“It’s—” No, she must be calm. A clear head had always been her most valued asset. God knew she had none of the other attributes a young lady needed to be a success—except the silly dowry that had brought her to this frightful fix. “I must return to the house at once. Come with me, Nelly. Whatever you do, remain calm.”
“Yes—”
“Show no sign of agitation.” Pippa’s feet flew along the pathway. “It would be best to appear slightly bored, as if whatever is happening—if anything happens—as if this were the type of thing that occurs every day. Do you understand?”
“No.”
They’d reached the steps leading to the terrace and Pippa glanced anxiously at Nelly before racing up, crossing the terrace and entering the lush conservatory that was her favorite spot in the house. “I shall simply have to tell Finch to send him away,” she said. “At once. Before the unspeakable can occur.”
Pippa had walked almost the length of a palm-lined aisle when a deep masculine voice said, “No need at all to announce me. I’ll find my own way from here.”
She stopped, looking for an escape, and Nelly ran into her heels.
He appeared in the doorway, took the two stairs down into the conservatory in a single stride and saw Pippa.
In daylight, with plant shadows playing over his features, he was even more compelling than she recalled.
The absolutely best thing for this hazardous moment would be to pretend she did not even remember him.
“Good morning, Lady Philipa,” he said.
Her heart had surely stopped.
“I do hope I’m not calling too early.”
Her heart had definitely stopped. His cheekbones slanted. She hadn’t noted that, or if she had, there had been so many other things to contemplate that she’d forgotten. Yes, he did have the most marvelous cheekbones. And she hadn’t made as perfect a memory picture of his mouth as it deserved. If a man’s mouth could be said to be beautiful, then she would most certainly say it of Calum Innes’s mouth. Sharply defined along its edges, the lips curved most…most…they curved.
And his eyes were almost black, with curling lashes…Black and penetrating and…questioning?
Pippa remembered her plan and half-turned away. “This is the way to the gardens, sir. Possibly you intended to go the other way? Or perhaps you are in entirely the wrong house?” Ooh, how foolish that sounded.
Mr. Innes inclined his head. “I think not.”
“I know not,” Nelly announced suddenly. “You’re not seeing plain, my lady. I told you not to stand out there staring into the sun. It’s affected your sight. It’s Mr. Calum Innes. I’d know him anywhere.”
Pippa folded her arms around her middle and tried not to cringe.
“Look at him,” Nelly instructed. “Very tall with very broad shoulders. No need for padding, my lady. Just like we talked about.”
“Nelly, I don’t think—”
“I know, my lady. And I’m trying hard to do as you told me and stop thinking, too. But it’s hard. There is red in his hair. And his legs—”
“Nelly!”
The maid dropped a hasty curtsy and said, “Yes, my lady,” before withdrawing a few yards.
Pippa turned back to Mr. Innes. “Forgive me,” she said. “As Nelly said, the sun…Oh, what complete twaddle! Of course I know who you are. I knew who you were the moment you appeared…before you appeared. Finch brought your card, so naturally I knew.”
“Please,” he said, so very gently. “Don’t overset yourself. I have surprised you.”
“That is no excuse for playacting and falsehood,” she told him. “My father always insists upon honesty, and I’ve liked him for it. Honesty sets out the proper way of things. Honesty makes living inside oneself more comfortable.”
“No doubt,” Mr. Innes agreed.
“I was flummoxed because the duke was angry with you last night—with us. When Finch brought your card, I was immediately concerned that His Grace might see you and renew his attempts to duel with you.” There, she had been truthful, and…and it did not make her feel one whit less afraid.
Mr. Innes’s expression had set into deeply serious lines. Pippa decided she liked his face as much when he was serious as when he laughed.
He came close and rested a booted foot atop the low wall that contained planting beds. Leaning forward—very close to Pippa—he propped a forearm upon his thigh.
Mr. Innes had strong-looking thighs, with long, hard muscles that flexed along the top…and beneath. His bespoke top boots fitted snug to equally strong-looking calves.
