.”

“That,” he said dryly, “did not sound particularly flattering.”

Fionna neither confirmed nor denied it.

“How long were you there?”

“Eleven years.” He paused. “I was home only twice, the second time when my father was ill. I stayed until he passed on.”

So his father was gone too. “That’s a dreadfully long time to be away.”

“It is,” he said quietly. “Too long, I think. But I-I liked the excitement, the feeling of never knowing quite what might happen next.”

“Why did you resign your commission then?”

Something flitted across his features. Had she made him uncomfortable?

“Wait, let me guess,” she found herself teasing. “You left a woman behind here and could not bear to be away any longer.”

He slanted her a smile that made her stomach plummet oddly. “Any woman I might have left
behind would have been long married and well on the way to having half a dozen children clinging to her skirts by then.”

His smile faded. Silence drifted. When he finally spoke, his tone was very quiet. “When I left, I never expected to be away as long as I was. And when I returned for good…well, I discovered I’d been away too long. I discovered how much my family means to me. Deep down, I always knew it, of course.

“Yet there are things a man must learn for himself, see for himself, do for himself, and for me, being in India was one of them. But sometimes, things happen. Things we don’t expect. Things we never anticipate. All I knew was that it was something I needed to do.”

Fionna listened intently. His answer was vague. Indeed, it really wasn’t much of an answer at all. Was he being evasive? She wasn’t sure. Yet something inside her understood.

“So what you’re saying,” she said slowly, “is that it was time.”

“Yes. It was time.” He hesitated, then tapped a finger beneath his left eye. “There was also this, I suppose. A half-blind soldier isn’t much use to anyone.”

Fionna looked at him, puzzled.

“Shrapnel lodged inside. You can’t see it, but it’s there.”

It appeared he was prepared to leave it at that.

Fionna was not. “What happened?”

“Rifle backfire. The vision’s improved but still compromised.” He shrugged. “I wore a patch for a time. My poor mother declared me quite piratical.”

Fionna eyed him. Why did she have the feeling there was something he was hiding? And why did she have the feeling he wasn’t prepared to tell her, no matter how much she queried?

“Yes, I can see how she might.” She dropped her napkin in her lap and regarded him. “How do you make your living now?”

“Shipping. Tobacco. Rum, that sort of thing.”

“Mmmm. And do you find it fulfilling?”

“Quite.”

Fionna was quiet a moment. “I think there is a part of you that still misses it.”

He took a sip of coffee. “Do you know what I think?”

“What?” Fionna had noticed the way he avoided her observation. But now she was all at once rather wary. For the space of a heartbeat his gaze sharpened in a way that made her distinctly ill at ease. It was as if they weighed each other, each measuring whatever it was they sought.

“I believe you are a very shrewd woman, Miss Fionna Hawkes.”

“And I think you pride yourself on being a perceptive man.”

A trace of laughter flickered in his eyes. “And do not forget, an observant one.”

Fionna sighed. “Are they not one and the same?”

He chuckled, a low, pleasing sound.

“You do think quite highly of yourself, don’t you?”

“I think quite highly of
you,
Miss Hawkes.”

Everything in her seemed to melt. If this was an attempt at flirtation, he was succeeding quite well. Yet Fionna felt woefully ill equipped to handle it.

And perhaps he was as perceptive as she said he was, for all he said was, “I think you see things in people that others would not see.”

“What would you say about me, if you were speaking of me—say, to your brother the duke?”

He pretended to consider. “I should say you are the scholarly type. Yes, most definitely scholarly—and most beautiful, at that.”

“And how would you describe yourself to someone who did not know you?”

He sat back, his pose easy. “I think I should say I am…a man of action. A man of decisiveness and determination.” One corner of his mouth turned up. “At least, I hope I am.”

She was certain he was, but this she kept to herself. “I envy you your time in India.”

“Some think it’s grand. Some do not. Either way, it’s a far different world and way of life than we know here, that’s for certain.”

“I should like to see India nonetheless,” she said softly. “Or the Orient, perhaps. Somewhere exotic. Somewhere far away.”

“Perhaps someday you will.”

She wouldn’t, of course. She must see to her mother.

Still, all at once Fionna couldn’t withhold a tiny little smile.

“Why do you look like that?” he asked. “And why do I sense it is not a compliment you will send my way?”

“What, is that what you seek? Are you the sort who must bask in compliments?”

He accorded her a glance that could only be considered rakish. “I seek only
your
approval, miss.”

The brash oaf!

“But you’ve yet to confide what is on your mind.”

“I was thinking about the other day, when you first told me you’d been to India for so long. My first thought was that your family had sent you away in exile. And I did think you were a man of idle propensity.”

“Not so. Tomorrow afternoon, I’m off to Paris on business for the week.”

“Paris?” There, she’d betrayed her wistfulness again. Drat, she must beware the man. She’d confided far too much already. Somehow he seemed to have that effect on her.

“You’ve never been to Paris?”

Fionna shook her head. “You’ll recall, I come from a small village. My father was local gentry, and he preferred to stay close to home. But he knew I should have liked to see the world,
so…” She gave a tiny little smile. “We were in the midst of planning a trip to the Continent when he died. So the only place I’ve ever been is…well, London.”

“A pity. Perhaps, then, I should take you away to Paris with me.” The glance he gave her was almost fiendishly wicked.

“Nonsense,” she stated primly. “That would be most improper.”

“I could spirit you away then. Now. Tonight. Would that assuage your conscience if it were my will pitted against yours?”

His hand stole out to cover hers.

“So tell me, Fionna Hawkes. Will you come with me to Paris?”

He’d discarded his gloves, and hers were still on the plate beside her. His hand engulfed hers in its entirety, his fingers long and lean and distractedly masculine.

He didn’t mean it, of course. Her gaze jolted up to his. But there was nothing innocent in his tone, nothing innocent in his expression. She could see it in the upward curl of his mouth, so sensuously defined. But she also felt herself seized by a current of something else, something that seemed to leap between them…connecting them in a way that had never happened before. Awareness stabbed at her, squarely in her middle, so that if she’d been standing, she would have surely gasped and bent low.

Beneath thick, black brows, his eyes were
heated. Playful, she might have called that look, if not for the simmering fire she glimpsed. It was desire, she thought in amazement…hot, smoldering, smoky. He still maintained that tiny little smile, but this time there was no mistaking the sensual curl of his mouth.

Desire,
she thought again, still stunned. She swallowed. She wasn’t familiar with it, not really. She hadn’t revealed the truth, that no one had ever courted her in the village; what few young men there had been eventually left to make their fortunes, or pledged themselves elsewhere. Certainly no one sought to court her, not after her father had died. And after Mama…Little wonder she’d kept to herself.

She eyed him, discomfited—yet thrilled. He looked like a panther, ready to strike, garbed in the trappings of a gentleman.