His and Hers Page 14

  "No more than any other."

  "But you—" She broke off, for once choosing to listen to an inner voice that piped up from the cheap seats. Not yet, it warned. Don't make it about him. After a pause to regroup, she tried again. "So would you like to hear about my brother?"

  "Yes." He nodded.

  Her inner voice, shocked beyond belief at having been listened to, sat down and slapped virtual high-fives with the other instincts she never paid any attention to.

  "He's not at all like yours, but he can sometimes cause as much trouble. Troy's a great guy. I love him, really I do. But he's practically perfect in everyway." She paused, sliding a glance over at Curran as she wondered if he would get the Mary Poppins reference. Uh, no, a little after his time. She went on, "That can be just as hard to take. Especially when you're me. Potentially disastrous in everyway." A small gulp.

  "He is critical of you?"

  "No."

  "Demands that you be as perfect as he?"

  She shook her head. "No. Of course not."

  "Then perhaps the trouble, as you call it, lies with you."

  Cold. She clenched her fists. "That's the whole point." He didn't have to be so blunt about it.

  "If you were to ask your brother," Curran said in a low voice that brushed across her like a gentle breeze, "I suspect he would answer that it is tiresome to be thought of as perfect It would leave so little to be accomplished in life." He pushed out his bottom lip, thinking. "When one is less than perfect, there is much yet to be achieved."

  If that were the case, Jane would have a whole world of opportunity at her feet. She found herself telling him about growing up with Troy, the fun times they'd had as kids on the family road trips that seemed endless at the time but seemed great when looking back. "He used to sell me Pepto-Bismol tablets when I got carsick," she said, laughing. "Until one time when I refused to pay and threw up all over him. After that, the Pepto-Bismol was free." She told Curran about her father and her mother. He listened to it all, nodding, asking questions. It felt good.

  Then she asked, "Tell me about your mother." When his mouth opened, she added, "Not about what happened to her, but about her. Who she was as a person. I'd really like to know."

  Curran's chin lifted and she watched as he ran his tongue along his upper lip, apparently considering her question.

  His tongue. What—What was it she had asked him? Her mind had gone blank, able to focus only on that tongue. And what it might feel like inside her… mouth. Whew. It was getting warm in the night air. She fanned at her face.

  "I was a small boy."

  Right. His mother. Thank God he'd put away that tongue. "What does—" She stopped to clear her throat, which seemed awfully dry all of a sudden. "What does the small boy remember about her?" She reached over to lift the lantern to see his face.

  He looked at her then and she thought she could see his mask of careful indifference slip. For just a second. As a TV character on a show she'd once loved had often said, "Have mercy." "He remembers a very beautiful woman," he replied, "who smelled of flowers." The shadow of a smile curved his lips. "And had a voice that sounded like music."

  "She sounds wonderful," Jane whispered.

  He tipped his head. "A small boy believed it so."

  In that instant, her heart melted for the boy that lived within him still.

  He must have seen it on her face because his own quickly became unreadable again and his tone firm. "There is no certainty to be found in life."

  True. But there was certainty. And there was certainty.

  "I had a very different life than this. Before. Maybe a day, a week ago? I've lost track of time. And even though I could never tell what was going to happen in that life, I really can't tell with this one. There's so much that's out of my control. I have no frame of reference for living in Victorian times, nothing to hold on to. And…" She sighed so hard, her toes curled. "No way back."

  "Ah," he said. The lantern, once again in his commanding grasp, cast its swinging rays of light before them. "As you have said If my memory is to be trusted, this may well have something to do with the stone you seek."

  "Everything to do with the stone."

  "How is that so?"

  "I made a wish… on the stone, to be out of there. To go someplace where I could start over, where no one knew me." She shook her head. "I meant someplace like Vancouver, maybe. Not England. Not more than a century in the past." She looked up at him. "What year is it, anyway?"

  "It's 1849."

  "Of course, 1849. Makes all the sense in the world." Again, she heaved a sigh. "I live in 2007. Do you see the problem?"

