by Susan Wiggs
—Lark de Lacey,
Countess of Wimberleigh
Four
Aidan was watching her with those penetrating flame-blue eyes. Pippa could tell from his fierce chieftain’s glare that he would tolerate no more jests or sidestepping.
She combed her hair with both hands, raking her fingers through the damp, yellow tangles. She felt shaky, much as she did after being stricken with a fever and then getting up for the first time in days. The storm had slammed through her with terrifying force, leaving her limp.
“The problem is,” she said with bleak, quiet honesty, “I have the same answer to all of your questions.”
“And what is that?”
“I don’t know.” She watched him closely for a reaction, but he merely sat there at the end of the bed, waiting and watching. Firelight flared behind him, outlining his massive shoulders and the gleaming fall of his black hair.
His eyes never left her, and she wondered just what he saw. Why in heaven’s name would a grand Irish lord take an interest in her? What did he hope to gain by befriending her? She had so little to offer—a handful of tricks, a few sorry jests, a chuckle or two. Yet he seemed enraptured, infinitely patient, as he awaited her explanation.
The rush of tenderness she felt for him was frightening. Ah, she could love this man, she could draw him into her heart. But she would not. In his way, he was as remote as the moon, beautiful and unreachable. Before long he would go back to Ireland, and she would resume her existence in London.
“I don’t know who I am,” she explained, “nor where I come from, nor even where I am going. And I certainly don’t know what you’re going to do with me.” With an effort, she squared her shoulders. “Not that it’s any of your concern. I am mistress of my own fate. If and when I decide to delve into my past, it will be to find the answers for me, not you.”
“Ah, Pippa.” He got up, took a dipper of wine from a cauldron near the hearth and poured the steaming, spice-scented liquid in a cup. “Sip it slowly,” he said, handing her the drink, “and we’ll see if we can sort this out.”
Feeling cosseted, she accepted the wine and let a soothing swallow slide down her throat. Mab had been her teacher, her adviser in herbal arts and foraging, but the old woman had seen only to her most basic needs, keeping her dry and fed as if she were livestock. From Mab, Pippa had learned how to survive. And how to protect herself from being hurt.
“You do not know who you are?” he inquired, sitting again at the foot of the bed.
She hesitated, caught her lower lip with her teeth. Turmoil boiled up inside her, and her immediate reaction was to erupt with laughter and make yet another joke about being a sultan’s daughter or a Hapsburg orphan. Then, cradling the cup in her hands, she lifted her gaze to his.
She saw concern burning like a flame in his eyes, and its appeal had a magical effect on her, warming her like the wine, unfurling the secrets inside her, plunging down through her to find the words she had never before spoken to another living soul.
Slowly, she set the cup on a stool beside the bed and began to talk to him. “For as long as I can remember, I have been Pippa. Just Pippa.” The admission caught unpleasantly in her throat. She cleared it with a merry, practiced laugh. “It is a very liberating thing, my lord. Not knowing who I am frees me to be whoever I want to be. One day my parents are a duke and duchess, the next they are poor but proud crofters, the next, heroes of the Dutch revolt.”
“But all you really want,” he said softly, “is to belong somewhere. To someone.”
She blinked at him and could summon no tart remark or laughter to answer the charge. And for the first time in her life, she admitted the stark, painful truth. “Oh, God in heaven, yes. All I want to know is that someone once loved me.”
He reached across the bed and covered her hands with his. A strange, comfortable feeling rolled over her like a great wave. This man, this foreign chieftain who had all but admitted he’d killed his father, somehow made her feel safe and protected and cared for.
“Let us work back over time.” He rubbed his thumbs gently over her wrists. “Tell me how you came to be there on the steps of St. Paul’s the first day I met you.”
He spoke of their meeting as if it had been a momentous occasion. She pulled her hands away and set her jaw, stubbornly refusing to say more. The fright from the storm had lowered her defenses. She struggled to shore them up again. Why should she confess the secrets of her heart to a virtual stranger, a man she would never see again after he left London?
