Fascination -and- Charmed (65 page)

“And that matters above…above all else?”

He had not grown up as she had, with the strict understanding of what could and could not be done. “It isn’t what matters to me that counts, Calum.”

“No? It could not be of greater importance to me.”

“You make this so difficult.” Difficult because she felt, for the first time in her life, that she—Philipa Chauncey—was a prize in herself. “This is a matter of what is expected.”

“Then
change
what is expected,” he said, his face strained with emotion. “Change the future by grasping what the present offers you.”

She shook her head. “My father has always let me know what is expected of me.” Every word felt torn from her throat. “It is a matter between the Franchots and the Chaunceys. It involves property. The property is of far greater importance than anything I may want.”

“I cannot bear to think of you denying your own needs.”

Pippa knew she must not stop now. If she did, she would be lost. “Papa never let me doubt my responsibilities, and I admire him for that.”

Calum uttered what sounded like, but could not possibly be, an oath. He extended a hand, then slowly dropped it. “Very well,” he said quietly. “I must bow to your wishes. I bid you a good night, then, my lady.”

Pippa found that her mouth was too dry for her to form words. And her eyes smarted—from tiredness, no doubt. Calum had turned away.

She approached the door, caught a foot in a ruck in the rug, but managed to regain her balance without mishap. “I am not sorry we shared…I do not regret holding and kissing you, Calum Innes. If you do think of me again, I pray it will be kindly.”

“I’ll think of you again.”

“And I shall think of you.” She would think of him all the time. “My coachman will be watching for me. I’ll find my own way out.”

“Good night,” he said, still with his back to her.

Pippa said, “Good-bye,” opened the salon doors and hurried from the house.

When she was finally inside the Franchot coach once more, she looked back at the Stonehaven house and waved, although no one would see her.

And she would never see Calum Innes again.

She began to cry quietly.

“There you are, Etienne. I’ve been waiting simply ages for you.”

He stopped on the threshold to his bedroom and peered through gloom alleviated only by the red-gold glow from the fire. “Anabel? How the hell did you get in here?”

“I paid your valet.”

“I’ll have his ballocks.”

“I already did. That was part of the bargain.”

“Bitch.”

From somewhere in the region of his great tapestry-draped bed, she giggled. “I know. And don’t you love every minute of it?”

“I haven’t been getting many minutes of it of late.” He stumbled to fall into a chair. “Which is a matter I’d intended to discuss when next we met.”

“Don’t sound testy, Etienne, darling. Just tell me what would make you happy with Anabel, and she’ll do it right now.”

“First, you can promise to keep your hands—and other parts—off my servants’ cocks.”

“Only my hands,” she assured him. “The rest is entirely yours, dear one.”

“Fair enough.” He really had drunk a few too many at his club, but not so many that he wasn’t already growing hard. “Then you can get over here and use other parts on my cock.”

She laughed uproariously and he heard the bed creak as she left it. “I do love it when you’re completely naughty, Etienne. We are so absolutely suited to each other.”

Dimly, he was aware that he must be prepared to fend off her demands—yet again—but first he had some very pressing needs. “Come here, my pet,” he wheedled. “Come and show me some new titillations. I am a man who requires a constant supply of fresh entertainments.”

“No more so than I, Etienne,” she said, appearing at one heavily carved bedpost.

“Why’re you still dressed?” The fact that she wasn’t already naked surprised him. Anabel took great pleasure in reminding him, preferably within the hearing of some other interested male, that she was a woman who would never wear clothes at all if such a habit could only gain acceptance.

Rather than answer Etienne’s question, she promenaded by, her cream satin gown swishing, and sank with studied grace into a chair facing his own.

Etienne blinked. “Asked you a question, Annie,” he told her. She was a bit fuzzy ‘round the edges. The last bottle of hock might have been overly excessive after all.

“I don’t like it when you call me Annie,” she said. “Did you have a pleasant evening?”

He burped loudly and wiped the back of a hand across his mouth. “Pleasant enough until now. You never used to mind my calling you Annie.”

“We are no longer children. Things have changed between us.

Her hauteur amused him and he grinned. “Things changed between us when we were about sixteen, if memory serves.”

