No, he needed to stay precisely where he was and make Langley wonder what game he meant to play. And he had to continue allowing his supposed peers to tell their harrowing stories of foxhunting and to chuckle at him behind his back. He would strike when the moment was right, and not until then.
All of which also allowed him to see to something that had taken hold of him and refused to let go, whatever the rest of his troubles. He meant to get his hands on Phillipa Eddison, and he meant to do it soon.
Chapter Seven
For weeks the thick canopy of leaves all but hid the sky. Then one evening we camped atop a ridge. As night fell, the sky opened up. Thousands of stars, thick enough to walk upon. And brightest of all, the Southern Cross. She is a reminder that I am on an adventure unlike any I’ve ever attempted. I seek her out now whenever I glimpse the sky, for to my eyes she is the prettiest girl in the room.
THE JOURNALS OF CAPTAIN BENNETT WOLFE
Phillipa’s pulse jumped as Bennett crossed the room. It seemed, to her at least, as though every other guest present paused in what they were doing to turn and watch him. Large and lean and graceful, even though it seemed too obvious to think so, he reminded her of nothing so much as a panther on the prowl. For her.
He stopped in front of her. “This is our dance,” he said, and held out his hand.
“Where’s Kero?”
“Back in the palm tree. She seems to like it there. Come along.”
Putting on a smile to cover her sudden nerves, Phillipa gripped his warm fingers and allowed him to pull her to her feet. “I’ll return in a few minutes, Mama.”
“Take your time, my dear. Your father has promised to keep me company.”
Curving his fingers around hers, Bennett pulled her toward the dance floor. “Your mother,” he said in a low voice, glancing past her. “She’s not well?”
“She’s recovering from a lung ailment. This is her first outing in over a fortnight.”
“You’re good to watch her.”
Phillipa tilted her head. “You wrote in Walking with Pharaohs that your mother died of a chill when you were nine. It made me feel…lucky, to still have mine.”
Green eyes held hers. “Thank you. You’re the first person I’ve met who’s mentioned that book without adding scorpions or poison adders into the same sentence.”
“It is an exciting book. Tomb robbers, desert treks, and pyramids and such. Do you truly think it was Bonaparte’s soldiers who shot the nose off the sphinx?”
“That was what the locals claimed. I think they may have caused part of the damage.” As they reached the dance floor, he faced her. “I don’t want to talk about pyramids,” he said, sliding a hand around her waist, and twining the fingers of his other hand with hers. The orchestra began playing, and he effortlessly swung her into the waltz. Oh, yes, he could dance.
Phillipa drew a breath, attempting to steady herself. This close, he smelled of leather and, surpris ingly, peanuts. Kero’s doing, she supposed. “Kero is behaving well,” she noted. There. Nothing about pyramids.
“She finds food exceedingly persuasive.”
“Is her stomach ever full?”
Bennett chuckled, an arousing, rumbling sound. “Not that I’ve noticed.” He drew her a breath closer. “Tell me, Phillipa, who’s been pursuing you?”
The question surprised her—everyone in Mayfair likely knew the answer to that question. Bennett Wolfe, however, had spent the previous three Seasons in the Congo. “No one’s pursuing me,” she answered.
A line furrowed between his brows. “What’s wrong with you, then?”
She snorted, ducking her head to cover the sound. Damnation, she thought she’d managed to stop that habit. Livi teased her about it enough. “I have a very lovely older sister who received all of the gifts of flirtation and charm. I received the gifts of short patience, short legs, and very little tact.”
He grinned. “And I repeat, ‘What’s wrong with you, then?’”
As she didn’t feel inclined to ruin this singular moment by delving into the various defects of her character, she shook her head. “I’d rather discuss your explorations.”
His arm muscles around her tensed a little, then relaxed again. “One question, then,” he returned. “Only one.”
