by Bliss Bennet
How could she look down her nose at him when he stood so far above her? “You think I need you to keep me safe, Kit Pennington? When I’ve been protecting myself from the likes of you and every other man for nearly twenty years?”
“Every other man?” A hollow, empty feeling clutched at his chest, but he willed himself to ignore it. “Do you count Sean O’Hamill amongst that number?”
“Mr. O’Hamill? But I’d never met the man before last week.”
No, no one seeing the two of them together tonight, or the week before, would have suspected they were anything but strangers. They’d exchanged no whispered words, no half-hidden gestures; not even a hint of recognition had crossed either of their faces. Yet Kit knew as surely as he knew his own name that the two had some prior relationship. It wasn’t injustice in the abstract that kindled anger in O’Hamill’s eyes as he’d spoken of the insults Irishwomen suffered at the hands of the English. No, such ire could only have been sparked by some deeper, more personal injury. Every instinct told him it was fueled not by the presence of just any female compatriot, but by the proximity of one Irishwoman in particular.
By one bewitching Fianna Cameron.
“Never met him before in your life, you say?”
“Never.” Her arm waved away the thought. “I’d not soon forget such a fine speaker as Mr. O’Hamill. Especially after such a passionate defense of Irish womanhood. Would you?”
Kit jerked away from the hearth. He’d never met a person who could lie so easily while staring him right in the eye.
Hands clenched, he strode across the room until he stood directly in front of her chair. Setting a hand on each carved arm, he leaned down, his face within inches of hers.
“You speak a fine game, Fianna. And so does he, your Mr. O’Hamill, protesting the ill-usage of his countrywomen by the likes of me and mine. But what honorable man allows a female relation—his cousin, perhaps, or mayhap even his sister?—to be bedded outside of marriage?”
He’d expected a slap, or at the very least a cry of protest, after the gross insult of this shot in the dark. But Fianna did not even flinch. Her green gaze remained steady, her voice maddeningly silent.
She had never looked so magnificent.
His hands clenched the upholstered arms of the chair, nearly shaking it in his desire to elicit a response. “Or perhaps Mr. O’Hamill is an even closer relation. Is he your lover, Fianna? Your husband?”
A hint of a smile tipped up one corner of her mouth. Her eyes alight with something far more dangerous than amusement, she reached out a hand and slid it with sinuous intent down the silk of his waistcoat.
“Jealous, are you, Kit?” she whispered, her voice triumphant with discovery of his weakness. “But truly, there’s no need. Just let me. . .”
A hand snaked behind his neck, guiding his head down to hers. But before she could lay lips against his, he pushed away, jerking himself upright.
“No. That is not what I want.”
“Not what you want?” He shook his head, but still she rose, following him, laying a caressing hand on his arm. “Is it not what every man, the high and the low, the moral and the profane, desires? A woman’s lips, teasing against his? A woman’s body, compliant and willing?”
“A compliance bought and paid for? I thank you, but such an offer holds little appeal.”
“Why, then, did you bring me here? And why do you tremble beneath my touch?”
“Because I imagine your lips tendered in affection, not in trade,” he cried, jerking his arm free of her hand. “Your body a gift, not payment for my money, or my secrets, or my willingness to believe your lies.”
Fianna stepped back, a sneer marring the perfect symmetry of her face. “Affection? You think me stupid enough to offer my person for free, and do it with affection, no less? When I have nothing else with which to bargain?”
Nothing else with which to bargain? Did she value her intelligence so little? Her strong will? Her dedication, even to whatever misguided cause in which O’Hamill had entangled her?
Perhaps her family never thought to praise such qualities. Never seen beyond the stunning beauty of her face. Never allowed her to imagine what a relationship between a man and a woman not based on barter or trade might be like. . .
This time, he was the one to move closer. “Has no man ever kissed you with affection, Fianna?”
“As if affection would make the experience dissimilar,” she scoffed.
But still he heard it, the minute tremor in her words, the slightest catch of breath in her throat.
And, for the first time, her eyes shied away from his.
