Authors: Kathryn Caskie
Warily, she started to push her feet forward without lifting them and inviting a fall, but the instant she moved, her slippers started to slide out from beneath her.
Her head swiveled and she glanced behind her.
Oh, God.
She was too near the edge of the canal.
"Callu
m
!"
Flailing her arms in wild circles, Jenny fought to keep her balance. But it was no us
e
—
s
he was falling backward.
The next thing she knew was a feeling of weightlessness and the world seemed to slow around her.
In total disbelief, she saw her feet rising up above her head, and Callum's startled eyes as his hands reached out for her, but came away empty.
She plummeted backward, slamming down upon the ice-skinned surface of the canal. The ice crunched sharply beneath her and she gasped as frigid water rushed around her, then sucked her beneath its surface.
Tumbling with the current, she struggled and battled with everything she had, but it was useless. Her coat and gown, sodden with water, held her under the racing water as surely as if they were made of leaden weights.
Jenny's lungs burned until she could hold the air inside them no longer. Her breath left her in a mass of brilliant bubbles rising to the surface, and she could do nothing but watch from below in abject horror.
Then quite suddenly everything was black.
160
"Jenny ...
Jenny.
Open yer eyes, lass."
From the darkness, a low voice coaxed her forward, urged her to leave her woolen cocoon of ebony. But she didn't want to. She wanted to rest. Still that voice was calling, calling.
'Twas Callu
m
.
At this realization, her eyelids fluttered and opened to an expansive chamber, devoid of light but for a candle on a table beside the bedstead and a hot fire flickering in the hearth.
Her fingers twitched as she awoke more fully, fluttering along the soft edges of the several thick blankets and counterpanes covering her. Flowing white bedclothes framed the massive tester she lay upon.
An urgent thought screamed in her mind.
This was not her bed. Not her room. No, it was much too spacious. Too grand.
This was all so confusing. What had happened to her? Why was she here?
Where was ... "Callum?" Her voice was raspy and raw even to her own ears and she cringed at the sound of it.
She felt a warm nuzzle at her ear then, and the hum of his low, comforting voice beside it.
"I am here, lass."
Her gaze darted toward him. Their eyes met and a shard of panic cut through Jenny. She flung herself bolt upright in the bed. My word. She was in bed with Lord Argyll!
"What am I doing here? In b-bed ... with y-you?"
"Dinna ye remember anything, lass?" His voice was as warm as the body she felt pressed against her underneath the covers.
161
Jenny struggled to think
,
tried to piece together some logical chain of events that would culminate with her lying in bed with Lord Argyll. But nothing came to her.
This made no sense at all!
She shivered violently, and felt her nipples harden as she shook. Glancing down, Jenny saw that she was entirely naked. At once she scooted under the blankets again.
Had she lost her mind?
"I remember n-nothing at all." Her teeth were chattering, knocking hard against each other as she spoke and she could not seem to stop them. "Callu
m
, p
-
p
l
ease. W-what is h-happening. Why are we h-here ...
t-togeth
e
r?”
He pulled her against the warmth of his bare chest and drew the counterpane close about her.
"
Dinna fash, Jenny. ''Tis all right now."
She felt him gently kiss the top of her head.
"Ye slipped on the ice, and fell down into the canal. Nearly drowned too, fer yer coat and gown drew ye straight to the bottom."
"My
gown.
Where is it?"
Callum lifted a finger and pointed through the opening in the bed curtains. "Dryin' by the fire, with me own clothes."
Jenny twisted and strained to see her ensemble. But when she saw it, she wished she hadn't looked. It was too horrible, for there everything was, propped on a wooden drying rack, rumpled
and
stained.
Tears began to course down Jenny's cheeks as she stared at her beloved walking ensemble.
"
Och, come here, love. Ye're rememberin' now, aren't ye? 'Twas a horrible accident
,
to be sure, but 'tis over now."
162
Jenny nodded. He was right, she was remembering.
"Shh, just stay close, lass. Stay warm.
'Tis
the only way."
And then, as she became more lucid, she realized she was lying naked in the arms of an equally naked man! She tried to push away, but his arm tightened around her.
"We can't do this.
'Tisn't
right!" she croaked, realizing only then that hugging Callum's warm body had cured her teeth of chattering.
"Aye,
'
tis
right. 'Twas the only way I knew to keep the both of us from freezin' to death."
Jenny stared blankly at the draped curtain that formed a ceiling over the bed. The room was dark. 'Twas night! Her mother would be worried. Mr. Edgar too. Oh, no. Her employers!
"I have to get h-home. What must the ladies be thinking? They must be ever so worried." She paused her rant and her eyes surveyed the chamber.
"
Callum
,
just where
are
we?"
"In Laura Place. In the house I've taken fer me stay."
"Your
house?" Jenny swallowed deeply as the dire consequences of being in a bachelor's house registered. "I can't be here. I just can't." She tried to get up again, but he shifted and rolled atop her, his arms like bars on either side of her, preventing her escape.
His crisp chest hair brushed against her bare breasts, making her nipples harden and her cheeks flush. Between her thighs she felt him too, rigid and pulsing slightly against her, hastening the warmth to the most intimate part of her.
