A Secret Affair (5 page)

He nodded once. “Yes?”

“I would like very much for you to kiss me.”

CHAPTER 7

Had a block of ice the size of his favorite horse fallen from the sky and landed on him just then, Charlie could not have been more astonished. “Did you just … Did you just say…?”

She looked up at him from under long dark eyelashes. “I said I’d like for you to kiss me.”

“And you expect me to do it?”

This time she laughed. “Why, yes. That is why I said it, after all.”

“Miss Birmingham, I … I …”

“Yes?”

“Please do not take this amiss, but I simply cannot.”

“Why not?”

“What?” He eyed her warily.

“Please.”

He paced away from her, shoving his hands into his pockets. “That wasn’t a part of it. The auction I mean.”

“Oh, this has nothing to do with the auction. I simply think we’d know if we were suited to one another if we were to kiss and get it out of the way.”

He turned to face her. “Suited to one another? What are you talking about?”

She bit her lip in a very fetching display. “It’s something Annie told me several weeks ago, actually. She said that when she kissed your brother, she felt butterflies. But when she kissed Mr. Eggleston, she felt … nothing.”

Charlie put up a hand to stop her. “Please say no more.”

Miss Birmingham splayed her palms toward him in a conciliatory gesture. “It’s quite important it seems. A kiss, I mean.”

Charlie shook his head. “You must know how highly inappropriate…”

She shrugged. “I know it’s not considered proper, and I do regret being so forward, truly I do, but I just cannot help being practical. If we kiss and neither one of us is affected by it, why then, we’ll know we aren’t suited and then we may go about our affairs.”

Warning bells were ringing so loudly in Charlie’s head he could barely hear his own thoughts. A kiss? To find out whether they suited?
Capital
. This entire auction idea had been mad from the start, but now he could not have regretted it more. This chit was envisioning the two of them declaring themselves in a church while Charlie was merely attempting to be charming for one evening.

He’d always had his suspicions that Annie had been trying to match make but was it more than that? Had Annie implied to her friend that this night might be something more? For heaven’s sake, Miss Birmingham seemed nice enough, but he wasn’t about to kiss her and make her schoolgirl fantasies take flight. Good God, what if he kissed her and she suddenly decided they should become engaged? No. No. No. He wasn’t ready for all that based on one night’s escort.

He looked her in the eye. She really was quite pretty. No. He shook his head. Pretty and intent upon an engagement was a dangerous combination. “I don’t mean to be rude, Miss Birmingham, but I think our kissing would be a phenomenally bad idea.”

Her face fell. A little. But she didn’t look like she was going to cry. No. In fact, she looked like she simply … disagreed with him.

“If you say so,” she answered with a shrug that Charlie thought was a bit too nonchalant. “But I do think it the most expedient measure.”

Most expedient measure? What was she talking about? Did she really put so much stake in a kiss? He pulled his hands from his pockets and placed them on his hips. No matter her reasons or logic, he wasn’t about to take part in her little test.

“May I ask why?” he said.

“I told you. To see if we suit.”

“And why are you interested discovering such a thing?”

“Why I … because I…” Her face pinkened charmingly. She straightened her shoulders. “You must know that I … fancy you.”

Charlie wondered for an awful moment if
his
face was pinkening this time. “No. I didn’t … quite.”

Frances nodded, her gaze riveted on the tips of her pink slippers that peeked out from beneath her skirts. “Yes, well, I do. But I told Annie that I would only know for certain that we were actually compatible if we spoke, and”—definitely pink cheeks again—“kissed.”

Charlie cleared his throat. How the devil had they got into this bloody uncomfortable discussion? “I am extremely flattered, Miss Birmingham, but I … you see, I’m quite interested in becoming a tutor and I … I’m not quite ready for marriage and a family.”

Frances’s head snapped up to face him. “I understand.” She walked past him, over to the French doors, and rested a gloved hand on the door handle. “But I’m willing to bet—if we’re suited, that is—I can change your mind.”

CHAPTER 8

Charlie had spent the last three nights dodging Miss Birmingham. Once at a musicale, once at a ball, and most recently at a card party. All three evenings, she’d looked at him so matter-of-factly with those big blue eyes that she didn’t need to say a word. She was still expecting a kiss from him. A kiss he couldn’t give her.

