Shannon's Daughter (16 page)

“And I
wouldn’t advise you to kiss a ‘man like me’ either, not if you know what’s good
for you.
 
Be very thankful I have an
intensely protective instinct toward you, brat.
 
If I ever saw any other man doing to you what I’ve just done, I’d be
force to take him to task.
 
Which is what I’ll have to do to myself, if you don’t stop looking
so eager to be kissed again.
”

“I’m
not sorry you like kissing me.
 
We’ll
have to find someplace more private for the next time.”

“The
next time?”

“You’ll
be here for almost two more weeks.
 
With
any luck, we’ll have lots more chances to do this again.”

He too put
back his head to gaze up into the trees, seeing among the branches visions of kissing
Peg in a more private place and the kind of havoc she would bring down on them
both.
 
The truth of the matter, which he
readily admitted, was that he had no defense to offer for his conduct if caught
in the act and even less defense against Peg’s charm.
 
Much as he might wish to heed the warning
bells clanging in his head, the beat of his heart told him there would be no
denying her whatever she demanded.
 

“Listen
to me, brat.
 
We must be very careful,
you
must be very careful, not to take
this little adventure too far.
 
You can’t
afford to trust any man to keep his head when you make yourself so adorably
available.
 
Do you understand what I’m
saying?”

“You’re
saying you find me attractive, right?”

He
lowered his head to search her face, thinking she must be teasing.
 
“Attractive?
 
That’s a ridiculous word to describe someone as beautiful and alluring
as you, Peg.
 
We may joke about the ugly
duckling and the swan, but sweetheart you put the swan to shame.
 
You can’t possibly see yourself as anything
less than a lovely, desirable young woman.”

She
looked away, her face falling suddenly.
 
“But I don’t.
 
My mother was all
those things, like a model in a magazine, and I’m so little like her.
 
I’m always disappointed when I look in the
mirror.
 
Oh, I know I’m not ugly, but
I’ll never look like that.
 
You’re very
sweet to say that, though.”

Anger
flooded his chest, its heat tightening his throat.
 
“I’m not just saying it.
 
If anything, you’re more beautiful than your
mother.
 
You’re an original, far much
more genuine than any of those merely pretty faces on the pages of magazines.”
 
He forced her to meet his gaze.
 
“You are Anna Margaret Shannon, a smart,
funny, exciting and truly beautiful woman unlike any other.
 
Anyone who tries to tell you differently is a
blind fool!”

Her eyes
swam with tears as she reached up to gently stroke his face.
 
“You really mean that, don’t you?”

“Of
course I mean it.
 
And God forgive me,
but I’m going to kiss you again.
 
And
then we really have to leave before Simon comes searching for you.”
 

Chapter Fourteen

Dinner
was a typical Shannon family gathering.
 
Kendall sat back as the three brothers dominated the conversation, while
Maureen quizzed Peg for details of her debutante year and Eloise smiled and
nodded, adding a comment here and there as though she were really interested.
 
Kendall was aware of the question in his
mother’s eyes, and braced for his own interrogation later.
 
He and Peg had returned with just enough time
to dress for dinner.
 
He avoided his
mother’s room in favor of a quick shower and a few minutes to frame an
appropriately vague version of their afternoon.
 
Whatever Peg might say about the day’s events, he decided that to smile
without comment would be the safest course.

If he
had worried she might say too much, he was now more confident of her
discretion.
 
When asked by her father
about the visit to the dressmaker’s she assured him she’d found the perfect
dress, adding that Kendall had approved, to which he nodded noncommittally.
 
To Michael’s question regarding the
afternoon, she reported on their lunch at the Palm Court, complete with details
of their conversation with Mrs. Smith, going on to tell a brief, amusing story
about the infamous lady and her dog for the benefit of the others.
 
A “stroll in Central Park” was her
dispassionate summary of the rest of the afternoon.
 
As he finished his dessert, he silently
blessed her for not glancing in his direction while earnestly assuring her
father she had not “taken advantage of poor Kendall’s good nature by dragging
him all over Manhattan in the heat of the day.”

Leaving
the dining room, he was invited to join the others in the study for more of the
same sort of conversation over brandy.
 
“Actually, sir, I wonder if there might be a place I could practice
without disturbing anyone?
 
Anywhere
would do.”

“Peg,
darlin’,
show
Kendall the ballroom.
 
That should be the very thing.”
 