Oh, that hardly seemed fair—or adequate. And aside from that, people were watching them. Watching him, rather, but they were attached at the shoulder and the hip. It was all very distracting. And exhilarating, actually. “Very well,” she said slowly. “Is there any place in the world that you call home? Not a house, since I know you own Tesling, but home.”
He blinked. “Nothing about leopards or crocodiles or hippopotami or cannibals?”
“No.”
They danced in silence for a long moment. He continued gazing at her, his intensely green eyes mesmerizing. It was as if he carried part of the jungle with him, as if it had sunk inside his soul and colored him from the inside out in its fierce shading. Beautiful. And she liked when those wild eyes looked at her.
“You are a conundrum,” he finally announced.
She smiled. People rarely said anything so flattering to her. “What about me puzzles you?” she asked, genuinely curious. To herself, she felt fairly straightforward.
“That is something I would have to show you,” he murmured.
Something in his tone made her blush. After all, she might be practical and logical, but she wasn’t ignorant or stupid. “Why did you return to London? You didn’t know you’d been declared dead, and John said your expedition crates went to Kent.”
“That is a second question, Phillipa.”
“You didn’t answer my first one.”
“Then which one do you want answered?”
She considered that. The first query was about him, while the second had at least a little to do with her. As she was still attempting to decide, though, the waltz ended. Cursing at herself for missing the chance to discover something insightful about this fascinating man, she halfheartedly applauded with everyone else and then headed across the crowded room in the general direction of her parents.
A hand cupped her elbow. “I’m not finished with you yet,” Bennett said in a low voice, cutting sideways through the tide of dancers, her in tow, with apparent ease.
“Where—”
“Stop asking so many damned questions.”
Phillipa snapped her mouth closed again, settling for frowning as they left the ballroom, hurried down the hallway, and pushed inside an empty upstairs sitting room.
“You agreed that I should ask you a question,” she finally snapped, pulling her elbow free.
He faced her. “A question, Phillipa. Not a barrage.”
“But—”
Bennett gave a half smile. “A complete conundrum,” he murmured.
Lifting both his hands, he stroked his fingers along her cheekbones, making her shiver. Softly he ran a thumb along her lower lip, then he leaned down and caught her mouth with his. The sensation—warm, soft, and electric—jolted through her. Phillipa closed her eyes, her breath stopping at the arousing heat that seemed to move from him into her. She tilted her face up and wrapped her arms around his neck.
With a low groan Bennett pulled free of her grip, only so he could close on her again. He’d wanted to kiss her for days, and even with the poor timing and the proximity of possible witnesses, he couldn’t wait any longer. He wanted to stroke his hands down her curves, rip the buttons from her pretty yellow gown, and slake himself inside her naked body.
Phillipa curled her fingers into his hair, opening her eyes to look up at him. “This is nice,” she murmured unsteadily, lowering her gaze to his mouth again.
She tasted like strawberries and desire. He bent his head to her again, teasing her mouth open, backing her into the wall and splaying his hand on her hips. Arousal crackled at him, sending heat spearing down to his cock. Christ, he wanted her.
Dimly he heard the music to a country dance begin. “I’m supposed to
be dancing with someone,” he muttered, shifting his grip to pull her against him.
“What?” She leaned her head back, away from him. When he pursued her, she put a hand over his face and pushed. “Stop it.”
With a growl Bennett loosened his hold on her. “I’m not finished.”
“You have to go dance.”
“I don’t want to.”
Her brow furrowed, her dark brown eyes nearly black in the dim room. “Bennett, if you promised someone a dance, you have to dance with her. I would hate to be standing there, waiting for some man to appear after he’d already promised to do so.”
He tilted his head, reluctant amusement beginning to push past his frustrated lust. “I’m in the midst of kissing you, Phillipa, and you’re actually ordering me to go dance with some other chit whose name I can’t at the moment recall?”
“You promised.”
“And with whom will you be dancing?”
“I will be sitting with my mother.”
