Chapter Six
Penelope was annoyed with 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. There was 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. “I think 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 did and 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.”
“Watch your toes,” Selina warned, and MacKenzie laughed in that good-natured way.
Penelope had expected him to be clumsy, and she wasn’t sure why.
Perhaps she just hoped he would have an unfortunate lack of timing so she could forget how much she was attracted to him and instead find fault with him.
But he surprised her. He was graceful, and despite a tendency to want to swing her around far too enthusiastically, he listened to her instructions and followed them.
MacKenzie could be trained, she told herself, as they moved about in the cramped area at one side of the room.
Next, she would need to find a proper ballroom in which to continue his lessons, and with her tarnished reputation, that was always problematic.
As for the heat of his hand clasping hers, and the heavy weight of his other hand at her waist . . . Penelope struggled to ignore both. Yes, it made her feel hot and achy with a need she dared not give free rein while she rigidly held at bay any inappropriateness.
Until he drew her in closer, and she felt the warmth of his breath against her crown as he bent toward her, and the hard warmth of his thighs with only her skirts and his pantaloons as a barrier between them.
Her heart began to thump, and her cheeks felt on fire.
She was imagining erotic things again. Him lifting her up and pressing her to the wall, his hand under her clothing, between her legs, giving her the relief she so sorely needed.
It was too much.
Penelope stepped back and managed a stiff nod at Selina to finish playing.
MacKenzie looked a little confused, and when she felt able to meet his brown eyes, they seemed reproachful.
“I have danced before.” He confirmed what she had already suspected.
“My mother likes to dance, and when my father is not available, she dances with her sons. Cat too. We usually perform country dances, but occasionally something more formal. Dancing is no’ a problem for me, Miss Armstrong. ”
“Your mother is a good teacher,” Penelope said, trying to sound less emotionally wrought. “All the same, dancing in a familiar setting is different to a formal dance in a ballroom with everyone watching.”
“I don’t mind them watching,” he said lightly. “The Ghillie Callum is a favorite with us MacKenzies. I can do that if you like?” And he was smiling again, that hint of wickedness in the curve of his lips.
“The Ghillie Callum?” She stumbled over the unfamiliar words.
“The Sword Dance.”
“No, thank you,” she said firmly. “You can tell your aunt that I am very pleased with your dancing thus far. If you continue to do well, it is more than likely you will be dancing at her ball in three weeks.”
His expression brightened at her praise—Why was it so charming? “Are we finished then, Miss Armstrong?” He caught up his neckcloth, but instead of retying it about his throat, he pushed it into his jacket pocket.
“For now,” she said in her sternest voice. “We start again tomorrow. We will go for a stroll in Hyde Park and see how you manage there.”
As she gave him his instructions, he listened obediently, but she sensed he thought the stroll would be easy.
However, Penelope knew that watching how the ton behaved in various situations was not simple at all.
He would be observing gentlemen and ladies meeting and greeting and learning how to ape them.
A man like Callum would probably find such insipid social interactions tedious, but they were necessary in the world he wanted to enter.
“Good day then, Miss Armstrong. Selina.”
The door closed and Penelope wondered why the sitting room seemed bigger without him in it, as if there was more air for her to breathe. Surely one man could not take up so much space? She was still mulling over it when Selina came to perch beside her on the settee.
“Lord, that man! When he stripped off his clothing . . . I wanted to climb all over him.” Her eyes were sly as she observed Penelope.
“I am very glad you did not,” was all she said.
Selina was not that easily silenced. “You appeared to be a little breathless yourself, miss.”
“Not at all,” she retorted. But she was lying, and Selina knew it.
Penelope stood up. “I am going to visit my brother. I should not be too long . . . I hope.”
Selina understood this would not be a happy visit.
“Sometimes,” she said sympathetically, “I think you have far too many worries on your plate. A man like MacKenzie may be just what you need to take your mind off them. I can tell he is interested in you, so why not amuse yourself? How could it hurt to have a little fun for a change?”
Penelope shook her head very decidedly. “No, Selina. Under no circumstances. If I allow myself to be distracted just once and I am found out . . . I could lose all I have built up over the past three years. Polite society is very unforgiving,” she added glumly.
Selina pouted—not a pleasant look on a woman of forty years—as Penelope closed the door.
What she had said was nothing but the truth.
If she did anything to bring her already soiled name into disrepute, she would lose all she had gained.
No more clients, no more recommendations.
She would be set adrift with no prospect of earning a living, and what would become of her then? What would become of Mortimer?
He relied on her and that was all very well, but she had decided that today was the day she would have to tell him there would be no more “loans” from her.
She would continue to pay for his share of his lodgings as well as items like food and clothing, but he would have to learn to stand on his own two feet.
He needed to find employment and stop letting Uncle Bertie encourage him with his ridiculous inventions.
She went downstairs, tying the ribbons of her bonnet under her chin.
Suddenly, she felt very weary. Had Mortimer really expected her to return to being a gentleman’s mistress, just so he could have more spending money?
She did not want to believe he was so selfish.
She hoped she was wrong. She hoped when she arrived at the lodgings he shared with Uncle Bertie, Mortimer would listen to her and understand.
But Penelope suspected it was going to be a very difficult conversation.