At the Queen's Summons (7 page)

“Ah, well done,” he whispered, and his thumb moved again, with subtle, devastating tenderness, slipping just inside her mouth and then emerging to spread moisture along her lip.

“If you like, you can close your eyes.”

She mutely shook her head. It was not every day she got a kiss from an Irish chieftain, and she was not about to miss a single instant of giddy bliss.

“Then just look up at me,” he said, surging closer to her on the bed. “Just look up, and I'll do the rest.”

She tilted her chin up as he lowered his head. His thumb slid aside to make room for his lips, and his mouth brushed over hers, softly, sweetly, with a sensation that made raw wanting jolt to life inside her.

She made a sound, but he caught it with his mouth and pressed down gently, until their lips were truly joined. His deft fingers rubbed with tender insistence along her jawline, and his lips pushed against the seam of hers.

Open.

Here was something she had not learned from spying on couples pumping away in the alleys of Southwark or groping one another in the shadows of the pillars of St. Paul's.

His tongue came into her, and she made a squeak of surprise and delight. Her hands drifted upward, over his chest and around behind his neck. She wanted this closeness with a staggering, overwhelming need. His mouth and tongue went deeper, and his hands smoothed down her back, fingers splaying as he pressed her closer, closer.

The quickness of his breath startled her into the realization that he, too, was moved by the intimacy. He, too, had chosen the kiss.

All her life, Pippa had been curious about every bright, shiny thing she saw, and loveplay was no different, yet wholly different. It was not a case of simple
wanting,
but the experience of a sudden, devastating need she did not know she had.

Tightening her arms around his neck, she thrust against him, wanting the closeness to last forever. She could feel his heartbeat against her chest, feel the life force of another person beating against her and, in an odd, spiritual way, joining with her.

He lifted his mouth from hers. A stunned expression bloomed on his face. “Ah, colleen,” he whispered urgently, “we must stop before I—”

“Before what?” She reveled in the feel of his wine-sweet breath next to her face.

“Before I want more than just a kiss.”

“Then it's too late for me,” she admitted, “for I already want more.”

He chuckled, very low and very softly, and there was a subtle edge of anguish in his voice. “When you decide to be honest, you don't stint, do you?”

“I suppose not. Ah, I
do
want you, Aidan.”

A sad-sweet smile curved his beautiful mouth. “And I want you, lass. But we must not let this go any further.”

“Why not?”

He lifted her hands away from him and rose from the bed, moving slowly as if he were in pain. “Because it's not proper.”

Stung, she scowled. “I have never been preoccupied with what is proper.”

“I have,” he muttered, and turned away. From the
cauldron, he ladled himself a cup of wine and drank it in one gulp. “I'm sorry, Pippa.”

Already he had withdrawn from her, and she shivered with the chill of rejection. “Can't you look at me and say that?”

He turned, and still his movements seemed labored. “I said I was sorry. I took advantage of your innocence, and I should never have done that.”

“I chose the kiss.”

“So did I.”

“Then why did you stop?”

“I want you to tell me about yourself. Kissing gets in the way of clearheaded thinking.”

“So if I tell you about myself, we can go back to the kissing?”

An annoyed tic started in his jaw. “I never said that.”

“Well, can we?”

With exaggerated care, he set down his cup and walked over to the bed. Cradling her face between his hands, he gazed at her with heartbreaking regret. “No, colleen.”

“But—”

“Consider the consequences. Some of them are quite lasting.”

She swallowed. “You mean a baby.” A wistful longing rose in her. Would it be such a catastrophe, she wondered, if the O Donoghue Mór were to give her a child? A small, helpless being that belonged solely to her?

She felt his hands, so gentle upon her face, yet his expression was one of painful denial. “Why should I do as you say?” she asked, resisting the urge to hurl herself at him, to cling to him and not let go.

“Because I'm asking you to,
a gradh.
Please.”

She blew out a weary sigh, aware without asking that
the Irish word was an endearment. “Do you know how impossible it is to say no to you?”

He smiled a little, bent and kissed the top of her head before letting her go. “Now. We were working backward from your move to London. You met a mysterious hag—”

“Gypsy woman.”

“In Ireland we would call her a woman of the
sidhe.”

“She said I'd meet a man who would change my life.” Pippa leaned back against the banked pillows. She wondered if he noticed her blush-stung cheeks. “I always thought it meant I'd find my father. But I've changed my mind. She meant you.”

He lowered himself to the foot of the bed and sat very quietly and thoughtfully. How could he be so indifferent upon learning he was the answer to a magical prophecy? What a fool he must think her. Then he asked, “What changed your mind?”

“The kiss.” Jesu, she had not been so truthful in one conversation since she had first come to London. Aidan O Donoghue coaxed honesty from her; it was some power he possessed, one that made it safe to speak her mind and even her heart, if she dared.

He seemed to go rigid, though he did not move.

Idiot, Pippa chided herself. By now he probably could not wait to get rid of her. Surely he would drag her to Bedlam, collecting his fee for turning in a madwoman. He would not be the first to rid himself of a smitten girl in such a manner. “I shouldn't have said that,” she explained, forcing out a laugh. “It was just a kiss, not a blood oath or some such nonsense. Verily, Your Magnitude, we should forget all about this.”

“I'm Irish,” he cut in softly, his musical lilt more pronounced than ever. “An Irishman does not take a kiss lightly.”

“Oh.” She stared at his firelit, mystical face and held her breath. It took all her willpower not to fling herself at him, ask him to toss up her skirts and do whatever it was a man did beneath a woman's skirts.

“Pippa?”

