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She took a tentative sip. A sweet aromatic flavor washed over her tongue, but she could not name the taste, and she was unsure if she liked it. “Are you not appalled by my unladylike qualities?”
“The opposite,” he said warmly. “Your adventurous nature is quite appealing. I find prim and proper tedious at times.”
Biting back a smile, she leaned forward and assessed the chess board. “You put in our moves.” All the ones they had done mentally and jokingly had been inserted by the duke.
“Of course.” He leaned forward as well, watching the board, and she was conscious of the intimate closeness of their heads.
“I am happy you are here, and not at Lady Appleton’s masquerade ball,” she said softly.
Pippa felt the touch of his eyes against her skin, but she did not take her eyes away from the chess pieces.
“I’m glad you came. Though I wonder what prompted you.”
“I was scared, and somehow when I am with you…. I just knew I would not feel scared anymore.” The words were out before she could prevent them.
A finger nudged under her chin. The slightest pressure was exerted as he lifted her face to his. “What scared you?”
There was a watchful, ruthless air about him, and suddenly Pippa knew he would not take kindly to anything that threatened her. The knowledge wrapped around her, filling her with indescribable emotions. “It scared me that I may love my father still,” she admitted, the ache in her heart growing wider.
Christopher pushed a wisp of hair behind her ear and then lowered his arm. “And that is terrible?”
She felt bereft of his touch and wanted to lean into him but mastered the desire. Pippa picked up a piece and toyed with it, the game forgotten, as the need to share her doubts and agonies overwhelmed everything else. "What kind of person am I to love someone who has hurt my mother and me so horribly. How can I still care for him? How can I be so weak?”
Pippa took several sips of her bourbon.
“It takes courage to love someone who has hurt you before. The weakness would be bitterness and a cold, unforgiving heart. It is easier to be angry. It takes an unfathomable character to love and forgive. Do not think you are weak for still loving your father, Pippa. Never that. I only see a strength to be admired.”
The honesty in his gaze pierced Pippa deeply. “That is how you see me?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, desperately wanting to hug him, kiss him even.
“You have my only bishop. Please put him back,” he said with light humor. “I believe before you go home, Miss Cavanaugh, we should discuss matters of the heart. Wouldn’t you agree?”
With a smile she said, “My heart has an annoying tendency to act wayward”—she leaned over to make a very deliberate move, hoping to entice him into moving his king— “and is easily deceived. Not sure there is much to discuss there.”
“Ah, mine has always been still.” He considered her with an almost bemused frown. “Until you. Now it beats. Now it wonders. Now it aches. And that is all because of you, Miss Cavanaugh.”
They were so hopelessly ineligible that it had never dawned in her mind that he would ever think to consider her with sweetly intimate wonder. What did she have to offer him other than her wit and humor? Perhaps he jested or offered empty flattery, but there had been a note of sincerity in his voice, and his smile was a tender caress against her senses. Pippa’s heart ached with wants and needs she had long suppressed. “We would not suit,” she said chidingly, taking another sip of her bourbon. I want you so, her mind and heart cried.
“You possess qualities I admire most ardently—kindness, loyalty, and simmering wickedness. You meant to bring me down because of your love for a friend. Me…the Duke of Carlyle. Laughable indeed but admirable.”
The mock outrage in his expression pulled a light laugh from Pippa. “How freeing life is for a duke…or is it so for all gentlemen?”
He tip
ped his drink to his head and finished in one long swallow, before resting his glass on the rug. “The denial of self is very painful.”
“You speak from experience I suppose,” she said archly.
“Has there been anything you’ve wanted to do that was improper?”
Everything I do with you.
He must have seen the answer in her eyes for he continued with, “It feels terrible, does it not, to refuse your heart what it hungers for? Most often this denial is because of other people’s expectations.”
“My presence here easily establishes my impropriety,” she said repressively. “Yet everyone says you are so very proper…the Duke of Saints.”