“Pippa,” he said, “it’s a simple enough question.”
“Why do you care?” she shot back. “What possible interest could it be to you?”
“I care because you matter to me.” He raked a hand through his hair. “Is that so hard to understand?”
“Yes,” she said.
He reached for her and then froze, his hand hovering between them for a moment before he pulled it back. He cleared his throat. “I am your patron. You perform under my warrant. And these are simple questions.”
He made her feel silly for guarding her thoughts as if they were dark secrets. She took a deep breath, trying to decide just where to begin. “Very well. Mort and Dove said eventually, all of London passes through St. Paul’s. I suppose—quite foolishly, as it happens—I hoped that one day I would look up and see a man and woman who would say, “You belong to us.’” She plucked at a loose thread in the counterpane. “Stupid, am I not? Of course, that never happened.” She gave a short laugh, tamping back an errant feeling of wistful longing. “Even if they did recognize me, why would they claim me, unwashed and dishonest, thieving from people in the churchyard?”
“I claimed you,” he reminded her.
His words lit a glow inside her that warmed her chest. She wanted to fling herself against him, to babble with gratitude, to vow to stay with him always. Only the blade-sharp memories of other moments, other partings, held her aloof and wary.
“For that I shall always thank you, my lord,” she said cordially. “You won’t be sorry. I’ll keep you royally entertained.”
“Never mind that. So you continued to perform as a strolling player, just wandering about, homeless as a Gypsy?” he asked.
A sting of memory touched her, and she caught her breath in startlement.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Something extraordinary just occurred to me. Years ago, when I first came to London town, I saw a tribe of Gypsies camped in Moor Fields outside the city. I thought they were a troupe of players, but these people dressed and spoke differently. They were like a—a family. I was drawn to them.”
Warming to her tale, she shook off the last vestiges of terror from the storm. She sat forward on the bed, draping her arms around her drawn-up knees. “Aidan, it was so exciting. There was something familiar about those people. I could almost understand their language, not the actual words, mind, but the rhythms and nuances.”
“And they welcomed you?”
She nodded. “That night, there was a dance around a great bonfire. I was taken to meet a woman called Zara—she was very old. Ancient. Some said more than fourscore years old. Her pallet had been set out so that she could watch the dancing.” Pippa closed her eyes, picturing the snowy tangle of hair, the wizened-apple face, the night-dark eyes so intense they seemed to see into tomorrow.
“They said she was ill, not expected to live, but she asked to see me. Fancy that.” Opening her eyes again, she peered at Aidan to see if he believed her or thought she was spinning yarns once more. She could not tell, for he merely watched and waited with calm interest. No one had ever listened to her with such great attention before.
“Go on,” he said.
“Do you know the first thing she said to me? She said I would meet a man who would change my life.”
He muttered something Celtic and scowled at her.
“No, it’s true, my lord, you must believe me.”
“Why should I? You’ve lied about ev
erything else.”
His observation should not have hurt her, but it did. She pressed her knees even closer to her chest and tried to will away the ache in her heart. “Not everything, Your Loftiness.”
“Continue, then. Tell me what the witch woman said.”
“Her speech was slow, broken.” In her mind’s eye, Pippa saw it all as if it had happened yesterday—the leaping flames and the ancient face, the deep eyes and the Gypsies whispering among themselves and pointing at Pippa, who had knelt beside Zara’s pallet.
“She was babbling, I suppose, and speaking in more than one language, but I remember she told me about the man. And she also spoke of blood and vows and honor.”
“Blood, vows and honor?” he repeated.
“Yes. That part was very distinct. She spoke the three words, just like that. She was dying, my lord, but clutching my hand with a grip stronger than death itself. I hadn’t the heart to question her or show any doubt. It’s as if she thought she knew me and somehow needed me in those last moments.”