For a moment he considered that. If she’d had someone waiting for her, he was fairly certain he would have kept her there. She, on the other hand, didn’t seem to have any of the same reluctance where he was concerned. And then there was the question of why no one else found her as fascinating as he did. He didn’t have a very high opinion of her fellows, however, and it didn’t surprise him that none of them recognized how compelling she was.
Bennett released her and took a step back. “Let’s go, then.”
Just before he reached the door, she put a hand on his arm. “Will you be kissing her in here after the dance?”
“What?” The thought hadn’t even crossed his mind. “No.”
She smiled, rocking back on her heels. “Good.”
That left him feeling a bit better. After all, that had been quite the kiss, if he said so himself. He sent her ahead, counted to ten, then left the sitting room. And immediately he wanted to return there again.
“Sir Bennett, Sir Bennett, we must take our places for the dance!” a young lady called, waving her dance card at him as soon as he walked into the ballroom.
What the devil was her name? Most of his attention was still on the vanished Phillipa. Miss Penny, or Perry, or something. “Shall we, Miss Perry?” he said aloud, sending up a quick prayer and offering his hand. “Apologies for my tardiness.”
Giving her female companions a look of complete triumph, Miss Perry took his hand and pranced onto the floor and into the dance with him. Apparently, then, he’d gotten her name right. She seemed to prance and bounce quite a bit. The up and down movements had the effect of rendering her bosom the most…noticeable part of her anatomy, but he began to wonder how she avoided putting out an eye.
“How are you finding London?” she asked brightly as she made the turn around him.
“It’s crowded,” he returned, sending a glance in Phillipa’s direction. Too many people dipped and bobbed between them for him to catch more than the most fleeting of glances. “And loud.”
“Oh, I would imagine it is, after the wilds of Africa. And so much more civilized.”
He could debate that. “I suppose so.”
“Lord and Lady Fordham always manage to host the event of the Season. Of course with no crocodiles or bare-breasted natives, it must seem quite tame.”
She was practically bare-breasted herself. They circled away from each other and joined again. “It has its challenges,” he observed, looking about again as they neared the end of the line of dancers.
There she was, sitting beside her mother and chatting amiably, the high color in her cheeks the only indication that she might be anything other than cool and collected. For a heartbeat her brown eyes met his before she vanished behind the crowd again. Lust rolled across him like a warm breeze.
“Have you been to the Tower menagerie?” Miss Perry pursued. “They have two lions there. And a giraffe. And some monkeys very like Kero.”
“I’ve seen them in the wild, Miss Perry. I do not need to see them in cages.” Truth be told, he felt too much sympathy for the animals. He felt rather like he’d been caged and put on display himself from the moment he’d returned to London. Every time he returned to London.
Her bright smile faltered a little, though she continued bouncing as enthusiastically as ever. “Do you know when Captain Langley will be returning to London? I should very much like to meet him.”
“I have no idea.”
“Oh.”
Finally the dance ended, and he used some of his hunting skills to disappear before she could demand that he introduce himself to her parents. He moved back against the wall and observed the ballroom. They all looked like a colony of ants, moving along the same trails, moving the same way, gathering gossip to use for and against one another as ants gathered leaves.
Under any other circumstances he wouldn’t have given a damn what any of them thought of him. Now, however, David Langley had pulled him into some sort of contest of competency and popularity before he’d ever realized a game had begun. Women still looked at him; with the remains of his reputation and most significantly his five thousand a year, he seemed to be quite the attraction. If all he’d wanted was sex, he could have a very large quantity of it.
But there was some indefinable…more that he seemed to require at the moment, and he knew where to find it. With whom to find it.
A reverberating screech yanked him out of his lustful reverie. He pushed upright. “Damnation.”
The palm tree in the corner of the ballroom shook like it was in the middle of a monsoon. “Kero, siyo!” he called, striding toward the fracas.
As he neared the tree, Kero leapt ten feet through the air to land in his arms. She put her head beneath his jacket, handing him a tattered lady’s glove at the same time.
