Days of Rakes and Roses (6 page)

He laughed softly, ignoring the insult. “What a lurid imagination you have, sweetheart.”

She collapsed back into her corner, tacit admission that for now she wasn’t going anywhere. With a trailing caress that made every hair on her skin lift in response, he released her and lounged on the opposite seat. She told herself she didn’t miss the connection. Then her heart crashed against her ribs with renewed shock when he pulled the blinds down, enveloping them in thick darkness.

“What are you doing?” she asked sharply, pulses spiking with panic.

“Ensuring our privacy.”

“Is this your plan indeed? To ruin me and cause a scandal?” Her voice shook. For the first time tonight, she was truly afraid.

“No, on my honor. You’re safe.” He released his breath in a huff of frustration. “Honestly, Lydia, you’re the outside of enough. As if I’d do anything to harm you. Even if my intentions were wicked, Jenkins is driving. He’s known you since you were toddling. One peep from you and he’d horsewhip me to Edinburgh.”

The coach jolted over something in the road and the blind flapped, revealing that Simon had risen to his feet. She watched him brace himself against the sides of the rocking vehicle.

“Stay away.” She edged farther into her corner, although within the confines of the carriage, there was nowhere to hide.

Simon remained balanced above her. “Do you feel in danger, Lydia? From me? Really?”

She battled to disregard the hurt underlying the question. The truth was that she did feel in danger, from her own weakness if nothing else. She was angry with Simon but angrier with herself. How could he turn her into this quivering jelly of indecision? A virtuous woman would insist on going home immediately. This tête-à-tête promised only heartache. But sweet memories kept her silent.

Since she was seventeen, Simon’s kisses had haunted her.

She sensed him lowering toward her. She placed a shaking hand on his chest, feeling the rhythmic bang of his heart through the palm of her glove. “Don’t.”

Unexpectedly he cooperated. But then he was probably afraid that she still contemplated diving headlong from the carriage. Or shrieking for Jenkins. Above the coach’s rumble, she heard the shuffle and slide of his body as he retreated to his side of the carriage.

She knew she should rail at him for this latest trick, but in truth, she was so weary and dejected, she couldn’t summon the energy. She closed her eyes on an unspoken prayer for guidance and rested her head back against the leather seat.

However often she told herself that Simon was a stranger, she acknowledged that wasn’t entirely true. Over the last week and very much against her will, she’d devoted more time than she’d admit to observing him. She’d noted that he was still considerate to the people around him, whatever their rank, and still inclined to find amusement in life’s small ironies. Ladies still turned like sunflowers to the sun to stare after him, drawn not just by his appearance but by some aura he’d always possessed, even as a boy.

Heaven forgive her, but in Simon’s presence, Grenville faded into a complete nonentity. Although conceding that made her feel like a filthy traitor.

Simon was at ease in his own skin in a way that nobody else she knew was. Everybody in the ton had someone to appease or impress or persuade. Even her powerful brother disguised his true self beneath a façade of almost inhuman self-discipline as he faced down the scandal of their mother’s affair with her glamorous brother-in-law. If one didn’t know him as Lydia did—and she recognized that Cam concealed unassailable depths that he’d never shared with her—one would imagine that not a shred of genuine emotion stirred beneath his immaculate shell.

But Simon was content to be Simon. He always had been. It was breathtakingly attractive, even to a woman determined not to succumb to his appeal.

“That’s a heavy sigh for a lady on the verge of marrying the man of her dreams,” Simon said softly.

She examined his remark for a sneer but didn’t find one. “I’m tired, Simon. The last week hasn’t exactly been carefree.”

He didn’t evade the implied criticism. “I’m sorry. It must be difficult to know that Cam opposes your engagement. You’ve always been close.” Simon didn’t need to add that they’d had to be. In the Rothermere household, neither Cam nor Lydia had found refuge in a parent’s love. “And my presence can’t make things easy.”

