But in the end, they didn't have time, because Pip heard it. The voice. That unique raspy whisper, approaching down the hallway.
“I'm telling you someone is in there,” it was saying.
Beau had been approaching her, Pip knew, to give her a piece of his mind. To shove her out of the door and out of his life. She never gave him a chance. Only able to think of one option to explain their presence alone in the library, the minute he got close enough, she grabbed him by the lapels and pulled him to her. Before he could protest or chastise, she pulled his head down and kissed him.
For a moment, he froze. It was enough. She grabbed fistfuls of his jacket and held on as tightly as she could, terrified he would pull away and yell at her before the door opened. Before the spies realized that there wasn't a perfectly logical reason for Beau to be here. Pip kissed him with every ounce of passion in her. She prayed he knew what she was about and would just shut up. Would be distracted enough that he wouldn't waste her effort.
Something went wrong, though. Something dark and hot and shattering.
She had never kissed Beau before. Not like this. He had never let her. And so, she wouldn't know that when their mouths met they would ignite a firestorm. She felt stunned, shaken, as if lightning had struck. She gasped. She thought she gasped. Or it might have been Beau, because suddenly his arms were around her and he had her pushed against the wall, his body pressed against hers, his hands suddenly roving.
His mouth was hot and hungry and demanding, urging hers open until she felt his tongue invade, slick and sleek and sensual against hers. She met him in a dance she had never learned, scrabbling at his chest, his shoulders, his neck, twining her fingers into the thick curls at his collar. Desperate for the touch of him, the taste of him, the hard length of him against her, surrounding her, supporting her when the strength went out of her knees and only his arms held her up against the wall.
She couldn't think. She couldn't remember what she was doing here. She didn't care. She had imagined forever what it would be like in Beau's arms. But she had had no idea. No earthly clue. She hadn't realized that there would be no tenderness between them, no restraint. No patience. Just a terrible need, a glittering, sweeping heat that fused them, even before she felt his hand on her breast. Before he dragged the top of her bodice down far enough to pull his mouth away from hers and drop it to her nipple.
Pain, pleasure, she wasn't certain exactly, but hot and sweet rocketed through her. She was gasping, clutching, arching against him, desperate for the heat of his mouth against her, the sharp, sweet pain of his teeth scraping her nipple. His hand sliding down her belly, down between her legs, trailing fire, terrifying her with the power of his touch.
“Beau….oh, Beau….”
The world would never be the same. Her life, her beliefs, her dreams had been tumbled askew, forever colored by this moment, this fierce, frightening compulsion to finish this. To find out where it all led. To know what it meant that she could feel something hard and urgent against her belly. Her Beau, her…
“Oh, dear. Did we interrupt something?”
She was proud of herself. She didn't shriek, even when she realized that the voice belonged to the ubiquitous Pamela. She froze instead, her face pressed against Beau's jacket, her bodice pulled askew, her knees the consistency of pudding.
Beau slowly lifted his head. She could feel his heart pounding against her chest. She could hear the rasp of his breath as he strove for control. She desperately struggled for clarity.
And then, that voice.
“We obviously interrupt.”
Thatvoice. That deep, odd rasp. She felt as if she'd been doused with cold water. Of course. It was why she had come. Why she had dragged Beau into that kiss in the first place. She had to make sure that the man with the voice didn't know what Beau had been doing. Briefly closing her eyes, she lifted a hand to right her bodice, briefly dipping into Beau's jacket on the way by.
“You arede trop,” Beau warned.
“So we see.” There was amusement in the voice.
Pip carefully turned to see who it was.
No one she knew. A middle-aged man with snow white hair and oddly gentle eyes. And behind him among a small gathering, as if to punish Pip for all her sins, Lady Pamela Smythe-Smithe, looking at once arch and condescending.
“Dabbling in the infantry, Beau?” she asked, the fury in her voice barely contained beneath its saccharine tone.
She smells like a whorehouse, was all Pip could think.And she will do everything she can to ruin me.
“You both may congratulate us,” Beau said, taking a step in front of Pip. “Phillipa has consented to be my bride.”
Pip's heart shrank. No. Not like this. Never like this. She must have taken an instinctive step of protest, for suddenly she felt Beau's hand clamp onto her arm. She wasn't going anywhere.
“Excellent,” the gentleman said, stepping up to take Beau's hand.
Beau let loose of Pip to shake hands and ended up in a full, quick hug from the man. Pip stared, wondering at it, until she saw the man's eyes flit over the library toward the painting of Ripton Hall that hung behind the desk. The painting Pip knew covered a wall safe.
She swore her heart stopped. Had he been making sure Beau didn't carry papers? St. Peter's pipes, that was close.
“If you would give me a moment with my fiancé,” Beau suggested, not moving.
The gentleman beamed. “Of course. We shall see you in the ballroom for the announcement.”