  His mouth opened, but he closed it again, without reply. He saw the problem. She was pretty sure of it.

  They reached a small grove of trees. Holding the lantern high, Curran pointed the way to a place that appeared to be one huge tree, but upon closer inspection turned out to be two, with a hollowed-out flat spot nearly the size of a small sofa at the intersection of the roots. He set the lantern on the ground and with his hand, indicated the area in the trees. "Shall we sit?"

  "Sure. I guess so." Okay. This wasn't strange. An old nursery rhyme slipped into her head. Curran and Jane, sittin' in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-… She pushed her hand against her mouth to stifle the half-unhinged giggle that threatened to spill out. While it was an appealing idea, there was virtually no chance she'd be kissing Curran in the tree. The heroine and the villain? No way. Probably. Sleep, Mary. Sleep well In fact, sleep in.

  She sat, settling her skirts around her. Then Curran sat down. His thigh is touching mine. The sensation had her so zeroed in on her right leg and his left one, it took a minute for her to realize he was talking. "I'm sorry." She gulped. "I didn't hear you."

  To say the least.

  He settled against the part of the tree trunk that formed a back of sorts. "Though you may have a different history, in some manner of speaking, you are the author's invention, as are we all."

  The author's invention. Pulling her mouth in tight, she chewed on her bottom lip. In a way, she wished they could stay here forever. Where the air, cool and clean, drifted to her nostrils, the worn tree roots cradled her bottom comfortably and Curran's thigh pressed against hers in a most un-Victorian way. If she didn't say anything, didn't move, didn't do anything at all, it was possible she wouldn't take this moment out in a blinding flash of accidental ineptitude.

  "The characters an author creates," he said, "are hers alone for that piece of time. She will do with them as she likes and if all proceeds to a satisfying conclusion, the characters continue on past the final page to live as they choose, free of constraint."

  "So, as long as there's a happy ending, everybody can do what they want after the book is done."

  "A happy ending? Not always. But it must be satisfying."

  A tiny sprig of hope pushed its way up and out of her mouth. "Does that mean I don't have to end up with James?"

  His hand reached out and his fingers turned her chin toward him. "You do not understand this author."

  "Then make me understand." Make me do anything but think about how good your fingers feel on me, how appealing your mouth looks in the moon and lantern light, how I never noticed you have that small bump on your nose that looks absolutely kissable. Make me think of anything but that. Curran and Jane, sittin' in a tree…

  He dropped his hand. "My brother James is the love Mary Bellingham was not allowed to fulfill. And I am the one who ensured she was unable to marry him."

  That one took a minute to make its way in through the flurry of her senses on high sexual alert, but it finally did. If James was the one Mary wanted and Curran was the one she held responsible for not being able to marry her true love, that didn't bode well for any role reversals. This time, it was Jane who said, "I see." And Curran who stared into the darkness. "It must be difficult to know you're the one the author… doesn't like."

  "It has much to do with the reasons she renders me largely unsuccessful in
my endeavors to keep James from inheriting everything. I must be, in some respects, incapable."

  "An incapable villain doesn't make for a very compelling story. Unless it's a comedy."

  He stared hard into her eyes. "That is true. And while I am many things, comedic is not one of them."

  Jane gave a little snort and then, realizing what she'd done, clapped a hand to her mouth.

  This time Curran actually smiled.

  The effect on her was as devastating as the tongue incident had been. Focus, Jane. Focus.

  No response from the brain cells assigned to focusing. She raised her brows and tipped her head, trying to cover for her trembling mouth. "Or, it could be that Mary doesn't have an evil bone in her body and doesn't know what to do with you. Doesn't know how to be devious." She brought her face closer to his. "I'm not convinced you know how to be evil or devious, either."

  "Entirely untrue." Stiffening, he drew his shoulders back and turned away, face set. "And I shall assist the author in making that occur."

  He wasn't getting off that easy. "I've seen you with Alfred."