Anabel pulled up her skirts and hooked one rounded leg over the arm of her chair. “You were sixteen. I was considerably younger.” She swung her foot, swept the skirt higher and regarded her thigh all the way up to a thicket of hair of a much darker shade than her shiny, pale coiffure.

Etienne squirmed in his chair and began releasing his trousers. “Come here.” His breathing was already becoming more labored. “Come here, now.”

“I don’t believe I shall.” A twitch of the skirt, and that part of her that most interested him was again covered. She sighed hugely. “I was in Regent Street this afternoon. At Howell and James.”

Etienne leaned forward to divest himself of his coat. He said, “No doubt you saw something you cannot live without.”

“I did. A perfectly delightful little pendant that would sit so beautifully…” She slid a finger over one breast and into the deep vale of her cleavage. “Just beautifully. Right here. A blue diamond, Etienne. Surrounded by amethysts. Think how wonderfully such a work of art would complement my eyes.”

Etienne’s attention was on the way Anabel’s finger stroked down, deep into the vale he so enjoyed exploring himself. “Buy the thing,” he said, his tongue thick. “Put it on my account. But there’s a condition, my love.”

“Condition?” she said innocently.

He sniggered. “Have it delivered to me. I shall give it to you. And I shall choose the manner and the place in which the presentation is to take place.” He was remembering a little piece he’d read in a titillating underground rag for gentlemen. If his memory served, little gold bells, or strings of pearls, were found to heighten certain sensations…why not a diamond-and-amethyst pendant?

“I want it now,” Anabel announced with sudden petulance.

Etienne tore at his neckcloth and pulled his shirt open. “You’ll get it soon enough. Help me, Annie. I’m deuced foxed.”

“Mmm. Probably too foxed to even notice.”

He peered up at her. “Notice what?”

“If I took you in my mouth.”

“Damn!” Somehow he slipped off the edge of the chair and landed on the carpet. “Come here, Annie.”

“I think you should come to me,” she retorted.

“Don’t tell me what to do. I don’t like it.”

“You don’t like it,” she said, throwing her arms over her head with the desired effect that her rouged nipples rose above the neck of her gown. “What do you like? Truly like? What do you want, Etienne? You tell me: then I’ll tell you what I do and don’t like.”

He did not particularly care for her tone. “I truly like inspired rutting. But then, I truly like uninspired rutting.” He giggled at his own brilliance. “I think perhaps I’d also like to go to me bed and have you use your lovely little mouth on me.”

“While you rest, you mean, Your Grace?”

Rest. “Now I think of it, I believe I shall rest right here. Going to me bed would take entirely too much effort.” The carpet, when he lay upon it, was warm from the fire. He pushed his trousers down. “There. I helped.”

Her laughter brought his head off the floor. He narrowed his eyes to bring her into focus. “Glad the prospect of servicin’ me brings such mirth.”

Anabel got up and approached to walk a circle around him. “No,” she said and choked. When she recovered, she studied a certain part of him from several angles and announced, “My dearest Etienne, in its present condition, nothing could help that.”

He frowned and concentrated. He closed his eyes and thought about what he was feeling. Cautiously, he reached down to touch himself.

Anabel howled. When Etienne looked at her, she pressed her hands over her mouth and pranced about in an enraging manner. Tears coursed her cheeks.

He wasn’t…“It’s your fault,” he roared, covering himself. “Hardly expect a man to perform when a woman treats him the way you do.”

“Marry me.”

“Forever flauntin’ yourself with other men. Makin’ a fool of me. Shouldn’t wonder if you were ruttin’ with me own servants. Caught that jackanapes Dickson sneerin’ at me just this morning.”

“Etienne!”

“Henri told me you’re forever stoppin’ by his rooms.”

“Etienne!”

“You’d best never meddle with Saber, I’ll warn you of that. Some things can’t be tolerated.”

Anabel snorted. “Why? Are you saving him for yourself, or for Henri?”

He attempted to rise onto his elbows but fell back. “Saber is…Saber is in my care. We’ll not discuss him further.”

“Your deluded sense of responsibility is no affair of mine. You will make me your duchess.”