Pippa shifted her eyes from Mr. Innes’s braced leg to the ground.
“Lady Philipa,” he said, “what did the Duke of Franchot say to you last night?”
“Nothing.”
“I am not an angry man, my lady. And, like you, I prefer honesty whenever there is a choice. Tell me how the duke showed you his anger.”
She did not know how to answer him.
His touch, light on her cheek—fingertips brushing to her jaw and on to the point of her chin—made Pippa draw a quick breath. Still she could not look at him.
“I want to know if you are being treated unkindly,” he said.
She shook her head. “No. No, I am not being treated at all.” Fie, why did she find herself telling this man whatever came into her head?
A purposeful tug on her bonnet ribbons startled her and she did glance up. “Mr. Innes?”
“Lady Philipa?” The ribbons were loosed and he swept the bonnet off. “There is little sun in here. And you have the loveliest hair. It is too bad to cover it.”
Pippa blushed and looked around for Nelly—just in time to see the girl slip from the conservatory and onto the terrace. “So you described me to your maid.”
The blush throbbed. “Yes, I did. I told her we danced a waltz, too.”
“I’m flattered. With all the men you must have danced with, it cannot be easy to remember every one.”
“I danced only with you and you know it. Now you are being dishonest.”
“Perhaps. Nevertheless, I am flattered. I came to satisfy myself that you were safe.”
Pippa frowned at him. “Why would I not be safe?”
“You said yourself that the duke was angry. I feared he might speak harshly to you.”
“He never speaks to me at all,” Pippa responded promptly. “I mean…To be truthful, Mr. Innes, the duke and I are barely acquainted. Actually, we are not acquainted at all. We were betrothed at the time of my birth. Apart from our both being present at several gatherings when I was a small child, we had not met until four weeks ago.”
He still stood exceedingly close. His eyes changed with the light; sometimes they were black, but sometimes they glinted almost dark green. “The duke is very fortunate,” he finally said. “When he saw you four weeks ago, he must have marveled at his luck.”
“You are a shameless flatterer,” Pippa said, but she smiled just a little.
“I tell the truth.” His gaze shifted to her mouth. “There is a sweetness in you. I think that sweetness, once tasted, would bind a man to you in his need to taste again and again.”
Pippa was unschooled in the art of coquetry. She knew nothing of the light, feminine chatter she’d been told was expected at moments when men spoke pretty words they could not possibly mean. She did know that this was a moment that should not be happening.
“I would like to be your friend, my lady,” he said, his voice vibrantly, softly, deep. “Do not fear me. I will never hurt you.”
“No.” The headiness she felt must come from the moist air in the conservatory. “I know you would not hurt me. But it would be best if you did not say these things.”
“You tell me the duke does not speak to you. Why is that?”
Pippa fought for breath. “I don’t know.”
“He has not told you how beautiful you are?”
“No. But I am not beautiful. Pleasant to look at, I believe, but nothing more.”
<
br /> “You are beautiful.” He leaned a little closer. “There is no artifice in you. No guile. Can you imagine how intoxicating a man might find a woman such as you?”
“I…No.” She should move away.
“The duke doesn’t even say pretty things to you when he kisses you?”
Pippa wrinkled her nose. “He has not kissed me, sir.”
Closer. His beautiful mouth came closer, and his eyes were like night on deep water. “He has not even tried?”
She didn’t wish to think of that. “No. Yes, but…He did not exactly…kiss me.”
“You didn’t want him to kiss you?”
“No.” Ooh, the trembling in her stomach was very queer, and in her legs, too.
Mr. Calum Innes’s mouth touched Pippa’s so lightly that when her eyes drifted shut, she was not certain there had been a touch at all.
“Mr.—”
“Calum,” he said against her lips, stopping whatever else she might have said. “I should very much like to kiss you, my lady. If I may?”
Pippa shut her eyes tightly and tipped her face up to his.
He’d spoken of sweetness. Did he know how sweet his own mouth tasted? Did he know that as his lips moved carefully on hers, Pippa’s skin tingled? The very tip of his tongue passed along the soft, exquisitely tender place where her lips were slightly parted.
