The Calhoun Chronicles Bundle: The Charm School

“I never found what I wanted in that world,” he said.

She moistened her lips, tasting the fruit she had eaten earlier and finding herself strangely hungry again, empty and yearning for…“What is it you’re looking for?” she heard herself ask. “What do you want?”

He chuckled low in his throat, and the sound sent a thrill through her. “Those are two different questions, Isadora.” Though she didn’t think it possible, he leaned even closer, so that the warmth of his breath and the fruity scent of the rum drink he’d imbibed mingled with her own shallow inhalations.

He was close. So close. She’d never been this close to a man before.

“Do…you have…two different answers?” she managed to force out.

“Only one at the moment. Only one.”

The hand at her waist tightened. She had the most inexplicable urge to touch him as well, for her hands lay clenched in her lap and she wanted to put them somewhere else. Wanted to put them on him.

Her fingers reached up, lightly coming to rest against the wall of his chest.

His swift intake of breath was a sound of surprise—but not one of outrage.

“Which one?” she asked, still unable to believe that she, Isadora Dudley Peabody, was in the middle of this splendid garden, in the middle of this splendid moment, in the arms of this splendid man.

“What I want,” he said, and the words sounded tense and strained. “Ask me what I want, Isadora.”

“What do you want?”

“I’ll only answer if you promise you’ll believe me.”

“If I—”

“Promise, Isadora. Say you’ll trust my answer.”

“I’ll trust your answer.”

He smiled, and once again she heard that silken chuckle that did such odd and unsettling things to her. “What I want,” he said, “is to kiss you.”

“Liar,” she said automatically.

“You promised you’d believe me.”

“Because I thought for once you’d tell me the truth.”

“You know what your problem is?”

“You?”

“No. It’s that you talk too damned much. I suppose I could swear on King James’s Bible that I want to kiss you, but there’s a better way to convince you.”

The smoldering look in his eyes astonished her, held her mesmerized. “How is that?”

“Like this, love. Like this.”

And then it happened. Slowly. Each passing second an endless heartbeat of time, and she experienced it all, reveled and immersed herself in it. The way he bent his head ever so slightly, for unlike most men, he was taller than she. The way his thumb skimmed lightly, searchingly, across the crest of her cheekbone then rode downward, brushing at a spot on the side of her throat that pulsed with a heat she had never felt before. The way his other hand at her waist drew her closer, tighter.

And then his lips. The lips she had watched, day after day, with increasing fascination and bafflement. The lips that had sneered at her, sworn at her, laughed and shouted and smiled at her. He didn’t plaster her with his kiss; he merely tasted her, at first barely touching her mouth with his own.

Back and forth, slowly, subtly, he moved his head, sharing the merest hint of himself, the briefest brush of pressure. Overwhelmed by the sensations, she let her eyes drift shut and heard a strange, whimpering sound escape her. As of their own accord, her fists clenched into the fabric of his shirt.

Closer. She wanted to be closer. She wanted to taste more of him, to feel the pressure of his mouth on hers. But he simply kept brushing her lips, holding her gently as if she were fragile, breakable. The hand at her waist moved, a minor shift, barely noticeable, except that she felt his thumb graze the underside of her breast, could feel his touch even through the stiff buckram of her corset. She felt a surging and singing inside, things she had read about in the romantic novels she was not supposed to see until she was married, but read in secret anyway. And, oh, this was so much better. She wanted so much more than this moment, yet she was terrified that it might end.

She had an overwhelming urge to lean toward him, to press into his embrace, to crush her mouth against his. But she didn’t dare. Didn’t know how. Didn’t trust him to accept her.

It was an act of supreme self-control, then, to hold herself rigid, unmoving, disbelieving.

And finally it was over. From the time he had begun to kiss her until the moment it ended, an eternity had passed. The world had changed color, tilted on its axis. Yet when Ryan Calhoun drew back from her and regarded her solemnly for several long moments, he looked exactly the same: handsome, relaxed, assured.

And she was a perfect mess inside.

“I won’t apologize,” he said easily, “although a gentleman would. I’m not sorry that happened.” He stood, his lithe grace never more apparent, and helped her to her feet. She went like a marionette on a string, wooden and stiff, jerky in her movements.

“We’d best get inside. They’ll want to hear all about the monkey.”

“What monkey?” she asked stupidly.

Fourteen

O bed! O bed! Delicious bed! That heaven upon earth to the weary head.

—Thomas Hood

(1841)

Ryan awoke the next day and stared for a long time at the plaster-and-timber ceiling of his large, airy room in the villa. “I still can’t believe I did that,” he said aloud, though there was no one to hear.

He had taken Isadora Peabody in his arms. He had kissed her.

In the past, flouting convention had been a way of life for him. But Isadora, milled like the straightest of spars by convention, made him understand that he was not immune to censure. That things he did could cause profound effects.

What fool notion had possessed him? It was not that he regretted kissing her—he simply didn’t have the conscience for that. What he regretted was her reaction. She had been so startled, so vulnerable that he knew she was in danger of letting the kiss mean far too much to her.

This could signal a disaster. This could change everything between them, just when they had begun to move toward an accord. With Isadora, he had a relationship he’d never thought possible with a woman. He had a true friendship. Trust. Mutual respect. Equal footing. Delight in shared interests.

Perhaps she would even quit making those infernal reports to Abel.

He had probably destroyed it all by kissing her. So long as they were friends, he couldn’t harm her. But if he dared to move into her heart, he would strip away all her defenses, open her to a hurt she didn’t deserve. She was too fragile for a rogue like him.

He crushed his eyes shut against the glaring morning sunlight. Damn it.

Goddamn it all to hell.

There were girls aplenty for kissing. But there was only one Isadora.