“I will do what—”

“Etienne.”

“What, damn you?”

“Marry me.”

His head had begun to ache, but his vision was definitely clearer. “Don’t be difficult.”

“You will marry me. I have waited quite long enough.”

“You married Hoarville. Didn’t worry about me then, did you?”

She poked his thigh with a sharp toe. “That, dear one, was a necessity. My mother had no choice but to agree to the match my father arranged.”

“Your mother was a whore.”

“True.” She appeared entirely unruffled. “A highly successful whore in the manner of most prime courtesans. At least I know who my father was, and he looked after Mama.”

Pain smote him between the eyes. “Damn you,” he muttered. “You’ve gone too far.”

“Because, when you insult me, I remind you that you and I have very similar beginnings? Except in the matter of paternity. My parents might not have been married, but their relationship was no secret. Lord Wallister took good care of Mama and he never shirked his duty to me. Mama always intended that I should become your duchess, but she had to be clever about it.”

Etienne grunted. “She had to marry you off to Hoarville because that’s what Wallister had arranged. But you didn’t object, did you?”

“You are being so difficult. I didn’t know the truth about you then.”

“You mean you didn’t know the truth and so you didn’t know it was time to start trying to blackmail me into making you my duchess.”

“I think,” Anabel said, raising her skirts and pointing a toe while she admired the rounded shapeliness of her leg, “I think that you should be grateful I am prepared to put aside the knowledge that you haven’t chosen to accept me gracefully. When the time was right, Mama told me the circumstances of your birth. Your mama was not in a position to bring about a friendship between us, Etienne. My mama was, and she did so from when we were children.”

“Because she intended to get her claws into the Franchot fortunes.”

“Because she intended that her daughter should eventually marry her best friend’s son.”

He covered his eyes with a forearm and muttered, “Blackmail.”

“Posh!” Anabel said. “True, I have placed certain letters with my solicitors. But I did so because it is businesslike to make provisions. It would seem only professional to ensure one’s safety.”

He felt incredibly morose. “In case I decide to have you killed in your sleep, you mean?”

“Of course not.” Anabel’s laugh tinkled. “Why would you? We both know I have no intention of telling the world that you are not the Duke of Franchot.”

“Enough. I have warned you never to speak of that.”

“So you have,” she said. Her smile became cunning. “I would merely caution you not to forget that you and I are bound together now, and that we always will be.”

Even while his head pounded and his flesh felt numb, he knew the curl of fear in his belly. “What was arranged at the time of Lady Philipa’s birth cannot be put aside,” he said. “She will become my wife.” Anabel appeared to be the only one in their set who didn’t understand the true importance of his marriage to Lady Philipa.

Anabel lifted a leg and stood with one foot on either side of his hips. Gradually, she raised her skirts until he was presented with an unimpeded view of her woman’s parts. “Any hope of an improvement in your present condition, my love?” she asked, spreading her legs wider.

The numbness lifted—as did other aspects of his being. “Get down here,” he hissed, grabbing her ankle. He could see her moist readiness. He could smell her lust.

Dropping the skirt, she undid the tapes on her bodice, her pointed tongue clasped between her teeth as she did so. “You are bound to me,” she said, hunching her shoulders forward to slip off the bodice. “We will always be bound together.”

Her breasts spilled forth, large and white and red-tipped. Planting her hands on her hips, she bent her knees and leaned forward to sway above him until he felt his flesh leap so solid he gasped.

“I’m what you want, Etienne,” she said. “What you have to have.”

With the sound of his own low growl in his ears, he reached up to squeeze and fondle her. “Sit on me,” he begged. “Please, Annie.”

“Get rid of the Chauncey girl.”

He rocked his head from side to side. “I can’t. You know I can’t. She was betrothed to me on the day of her birth.”

“She was betrothed to the man whose place you took.”

He grew still.

“You, my dear Etienne, are like me. You are a bastard.”

His mind became oddly, coldly, clear. She had never exactly called him that before. The fact that he did not know his father had been stated in many different ways, but never so baldly as for her to call him a bastard. Distractedly, he resumed fondling her breasts. Something was afoot here—something different.