Two quick steps took him to her. Cupping her head between broad palms, he lifted her green gaze back where it belonged. Staring, haughty and intent, directly at him.
“Just let me,” he whispered, then lowered his lips to hers.
Fianna had kept her body as quiet as possible as she parried Kit’s words, her poise a shield lest he strike inside her guard. But all the while she’d felt her pulse beating in strange, unfamiliar parts of her body—the base of her throat, the crooks of her elbows, the very tips of her fingers and toes. When he took her face in his hands, that pounding narrowed, converged, as if her heart had decided to emigrate from her breast to her lips. In some foolish, misguided notion, she closed her eyes, as if by blinding herself to the sight of his face lowering to hers, she might keep him from seeing how his touch made her very blood rise.
And still it was a shock when the edges of his mouth pressed against hers, soft and strong and so very, very warm. He didn’t thrust his way inside, rushing to find his own pleasure or to impose his will on her; instead, he took his time, bussing his way along the curve of her lower lip, tracing the arches of her upper, using the tip of his tongue like a brush, painting pleasure with tiny, delicate strokes.
And suddenly, it was not his tongue that was limning the seam of their lips, inching inside a mouth. It was hers. Not in sly enticement, as it had with every other man she’d kissed, but in shy, tentative exploration. An exploration he welcomed, moaning deep in his throat, his thumbs sweeping encouragement over the curves of her cheeks.
Fianna pulled away to catch her breath, her lips swollen, ripe. Merciful heaven, kissing Kit Pennington was like biting into the warmth of the first slice of soda bread, fresh from her mother’s oven; no, like catching the last drip of clover honey falling from the spoon. A feast of which she would never have her fill.
And then it was Kit who was doing the kissing, tipping her head with gentle hands to angle his lips over hers. The unfamiliar sweetness of his mouth birthed something fragile, almost like pain, deep inside her. At school, she’d never been one to find the gold ring or the coin in the loaf of All Hallows’ Eve’s bairin breac. No, her piece had always held the stick, foretelling a year full of disputes, or worse, the rag, for poverty and bad luck. She’d never deserved any better, had she, a rebel’s bastard, abandoned by her mother’s family, ignored by her father’s.
Who did Kit imagine her, then, that he should treat her with such attention, such care? Make her feel as if bands of gold circled every finger, as if caskets and chests overflowing with gold lay at her very feet?
And who was she, this wanton, needy, vulnerable creature, breathless and trembling with desire?
She stilled, her chest tightening. Damn him. Damn Kit Pennington for making her weak, for making her want.
Kit moved his lips away from hers, tracing more tender kisses up and down the line of her jaw. No. No more tenderness. Not from him. And by God, not from her.
With a gasp, Fianna pulled free of his grasp, then reached around his neck and yanked his lips back to hers. With a violent thrust of her tongue, she delved deep, hard into his mouth. She’d not cede control to anyone, especially not a mere stripling such as he.
No, he’d have no gentleness from her. Rough thrusts of her tongue, sharp nips of her teeth, a yank on his hair, that’s all Fianna Cameron had to give.
Her
roughness, though, seemed to excite him as much as his tenderness had inflamed her. His hands clenched and unclenched against her shoulders, her upper arms; when she jerked down his neckcloth, then circled his Adam’s apple with a lascivious lick, his entire body shuddered. Yes, that was more like.
Lowering to her knees, Fianna grabbed his hands and pulled. He followed her down without resistance. But even kneeling on the floor, his larger frame still dwarfed hers. With a groan of frustration, she gave him a sharp push, putting him on his back, putting him in his place.
He made no protest, just lay silent, unmoving, his eyes glinting in the scant moonlight shafting in from the window. Calling her. Daring her.
No. She would not succumb to any foolish urge to rest her head against his broad chest, to burrow her body into his side and nestle within falsely protective arms. Instead, she pressed her palms flat to the floor, one beside each of his ears, looming above him, making it clear who was in charge. Then, with painstaking deliberation, she bent her elbows, lowering her face inch by tormenting inch, commanding his gaze, daring him to look away.
