Penelope looked at him over her shoulder and her face wore a suspicious look. Did she suspect him of teasing her? Did she know how much he wanted to take her into his arms? Callum smiled.
Instinctively, she smiled back and then just as quickly wiped it from her face. “You think yourself very clever, do you not, MacKenzie?”
“Aye, I do.”
She took a breath. “I have met men like you before,” she said evenly. “There is nothing you can say that will surprise me.”
“You havena met any men like me,” he assured her, and his voice was as smooth as hers. “And I am sure I can surprise you, if you let me.”
There was a silence and he wondered if he had gone too far. Would she reprimand him? He rather looked forward to that—her stern voice was very attractive. But he had underestimated her ability to put him in his place.
Penelope gave him a cool, polite smile, and said, as if their previous conversation had never happened, “Tell me a little about your home, MacKenzie. Have you any brothers or sisters?”
“I have two brothers and one sister,” he said, happy to follow her lead.
She murmured something he didn’t catch, but which sounded like “There are more of them”, just as Selina returned with his shirt. It was still a little damp but clean at least. Callum thanked her and pulled it on, leaving the neck open as he shrugged into his jacket.
Penelope breathed what sounded like a sigh of relief, which nearly made him take it off again, but he resisted.
“Let us practice dancing now,” she said. “Selina, the piano if you please!”
Chapter Six
Penelope was annoyedwith herself. What on earth was the matter with her? She was shaken to the core in a way she had not been since she was seventeen and introduced to the new curate at her local parish church. He had been a little older than her and fair of hair and face, and she had thought she was in love. Well, in something. Looking back on the experience with hindsight, she suspected she might have been in lust.
Was that what was happening now? Was she in lust with MacKenzie? Yes, he was handsome—he was possibly the most handsome man she had ever encountered, barring the angelic curate, although in a far more down to earth way—but he was a client. She never allowed clients to fluster her, and she did not engage with them in any way but a professional one. She certainly had never allowed them to disconcert her to the point where she had to run across the room just to get some breathing space.
She suspected he knew exactly what he was doing. That innocent look did not fool her. Was he attracted to her? She had had that happen before, too, men flirting with her when she was supposed to be teaching them etiquette. She always put a stop to it quickly but politely, and if they persisted, then she would terminate their agreement. It had not happened often, but it had happened.
Just because she had been Lord Muir’s mistress, they seemed to believe she would agree to anything they suggested. As if she were vulnerable to every male looking for a brief affair. It made her feel hurt and angry, but she refused to let it show. She did not give them the satisfaction.
If this current situation persisted then she should tell Callum MacKenzie to leave or else she could give him a warning—she suspected a warning would do the trick. Despite his rough and ready ways, he had been cooperative. Why then did she hesitate to do that? And why, when he had smiled at her, did something in her chest turn over giddily? She was twenty-eight, for goodness’ sake! She knew better than to fall in lust with a handsome man, especially when she was relying upon his money to pay her bills.
Selina had begun to play the piano softly, clearly not wanting to interrupt Penelope’s musings. Selina seemed taken with MacKenzie too, which made sense. Despite his faults, he was rather charming and certainly charismatic, and she did not think it was going to be difficult for him to find a wife. But was that any reason for Penelope to feel as if the ground was shifting beneath her feet in such a ridiculous manner? When he had stripped off his shirt so casually and bared his chest... Penelope had felt an almost unstoppable urge to reach out and run her hands over the delicious curves and hollows of his torso. She had wanted to lean in and take his rosy nipples into her mouth and drag her fingers through the dark hair that swept down in a line to his stomach and vanished beneath his pantaloons.
Thank goodness she had more self-control than to give in to her urges!
She guessed it was her longing for intimate contact that had caused her common sense to waver. Her heart was pounding, and her blood was pumping, and her body felt overheated. Therewas also an embarrassing moistness between her thighs that made her want to squirm in her seat.
Selina kept shooting little glances at her and biting her lip, wanting to smile but knowing she should not. Penelope’s situation might be amusing to her friend, but Selina’s smiles would soon evaporate if they lost their lucrative client.
Despite her scattered thoughts, Callum MacKenzie was still talking, and she remembered she had asked him to tell her about himself. After his first few words, she had barely heard him, and yet somehow she was managing to carry on a sensible conversation while simultaneously imagining herself unbuttoning his pantaloons and lifting up her skirts, and sitting astride him. Sinking down, down, onto his shaft until it filled her completely.
Penelope gave an audible swallow.
“My brother Rory thinks himself a sophisticated man about town.” Callum grimaced. “Ithink he is a conceited show off. My youngest brother Donal is more like me. There’s a girl at home he’s loved for years, but he’s too blate to tell her.”
“Too ‘blate’?” she repeated, managing to regain her wits.
“It means shy.” He laughed, and in response Penelope managed a tight smile. “My sister’s name is Catriona—we call her Cat. We all love her, and she gets away with all manner of naughtiness.”
She noticed when he spoke of his family, he was more relaxed, and his Scots accent was more prominent. “Your family are close?”
“Aye, verra close.”
Penelope often asked herself whether it was acceptable to be jealous of other people’s families. She and Mortimer were close, or they had been once upon a time, but it would be nice to have more siblings, or even to have her parents back. She missed what she might have had if that coach had not overturned when it didand taken them from her. It was like an ache in her chest that never really went away.
When she looked up, she found he was watching her reflectively, as if he was trying to read her thoughts. Quickly, she shuttered them and called out to Selina, “Are you ready? Something slow to begin with until we see how musically inclined MacKenzie is.”