“That beast tried to bite me!” a matronly female squawked, clutching at her ample bosom. “I was only attempting to be friendly!”
Bennett held up the glove. “Did you wiggle your fingers at her?”
“Well, yes. How else was I supposed to say hel—”
“She thought your fingers were grubs,” he interrupted, and handed the glove back. “They’re white, and about the same size.”
Several younger members of the crowd snickered. The woman clutching her ruined glove turned beet red and looked as though she might suffer an apoplexy at any moment. Abruptly Phillipa stood beside him.
“Considering that Kero never saw London fashion until four days ago,” she said, “I’m surprised she hasn’t attempted to eat anyone’s hat. You were brave to try to make friends with her, Lady Sefton.”
At the sound of more chuckling and some murmurs of agreement, Lady Sefton bit back what was likely another complaint. “You really shouldn’t allow a wild animal to roam among civilized persons,” she finally said.
Civilized. There was that word again. As though the people around him personified it, while he didn’t even know the meaning of the word. He supposed every group of wild beasts thought they were the civilized ones. His fingers brushed Phillipa’s, but he shifted away again before anyone else could notice. Little tact as she claimed to have, she had more than he did. “I’m fairly wild myself, my lady,” he said. “Thank you for your patience with both of us.”
“Yes, well, you can’t leave an animal sitting about to attack unsuspecting ladies.”
“Hopefully everyone will be more wary of her now.”
With that he turned his back on her and offered his arm to Phillipa. He felt rather than saw her hesitation, but then her fingers wrapped around his sleeve. Enjoying the sensation, he kept silent as he walked her back to her parents.
“You shouldn’t be so blunt with people,” she said finally.
“Me? I thought you were the direct one.”
“You know what I mean. If you haven’t noticed, your reputation is rather uncertain at the moment. Telling viscountesses they have fingers that look like grubs will not make you any friends.”
“I have all the friends
I need.” He drew a breath. “I want to kiss you again.”
Her fingers crushed into his arm, then lightened again. “You’re being overly blunt again.”
“There you are,” Lady Leeds said, as he and Phillipa reached the side of the room. “I heard a terrible commotion.”
“Oh, that was us,” Phillipa returned with a grin. “Kero, actually.”
“Heavens. Was anyone hurt?”
“Only Lady Sefton’s glove.” Phillipa released Bennett’s arm. “Do you think Kero will be more tolerant of me?”
He stifled his scowl at her stepping away from him. “Let’s find out,” he said aloud. Making low- pitched clucking sounds in imitation of any good monkey mother, Bennett scratched Kero behind the ears. “Move slowly,” he instructed, gathering the cat-sized monkey into his arms and then holding her out to Phillipa.
“Flip, be careful,” Lord Leeds cautioned with a frown of his own. “That monkey has very large teeth.”
“Bennett will protect me,” she said absently, offering her arms to the vervet. “Hello, Kero.”
The way she said those words, so matter-of-factly, as though she had no doubt of the truth of them whatsoever, made his pulse speed. “I will,” he agreed quietly, wondering if she had any idea how seriously someone like him—someone who knew very well how fragile life could be and how many dangers lurked about—took a promise like that.
Kero looked at her, tilting her head from side to side, and chittered. Then she reached out, grabbed Phillipa’s fingers, and swung across into her arms. “You’re so light,” she cooed, gently scratching behind the monkey’s ears. “And your fur is scratchy.”
The vervet patted Phillipa on the cheek, then reached up to begin picking through her hair, destroying the neatly clipped coiffure. “Oh, Flip, it’s making a mess,” her sister said, abruptly appearing beyond Lord Leeds. “Your hair.”
“It’s no bother,” Phillipa said, actually grinning. “It tickles.”
“She’s grooming you,” Bennett told her, concealing his own surprise. “It’s quite an honor, actually.”
The Care and Taming of a Rogue Page 9