Her hair had come undone, and swung past her arms, cocooning them within a silent, silken cave. She whispered breath over his cheekbone, his chin, the side of his jaw rough with stubble, enticing wordless promises that skimmed, but never quite touched, his heated skin. No, he’d not gain the upper hand over her.
His gulping pants hot in her ear, she pulled away to see the effect of her taunting. Wide, glazed, his eyes burned against the flush staining his high cheekbones; his hands lay empty, clutching, palms up on the floor, knowing to touch would be to burn. Yes, good. Now he was the weak one, the one brought low by his own desire. Not her.
Why, then, could she not calm the pounding of her all-too-susceptible heart? Nor stop herself from bending lower, to touch her lips to his one last time?
“Heaven help me, but I want you,” Kit whispered before their mouths could meet. “But will the gifts you offer be worth the cost, my leannán sídhe?”
Fianna jerked away, pushing up from the floor, turning her back against the sting of his words. He thought her a leannán sídhe? A fae intent on stealing his life force for her own?
Like mother, like daughter, Aunt McCracken’s whisper mocked.
Damn her hands for trembling. She schooled her voice to an evenness she was far from feeling. “What know you of the fairy folk, Christopher Pennington?”
She flinched as a finger traced the curve of her cheek, caught a loose curl behind her ear. “I know far more than you could ever imagine, Fianna Cameron,” Kit whispered over her shoulder. “If Cameron, or even Fianna, is really your name.”
Instead of taking her in his arms again, as a traitorous part of her prayed he would, he turned away, then rose and crossed the room. But instead of leaving altogether, he paused at the door, staring down at its knob. After long, silent moments, he spoke.
“I’ve heard that the fairy folk need a man’s true name in order to work their spells on him,” he said, his expression hidden in shadow. “You should know, then, that mine is not Christopher. It’s Christian. Christian Pennington.”
Fianna’s breath caught in her throat. How was she to take it, this simple sharing of a given name? As a warning? Or as a sign of misguided trust?
The door snicked shut behind him, leaving her questions unanswered.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Kit tossed and turned in his bed for hours, dreams of Fianna’s lush, demanding mouth broken by visions of his uncle splayed out in his bed, in a chair, on the floor, blood oozing from a blackened hole in his chest. How could he be so drawn to a woman he was almost certain intended his uncle harm? And what in the hell had compelled him to tell her his real name?
Kicking free from the twisted bed linens, he sat up and hung his head in his hands. Wounded pride, perhaps, had compelled him, piqued that she could kiss him so simply to serve her own purposes. Or because he’d wanted her to know him, to see him, Christian Harlow Pennington, when she pressed her lips to his. Not just some nameless, faceless cog in the wheels of her own machinations.
Damn him for a bloody fool.
The first rays of morning light glazed his window as Kit washed his face and pulled on clean clothing. Uncle Christopher had arranged another meeting between himself and Theo, for ten o’clock this morning. But Kit hardly felt in the mood to discuss his political ambitions with his eldest brother. No, he had questions for his uncle, questions the Colonel might prefer Theo not hear. Such as why an Irishwoman might be in search of a certain English army major. And what cause said major might have given her to want to do him harm.
There was another task Kit had to attend to first, though, before bearding his uncle in his rooms. Checking to make sure Fianna still slept, he moved into the drawing room and pulled the family copy of Debrett’s, which his father had placed in Kit’s care, down from a high shelf. Opening to the section on viscounts, he flipped until he reached the Ps. With a lead pencil, he added a line to the Pennington entry. Frowning, he set the book on the dining table, where Fianna would be certain to see it. Pray God this trap, unlike the one she’d avoided yesterday, would snare its intended prey.
The mantel clock chimed eight as Kit made his way into his uncle’s rooms. Christopher Pennington sat not in bed, but in a chair by the window, pillows and blankets cushioning his legs. One of the invalid’s better days, then. Kit’s chest tightened at the task ahead of him. Could he truly be so disloyal as to question the honor of a member of his own family?