“You could go away again.” Lydia paused. Her voice hardened as she recalled her justifiable resentment. “That’s probably your intention. To disrupt my wedding then disappear.”

She couldn’t see his face, but she knew by his voice that he was smiling. “Oh, Lydia, sweetheart, you know me better than that.”

She stiffened, partly against what he’d said, but even more against the need to venture closer to that strong, warm body and let his deep voice whisper beguiling lies in her ear. At seventeen, she’d been humiliatingly susceptible to his charms. It was most depressing to discover that at the ripe old age of twenty-seven, she was even more susceptible. She’d learned nothing from her unhappiness.

“No, I don’t,” she said, as much for her benefit as for his. “You abandoned me ten years ago, wreaked havoc, then fled beyond reach of the consequences.”

“Should I have asked you to come with me? Your father’s anger would have known no bounds. He’d have disowned you then set out to destroy everyone who gave us aid. We would have been like outlaws. I couldn’t force you into a life unworthy of you.”

“Did you even consider it?” she asked acidly.

He sighed and she couldn’t mistake his sadness, no matter how she tried to tell herself that he’d never given a fig for her. “Of course I considered it.”

“Easy to say now.”

“You’ve become very cynical in your old age.”

“Only where you’re concerned.” She straightened and wrapped her shawl more securely around her shoulders, fighting the temptation to relent. There was no benefit in extending this encounter. He wasn’t going to give her straight answers. Even if he did, what was the point? She was promised to Grenville Berwick. It was too late to repair the mistakes of her youth. “I want to go home.”

“No, you don’t.” He shifted to sit beside her, ignoring how she stiffened in disapproval. “And don’t tell me you want me to stay over there in the cold.”

“It’s not cold.”

“Feels like it.” He grabbed her hands and refused to release them when she tugged. “Every time you open your mouth, the temperature drops another five degrees.”

“Let me go.” Her demand emerged as a thready plea. She could hardly blame him for ignoring it.

“I’ve tried to be strong, Lydia.” His voice was hoarse and his grip firmed to the verge of bruising. “But keeping away from you is more than mortal flesh can bear. I feel like I haven’t touched you for a century.”

“We’ve danced together,” she said unsteadily.

“Under a thousand eyes.”

“Stop it.” She pressed into the corner, but he still felt too near. Her heart raced so fast, she felt dizzy. Or perhaps that was the effect of Simon’s scent of soap and healthy male. Still so familiar, still so fiendishly alluring. “I’m engaged to another man.”

“Whom you don’t love.” With daunting efficiency, he stripped the gloves from her hands.

The close darkness added a fraught edge to her dilemma. Occasionally since his return, Lydia had deceived herself that Simon was the gentle, protective boy from her childhood. Now she woke sharply to the fact that he was a fully grown man with a fully grown—and very worldly—man’s desires.

The perception should terrify her. Instead the energy throbbing between them made her feel alive for the first time since she was seventeen.

“If you persist, I will throw myself out of this carriage.” Thank goodness, this time her voice sounded like it belonged to a woman in control of her destiny.

“No, you won’t.” His tone lowered to vibrant urgency. Neither commented on Lydia’s lack of response to Simon’s statement that she didn’t love Grenville. “It’s impossible to sit here without kissing you.”

He’d said something similar just before he’d turned her life upside down, then consigned her to crippling loneliness. She snatched her hands back. “Control yourself.”

“Why are you marrying that overbearing windbag, Lydia?”

“He’s a good man.”

“No, he’s not. He’s a self-satisfied bully who will crush every spark of spirit from you.”

“You don’t know him.”

“I know the type. Your father was exactly like that.”

Horror suffocated her. Dear God, Simon couldn’t possibly be right that she’d settled on Grenville because he reminded her of her father. Just the suggestion made the gorge rise in her throat.

She pressed back against the seat to evade the words. “No.”

“Yes.” He paused. “Are you marrying Grenville to make up for disappointing your father, Lydia? It won’t work, even if his late grace wasn’t dead and roasting in hell.”

