More than an hour passed before Nelly, moving slowly and on tiptoe this time, left. Calum, his neck stiff from his repeated peering out of the passage, waited until silence drifted in, then made his own way to Pippa’s sitting room door.
He let himself into the dark room without knocking. In the wall facing the fireplace, what he knew must be the door to the bedchamber stood open a crack. Faint light showed there. Moonlight through windows where draperies had not been closed.
“Pippa?” he whispered. Frightening her was his last aim.
She did not answer.
Reaching behind, he turned the key in the lock and the action tightened every muscle in his body. There was no longer any doubt in his mind about what he would do this night.
Moving cautiously, silently, Calum crossed to open the bedchamber door a little wider. “Pippa?”
Moonlight shone through the casement to wash silver over the bed and the shape of the woman curled on her side there. Softly came the sound of her even breathing. She was asleep. Calum did not spare a glance for the rest of the room.
He approached, holding his own breath now, unwilling to startle her awake…and unwilling to deny himself the pleasure of looking at her while she slept.
Pippa lay with one arm stretched up beneath her head, the other flung behind her. Black hair flowed over the white pillows and over one white-clad shoulder. The room was warm and she’d thrown back the covers. Her full lawn shift draped her body, the thin stuff clinging, somehow revealing more than if she had been naked.
Calum stood looking down at this woman he had not chosen yet would have chosen had the choice been his.
What had passed between her and Franchot earlier in the evening?
He thinned his lips. If she’d been ravished, she’d hardly be sleeping peacefully now.
If he did not touch her, he would die—or, at the very least, explode from needing her.
He turned his head to see her face—all shadows painted with light over fine bones and closed lids and the sweet bow of her lips. Her lashes were dark upon her cheeks. Her vulnerability made him long to gather her into his arms and bear her away where she would be safe forever.
The satin tapes that closed the front of the shift had been carelessly tied. A slight move, this way or that, and they would part. Calum rubbed a hand over his eyes. Looking at her was not enough. He must touch her.
He gained the other side of the bed and very carefully lowered himself to lie behind her. Propping his head, he studied the roundness of her cheek, the slender line of her neck and shoulder, the curve of her small, pointed breast. The nipple pressed against cobweb cotton.
He could take that nipple into his mouth through that cotton and hear her cry out with the pleasure he brought her.
Pippa sighed and wriggled, turning half onto her back.
And the tapes parted at her neck.
When she settled again, it was with one perfect breast exposed.
Calum tightened his thighs. His shaft sprang hard and urgent against his breeches. This was what he’d been made for, for this woman’s body. And she had been made for his.
With the backs of his fingers he stroked her cheek and whispered, “Pippa, do not be afraid.”
“Mmm.” She smiled a little in her sleep and turned her face up to his.
The tapes were open to her waist.
Mesmerized, he settled his hand on her throat. She was cool. Gently, he fondled her breast, then simply savored its soft, satiny weight.
Pippa arched her back.
Riding and tension had exhausted her. But her sleeping smile made him smile. She was ready to come to him. In her quiet, secret moments she had dreamed of being with him, and now she was in another such dream.
Carefully, Calum slipped his hand over her ribs, over her flat stomach, and felt the dips in front of her delicate hipbones. She was small. He frowned. She would need great care in the matter of childbirth.
His rod reminded him of what must come before any thought of a child, and he stroked on to find the soft hair between her thighs.
Curling his fingers over her mound, he sought the warm folds of her womanhood and found them already moist. Ah, yes, she was so ready for him.
Bending over her, he took the nipple that was still covered by her shift into his mouth and flipped his tongue over the instantly hardened bud.
“What?” She writhed and he knew she had awakened.
The instant her scream began, Calum covered her mouth firmly and brought his lips close to her ear. “It is I, sweetest. Calum.”
She struggled.
“I know, I know.” He grimaced. “I have shocked you, but I am only a man. I came to find you and you were…You did not awaken when I called you.”
She grew still and he took his hand from her mouth.
“Do you have any idea how you looked to me? Lying here in the moonlight. So lovely, Pippa.”
“What are you doing?”
He almost grinned. “I wanted to hold you and to bring you pleasure.”
“You frightened me.”
“I’m sorry. But before you awakened, you were happy.”
“How do you know?” She sounded suspicious.
“Your body told me,” he explained simply.
This time he pulled her into the crook of his shoulder and smoothed the shift upward to bare her legs.
“I just know you should not,” she said in a panicky little voice. “No. You absolutely should not do this.”
“Why?”
“Because…because…”
“There, you see? You have no reason, do you?” And while he spoke, he found that warm, wet hiding place of soft dark hair and parted folds grown plump with desire. “You are ready to become fully a woman, Pippa. I want you to become a woman with me tonight.”
“I…Oh!” Her back arched off the bed and he fastened his lips over hers in a demanding, driving kiss. She plucked ineffectually at his shirt, but he could not make himself release her long enough to remove it.