How sweet. How gentle. How she must stay here, like this, with his mouth on hers—forever.
Their breath joined.
Pippa breathed him in, and felt him take back air that had been hers.
His hand settled at her waist, slid around, eased her against him until her hips met the place where his hard thighs joined. There were shapes and textures to him that were different. Pippa had never been held close by a man, had certainly never seen a man unclothed, but from the feel of Calum Innes, that might be quite…stimulating?
“Lovely,” he said against the corner of her mouth. “So lovely. I should like to hold you—really hold you.”
“You are holding me.” Pippa looked into his eyes and saw pure black now. Her heart flipped over, and her stomach. The strangest sensations were deep inside her, and she knew that only Calum Innes could be and do whatever those sensations demanded. Seeking, she followed his face with her own until she could place her mouth beneath his once more. “Please kiss me again,” she whispered.
“Gladly.” This time the quality of the kiss changed. His lips were at first delicately teasing, then firmer, more insistent.
He rubbed her back, lifted her hair to stroke her neck and brought his hands to rest beneath her arms.
Pippa stopped breathing. His thumbs had settled on the sides of her breasts. Slowly, he rubbed the soft flesh that no man had ever touched in such a way. She slipped her hands up his arms and around his neck, and wished this could go on and on.
A thunderous crash shocked Pippa rigid.
In a voice that jarred her spine, the Duke of Franchot roared, “In God’s name! If this don’t beat all! In me own house! Unhand her, you cad, and face me.”
Instantly Calum Innes made to set her from him.
Pippa clung. She clung to his neck, dropped her head back, rolled up her eyes and plummeted toward the ground with the full force of her insubstantial weight. The result was exactly as planned. Mr. Innes swept her up into his arms.
“Hell and damnation,” the duke sputtered. “Ravishin’ me betrothed in me own conservatory. Last night you were saved, you cur. Now I shall have what I intended then. But not until you tell me what you hope to gain by pursuin’ my intended.”
Pippa began to pant and sigh. She brought her eyes into focus on Calum’s face and sighed. “Oh, thank you, sir. I cannot think what came over me. I do not normally swoon, I assure you.”
“Swoon?” the duke snapped. “No doubt this blackguard frightened you into a swoon. Creep up on you, did he? How did he get into this house, that’s what I’d like to know? And where’s Grandmama? And that fool of a maid of yours?”
“I’m here, Your Grace,” Nelly said from somewhere behind Pippa. “My lady fainted dead away. We were coming in on account of her feeling the sun, and she swooned. This gentleman was just catching her. Wasn’t it lucky how he was here when—”
“Enough of this foolishness,” the duke broke in. Still dressed in the clothes he’d worn to the ball at Chandos House the previous night, he hauled Pippa unceremoniously from Mr. Innes’s arms and stalked into the sitting room behind the conservatory. “I’ll thank you to say nothing more, my lady,” he announced, setting her down with a thud on a rose-colored chaise.
“I don’t advise you to hurt her, Franchot.”
Mr. Innes’s words rang in the high-ceilinged room. Terrible words that spelled awful consequences. Pippa watched the duke’s face as he slowly straightened. His blue eyes met hers and she saw the man’s deep coldness. And she saw that although he looked at her, he did not see her.
“I beg your pardon?” he said, facing Mr. Innes. “Surely I have misheard you. You could not possibly have told me how to deal with my fiancée.”
“If warning you to be gentle with her falls into the category of telling you how to behave, then yes, Your Grace. Yes, I told you how to deal with a gentle lady.”
“Insolent swine,” the duke said. “Name your seconds—”
“Etienne!” Lady Justine hurried into the room, her limp more pronounced than usual. “Etienne, there you are. I have been awaiting you all morning.”
Pippa stared at her future sister-in-law in amazement. Never, in the four weeks since they’d met, had that lady shown the slightest animation or disquiet over anything. Justine was, Pippa had decided almost upon their first meeting, the most painfully withdrawn and possibly the most unhappy woman she had ever met.