When Michael gave Peg a hug and seemed to be
saying goodnight, Kendall took his cue.
 

“I
believe I’ll say goodnight now.”
 
He offered
his hand to Michael.
 
“It’s been a busy
few days.
 
An early night seems in
order.”

“We’ll
see you at breakfast then.
 
I assume
you’ll be joining us?
 
I thought eleven
o’clock Mass would work best for us, give us all plenty of time to get
ourselves together.”
 
Without waiting for
Kendall’s answer, he moved toward the study, glancing back at Peg.
 
“I suppose you and Mrs. Leary are doing the
usual, darlin’?”

“Of
course.
 
I’ll see you before bedtime though.”
 
She blew him a kiss before turning to Kendall.
 
“Come on.
 
I’ll show you the ballroom, and if you think it will work, we can open
the doors for a while.
 
It’s probably pretty
stuffy up there.
 
We haven’t used it in
months, not since my ball.”

“Your
ball?
 
Oh, you mean your debutante affair.
 
I frankly don’t think I’ve ever known a girl
who had her own ballroom.
 
Must have come in handy.”
 
Back to the others, he kept his voice low as he followed her to the
stairs.
 
“What’s this ‘usual’ you and
Mrs. Leary are up to, if I may ask.
 
Sounds intriguing.”
 
As they started up, he let his hand rest on the small of her back,
finding it impossible not to touch her when she was so close.
 
She had changed for dinner into a dress of
pale yellow eyelet, with a little round collar of white lace.
 
It was demure in the extreme, with cap
sleeves and a full skirt, and yet he’d found himself thinking how tempting she
looked across the table.
 
Now, with the
slender curve of her waist beneath his hand, the prospect of a few moments
alone set his pulse ticking faster.
 

“Oh,
we’re going to wash my hair.
 
We’ve
always done it on Saturday night, or at least until this year when there were
parties sometimes.
 
It’s an awful lot of
trouble.
 
Another reason I should think
about cutting it soon.”
 
She moved away
from him along the second story corridor toward a set of impressive double
doors.
 

The
doors opened onto near darkness, but Kendall sensed the vast space beyond.
 
While he hesitated on the threshold, Peg
crossed the room to open the heavy draperies along one wall, revealing three
sets of broad French doors and flooding the room with soft light.

“It is
stuffy.
 
Come help me open these,
please.
 
There’s a bolt at the top I can barely
reach.”
 
She stood on tiptoe, one arm
extended toward the ceiling.

“Here.
 
Allow me.”
 
Standing behind her, he easily grasped the bolt to release the
lock.
 
In the process, he felt her turn
to face him, so near her hair brushed his chin.
 
“There.
 
That seems to have done
it.”
 
A quick step back and he lowered
his eyes to her face, captured by something in her gaze.
 
“Shall I do the others?” he finally rasped.

“Please.
 
They open above the garden.
 
There should be a breeze.”
 
Her voice dropped to a soft near-whisper as
she reached for the doors’ handles to pull them open, never taking her eyes
from him.

He did
the same with the other doors, and the room began to fill with evening
air.
 
Not quite sure what had put that
sparkle in her eyes, he waited before getting too close again.
 
There was nothing private about a room the
size of the average hotel lobby, yet her expression had turned decidedly
intimate.

Peg
seemed to shake herself from the moment, starting across to a door at the far side
of the room.
 
“There are music stands in
the closet here.
 
You can move a chair
wherever you think you’ll be most comfortable.”
 
The sweep of her hand took in the legion of velvet upholstered chairs
lining the perimeter of the gleaming parquet floor.
 
“Come see if one of these will work for
you.”
 
Standing in the open door of what
appeared to be a deep storage cupboard, she waved him over.

She
looked so innocent in her sweet little yellow dress, turning to duck into the
doorway.
 
The moment he followed her into
the darkness, a hand grasped his lapel and none-to-sweetly tugged him
aside.
 
Without saying a word, Peg snaked
an arm around his neck and pressed against him.
 
In the faint light he could see that sparkle as she turned her face up
to his.
 
Far too easy to seize the
moment, and the girl, and he was admittedly far too lacking in any power to
resist.

This
time Peg initiated the kiss, and he was stunned by how quickly she’d mastered
the art.
 
Softly, she brushed her mouth
across his, once, then twice, before delicately nipping his lower lip with her
teeth.
 
In response, he wrapped his arms
around her, lifting her closer and quelling the urge to rush ahead.
 
