The Calhoun Chronicles Bundle: The Charm School

“Why not?”

“Because…” How could she explain it? “Because that would make the night real.”

“And you don’t want it to be real?”

She thought of the things in her life that were real—her family, the people she associated with in Boston, people who barely acknowledged her existence. “No,” she said earnestly. “Not tonight. At the end of this voyage, I shall soon enough face what is real.”

“You mean Isadora will face it,” he corrected her.

“Yes.”

“And what is real to Isadora?”

She paused, thinking. “The idea that she will serve her parents in their old age. And the rather pleasant prospect of helping to raise her nieces and nephews because her sisters are such good breeders. She will read great books and she’ll be a faithful letter writer, though she will write many more letters than she will ever receive. But that’s all right, for the reading and writing will fill her days. She has accepted the idea that she will never know passion, for no one feels passionate about Isadora—”

“What?”

“Passion. She’ll never know it.” She smiled, pleased that he had caught on. She had expected cynical teasing from him, but he kept surprising her. “So that is why you must keep reality at bay. You must let the night be magical.”

He chuckled and squeezed his hand. “Sugar, don’t you know?”

“Know what?”

“Every night is magical.”

She laughed softly, loving the easy feel of it, loving the breeze through her hair and the way his loose shirt blew against his chest, outlining its shape. The sweetness of the moment washed through her, loosening her, warming her.

“You are never serious,” she said.

“It’s not permitted for a cavalier to be serious.”

“What about Captain Calhoun?” she ventured. “Is he ever serious?”

“Only when it comes to serious matters.”

“What sort of serious matters?”

“Matters of the heart,” he said, lifting her hand and pressing it to his chest. “Matters of passion.” With an earnestness she’d never seen in him before, he said, “Suppose I told you I want a certain young lady of Boston.”

She took her hand away from his heart. He meant her? No, impossible. She forced her mind to consider the more reasonable possibilities. Lydia Haven, the beauty of Beacon Hill. Her sister Arabella, who was still desired even though she was engaged. A society belle, perhaps, or one of the women from the docks.

“Then why have you not courted her?” she inquired, trying to keep her humor up.

“She seemed too chilly and self-contained and far too intelligent to take a fellow like me seriously. And of course, she yearns for someone else altogether.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Perhaps your Boston lady’s coldness is a shield against getting hurt.”

“Then I wish like hell she’d lower her defenses, for I would never hurt her.”

“You wouldn’t?” Her question came out as a whisper because suddenly she knew. It was insane, but his Boston lady was…

“Never.”

“Then I wonder…what she is afraid of.”

He moved closer to her on the stone rampart. “Take off the mask,” he said.

“I’d rather not.”

“I’d rather you did.” He removed it and set it aside.

The scented night breeze touched her face where the mask had been. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because I want to know exactly who you are when I kiss you.”

Stunned, she could do nothing but sit and watch him remove his own half mask of black silk. And then he began.

It was not the sort of kiss he had given her before, the sweetly spontaneous one in the garden. Nor was it the kind of kiss she had always envisioned, aflame with heated passion. Instead he was careful, deliberate, almost clinical. He lifted a tendril of her hair that had drifted across her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. Then he took her face between both hands, skimming the pad of his thumb along her lower lip as if to prepare it for the touch of his mouth. One of his hands dropped, fingers playing over her throat and collarbone, so indecently exposed by the daring blouse. With an assurance Isadora could not possibly imagine ever feeling, he lowered the hand and let it curve around behind her so that he was embracing her, holding her close, their bodies touching, their lips getting closer and closer.

She made a feeble attempt to stop him, to stop the intimacy and the terrible overwhelming emotions welling up from a place inside her she had never explored until this moment. But she didn’t want to stop him, not really. He was the most beautiful man in the world; she was plain Isadora Peabody, and she might never again get the chance to kiss someone like him.

Aching with the bleakness of that thought, which mingled painfully with her yearning, she closed her eyes.

And he kissed them. Her eyelids.

She was amazed.

And then he kissed her cheek and her temple and the side of her nose. And behind her left ear and—heavens be—her neck where a pulse leaped so frantically she feared she might swoon.

“You look…” he whispered, still kissing her there, up and down, oh so gently.

“Yes?” she prompted in a hoarse, alien voice. Dear God, maybe a miracle had occurred. Maybe he was going to say she looked pretty.

“You look…as if you’re about to face a firing squad.”

“Oh…” she said weakly, opening her eyes a little. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t apologize. Just—if you possibly can—try to seem as if you’re enjoying this.”

“But I am,” she said with great urgency. “Truly. I simply…this is a new activity for me and I don’t quite know how to behave.”

“What I’d like,” he said wickedly, “is for you to misbehave.”

“I’m certain I’ve been doing that ever since I set foot on your ship,” she said, not even half joking.

“Then it’s a start,” he whispered, leaning close again. “It’s a start.”

And he began kissing her again, his leisurely exploration so maddening and frustrating she nearly screamed, for he seemed to be touching and kissing all of her except the parts that needed him the most. She bit her tongue to keep from telling him that. It would be too forward, too humiliating.