He folded his arms against his massive chest and studied her. Pippa was terrified that he would accuse her again of lying, but he gave the barest of nods. “They say those in extremis often mistake strangers for people they have known. Did the old woman say more?”
“One more thing.” Pippa hesitated. She felt it all again, the emotions that had roared through her while the stranger held her hand. A feeling of terrible hope had welled from somewhere deep inside her. “A statement I will never, ever forget. She lifted her head, using the very last of her strength to fix me with a stare. And she said, “The circle is complete.” Then, within an hour, she was dead. A few of the young Gypsies seemed suspicious of me, so I thought it prudent to leave after that. Besides, the woman’s wild talk…”
“Frightened you?” Aidan asked.
“Not frightened so much as touched something inside me. As if the words she spoke were words I should know. I tell you, it gave me much to think on.”
“I imagine it did.”
“Not that anything ever came of it,” she said, then ducked her head and lowered her voice. “Until now.”
She watched him, studied his face. Lord, but he was beautiful. Not pretty, but beautiful in the way of a crag overlooking the moors of the north, or in the majestic stance of a roebuck surveying its domain deep in a green velvet wood. It was the sort of beauty that caught at her chest and held fast, defying all efforts to dislodge a dangerous, glorious worship.
Then she noticed that one eyebrow and one corner of his mouth were tilted up in wry irony. She released her breath in an explosive sigh. “I suppose that is the price of being an outrageous and constant liar.”
“What is that?” he asked.
“When I finally tell the truth, you don’t believe me.”
“And why would you be thinking I don’t believe you?”
“That look, Your Worship. You seem torn between laughing at me and summoning the warden of Bedlam.”
The eyebrow inched up even higher. “Actually, I am torn between laughing at you and kissing you.”
“I choose the kissing,” she blurted out all in a rush.
Both of his eyebrows shot up, then lowered slowly over eyes gone soft and smoky. He gripped her hands and drew her forward so that she came up on her knees. The bedclothes pooled around her, and the thin shift whispered over her burning skin.
“I choose the kissing, too.” He lifted his hand to her face. The pad of his thumb moved slowly, tantalizingly, along the curve of her cheekbone and then downward, slipping like silk over marble, to touch her bottom lip, to rub over the fullness until she almost did not need the kiss in order to feel him.
Almost.
“Have you ever been kissed before, colleen?”
The old bluster rose up inside her. “Well, of c—”
“Pippa,” he said, pressing his thumb gently on her lips. “This would be a very bad time to lie to me.”
“Oh. Then, no, Your Immensity. I have never been kissed.” The few who had tried had had their noses rearranged by her fist, but she thought it prudent not to mention that.
“Do you know how it’s done?”
“Yes.”
“Pippa, the truth. You were doing so well.”
“I’ve seen it happen, but I don’t know how it’s done in actual practice.”
“The first thing that has to happen—”
“Yes?” Unable to believe her good fortune, she bounced up and down on her knees, setting the bed to creaking on the rope latticework that supported the mattress. “This is really too exciting, my lord—”
His thumb stopped her mouth again. “—is that you have to stop talking. And for God’s sake don’t narrate everything. This is supposed to be a gesture of affection, but you’re turning it into a farce.”
“Oh. Well, of course I didn’t mean—”
Again he hushed her, and at the same moment a log fell in the grate. The brief flare of sparks found, just for an instant, a bright home in the centers of his eyes. She moaned in sheer wanting but remembered at last not to speak.
“Ah, well done,” he whispered, and his thumb moved again, with subtle, devastating tenderness, slipping just inside her mouth and then emerging to spread moisture along her lip.
“If you like, you can close your eyes.”
She mutely shook her head. It was not every day she got a kiss from an Irish chieftain, and she was not about to miss a single instant of giddy bliss.
“Then just look up at me,” he said, surging closer to her on the bed. “Just look up, and I’ll do the rest.”