  "The capacity for evil does not preclude kindness to animals."

  Or kindness to Jane, for that matter, but she decided not to point that out at the moment. "James doesn't seem to have the same feeling about the animals in his care."

  He made a disparaging sound. "Childish foolishness."

  "You're wrong!" she burst out. "It isn't just foolishness. He's selfish. He thinks so much about himself, he doesn't have the time to think about anyone else. And when his selfishness hurts others—" A shock rippled through her as she realized that what she'd just said might not apply only to James. Selfishness. That hurt others.

  She dropped her chin, staring at her hands in the darkness. Could it be that—? She might have been a little selfish about wanting to get married, about wanting someone to find out about the senator's hypocritical stance on drinking, a little jealous of… Holly's shot at forever-after happiness? Oh, no.

  Maybe she and James weren't such a bad match, after all.

  "Every character in a tale has the capacity for both selfish and heroic action," Curran said. "It depends on which the author chooses to emphasize."

  Too true. But they'd been talking about him and his less-than-villainous nature. Right now, she didn't want to think about anything else. Couldn't think about anything else. "You're stalling."

  "Stall—? I confess you baffle me, Miss Ellingson." He didn't make it sound like a good thing.

  "So you, Curran Dempsey, are a villain." She aimed a skeptical look at him, folded her arms and nodded. "Really."

  "We had best return." He made a movement as if to rise.

  Jane's arm shot out to stop him. "Prove it," she said.

  "Prove it?"

  It was in her head and then out of her mouth. Even she couldn't believe she'd said it. And she could feel an entire virtual row of all her best instincts slinking down in their chairs, covering their eyes. She had to speak again, if only to cover the fact that her heart was beating so loud, he had to be able to hear it. "An actual villain, the real thing, would kiss me right now. Would try to take the heroine away from his brother, the hero. That would be a downright evil thing. Something a villain would do."

  His eyes bored into her.

  "But you're not doing it," she said lightly, though her voice was starting to shake. "So I rest my case. You're not a villain." What was she doing?

  His face moved to within a few inches of hers, so close she could feel his warm breath caressing her mouth. "Were I to kiss you," he rumbled, each word clearly articulated, "it would not be for the sake of proving my worth as a villain."

  Heat flooded through her. Were he to kiss her. Omigod. Were he?

  Jane struggled to think straight, an impossibility as it turned out, because Curran's lips, the same ones that had rendered her useless at the sight of his tongue running along them, were very, very close to hers. He… Oh, God… What? He's said something about… What? Shivers ran up her arms and raced down her back. And her ordinarily steady heart turned things over to a marimba band on fast forward. "I—I—" Um… What was the quest—question?

  "Jane."

  "Yes," she breathed, then cleared her throat. "Curran."

  "How is it you plan to ensure James wins your heart?"

  How did she plan to… ? Hold on. The shivers halted and the marimba band stopped playing midnote. "What?" If there had been an s in the word, her hiss would have shot saliva all over him. For the best, then. That never helped a romantic moment.

  He drew back. "We have agreed the author must receive the help she needs to bring the story to a satisfactory conclusion. I shall influence, in any manner I am able, her writing of the villain. You must have an influence in James's courtship."

  Still shrouded in the fog induced by the close proximity of his mouth, she narrowed her eyes and gave her head a shake. "When did I agree?"

  Now he was the one to narrow his eyes. "We discussed it earlier and have just discussed it now."

  The fog began to clear. "I don't think so. We discussed the fact that you wouldn't kiss me just to prove you're a real villain."

  His facial muscles relaxed at that and he turned a half-lidded gaze on her that set off the marimba band again, playing triple-time. "Indeed we did."

  "Well, you know what?" she asked lightly. "I may just kiss you to prove that I am." As her inner voice threw up her hands in despair and sank to the ground, Jane put her hands on either side of Curran's face, tipped her head and kissed him.

  She seemed to be doing that a lot lately.

