Outrageously Yours (21 page)

“No!” Ned blinked and said more calmly, “The queen requires our discretion. Besides, think of the scandal surrounding your sister if word of her theft ever got out.”

She had a valid point. This could destroy Gwendolyn’s reputation as thoroughly as her tryst with Colin might have done.

“Don’t worry,” Ned said. “We’ll find her, and the stone. I promise.”

He was about to question Ned’s confidence when a hail rang out.

“Ivers! Ivers . . . that you, old boy?”

From the corner of Market and Trinity streets, a wavy-haired youth came running toward them. He wore no cloak or hat, but a blue and gold scarf around his neck trailed its fringed ends on the breeze behind him. Simon found him vaguely familiar.

Leaving Butterfly’s side, Ned took several steps in the young man’s direction. “Jasper Lowbry.”

She sounded inordinately pleased. As Lowbry got closer, Simon recognized him from the St. John’s residence hall where he had first found Ned following the challenge. Upon reaching them, a broadly grinning Lowbry snatched up Ned’s extended hand, gave it a vigorous shake, and abruptly hauled her against him for an enthusiastic backslapping. So enthusiastic, in fact, that as Ned’s top hat tumbled to the cobblestones, Simon sprang forward to separate them and prevent her from being injured.

At the last second he remembered how such intervention would appear and stopped himself from making a glaring blunder. Still, his indignation mounted at the overblown physicality of the greeting. Must Lowbry insist on shoving Ned about so insolently? Simon willed the high-spirited student to release Ned—
release her this instant
.

He cleared his throat, and much to his relief, Lowbry stepped back. His gaze lit on Simon; his eyebrows went up. “Lord Harrow, sir, do forgive me. I . . . er . . . It’s just splendid to see old Ivers again.”

Simon bent to pick up Ned’s fallen hat. “It’s only been a week.”

His grin stretching, Lowbry’s attention shifted back to Ned. “Ah, but we’ve missed you at St. John’s.”

He reached out a fisted hand as if to deliver a playful punch to Ned’s ribs. Instinct sent Simon’s arm out to deflect the blow, leaving Lowbry looking disconcerted and Ned shuffling her feet.

Lowbry immediately brightened. “So, tell me. How goes it? Ascot and Yates will want to know if you’ve learned to drink brandy yet.”

Simon shoved Ned’s hat back on her head and patted it into place. “He does all right.”

With an irritated gesture, Ned adjusted the brim. “Lord Harrow doesn’t allow me much time for brandy. How are your studies coming along?”

“Well enough, but I’m sure not nearly as exciting as what you’ve been cooking up. Don’t suppose you could give a hint?” Lowbry’s hearty laughter echoed along the street. A man and a woman crossing to the south side turned to look.

“Hardly.” Simon pulled his watch from his waistcoat pocket and ignored Ned’s exasperated frown.

“Oh. Nearly forgot.” Lowbry reached into his own breast pocket. “As you asked, I’ve been collecting your post for you, not that there’s been any. Until the day before yesterday, that is. Here. I’ve been carrying this around with me everywhere I go with the intention of sending it along to Harrowood. Just hadn’t gotten around to it yet. Sorry.”

He held out a rumpled letter, the direction on the front slightly smudged. Over Ned’s shoulder Simon tried to see where it had originated.
London
was all he could make out. A message from home, or from the queen?

Ned must have wondered the same, for her hand shook a little as she turned the missive over in her hand. The seal bore an unidentifiable indent in the shape of a rose.

“I’m meeting some of our mates at the Eagle Pub on Bene’t,” Mr. Lowbry said brightly. “Don’t suppose you’ve time to come along?”

Simon shook his head and set a hand on Ned’s shoulder. “We must be going.”

Ned’s half nod of agreement revealed a trace of regret. “Much obliged for the letter, Lowbry.”

“You’ll come visit one of these days, won’t you?”

Ned cast a doubtful look at Simon. “I’ll try. Thanks again.” She waved the letter in a farewell gesture.

As they walked back to the horses, she tore open the seal and squinted in the sunlight to peruse the contents. “Oh.” She sounded disappointed. “I’d hoped my sisters had forwarded a letter from Victoria.”

Simon, too, had hoped the queen had written to report that Gwendolyn had returned to the palace and that all was well. “It isn’t, then?”