Subtly, she made her advance, gentle pressure
increasing by mesmerizing degrees until at last her lips opened, inviting him
in, moaning into his mouth as he answered her demands.
 
Her hands slid inside his jacket, fingers splayed
across his chest, exploring through the fabric of his shirt.
 
Tempted to let himself forget who she was and
where they were, to allow his instincts to follow hers, he left her mouth,
trailing a kiss down her throat to the lace of her collar and back up to the
warm hollow behind her ear, breathing her name as he went.
 

“Peg,
we have to stop this.”
 
Returning to her
mouth, he hovered longingly.

“Why?”
she sighed.

With a
surge of willpower, he pulled away, releasing her and withdrawing her hands
from his jacket to restrain them between his own.
 
“Because this is insane!
 
What if someone came in?”

“No
one’s going to come in here.
 
And what if
they did?
 
What’s so wrong with us
kissing?”

“In
a cupboard?
 
And, brat, that wasn’t just kissing.
 
There’s a great deal wrong with it.”

She
shot him an artless glance through her lashes.
 
“I didn’t think there was anything wrong with it at all and you seemed
to be enjoying it, too.”

“That’s
not the point and you should know it.
 
It’s not what
we
think, it’s
what
they’ll
think when they catch us.
 
I thought we talked about all this in the
park.”

She managed
to free her hands, sliding them around his neck.
 
“We did?
 
Oh, yes, you think no one will approve.
 
I suppose you’re right, but as long as we’re careful, they won’t get the
chance to disapprove, now will they?”

One
more, just a kiss, he told himself, and then she’d be satisfied and he’d slink
away until his arousal cooled.
 
As he
should have known by now, far from sharing his thoughts, Peg was following her
own agenda.
 
While fully engaged in a
kiss of startling creativity, her hands had deftly undone the knot of his tie
and begun on his collar button before he even noticed.
 
Instead of heeding the distant voice of
caution, he agreed with his libido that it was only polite to let her have her
way, meanwhile permitting his hands to collect information on whatever portion
of her they found beneath them.
 
Passing
over the smooth bodice of her dress, they investigated the narrow circumference
of her waist.
 
Beneath the folds of skirt
her hips flared to a fullness which seemed sculpted to match his palms and
begged to be caressed.
 
Back up along her
ribs, they skimmed the soft swells at the sides of her breasts.

Peg had
made rapid progress, apparently intent on discovery of her own.
 
Her work on the buttons done, she spread his
shirt open and withdrew her lips, pressing them to a spot just over his
heart.
 
“I want to see you,” she
whispered, turning him toward the faint light from the doorway.
 

“Why?”
 
Foolish question, but the best he could
manage.
 
No novice to seduction, he
prided himself on his skill at controlling a situation such as this.
 
Somehow this theoretically innocent girl had
swept him beyond common sense to dangerously near the limits of reason in a
matter of minutes.

Peg,
eyes wide, was surveying his bared chest with intense focus.
 
Teasing the furring of black hair curiously,
she laid her cheek against it.
 
“I’ve
never really seen a man without a shirt, you know?”

“Surely
you must have.
 
Don’t you ever go
swimming?”
 
Where he’d dredged up such a
response, he couldn’t imagine.
 
The effect
of her touch had dispatched his mind to visions of candlelight and tangled
sheets, far from the hard wall pressing against his back and the faint
mustiness of the cupboard.
 

“But
the boys I know don’t look anything like this.”
 
She lifted her head for another look.
 
“You’re very masculine, aren’t you?”
 

He
laughed softly into her hair.
 
“I don’t
know about that, but I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t be looking at me.
 
In fact, I’m positive it’s inappropriate for
us to be doing any of the things we’re doing.
 
Peg, sweetheart, you must stop taking advantage of me this way.”
 
Grasping her firmly by the shoulders, he set
her as far away as the confined space allowed.
 
“Now, you stay right there.
 
I’m
going to get myself together and we’re going to walk away from here as though
none of this ever happened.
 
Do you
understand?”
 
He was amazed at the
resolve in his voice.
 
His knees, and
even his hands as he buttoned his shirt, were trembling and there was an
annoying ringing in his ears.
 
The
physical effect of a few unbridled moments with Peg left him wondering if he would
survive actually making love to her.
 
And
that fact, that he had even ventured to think such a thing, set his pulse
pounding again.