She tilted her chin up as he lowered his head. His thumb slid aside to make room for his lips, and his mouth brushed over hers, softly, sweetly, with a sensation that made raw wanting jolt to life inside her.
She made a sound, but he caught it with his mouth and pressed down gently, until their lips were truly joined. His deft fingers rubbed with tender insistence along her jawline, and his lips pushed against the seam of hers.
Open.
Here was something she had not learned from spying on couples pumping away in the alleys of Southwark or groping one another in the shadows of the pillars of St. Paul’s.
His tongue came into her, and she made a squeak of surprise and delight. Her hands drifted upward, over his chest and around behind his neck. She wanted this closeness with a staggering, overwhelming need. His mouth and tongue went deeper, and his hands smoothed down her back, fingers splaying as he pressed her closer, closer.
The quickness of his breath startled her into the realization that he, too, was moved by the intimacy. He, too, had chosen the kiss.
All her life, Pippa had been curious about every bright, shiny thing she saw, and loveplay was no different, yet wholly different. It was not a case of simple wanting, but the experience of a sudden, devastating need she did not know she had.
Tightening her arms around his neck, she thrust against him, wanting the closeness to last forever. She could feel his heartbeat against her chest, feel the life force of another person beating against her and, in an odd, spiritual way, joining with her.
He lifted his mouth from hers. A stunned expression bloomed on his face. “Ah, colleen,” he whispered urgently, “we must stop before I—”
“Before what?” She reveled in the feel of his wine-sweet breath next to her face.
“Before I want more than just a kiss.”
“Then it’s too late for me,” she admitted, “for I already want more.”
He chuckled, very low and very softly, and there was a subtle edge of anguish in his voice. “When you decide to be honest, you don’t stint, do you?”
“I suppose not. Ah, I do want you, Aidan.”
A sad-sweet smile curved his beautiful mouth. “And I want you, lass. But we must not let this go any further.”
“Why not?”
He lifted her hands away from him and rose from the bed, moving slowly as if he were in pain. “Because it’s not pro
per.”
Stung, she scowled. “I have never been preoccupied with what is proper.”
“I have,” he muttered, and turned away. From the cauldron, he ladled himself a cup of wine and drank it in one gulp. “I’m sorry, Pippa.”
Already he had withdrawn from her, and she shivered with the chill of rejection. “Can’t you look at me and say that?”
He turned, and still his movements seemed labored. “I said I was sorry. I took advantage of your innocence, and I should never have done that.”
“I chose the kiss.”
“So did I.”
“Then why did you stop?”
“I want you to tell me about yourself. Kissing gets in the way of clearheaded thinking.”
“So if I tell you about myself, we can go back to the kissing?”
An annoyed tic started in his jaw. “I never said that.”
“Well, can we?”
With exaggerated care, he set down his cup and walked over to the bed. Cradling her face between his hands, he gazed at her with heartbreaking regret. “No, colleen.”
“But—”
“Consider the consequences. Some of them are quite lasting.”
She swallowed. “You mean a baby.” A wistful longing rose in her. Would it be such a catastrophe, she wondered, if the O Donoghue Mór were to give her a child? A small, helpless being that belonged solely to her?
She felt his hands, so gentle upon her face, yet his expression was one of painful denial. “Why should I do as you say?” she asked, resisting the urge to hurl herself at him, to cling to him and not let go.
“Because I’m asking you to, a gradh. Please.”
She blew out a weary sigh, aware without asking that the Irish word was an endearment. “Do you know how impossible it is to say no to you?”
He smiled a little, bent and kissed the top of her head before letting her go. “Now. We were working backward from your move to London. You met a mysterious hag—”
“Gypsy woman.”
“In Ireland we would call her a woman of the sidhe.”
“She said I’d meet a man who would change my life.” Pippa leaned back against the banked pillows. She wondered if he noticed her blush-stung cheeks. “I always thought it meant I’d find my father. But I’ve changed my mind. She meant you.”