Not that it didn’t tempt him. Hell, he was tempted every time he looked at her, and he’d been looking at her more and more frequently. Hell. He’d finally left the Rowlands’ card party last night in a frustrated mess of unfulfilled arousal. And tonight, he hadn’t even bothered going to any Society functions. No, better not to tempt himself. He might happen upon Miss Birmingham a fourth time. Would he be able to withstanding the temptation again?

Tonight Jordan stared at him across a bottle of Brooks’s best brandy. Charlie had already had two glasses of the stuff himself. It’d done little to cool his lust.

“You say she’s asked you to kiss her?” Jordan asked, tossing a card across the table with an expert flick of his wrist.

Charlie nodded. He flung his own card into the game. “Yes, on more than one occasion.”

Jordan whistled. “And you said no? By God, man, you’re a bigger saint than I took you for.”

Charlie gave his brother a disdainful glare. “You know I’m hardly a saint, Jordan, it’s just that—”

“Just that what? Last time I looked, Miss Birmingham was more than passably pretty. She’s charming, she’s sweet, and if she’s asked you to do the honor of being the first man to kiss her, I see no reason why you shouldn’t oblige. It’s only a kiss after all.”

Charlie took a hefty swallow of his brandy. Just like his brother, the reformed rake, to say such a thing. But why exactly had Charlie thought it was a bad idea again? Jordan was right. It was only a kiss. One kiss. Nothing so significant when one stopped to contemplate it. And it would hardly be a chore.

More than passably pretty, indeed. No. She was much, much better than that. She was downright lovely, really. Those crystal-blue eyes, those plump pink lips, those dark-as-soot eyelashes, and those spectacles. Damn it, even those spectacles did something to him. He imagined himself plucking them right from her adorable little nose, letting his fingers rush into the rich silk of her blond hair, and taking her mouth with his.

He shook himself and shuddered.

Jordan’s mocking voice wafted across the table. “Having second thoughts are you?”

From behind his cards, Charlie arched a brow. “What if I am?” He threw the cards on the table. Then he lifted his snifter to his lips and tossed the entire contents of the glass down his throat. Setting aside the empty glass, he stood and bowed to his brother. “Good evening, Jordan.”

Jordan whistled again. “Leaving so soon? And where might you be off to?”

“I’m off to find Miss Birmingham,” Charlie replied. “And kiss her.”

CHAPTER 9

Frances had just suffered through a hideously long waltz with Sir Stuart Walters. The man had stepped on her toes so many times she’d lost count. When the music stopped, she’d breathed a sigh of relief and nearly run from him in an effort to save her feet. Sir Stuart was perfectly charming and had been nothing but kind to her of late, but a fine dancer, he was not. Poor man.

Frances scanned the crowd for her mother. Perhaps they might leave early. She’d already had enough of the Chathams’ ball. She’d scoured the place and there wasn’t a hint of Charlie Holloway to be found. Oh, it shouldn’t have been a surprise. Charlie had made it quite clear the last time she saw him that he had no intention of continuing their—what was it—friendship? But still, she couldn’t help but wonder what it would have been like had he taken her offer and kissed her. He obviously felt there was no need. Perhaps he already knew they wouldn’t suit. Perhaps he didn’t fancy her at all.

She fancied him, didn’t she? The butterflies that made an appearance in her stomach whenever she saw him told her so, but if it were a one-sided infatuation, so be it. Oh, it had been bad of her, telling him she thought she could change his mind about wanting marriage. Some little devil on her shoulder had prompted that particular bit of sauciness; it had been worth it to see the look on his face, just before she’d flounced back into the ballroom.

Regardless of her words, she wasn’t about to continue to chase him around begging for a kiss. Annie had done quite enough of that with Mr. Arthur Eggleston last spring and summer only to realize that she’d been chasing after the wrong man entirely. What good was watching a dear friend go through something so awful, if one could not learn from such a mistake? No. Frances would do well to set Mr. Charles Holloway from her mind altogether and get about the business of finding her future husband.

But not tonight.

Tonight she was downtrodden and tired, and her feet hurt more than a little, no thanks to Sir Stuart. Tonight she would collect Mama and leave. She would rally her strength and start anew tomorrow.

