Chapter 2
Your first kiss should be sweet. It should be wild. It should be heaven.
—From the Diary of Lillian Wright
Pearler Charity Ball
Pippa saw him the moment she stepped into the moonlit garden. Tall. Handsome. Puddings embroidered across his chest. Incredibly out of place.
The Earl of Chatteris.
A vivid picture worthy of a treasure chest filled with gold.
His was the type of chiseled features that were only depicted in those Roman picture books. A face that could snare a woman’s attention and hold it. Yet an air of winter clung to his demeanor, keeping all the ladies at a fair distance.
Tonight, however, his cold aura was decked in a glorious waistcoat embroidered with one hundred tiny colorful puddings.
A masterpiece that had taken her all year to fashion.
All in all, a delightfully merry package.
All positioned beneath an archway of vined greenery with patches of mistletoe entwined overhead.
Before she could slip away unnoticed, the earl’s gaze locked onto her.
So frosty.
“Pippa?” A momentary flash of surprise sounded before he cleared his throat. “What are you doing out here alone? Where is Nancy?”
The familiar suspicion in his voice made her smile.
“Nicholas,” Pippa greeted, purposefully ignoring the rest.
He stiffened at the use of his name. Like always. While he attempted to keep a distance with polite courtesy, Pippa lived to shatter it with blatant impertinence. She smiled at the assortment of puddings. Of the waistcoat, he said nothing, as if he did not stand out like a Christmas treat.
“You did not answer my question.”
“I must not have heard one,” she said, the impulse to tease bubbling forth.
She could not help herself. Ever since she met Nancy in her childhood, she had spent the holidays with the Byrne family.
In fact, she considered it her second home.
Her father rarely came to London, and after he remarried five years ago, his main concern had become his new wife.
That meant the time she spent at the Byrne house had become more permanent in nature.
All her belongings had gradually made their way over to her chamber in the Byrne residence.
That, however, did not mean she had free rein. It only meant that the man before her considered her his ward. While that had never bothered Pippa, her relationship with Chatteris could be considered ordinary at best. They were not close. The man was just too solemn. And she … the exact opposite.
That was probably why, over the years, Pippa had developed a habit of teasing him. No person should go through life that serious. Poking fun at the prickly earl was like skipping through a field of flowers with a fresh summer breeze tickling one’s skin.
Extraordinarily delightful.
But most spectacular were his expressions.
One would think such a cold, almost paralyzed face would not reveal much, but Pippa had found the intricacy of each subtle flinch early on.
The hundred different lights that reflected in his dark gaze.
The subtle clench of his jaw. The tick at the corner of his eye.
The barely-there purse of his lips. Pippa could not help but hunt down these little treasures at each of their encounters.
Tonight was no different. Especially given the sight before her.
Pudding embroidery. Mistletoe. Gloriously rigid earl.
The urge to tease him sparked to life again, and instead of retreating, Pippa glanced at the mistletoe perched above the earl’s head before her gaze dropped to a particularly wobbly pudding on his waistcoat.
A bubble of laughter rose in her chest. Such a cold, severe-looking man standing beneath a patch of mistletoe was a sight to be woven into the fabric of her memory.
This was not a chance to be passed up.
A mad desire prompted Pippa to take a step toward Chatteris. And another. And another. Until she had to crane her neck to meet his gaze.
Ah, there it is. The slight reaction that made her boldness worthwhile—befuddlement. It shimmered in the depth of his eyes like unrecovered treasure.
“What are you up to now?” Chatteris demanded. “Did you believe this atrocious waistcoat would have me dashing home, leaving you and Nancy free to stir up trouble?” He paused. “Why are you looking at me like that?” Another pause. “Are you going to answer any of my questions?”
Oh, I’ll answer you, Nicholas Byrne.
But not with words.
Pippa stepped up onto her tiptoes, grabbed the collar of his coat, and kissed him.
* * *
The first rule of being an exemplary brother: Do not kiss your sister’s best friend, no matter how alluring.
Soft. This was the first thought that popped into Nicholas Byrne, the fourth Earl of Chatteris’s head as Pippa Averly’s lips connected with his.
Utter shock froze him in place.
He hadn’t wanted to attend this charity ball in the first place.
But Nancy had acquired tickets, so naturally, he dared not refuse.
Not with how much his sister and her friends—especially one friend—loved to court mischief.