“No, it’s from Holly. It contains news from our eldest sister, Laurel. I’ll read it later.” She folded the letter and slipped it inside her coat. “Still, it was fortunate running into Jasper Lowbry. A capital fellow.”

Simon shrugged. Feeling unaccountably sullen, he laced his fingers to once again offer her a boost up into the saddle.

She didn’t move to accept his assistance. “You were rather ill-mannered with him.”

“He took rather impertinent license with your person.”

Her face tilted. “That’s how they are at St. John’s. Friendly and boisterous. You should know. Weren’t you once a St. John’s man?”

“That was a long time ago. We weren’t nearly so infantile.” Hunching against a gust of wind that whipped round the stable yard, he silently acknowledged how much more his already disagreeable mood had soured. “Galileo’s teeth, I thought he’d crack one of your ribs.”

“It
is
proving rather dangerous to be a man, but you needn’t scowl so. Jasper did me no harm.”

He might have protested that his scowling had little if anything to do with Jasper Lowbry. Gwendolyn was missing, so far without a trace, but if not for Colin’s infernal, misguided meddling, she might at this very moment have been safe at home.

But Simon said nothing because, Colin and Gwendolyn aside, Ned had spoken true. He hadn’t at all liked seeing the young, good-looking Mr. Lowbry taking such liberties with her, nor did he relish her cheerful reciprocation. Had St. John’s men become so exuberant in their camaraderie, or did Jasper Lowbry perceive in Ned Ivers certain qualities his other mates lacked?

Simon’s pulse points throbbed. For a third time he joined his hands together. “Would you rather ride or walk back to Harrowood?”

She pursed her lips and set her bent knee into his palms. He lifted her up, then swung up into his own saddle and clucked the horses to a walk.

“Are you angry with me?”

He replied with a curt, “No.”

He was angry with himself, with his very nature. He had never been capable of doing anything halfway. His interest in the natural philosophies meant, not becoming the patron of a promising scientist, but rushing headlong into the laboratory himself and never fully emerging. When it came to marriage, he hadn’t chosen an attractive social equal with whom to beget heirs, but a woman outside his social realm who had shared his dreams and whose intellectual curiosity had matched—and sometimes exceeded—his own.

Galileo’s teeth, he had loved Aurelia. And God help him, it was happening all over again, with this woman.

“Lord Harrow . . . Simon?”

He rode on, refusing to answer, unable to even look at her, this female with the audacity to steal his heart and leave him so . . . damned naked. Up Trinity Street to St. John’s, he led her in steely silence, then along Thompson’s Lane and beyond, to where the fens sprawled on either side of Histon Road, stretching north out of the city.

The breeze here smelled of bog and grasses and peat, of lonely wilderness and untamable forces. Gripped by a sudden sense of futility, and by a twisting tangle of desperation and frustration, Simon snapped the reins above his gelding’s mane. Newton’s powerful flanks bunched for an instant, and then the Thoroughbred thrust forward into a canter.

He knew Butterfly would follow. For all the mare’s gentle disposition, she was no idler. Simon angled a glance over his shoulder at Ned’s startled expression. Was she frightened? Panicked? Should he stop?
Could
he, when every bone in his body craved breakneck speed, a bracing wind in his face, and the pounding thunder of hooves to drown out his unbidden and unwanted thoughts?

Ned’s sweet face was set and determined, her chin up, her gaze arrow sharp on the horizon. Good God, did anything frighten her? Was there anything she couldn’t gather the courage to face? Galileo’s teeth, how he wished he could borrow some of her pluck.

With a shout he increased their pace. The stone wall bordering the road tempted him to arc Newton over it, but he judged the jump too dangerous to risk. Not with Ned.

He waited until they reached an open cattle crossing to cut over the empty, endless fields. Then he gave Newton his head, and with Ned and Butterfly hard at his shoulder, the landscape blurred to streaks of russet and brown and gold.

 

Ivy had never felt so terrified ... or so exhilarated. Part of her wanted to beg Simon to slow their pace. . . . Another part wished to shout to go even faster. The ground and sky merged into a spectacular smear of color, vibrant and alive, an open expanse of sheer, dizzying heaven that she quickly discovered she trusted. Her fear of falling melted away as Butterfly’s sure footing conquered the terrain, as Simon’s subtle commands and his mount’s immediate obedience led them around boulders and shrubs and dangerously wet bottomlands.