The duke’s perplexed expression suggested he was as surprised as Pippa by his sister’s agitated appearance. “Are you ill?” he said, and sounded as if he might actually be concerned.
“I…no.”
“You are quite winded, Justine.” The duke, his grand evening garb showing signs of the many hours that had passed since he had donned it, cast a glare at Mr. Innes before approaching his sister and eyeing her closely. “You do not look yourself. Your face is flushed. Are you feverish?”
Justine pressed her thin hands to her cheeks. “I am well, thank you,” she said, and this time her voice shook a little. “It’s just that I have grown unsettled waiting for your return. There are some important things that I think we should talk about.”
“Now?” Disbelief coated the duke’s voice. “Can’t you see there is a matter of consequence occurring here?”
“There most certainly is,” Justine agreed. The limp did not detract from her dignity as she went to seat herself at the foot of Pippa’s chaise. “Introduce our guest, please.”
Silence followed the request.
Justine’s dark hair was thick, and despite all efforts to restrain it, curls always sprang free around her face. It was assumed that, at thirty-four, she was doomed to spinsterhood, yet Pippa never looked at Justine’s striking face and tall, slender form without thinking that there must be many a man who would be proud to have her at his side.
At this moment, Lady Justine Girvin looked positively blooming and…Pippa was suddenly certain that this even-tempered, perpetually serene and mannered lady was furious.
“Introduce him?” The duke looked around as if for an explanation of his sister’s insane behavior.
“I believe it is usual to introduce visitors, Etienne.”
Justine drew herself up very straight, and Pippa’s eyes were drawn to the remarkable spectacle of several leaves caught in the back of the other woman’s hair. Pippa glanced at Justine’s feet and saw what she expected to see—damp slippers.
The pieces fell together. Justine must have been in the conservatory when…Pippa felt herself blush. Justine had very probably hidden among the plants and seen Mr. Innes kissing Pippa. Afterward, when the duke had stormed in, his s
ister must have raced outside and across the still-damp grass to the door that would allow her the speediest access to the house.
So that she could arrive in time to interrupt the duke’s inevitable angry tirade? How extraordinary.
“This is Mr. Calum Innes,” Pippa heard herself say. “Mr. Innes, this is my future sister-in-law, Lady Justine Girvin.”
“It’s a great pleasure to meet you, Mr. Innes,” Lady Justine said in a strong voice quite unlike her own. “Should you care for some refreshment?”
The duke made a sputtering sound.
Mr. Innes, who until the arrival of Lady Justine had appeared for all the world to be as calm as if he were seated at the breakfast table reading his morning paper and about to enjoy a plate of buttered eggs, simply watched Lady Justine and said absolutely nothing.
“Where do you make your home, Mr. Innes?” Justine asked.
Pippa stared at her.
The duke gaped.
From a corner came a snuffle that reminded Pippa of Nelly’s presence.
“My home…” Mr. Innes took a step toward Justine and reached for her hand. When she gave it to him without hesitation, he held it and looked into her face intently. “Recently I have been living in Hanover Square, my lady. I grew up at Castle Kirkcaldy in Scotland. Lord Stonehaven—the father of the present marquess—accepted me into his household when I was a small boy and became my guardian. I was a foundling, ma’am.”
Justine smiled, an event so remarkable that Pippa’s hand went to her throat. When Justine smiled, her dark eyes shone and dimples appeared in her cheeks.
“From the way you speak of him, I would say you greatly admired your guardian, Mr. Innes,” she said. “I appreciate your openness about your beginnings. Many men would not be so forthcoming.”
Justine liked Calum Innes.
Pippa swallowed and tried to order her thoughts. Justine liked him for the man she had instinctively perceived him to be, not in the romantic manner that had drawn Pippa…She caught the tip of her tongue between her teeth. There could be no excuse for allowing such thoughts.
“You have hurt your leg, my lady,” Mr. Innes said. He still held Justine’s hand—in both of his now. “Were you injured recently or very long ago?”
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