"I sent word of yer accident to the Featherton ladies. They know where ye are and sent back a note of thanks
163
fer s
a
ving ye. And ye canna go anywhere ... not this eve anyway."
Lud, it was hard to concentrate on what he was saying when she herself was lost in sensation. In the candlelight, Jenny could see Callu
m
was more serious than she'd ever seen him. "Why can't I leave?" she managed.
"There is nigh on two feet of snow on the ground. And that
over
the ice that caused yer fall. So ye'll not be doing anything but stayin' in bed until the both of us are warm and wee
l
again."
"
The both of us?" Jenny looked over at her gown again, and at the kilt, coat
,
and lawn shirt beside it at the fire. Then she remembered what he'd said and suddenly it all made sense.
"You saved me. You jumped into the water, and saved me."
"Aye, I did."
"You risked your own life to save
me
.
"
A smile took hold of Jenny's mouth.
"Aye," he almost growled. "Now stop repeatin' it, or y
e
'll make me regret I ever hauled ye from the canal."
This proved it. He could have sent the footman or coachman into the water after her, but he dove in himself. Jenny wrapped her arms around his waist and stared up into his eyes. "You fancy me, Lord Argyll. You
do."
Joyous laughter welled up inside of her and as it burst from her lips it shook her body, and she felt him grow stone hard against her.
"Christ, Jenny, ye've got to stop
m
ovin' like that when I'm atop of ye. I'm cold
,
lass, but I'm human too."
But that made Jenny laugh all the more.
"Jenny,
please.
Ye've got to stop
m
ovin' like that. Stop laughin'.
Jenny.
I mean it."
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Then suddenly his mouth pressed against hers, and the mirth died in her throat. Instead a wanton moan welled up inside of her as she became all too aware of the growing hardness now pressing gently between her legs. Wicked excitement grew within her.
Jenny slipped her hands from Callum's lean waist and trailed her fingers along his sides, feeling the ripple of his ribs, the cords of his muscles beneath her fingertips.
And it was bliss. Her hands moved between them both, to the point where their bodies parted, and she ran her palms over the mounds of his chest, over his pebble-hard nipples.
Callu
m
drew his mouth back from hers then, and peered deep into her eyes. "What is it aboot ye, Jenny, that makes me want ye like no other? Ye're so different."
Jenny didn't want to hear how different she was. She knew why she wasn't like any highborn debutante he'd met.
But he didn't. He didn't know she was a fake, a fraud.
A lowly lady's maid. The back of her eyes began to burn.
Still, he deserved to know and now was the time to tell him. She had to admit everything, no matter how heartbreaking it was going to be. She laid her index finger vertically across his lips.
"Hush, Callum. Please. There is something I must tell you." Her mouth went dry and her throat felt as if it were packed with wool.
Oh, how she wished she did not have to do this.
165
"Ye dinna need to say anything, lass." Callu
m
gently nipped at her lower lip. "I already know."
Jenny widened her eyes to stare at him, and a tear slipped down across her temple, into her hair, and dropped to her ear. "You do?" Jenny tensed.
"Aye, I know ye love me."
She exhaled slowly.
He smiled at her. "And as much as I've tried not to, I've come to love ye as wee
l
."
Tears raced freely from her eyes and splashed into her hair. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Didn't know until that very moment how much she wanted to hear those words.
Callum rested his weight on his elbows and slid his hand into Jenny's damp hair and ran his fingers along her scalp. Then he drew his hand through her hair, allowing the locks to slip between his fingers.
Jenny shivered with pleasure, feeling each and every piece of hair fall from his fingers to the pillow.
She felt a wet warmth on her collarbone as he kissed a trail to her breast. The path of kisses tingled, making her arch her back upward and press her body firmly against him.
His rounded tip rose up as she did so. She felt its hard ridge move against the soft flesh of her inner thigh, and brush against her most sensitive of places, making her gasp and press down upon him.
'Tell me ye want me, Jenny, or tell me to find another place to sleep. Fer if ye do that again, I dinna know if I can stop
m
eself from
m
akin' ye mine."
Her heart was pounding and her body felt feverishly tight, aching.
"Makin' ye mine."
Lud, she'd never wanted anything so much.
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Though a little unsure, she knew what he meant. Mostly anyway. Annie, who'd bibhcally known half the footmen in Bath, had told her all about it in explicit and colorful detail. She'd even shown Jenny the way to touch a man, demonstrating by running her fingers up and down a pine rolling pin.
It had sounded so wicked, but at this moment, she wanted to do nothing so much.
She looked up into Callu
m
's dark eyes, and without breaking her gaze, she brazenly slipped her fingers between them and took him into her hand as she opened her thighs to him.
As she brought him farther between her legs, Jenny felt him flinch in her hand with anticipation and she let
h
im touch her, just barely.
Heat rioted between her thighs as she withdrew her hand and instinctively raised her knees.
But he hesitated.
"Please, Callu
m
," she whispered huskily. "I want you."
He stared down at her, and still he hesitated. Why, Jenny did not know. But she didn't want to think on it, she only wanted to feel.