Her knuckles white around the reins, her knees gripping Butterfly’s flanks until they trembled, Ivy felt powerful and free and splendid—more splendid than she’d ever felt before. She wished the ride would go on forever. Yet as Harrowood’s towers came into view, a different sensation filled her. One of deep disappointment, of knowing that soon they would be back among other people, and that she and Simon must resume the caution and pretense that had come to define their lives. Or at least
her
life. Since coming to Cambridge, Ivy had done little else but pretend.

Perhaps it was the elation of the ride, of wearing breeches and sitting astride her horse, that prompted a small rebellion. Swinging Butterfly off the graveled drive, she continued at a brisk trot through the towering pines.

“Where are you going?”

Ivy tossed her head and didn’t look back. “Follow and find out.”

In truth she hadn’t the faintest idea, only that she intended circling the house and gardens until she reached the riding paths that wound through the forested acreage beyond. Simon shadowed her, and it wasn’t until they reached a long-neglected Grecian folly with Ionic columns, a domed roof, and shoots of ivy clinging to the cracked walls that she realized what she sought.

She and Simon had passed by here previously during their evening rides. The folly stood beside a pond that Simon had told her had once been stocked with colorful koi fish but was now half dry and choked with mud. There was a stream with a crumbling arched bridge, marble benches blanketed in moss, and straggly flower beds long since abandoned to weeds. This garden had been too far from the house to allow his infirm wife access to it, and so had been left to ruin.

Ivy brought Butterfly to a halt and dismounted. Simon remained in his saddle. “Why are we here?”

Ivy tipped her face up to meet his gaze. “Because I believe a respite will do us both good. That ride—why did you race so across the fens?”

He swung a leg over his horse’s neck and leaped nimbly to the ground. “I’m sorry about that. I—”

“I’m not seeking an apology. I thank you for that gallop. What I want is to know
why
you did it. Was it because you were angry?”

“Angry . . . Yes, I suppose I was.” The fisting of his right hand told her his ire hadn’t completely left him. “But I don’t see how this place will—”

“It is a place that provokes no memories, or relies on any artifice,” she said, realizing immediately the irony of her claim. According to Simon, this garden had been designed generations ago; of course there were memories associated with it, just not ones with any power over him. Meanwhile the notion that a Grecian folly should hold no artifice was so ludicrous that she grinned. What she had meant was that here
she
need not resort to artifice.

“Here, we might both breathe easier, speak freely, and indulge in the privilege of being
ourselves
.” Leaving Butterfly to graze, Ivy picked her way along the uneven, root-strewn ground to where Simon continued to hover at his horse’s side. She stopped a few feet away, holding out her hand and letting Newton nuzzle her palm. “Isn’t it a relief?”

He didn’t answer. Instead he took a silent step closer and reached out a hand to cup her cheek. Then she was in his arms, their lips pressed together. Had he seized her mouth, or had she reached up to him? Did it matter?

 

In the dewy shade of the overgrown willows and the shadow cast by the folly, Simon thought of nothing but how good she felt, how sweet she tasted.

When he finally pulled back to drag in a breath, his eyes opened to behold countless questions burning in her gaze, each one dragging him back to the reality he had been so determined to avoid. He hadn’t asked for this rising, irresistible passion that emptied his brain of logic. Confound it, he had wanted an assistant, nothing more. How dare fate laugh at him this way?

“Simon . . . this isn’t what I meant. Surely we mustn’t ...” But instead of a command or even an appeal, Ned’s assertion emerged as a drowning capitulation to the inevitable.

He pulled her close again and devoured her mouth. He held nothing back, showed her no mercy, and sought none for himself. Caught in a mad flurry of desire, he kissed her, and was kissed, until she gripped his wrists and pulled his hands from the sides of her face.

Her bosom rose and fell, and a new fierceness lit her eyes. “Has it not occurred to you that I might have as much reason as you to wish to avoid this?”

He threw back his head on a burst of soft laughter. Sobering abruptly, he dipped his head and drew her bottom lip between his teeth. When he released it, it glistened, as red as a juicy pomegranate. “Then say
no
. One of us needs to.”