At The Queen's Summons

He chuckled, very low and very softly, and there was a subtle edge of anguish in his voice. “When you decide to be honest, you don’t stint, do you?”

“I suppose not. Ah, I do want you, Aidan.”

A sad-sweet smile curved his beautiful mouth. “And I want you, lass. But we must not let this go any further.”

“Why not?”

He lifted her hands away from him and rose from the bed, moving slowly as if he were in pain. “Because it’s not proper.”

Stung, she scowled. “I have never been preoccupied with what is proper.”

“I have,” he muttered, and turned away. From the cauldron, he ladled himself a cup of wine and drank it in one gulp. “I’m sorry, Pippa.”

Already he had withdrawn from her, and she shivered with the chill of rejection. “Can’t you look at me and say that?”

He turned, and still his movements seemed labored. “I said I was sorry. I took advantage of your innocence, and I should never have done that.”

“I chose the kiss.”

“So did I.”

“Then why did you stop?”

“I want you to tell me about yourself. Kissing gets in the way of clearheaded thinking.”

“So if I tell you about myself, we can go back to the kissing?”

An annoyed tic started in his jaw. “I never said that.”

“Well, can we?”

With exaggerated care, he set down his cup and walked over to the bed. Cradling her face between his hands, he gazed at her with heartbreaking regret. “No, colleen.”

“But—”

“Consider the consequences. Some of them are quite lasting.”

She swallowed. “You mean a baby.” A wistful longing rose in her. Would it be such a catastrophe, she wondered, if the O Donoghue Mór were to give her a child? A small, helpless being that belonged solely to her?

She felt his hands, so gentle upon her face, yet his expression was one of painful denial. “Why should I do as you say?” she asked, resisting the urge to hurl herself at him, to cling to him and not let go.

“Because I’m asking you to, a gradh. Please.”

She blew out a weary sigh, aware without asking that the Irish word was an endearment. “Do you know how impossible it is to say no to you?”

He smiled a little, bent and kissed the top of her head before letting her go. “Now. We were working backward from your move to London. You met a mysterious hag—”

“Gypsy woman.”

“In Ireland we would call her a woman of the sidhe.”

“She said I’d meet a man who would change my life.” Pippa leaned back against the banked pillows. She wondered if he noticed her blush-stung cheeks. “I always thought it meant I’d find my father. But I’ve changed my mind. She meant you.”

He lowered himself to the foot of the bed and sat very quietly and thoughtfully. How could he be so indifferent upon learning he was the answer to a magical prophecy? What a fool he must think her. Then he asked, “What changed your mind?”

“The kiss.” Jesu, she had not been so truthful in one conversation since she had first come to London. Aidan O Donoghue coaxed honesty from her; it was some power he possessed, one that made it safe to speak her mind and even her heart, if she dared.

He seemed to go rigid, though he did not move.

Idiot, Pippa chided herself. By now he probably could not wait to get rid of her. Surely he would drag her to Bedlam, collecting his fee for turning in a madwoman. He would not be the first to rid himself of a smitten girl in such a manner. “I shouldn’t have said that,” she explained, forcing out a laugh. “It was just a kiss, not a blood oath or some such nonsense. Verily, Your Magnitude, we should forget all about this.”

“I’m Irish,” he cut in softly, his musical lilt more pronounced than ever. “An Irishman does not take a kiss lightly.”

“Oh.” She stared at his firelit, mystical face and held her breath. It took all her willpower not to fling herself at him, ask him to toss up her skirts and do whatever it was a man did beneath a woman’s skirts.

“Pippa?”

“Yes?”

“The story. Before you came to London, where did you live? What did you do?”

The simple questions drew vivid images from the well of her memories. She closed her eyes and traced her way back over the long, oft interrupted journey to London. She lost count of the strolling troupes she had belonged to. Always she was greeted first with skepticism; then, after a display of jests and juggling, she was welcomed. She never stayed long. Usually she slipped away in the night, more often than not leaving a half-conscious man on the ground, clutching a shattered jaw or broken nose, cursing her to high heaven or the belly of hell.

“Pippa?” Aidan prompted again.

She opened her eyes. Each time she looked at him, he grew more beautiful. Perhaps she was under some enchantment. Simply looking at him increased his appeal and weakened her will to resist him.

Almost wistfully, she touched her bobbed hair. I want to be like you, she thought. Beautiful and beloved, the sort of person others wish to embrace, not put in the pillory. The yearning felt like an aching knot in her chest, stunning in its power. Against her will, Aidan O Donoghue was awakening her to feelings she had spent a lifetime running from.

“I traveled slowly to London,” she said, “jesting and juggling along the way. There were times I went hungry, or slept in the cold, but I didn’t really mind. You see, I had always wanted to go to London.”

“To seek your family.”

How had he guessed? It was part of the magic of him, she decided. “Yes. I knew it was next to impossible, but sometimes—” She broke off and looked away in embarrassment at her own candor.

“Go on,” he whispered. “What were you going to say?”

“Just that, sometimes the heart asks for the impossible.”

He reached across the bed, lifted her chin with a finger and winked at her. “And sometimes the heart gets it.”

She sent him a bashful smile. “Mab would agree with you.”

“Mab?”

“The woman who reared me. She lived in Humberside, along the Hornsy Strand. It was a land that belonged to no one, so she simply settled there. That’s how she told it. Mab was simple, but she was all I had.”

“How did you come to live with her?”