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Pippa snorted as if she would own to her identity. She was not that addled. “No names.” A sense of preservation urged her to be anonymous, and she followed it blindly.
“No names,” he murmured. “I would urge you to take a steadying drink, compose yourself and then face the sharks. They are ruthless when they smell blood…your eyes are wide and wounded, the pain in them urges me to find that bounder and plant a facer on him. It is evident you are bleeding.” He paused significantly. Provoking amusement lit in his eyes—very fine eyes that glowed with intelligence and wickedness. Then he said, “And quite ugly with those tear blotches and red nose.”
Pippa gasped, her hand flying to her cheeks, feeling the wet trails and the puffiness under her eyes. Then she scowled. She'd never been a pretty crier, but, “You, sir, are no gentleman!”
He scowled. “Not a gentleman! You dismay me. Was it the ugly comment? Pray tell me what it may be!”
Pippa laughed, the sound so surprised her she gasped.
Now his lips tipped in a charming smile. “Ah…mission partially accomplished. Laughter is its own balm and your smile…I daresay, is even more beautiful,” he said quietly.
Who was he? Perversely, she did not want to ask after denying the need for introductions. “I thank you for your kindness, sir, but I must leave.” The temptation to stay here with this stranger beat at her, but she couldn’t be so reckless and foolish. Quickly before she could change her mind, she hurried over, took the glass from his hand, tipped it to her lips and consumed it in a long swallow.
Pippa wheezed as the fiery flavors exploded on her tongue and slid down her throat. Then she coughed and spluttered. Her mortification was complete, and she could now die. “What is this poison?” she cried in comical dismay, stumbling back, and clutching her chest in mock horror, relying on humor as a shield.
A full-blown smile curved his lips, and she forgot to breathe. "You are far too handsome, sir.” Shocked by her own lapse from propriety, she could only stare.
His eyes widened before they were hooded. Then he tipped his glass to his lips and swallowed his drink in a smooth
slide. “It’s whisky. A most potent balm for the wounded soul.”
A story lies behind those dark throbbing words, and she considered him carefully. Who was he truly? “And your soul is wounded?”
The slightest stiffening of his shoulders. “Not anymore.”
Suddenly she wished it was proper just to have a conversation of mutually injured hearts. "I'm glad for it. In my experience, they never close you know. There's always a little opening, and the slightest thing can rip it open painfully."
He studied her appraisingly. “Tell me your name,” he said unexpectedly, his tone imbued with such authority she almost obeyed.
She frowned over this for moment or two, before saying decidedly, “No.”
He smiled appreciatively. “I like your bluntness.”
Pippa slowly backed up at the wickedness which suddenly glinted in his eyes. She sensed it in the slow, intimate gaze from the tip of her coiffed head, over the icy blue gown she wore, the white half gloves, and the silver dancing slippers. She felt his stare…as if he touched her, as impossible as it seemed. Every womanly instinct for self-preservation surged to life, and her heart tripled in its rhythm. Yet he did not make a move toward her, simply waited.
“I should…no…I must leave…now.”
An oddly anticipatory silence blanketed the library. An awareness bloomed that he was a man, she was a woman, and wicked deeds happened behind a closed door. The knowledge settled between them, heavy and thick.
An indecipherable emotion passed over his face. “I would hate to mortify your sensibilities any further. Go,” he murmured. “Now.”
And Pippa turned and fled as if the devil had come knocking and she had considered answering.
The shape of that lush, very rounded, and delightful backside disappearing through the doors would be forever interred in his thoughts. The unknown lady’s curves were lovely, her eyes the finest he'd ever seen, even when dark with such pain. He indeed had no notion if she was pretty, not with her red nose, cheeks, and swollen eyes. He chuckled mirthlessly. How close he had come to making an idiotic mistake. Christopher Edmund Worth, the Duke of Carlyle closed his eyes and cursed under his breath. He'd thought about kissing the dark-haired stranger with her light gray eyes and pouting lips. She must have seen the loss of control in his eyes or felt his weakness as he had argued with himself against taking her into his arms and kissing her senseless. Otherwise, she might not have fled.
A man was as good as his reputation. As good as the legacy of his family's status, and he had a very old and exacting lineage to live up to, for his family’s sake. No public scandal and scrutiny had ever surrounded the Worth family. Well, none that he could recall, not even something as simple, yet so dangerous, as a kiss between two strangers.
A kiss with a stranger at a ball could lead to a compromising situation, an affair, trouble, and scandal. And for the last several years he had ensured not a blemish cast itself on his family’s legacy because of his actions. The one instance he had not been careful enough his father had almost died. Christopher had never wantonly dishonored or abused the privilege of his rank. But he had fancied himself in love at the age of twenty with an older gypsy girl, Theodosia whom he met on his travels abroad.
She had been his lover for several weeks, and he had enjoyed her witty company and her sensual, adventurous spirit. With her, he had been able to explore the wicked leanings in his heart to be free with his sexual desires. Yearnings which had once confused his young mind had flowered under her passionate tutelage. She had fallen with child, and he had wanted to marry her, to give their child his name and respectability. Theodosia had laughingly refused to marry him, saying she would be free.
Christopher still remembered the shock of his father clutching at his chest and collapsing to the ground. And all he had done was inform his family he would not deny his child upon birth, and he would acknowledge and care for his child. His mother had screamed that it was his wicked, unprincipled ways which caused his father’s collapse.
Christ. The very memory of it knotted his stomach. His father had lived and had gone on to his rewards several years’ later by retiring to bed and not waking the following morning. His only complaint had been a stomach ailment for a few weeks, and his death had been an unexpected shock. Still, the old duke had had a smile on his lips, and to Christopher’s mind, his father had died happy. Not a thing many could wish for. Theodosia had died in childbirth, along with his stillborn daughter. His family had never said it, but how relieved they’d been with that outcome was evident.
He refilled his glass with whisky, taking a healthy swallow.
Since then, as the head of the family, he had been more careful, respecting his family’s desire to uphold their pristine reputation. The few lovers he’d had over the years were all discreet, and society had no knowledge of their identity. To the world, he was proper and just, like the many illustrious men of his line, and he had worked to keep it that way.