But the memory of Fianna’s face when he’d called her a leannán sídhe urged him forward. For the slow smile of triumph he’d expected when he’d uttered the words had been nowhere in evidence, only the blank, frozen stare of one caught out in a secret shame. How could he reconcile such unanticipated vulnerability with the heartlessness of a scheming assassin, one who would murder a man without cause?
“You’re in good time, Christian,” his uncle said, looking up from the silver medal he held in his hand. Another Waterloo souvenir, no doubt.
“Yes, sir. I have a few things I wish to discuss with you before Theo arrives,” Kit said. His usual smile was proving difficult to summon. He hated confrontations, particularly ones with members of his family.
“I’m afraid that Theodosius will not be joining us today, Christian,” his uncle answered, his voice holding no hint of welcome. “For I have something I need to discuss with you, before you ask your brother to endorse your political ambitions. Come here, sir, where I can see you.”
Christopher Pennington straightened his shoulders, then gave Kit a long, cold stare. “Would you believe it possible, Christian, for a man to be shot by a mysterious assailant and not inform his family of the fact?”
Damnation! He’d not expected the gossip to reach as far as his reclusive uncle.
“I informed Benedict, sir,” Kit said, meeting his uncle’s steely glare. If there was one thing his uncle could not abide, it was a man who would not stand his ground.
“You informed Benedict, you say?” The tap, tap, tap of the medal in his uncle’s hand, rapping against the table, echoed in Kit’s head. “You must forgive me. I was not aware that Benedict had become head of this family.”
Kit’s chin jerked. “Forgive me, sir, but you are no more the head of the family than is Benedict.”
“Oh, Saybrook knows of this little escapade, does he? He is the one who decided to keep me in the dark?”
Kit could not allow such ire to be directed at an innocent. “No, sir. That decision was mine. Mine alone.”
The color in his uncle’s cheeks rose, then just as suddenly fell, making him look far older than his years. He slumped down in his chair, his eyes shifting away from Kit to gaze, unseeing, out the window.
“So this is what you think of me, is it, Christian? A feeble, sapless old man, unable to withstand even the hearing of bad tidings? Certainly not able to offer help in bearing injury, or to prevent future harms.” The man’s white head no
dded. “Of course. What more could one expect of a man who cannot even move his own legs?”
“Uncle, no.” Kit knelt in front of the Colonel’s chair, taking the man’s hands in his own. The thinness of the skin, the boniness of the fingers beneath his own, shocked him. He gentled his grip.
“Even when Father was alive, you know I held you in the highest esteem,” he said, his eyes fixed on his uncle. “And now that he’s gone, there is no one in this family I respect more. I only kept the incident from you because your physician told us that undue excitement might do further injury to your health.”
“But being quizzed by my friend Earl Talbot about the gory details of my nephew’s attack, an attack about which I knew nothing, why, that was sure to keep me in the finest of fettle.”
Kit released his uncle’s hands and sat back on his heels. The man might be frail of body, but his spirit would not be kept down. “I apologize, sir. I had no idea gossip would spread so quickly.”
“Yes, well, you can thank Talbot’s son for that. What better could you expect, though, from a boy as crackbrained as to bring an Irish wench back to England to whore for him? Talbot had not the least idea what Ingestrie had done.”
“What do you know of Miss Cameron?” Kit asked, jerking to his feet.
“Miss Cameron, is it? Since when do you give such courtesies to other men’s doxies, Christian Pennington?”
Kit ignored the rebuke. “How could you know Ingestrie had taken up with an Irishwoman?”
“How could I not? The stripling boasted of his ‘wild Irish girl’ to all the young bucks, including several of the officers formerly under my command. Benedict and Theo may not think it worth their time to visit the senior male of the family, but men of the army do not forget what is due to their superiors.”
“And you spread their gossip to Ingestrie’s father? Why?” Kit asked, his voice thickening.
“Why? Because no man minds his son setting up a clean English girl as mistress, or even a Frenchwoman, now that the war’s over. But an Irisher? Truly, Kit, how could you think I’d not?”