“Yes?”

“The story. Before you came to London, where did you live? What did you do?”

The simple questions drew vivid images from the well of her memories. She closed her eyes and traced her way back over the long, oft interrupted journey to London. She lost count of the strolling troupes she had belonged to. Always she was greeted first with skepticism; then, after a display of jests and juggling, she was welcomed. She never stayed long. Usually she slipped away in the night, more often than not leaving a half-conscious man on the ground, clutching a shattered jaw or broken nose, cursing her to high heaven or the belly of hell.

“Pippa?” Aidan prompted again.

She opened her eyes. Each time she looked at him, he grew more beautiful. Perhaps she was under some enchantment. Simply looking at him increased his appeal and weakened her will to resist him.

Almost wistfully, she touched her bobbed hair. I want to be like you, she thought. Beautiful and beloved, the sort of person others wish to embrace, not put in the pillory. The yearning felt like an aching knot in her chest, stunning in its power. Against her will, Aidan O Donoghue was awakening her to feelings she had spent a lifetime running from.

“I traveled slowly to London,” she said, “jesting and juggling along the way. There were times I went hungry, or slept in the cold, but I didn't really mind. You see, I had always wanted to go to London.”

“To seek your family.”

How had he guessed? It was part of the magic of him, she decided. “Yes. I knew it was next to impossible, but sometimes—” She broke off and looked away in embarrassment at her own candor.

“Go on,” he whispered. “What were you going to say?”

“Just that, sometimes the heart asks for the impossible.”

He reached across the bed, lifted her chin with a finger and winked at her. “And sometimes the heart gets it.”

She sent him a bashful smile. “Mab would agree with you.”

“Mab?”

“The woman who reared me. She lived in Humberside, along the Hornsy Strand. It was a land that belonged to no one, so she simply settled there. That's how she told it. Mab was simple, but she was all I had.”

“How did you come to live with her?”

“She found me.” A dull sense of resignation weighted Pippa, for she had always hated the truth about herself. “According to her, I lay upon the strand, clinging to a herring keg. A large lurcher or hound was with me. I was tiny, Mab said, two or three, no more.” Like a lightning bolt, memory pierced her, and she winced with the force of it.
Remember.
The command shimmered through her mind.

“Colleen?” Aidan asked. “Are you all right?”

She clasped her hands over her ears, trying to shut out the insistent swish of panic.

“No!” she shouted. “Please! I don't remember anymore!”

With a furious Irish exclamation, Aidan O Donoghue, Lord of Castleross, took her in his arms and let her bathe his shoulder in bitter tears.

 

“Act as if nothing's amiss,” Donal Og hissed. He, Iago and Aidan were in the stableyard of Crutched Friars the next day. Aidan had grooms to look after his horse, but currying the huge mare was a task he enjoyed, particularly in the early morning when no one was about.

Iago looked miserable in the bright chill of early morn. He detested cold weather. He made impossible claims about the climate of his homeland, insisting that it never snowed in the Caribbean, never froze, and that the sea was warm enough to swim in.

Absently patting Grania's strong neck, Aidan studied his cousin and Iago. What a formidable pair they made, one dark, one fair, both as large and imposing as cliff rocks.

“Nothing
is
amiss,” Aidan said, leaning down to pick up a currying brush. Then he saw what Donal Og had clutched in his hand. “Is it?”

Donal Og glanced to and fro. The stableyard was empty. A brake of rangy bushes separated the area from the kitchen garden of the main house and the glassworks of Crutched Friars. Through gaps in the bushes, Lumley House and its gardens appeared serene, the well-sweep and stalks of herbs adorned with drops of last night's rain that sparkled in the rising sun.

“Read for yourself.” Donal Og shoved a paper at Aidan. “But for God's sake, don't react too strongly. Walsingham's spies are everywhere.”

Aidan glanced back over his shoulder at the house. “Faith, I hope not.”

Donal Og and Iago exchanged a glance. Their faces split into huge grins. “It is about time, amigo,” Iago said.

Aidan's ears felt hot with foolish defensiveness. “It's not what you think. Sure and I'd hoped for better understanding from the two of you.”

The manly grins subsided. “As you wish, coz,” Donal Og said. “Far be it from such as us to suspect yourself of swiving your wee guest.”

“Ahhh.” A sweet female voice trilled in the distance. All three of them peered through the tall hedge at the house. Slamming open the double doors to the upper hall, Pippa emerged into the sunlight.

The parchment crinkled in Aidan's clenched hand. Aside from that, no one made a sound. They stood still, as if a sudden frost had frozen them. She stood on the top step, clad only in her shift. Clearly she thought she'd find no one in the private garden so early. She inhaled deeply, as if tasting the crisp morning air, cleansed by the rain.

Her hair was sleep tousled, soft and golden in the early light. Although Aidan had kissed her only once, he remembered vividly the rose-petal softness of her lips. Her eyes were faintly bruised by shadows from last night's tears.

As spellbinding as her remarkable face was her body. The thin shift, with the sun shimmering through, revealed high, upturned breasts, womanly hips, a tiny waist and long legs, shaded at the top by dark mystery.

She held a basin in her arms and shifted the vessel to perch on her hip. She descended the steps while three pairs of awestruck eyes, peering avidly through the stableyard hedge, watched her.

At the bottom of the steps, she stopped to shake back a tumble of golden curls. Then she bent forward over the well to draw the water. The thin fabric of the shift whispered over a backside so lush and shapely that Aidan's mouth went dry.

“Ay, mujer,”
whispered Iago. “Would that I had such a bedmate.”