“Stop it.” This time she meant it without shillyshallying. “You have no right to talk about my father that way.”

“Yes, I do. He damn well destroyed my life. And he came close to destroying yours. I wanted to kill him when he called you a slut.”

She winced. Back then, she hadn’t wanted to kill her father. Instead his withering contempt had made her want to die. She still had nightmares about the disgust in the duke’s voice when he’d wrenched her away from Simon and flung her viciously against the hayshed wall.

It was ironic that her father had died of heart trouble. As far as she knew, he’d never had a heart to begin with. Which hadn’t stopped her pursuing his approval with a desperation that still made her cringe. When he’d died without sparing her a kind word, she’d told herself she’d fought a losing battle from the first.

The late duke had been a cold man, cold to the bone. She could never forgive her mother for breaking her marriage vows, but she could understand what had driven the duchess into her rakish brother-in-law’s arms.

“My father caught me cavorting in the hay like a lusty milkmaid,” she bit out, shame tasting like bile on her tongue. “You had me half out of my clothes and ready to spread my legs like a whore.”

“Never,
never
say that,” Simon said savagely, tugging her across his lap with breathless dispatch.

“Let me go,” she choked out, as her pulses raced with illicit excitement and her body immediately softened to fit the contours of his. Her fists clenched against his chest while his warmth enveloped her, more alluring than brandy to a drunkard. The echo of her dead father’s scorn rang in her ears, but the reality of Simon’s presence muffled its power.

“Never.” His arms tightened, lashing her against him so that her head fell back against his shoulder, her face upturned. Even through the darkness, she caught the sparking fury in his eyes.

The ghost of unfinished business vibrated around them like a curse. Hating herself, she realized she’d been waiting for Simon to kiss her ever since she’d caught sight of him on the stairs at her betrothal ball. Her father had been right to deride her detestable weakness.

“I played the wanton with you once,” she muttered. “I’ll not fall again.”

Even as she spoke, desire weighted her limbs and made her heart thunder, proving her a liar. Simon could make her fall in an instant. One touch from those clever hands and she burned.

“Lydia, there’s no disgrace in what we feel for each other.”

“Then why are we embracing in a dark carriage?” she asked caustically.

“Because you’ve promised your kisses to another man.” His body tensed against hers. “Clearly, I have to convince you that your kisses are mine.”

His effrontery shocked her into speechlessness. His face was a pale oval above hers; it was too dark to make out individual features. The living reality of Simon engulfed her, his strength, his vitality, his evocative scent. For one blazing moment, they remained unmoving. Then he lowered his head and kissed her with a devastating mixture of anger and blind need.

She thought she’d impressed every detail of his glorious kisses on her memory. It turned out memory had misled her when it came to how she’d felt pressed against Simon’s long, lean body while his mouth plundered hers. She’d forgotten how the heated scent of his skin left her as intoxicated as if she’d swallowed a bottle of champagne in one gulp. She’d forgotten the wild tattoo of his heart against her breast and the powerful grip of his hands.

Closing her eyes, she prayed frantically for control, for the will to break the embrace. Moments ago she’d derided herself as a trollop; now she proved she was as brazen as ever. But only with this one man. Only with Simon Metcalf.

She struggled through rising pleasure to cling to the last strands of reason. Simon was manipulating her into doing what he wanted. She was too old to topple into his arms as readily as a ripe apple dropped from a tree. And Grenville deserved better, she thought on a flinch of shame even as delight snared her in its net.

She stiffened and placed a hand on Simon’s face. Under her fingers, she felt the faint roughness of beard. The sensation thrilled her, even as she told herself she must stop him. After mere seconds, she summoned every ounce of resolution and pulled far enough away to whisper. “Don’t kiss me.”

“I have to.” He sounded at the edge of his restraint.

“I’m marrying Grenville,” she said fiercely.

“I don’t care.” He tugged her closer to his body.