She was at the brink of her release. Abandoning her lips, Calum drew a circle around her revealed nipple, moving close, but not taking that crown she rolled to try to press into his mouth.
This was an innocent, he reminded himself. He must not allow his own drive to obliterate her need for his restraint. Again he circled her nipple.
“Calum!” His name was high and thin on her lips. “Please.”
He made yet another circle, growing closer, and her body bathed his fingers with her woman’s hot, slick essence.
Writhing afresh, she found his rod and tested its steely length and weight. Reaching, she supported all of his manhood and kneaded desperately. She did not know what she did and he was glad. He would not want her to be afraid now.
Almost beyond control himself, he gave her relief and drew the center of her breast deep into his mouth. The sound of his own suckling drove him to near insanity. Her hips came off the bed and soft sounds escaped her throat.
Summoning all restraint, Calum withdrew his hand and listened to their panting in the darkness.
She was waiting, yet he knew she was not sure what it was she waited for.
He could take her now, and so simply. But he found he wanted to wait and breach her on their wedding night. Tonight he would do what he must to find peace—after he’d taken her to a place she would never forget.
Rapidly, he pulled enough away to flip her onto her back entirely. Pushing up her knees, he knelt between them and buried his face in her sweetness.
He made love to her with his darting tongue and felt himself pulled into the dark, boiling space where she hung. His manhood pulsed and he held back only with a force of will he would not have dared hope he possessed.
“Calum,” she moaned. “No. Oh, Calum.”
His tongue darted again and he took the small, thrusting nub at her center between his teeth.
And he felt her fly into pieces.
Her release was long and shuddering and impossibly joyful
to Calum. When at last he drew her damp body into his embrace, he felt as he had never felt before with a woman. Her pleasure made him more of a man than had he lain sated himself.
Minutes slipped by, many minutes, before she raised her face to seek his. “You came for this?”
She knew so little for one who undoubtedly thought she knew so much. “I came because it is time,” he told her.
“Time?”
“I am going to take you away. Now. Before morning.”
With a forearm, she pushed the riotous mass of her hair. “Away? We cannot. Where would we go?”
“To get married.”
He felt her grow still. “Then that is why you came. To urge me to go with you.”
“Is that so bad? It is as it should be.”
“As it should be. That I should marry you, you mean?”
He frowned. “Of course.” This was not the reaction he expected. “Franchot was here earlier. He didn’t try to touch you, did he?”
She was silent a moment before saying, “He did not touch me, no.”
Her honesty was something he accepted without question. “My darling, let me help you gather a few things. Then we must make our escape carefully.”
“Why now?”
“Because it has to be. You are meant to be with me and there must be no more delay.”
“Because you believe you are the Duke of Franchot?”
He did not think he had heard her correctly. “You said—” But he had heard correctly. “How do you know? It was not said at the fair.”
“You said it to Struan at the cabin. After you thought I had gone. I forgot to leave the food and returned.”
“Why did you not come in.”
“You would not have wanted it. You had no intention of telling me. Even now, when we have just been together like this, you would not have told me.”
He wetted his lips.
“Would you?”
“Not until the time was right. The less you know, the better.”
“Really? I should come blindly to you, believing you want me only because you have formed a tendre for me? When would you inform me that you sought me because you believe I already belong to you?”
He grew chilled. “You did not mind what just happened between us.”
“I…I loved what happened between us. Why couldn’t you have told me what you believe and why? And then asked me to come with you? Why didn’t you tell me the night of the fair?”
“Some knowledge is dangerous.”
“Dangerous because I might tell your rival, you mean? Dangerous because if I knew the real reason for your ardor, I would not be such a simpleton?”
Anger swelled within Calum. “I do not regard you as a simpleton.”
“Dangerous because I might become an impediment to your claim on the Franchot titles and lands, then? And to the alliance with the Chaunceys?”
“Damn you, woman. You time your protests to your own convenience.”
“You came to me whilst I slept. I did not ask you to come.”
“I want you as my wife. I want you to leave with me now.”
“You want me because you believe I am yours by right. Franchot wants me as his wife because he wants my dowry. He came here tonight to ask for a speedy marriage also.”
“Bounder,” Calum said under his breath.
“Is he more of a bounder than you, I wonder? Franchot…
I suppose I should not call him Franchot. Or perhaps I should call you both Franchot. That would be the fairest thing.” She flung herself from the bed and cast a robe about her shoulders. “Please leave me, Calum. Please.”
“Not unless you come with me.”
“Oh, I cannot bear it.” She turned away and went to the windows.
He was behind her in seconds, chafing her cold arms through the robe. “I…Believe that I want you, dearest.”
“You want me. He wants me. How am I to know if your reason is any different from his? I am a pawn. Wanted by two men for what I can bring them.”
Her words hit Calum like a blow. He dropped his hands. “You believe that?”
“Yes.” He could hear that her teeth were clenched.