Who knew what trouble they would stir up tonight if left to their own devices? They’d have England in a riot.
This moment served as the perfect example. He’d stepped out for a moment and already she was causing a riot.
With her lips.
Pippa, Pippa, Pippa. The most troublesome girl in all of England. Known for her outspoken ways and bold behavior. She had gotten into all sorts of scrapes and predicaments over the years. All in the name of seizing the moment.
And now she appeared to be seizing him.
A hand suddenly tangled in his hair, and Nicholas jolted awake from his daze. Saints, preserve me. Why the devil was he standing there like a half-wit, allowing this?
Common sense shot up his spine, and he began to push her away from him, but Pippa seemed to have grown tentacles that wrapped around him seamlessly, refusing to let go.
His grip on her waist tightened.
This wasn’t just a riot. This was a rampage.
On his senses.
His self-control.
For a careless moment, years of restraint collapsed, and Nicholas surrendered to Pippa’s eager embrace.
The flavorsome punch tasted sweet on her lips.
Not quite as sweet as the delicate notes of her scent—honey, if he were to guess—that teased prickles from his skin.
Not even to mention the rounded flesh beneath his hands.
He shouldn’t even be noticing Pippa’s curves.
The last jolt of common sense, shot upward.
Nothing about this scene was right. In fact, all of it was wrong.
Nicholas fought for control and ruthlessly pushed through the haze that had settled over him during Pippa’s flavorsome kiss.
Wait a damn minute. Did he taste a subtle hint of brandy?
He broke away from her lips and very deliberately, very torturously took a sobering step back. “What the blazes are you doing? Are you foxed?”
“Must one be foxed to be making memories?”
Nicholas stared at her, dumbstruck. “You are most certainly foxed. I can taste the brandy on your lips.” He ignored the wrongness of that sentence and simply narrowed his eyes at her.
Low voices murmured in the distance, and leaves shuffled nearby, reminding him of the consequences of being found alone in each other’s company. Much less kissing.
“Perhaps I am a bit tipsy. You should lighten up, Sir Nicholas the Cold. The holidays are for seizing magical moments, don’t you know?”
Nicholas the Cold? Was that what she thought of him?
And did she plan on making more memories tonight?
With whom? Him? Or someone else? In a more rational moment, it might have occurred to him that there was something off with his line of reasoning.
But this was not a rational moment, and he was not dealing with a rational girl.
“How much did you have to drink?”
“Only a little.” She motioned with her thumb and forefinger. “Well, I’m off to find Nancy! See you later!”
“Dammit, Pippa, wait.” He grabbed her wrist. “You can’t kiss me and just run off like that.”
“Why not? It’s only a kiss. Pretend it never happened.”
Nicholas’s jaw went slack. Only a kiss? Pretend it never happened? Impossible. It happened. It could not unhappen. The probability of him forgetting this incident was absolutely zero.
Nicholas scowled. “What if I demand you take responsibility?”
She chuckled. “What are you saying? I was just teasing you. Do not take it so personally. In any case, I didn’t mean for it to be you. It’s just when I saw you—”
Nicholas’s heart nearly exploded in anger. “I beg your pardon. It wasn’t meant to be me? Who the hell was your kiss meant for, then?”
Her eyes widened in her pretty heart-shaped face, as though she had carelessly revealed a crown secret. She froze, a little creature who’d caught the scent of a predator. And he was the predator, one that had been caged for too long and finally managed to break out.
Then her laughter rang out, catching him off guard. A familiar melody he had heard countless times before, yet somehow felt as if it were the first time he’d heard this particular laugh from Pippa. Mystical, almost.
His pulse leaped. Actually leaped.
Christ above.
Not to say anything about her, but what the devil was wrong with him?
She was the last female on earth who should set his pulse leaping.
The woman had spent years perfecting the art of trouncing on his boundary line.
He ought to be used to her little tricks.
Not to mention, there were some lines brothers should never cross.
As if her laughter hadn’t already confused the hell out of him, she then did the most confounding thing—she lifted a finger to her lips and smiled.
The most maddening smile Nicholas had ever had the misfortune of receiving.
Not because it was smug. But because it made him rock hard.
The kind of reaction he had spent years mastering to suppress whenever she gave him such a soft smile.
He watched her dart off to the ballroom.
What the hell had just happened?