  Chapter 13

  Curran's lips fulfilled their promise, Jane discovered seconds after she had landed the unauthorized kiss on them. But that was as far as she could manage to think before she melted, body and soul, into the touch of their mouths and tongues. His, warm and urgent, pushing farther, deeper. Her heartbeat quickening until she couldn't breathe. Everything going black until she could feel nothing but him, think of nothing but him.

  After a minute or ten, she felt him pull back. Then he grasped her arms, struggling for his voice. "This will not do."

  "Yes, it will," she rasped. "It just did."

  He released her abruptly and stood, leaving the hollowed-out spot in the tree to pace back and forth. It took everything she had not to follow, throwing herself back into his arms.

  "You must understand." One hand raked through his dark hair. "This"—he gestured at first himself and then her—"will endanger the story."

  Deep breaths. Lots of them. Reclaim your brain, Jane. It's in there somewhere. "The story has a lot bigger problems than—" Breaking off, she also gestured to the two of them and turned her mouth into an if-you-can't-see-that-you're-blind expression she hoped would hide the hurt and fear beginning to whirl at full force inside her.

  Hadn't he felt it? Couldn't he at least acknowledge it?

  Curran stood motionless in the shadows while Jane gripped her fingers together and contemplated a run for the house. Duck and cover. It worked in earthquakes and this situation had definite similarities. Her inner voice began squeaking, but she firmly clapped a hand over its mouth. If there was one thing she couldn't take hearing, it would be that she'd been wrong. That Curran hadn't really kissed her back.

  Because he had.

  "It is true enough there are problems with the author's story," he said. "You and I have agreed upon that and also that we will attempt to help Miss Bellingham in resolving them." He began to pace again, his words falling into the night air. "And it is true that only a villain would make love to the woman his brother is intended to wed. I am, however, not such a man."

  Hearing the words "make love" come out of his mouth, in direct association with her… The picture they formed in her head… It was hard to concentrate on what he was saying instead of watching his thighs ripple when his feet pounded the ground. She'd never been this powerfully attracted to anyone, even Byron, the one she'd thought she'd spend the res
t of her life with.

  She tried her best to regain her dignity and carry on a seminormal conversation. One that didn't involve tongues or the idea of a certain man naked, making lave. To her. Whew. Not so easy. She blinked. Hard. "So…" she said, crossing her legs and leaning forward, "you would cheat him at cards or… maybe put something in his drink, but you wouldn't take his woman. Do I have it right?" So much for dignity. The sarcasm oozed out of her like a lava flow.

  He stopped. "Not precisely in those terms, but I suppose it is close to the truth, yes."

  "Uh-huh." Jane nodded her head. "Sort of a code of honor among villains that they don't do that kind of thing." Rejection. It stung. A lot.

  He remained silent. Too silent.

  Her inner voice was now pummeling fists against her rib cage, trying to get her attention. Jane gave in and snapped her mouth shut.

  Curran strode back to her and stood, looking down. She looked away, unable to meet his gaze. Putting his fingers under her chin, he attempted to lift it so that she would look at him. Reluctantly, she did, hating that she could feel her bottom lip quiver.

  "There is a part of me that would choose to stay here with you on this night," he rumbled. "And another that knows there could be no worse choice to be made."

  "Thanks." She tried to be offhand, but it didn't come out that way. If he gave her one sign, the very slightest inclination that he meant what he said about staying with her, she would jump into his arms, wrap her legs around him and demand that the willing part of him be the only part he listen to. His inner voice had to be as hell-bent on being obeyed as the one that lived inside Jane.

  Of course, the difference was, she usually ignored hers.

  "If we choose a path the author cannot abide, we endanger ourselves and all in this story. Once discarded, characters rarely again emerge. They are doomed to a life only partially fulfilled. One with no future. No hope of happiness."

  Sounded something like her life already, but if she said that, he wouldn't understand. She looked down.

  A gentle tug on her chin. "I could not be responsible for that. Do you understand me?"