The pain in his throat would fade. The pain in his heart and the throbbing in his loins would take longer. “Very well. If you believe this invention of yours, then you have a simple task. Either decide to have neither of us or choose which one you prefer.”
“You torture me.”
“You torture me, Pippa. I trust you will not repeat what you heard at the cabin.”
“I…How can you even suggest such a thing?”
“I have made many mistakes with you, my lady. Good night.”
He left her whilst he felt he could still control himself. The urge to sweep her up and take her with him bowed him down.
In the dark passageway with its flickering wall sconces, he stood still, his back to the wall, and tried to gather his breath.
The slightest noise made him alert and he looked to the right and the left.
A flicker of something pale wafted in a distant corner and was gone.
Walking with careful steps, he approached that corner and turned.
Nothing.
He was a man besieged on all sides, and his imagination, like the rest of his mind, showed signs of bending.
Calum left the house at once, went to the stables and took the bay hack. The rest of this night he would spend riding the hills, perhaps in the company of the one friend who might judge his sanity but who would never doubt his honor.
Pippa stood where she was by the window. How should she bear it? The loving him, yet knowing that even if he cared for her at all, that caring was second to his need to claim her as a rightful possession.
She could not bear it any longer.
Quickly, before she could change her mind, she found paper and ink and wrote a note to Justine, telling her that she had decided to leave. She asked that no one search for her because she needed to be alone for a while. When she was ready, she would let Justine know where she’d gone.
With the note finished and propped beneath a Venetian paperweight, Pippa hurried to dress in her most serviceable riding habit. She would set out for Cloudsmoor but could not stay at the Hall because they would look for her there first. There were several empty tenant cottages where she could find a refuge for a day or two whilst she thought.
When all was done and a few possessions were tied inside a shawl, she doused the lights once more and went to stand where she’d stood with Calum before he’d left her. By the window.
Why should loving hurt so much?
From the sitting room came the sound of the door being softly opened.
Pippa closed her eyes. She was wrong, but joy flooded her. He had returned to make her understand what he had not been able to explain before.
She stood quite still, waiting.
His footsteps approached, and when she knew he was close behind her, she began to turn.
Strong arms surrounded her.
Strong arms trapped her while someone else, someone smaller, pressed a hard goblet to her lips.
“No!” She choked and coughed, and bitter wine flowed down her throat.
Pippa tossed her head from side to side, but hard hands clamped her skull, and more and more wine was forced down her throat.
Almost at once, sick faintness burst upon her like a black, red-tinged blossom.
“Drink,” she heard a voice say. “Drink.”
The blossom swelled and Pippa slipped into its dark center.
Charmed Twenty-Six
Come along, now. We both know you’re awake, don’t we, ducky?”
Pippa heard the rough male voice and struggled to raise her eyelids. They felt heavy and damp, as if she’d cried for hours and fallen asleep still crying.
“Hey! You can hear me. Turn your head this way and let’s have a look at you.”
She lay facedown on splintered boards. When she did get her eyes to open a fraction
, she saw a crude stone wall illuminated by flickering candlelight. From somewhere came a high, wailing sound.
Something—a foot, she thought—dug into the small of her back. “Don’t you want to know how long you’ve been here, ducky? Don’t you want to know who it is ‘as paid to have you brought here?”
Her head would break open if she lifted it. “Where am I?” she asked, but the words sounded like a burble in her brain.
“Come again, ducky?” the man asked. His hand descended upon her aching head. “Let me sit you up. No point lying in the dirt any longer than you have to, right?”
“Where am I?” Pippa repeated, and was relieved that she sounded clearer.
“That’s for me to know and you to find out, as they say.” His laugh was a braying noise. “Up you come.”
He turned and lifted her to sit in one motion. Her back thudded against the wall. She cried out and held her head.
“Ache, does it? Well, I said as how you probably didn’t need so much. Being a little thing, that is. But—as usual—I wasn’t listened to. Never mind. My turn will come.”
Pippa cupped her hands beside her eyes and looked up into a thin, long-nosed face framed with lank black hair. “Who are you?” she whispered. Even though he was on one knee before her, she could tell he was exceedingly tall.
“I’m no one you have to worry about. No one you’ll ever have to think about again once this little lot’s over.”
He had no lips. His long teeth appeared and disappeared in a rolled slit in his face, and his eyes shone like gray agate.
She would not panic. “Why was I brought here?” If she asked what he intended to do with her, she might precipitate his awful plans.
“I think we should talk about where you are, after all,” he said expansively, peering at her more closely. “Pale thing you are. And thin. Shouldn’t choose you myself. But no accounting for tastes, I suppose.”
Pippa decided his disapproval of her was the best news she’d heard thus far.
“You’ve been here two nights and a day. That is, this is the second night.”
She gasped and clutched her middle. Every muscle and bone in her body hurt. “I cannot have been here that long.” Wine poured into her mouth. Blackness. She’d been drugged.
Fascination -and- Charmed Page 69