She whirled in a circle looking for her mother and nearly knocked straight into … Mr. Charles Holloway.

“What are you doing here?” The words flew from her mouth, and she wanted to kick herself for such an idiotic question. He had a perfect right to be at a ball, didn’t he?

But Charlie had a look in his eye she hadn’t seen before. Determined, confident, a gleam really.

“I came to see you.” His dark eyes bore into hers.

Oh, it wasn’t possible she’d heard correctly. Frances had to stop herself from glancing behind her back to see to whom he was talking. Surely not her. Charlie Holloway had come to a ball to see … her? Not possible.

“M … me?” she stammered. Oh lovely. Now she was a ninny in addition to being idiotic.

“Yes.”

She swallowed hard and counted to five willing herself the entire time to compose her thoughts. The man was here, standing directly in front of her, looking like Adonis and smelling like a mixture of soap and evergreen, and she wanted to bury her face in his cravat. That much was true. Yes. But what did that mean? Anything. Hmm. Surely that was suitability or whatever indefinable thing lovers felt for one another. Or was it? How was she to know?

She forced herself to fold her hands together serenely, a trick Annie had recently taught her. It gave the appearance of being quite in control regardless of what thoughts were whirling through one’s mind. “You came here to see me?” Her voice sounded much more poised this time.
Excellent
.

Mr. Holloway’s only reply was a nod.

“About?”
More poise. Good show
.

He bent his head and whispered in her ear. “Meet me in the library?”

“The library?” she managed to repeat softly, shuddering at the heat of his whisper on the delicate skin of her neck.

The library. Meeting a gentleman alone in a library could be the death of her reputation and they both knew it, but Frances wasn’t about to refuse such a compelling offer. Not to mention she was more than a bit intrigued by what he would say
or do
once they were behind the library’s closed doors.

“By all means,” she replied in the most steady voice she could muster.

Charlie slipped from the room first while Frances waited near the refreshment table for five agonizingly slow minutes before she, too, ventured from the ballroom. She made her way silently to the Chathams’ library. She said a brief prayer that they wouldn’t be seen together, but mostly her belly was a roiling mass of anticipation. Whatever could Charlie Holloway want to discuss with her in the library … alone?

She closed her eyes briefly before turning the handle and pushing open the library door. Charlie was there with a brace of candles lit on the sideboard behind him. He looked as dashing and handsome as always, his feet crossed at the ankles, his elbows rested against the sideboard behind him. She closed the door with a thud.

Frances gulped. Was he calling her here to ask her once and for all to leave him alone? No. It couldn’t be. Had that been his message he could have easily informed her last night or any of the other hideously embarrassing times she’d thrown herself at him. She eyed him carefully. What was he up to?

“Thank you for coming,” he began.

She nodded. “Of course. What may I help you with?”

“I came to … that is to say…”

“Yes?”

He pulled himself away from the sideboard and strode over to her. He stood towering above her. He took a deep breath. “First of all, I wanted to say, please don’t get your hopes up about … us. I have every intention of becoming a tutor. Now that Jordan’s marrying, an heir will be along soon, I’ve little doubt. And I don’t need to—”

Frances stared at him. Her mouth fell open. Don’t get your hopes up? Why would she get her hopes up? What could he possibly—?

“Oh hell.” Charlie muttered the curse under his breath two seconds before he pulled her roughly into his arms and kissed her.

Frances closed her eyes. She couldn’t have been more astonished. This was Charlie. Charlie Holloway. They were in the Chathams’ library, and he was kissing her. His mouth moved over hers so light and tender at first, warm, smooth. Then his arms wrapped around her back and he tugged her closer, and the kiss became something altogether different. His mouth slanted across hers, hot and wet. His tongue pushed open her lips to plunge inside. His hand, strong, warm, pulled her sharply against him, and Frances’s head tipped back out of sheer force.

Now this was a kiss. The kind of kiss she’d dreamed about. Exactly what she’d wanted, hoped for. She wasn’t about to misuse the opportunity. She wrapped her arms around his neck, standing up on tiptoe to reach him, and pulled his head down so his mouth would more closely fit to hers. Their tongues tangled, not breaking contact. And Frances couldn’t get enough. It was a kiss for the ages. She was shaking and steamy and hot all over. She did not want it to end.