Amanda Scott (7 page)

“Simon,” she said a little breathlessly, “whatever else you may believe of me, you cannot truly have believed I was trifling with Rory. What he had to say to me in the Double Cube room was of a private nature or I would explain the whole to you, but I assure—”

“I have no wish to discuss that incident further,” he said, his voice low, a near growl. “What I said to you on that account that evening I have no wish or reason to retract. Your behavior—aye, and his—lent credence to the worst the busybody tabbies may wish to believe of you, and that is why I was angry. This passion you have for flirting—”

“Well, and what if I have? Lots of women flirt, and many of them carry matters a good deal further than that. If I have been accused of flirting, at least no one of sense has actually accused me of more. And why is flirting so dreadful? Men do more—certainly you have done more—and no one so much as lifts an eyebrow in disapprobation.”

“
I’ve
done more?” They were glaring at each other now, standing on opposite sides of the floral carpet, Diana near the bed and Simon still near the door. He took a step toward her. “Just what the devil do you mean by that remark?” he demanded.

“You know perfectly well what I mean,” she told him recklessly. “Why, if the streets of London are not littered with your cast-off women, then the road to Paris certainly is!”

He had taken another step even as she spoke, but he paused now, regarding her with astonishment. “Where on earth did you come by such a crazy notion? Diana, you cannot possibly believe that nonsense.”

She didn’t. Not really. But she wanted to hear him deny the accusation. “Why should I not believe such stuff, sir? You certainly had a reputation for charm before we were married, and I have seen the way too many women look at you even now, as though they know you intimately. And your behavior, let me tell you, does nothing to put them off.”

“You’re all about in your head. I haven’t so much as looked at another woman since I met you. You’re imagining things.”

“Rubbish, sir. You flirt constantly, and you know it.” But she was reassured, and a warm glow filled her. She knew he meant the words he spoke, that he honestly believed them. His flirtations were as natural to him as breathing. But if it annoyed him to watch her flirt, then he must learn to recognize the fault in himself. Still, she was sorry when he turned from her to light the ready-laid fire in the little fireplace. She had seen the glint of anger in his eyes and knew he had no liking at all for this particular argument.

Suddenly, watching him as he knelt down upon one knee setting a taper from the chimneypiece to the paper in the fireplace, she felt tired, lonely, and a little sad. Simon looked worn to the bone. His very posture spoke volumes. She moved to stand beside him, resting her hand first upon the soft bronze hair and then upon his shoulder.

“Simon,” she said quietly, “I’m sorry, my lord.”

“We could deal together better than this, sweetheart.” Flames burst forth in the fireplace just then, consuming paper and small kindling, gaining energy to attack the logs above. Simon turned his head to look up at her. “What say we call a truce in this war of ours?”

She knelt beside him, her hand moving from his shoulder down the lapel of his jacket and then to the buttons of his waistcoat. Playing with the top button, she murmured, “It was just too much, you know, to think you would believe such a thing of me as that I would betray you with your own brother.”

He caught her small hand in his and gave it a hard squeeze. “I may have exaggerated my beliefs, sweetheart, in the heat of the moment.”

Though his words could scarcely be construed as an apology, she knew they would have to do. He was unlikely to say more. So when he pulled her to her feet and guided her toward the bed, she made no objection, merely giving her thoughts up to anticipation of what was to come. One aspect at least of their marriage brought her nothing but delight. When Simon held her in his arms, she could forget the other, more distressing aspects, and when he was not by to hold her, her bed seemed much too large for one small person.

Now, as he helped her to take off her dress, then moved to rid himself of his own clothing, she watched him in the light from the flickering fire and the glow of candles on the dressing table and chimneypiece. The muscles in his back rippled as he pulled off his shirt, tossing it onto a nearby chair. His boots presented a slight problem since he was not accustomed to removing them by himself, but she helped, and between them, they managed to pull them off without doing more than smudging their glossy surface.

Simon chuckled ruefully. “Pettyjohn will have a fit,” he said, referring to his toplofty valet.

“Did you send him on to the abbey?”

“Aye, and young Marlie and that awesome Miss Floodlind of yours, along with Forsham, who will see to it that my phaeton and the hunters get there safely, as well. I brought only Fairburn to arrange accommodations on the road for us if we had need of them. I daresay we shan’t. I had thought at first to go straight on today and rack up at Marlborough. But even if we travel slowly, we ought to make Bath easily enough by suppertime tomorrow and Alderwood soon after dark. Are you quite ready for bed, Diana mine?”

In answer she lifted her arms and slid them around his neck, breathing in the familiar scent of him, feeling a tingle when the tips of her breasts touched his bare skin. She leaned against him, savoring the moment, then let out a sigh of pleasure as his hands moved down her sides, tracing the curves of her body as though he would refresh his memory after two nights without her.

He bent his head to press his lips against her hair, murmuring, “I missed you these past nights, sweetheart.”

“I never sent you away, sir,” she whispered. “You just didn’t come to me.”

His hands tightened at her waist, and she feared for a moment that she had succeeded in arousing his anger again. But a moment later he lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed.

Diana felt warm inside, and as he began to caress her, finding first one then another of the most sensitive parts of her body, the warmth grew until every fiber of her seemed to ache for him. She decided he was toying with her, even perhaps punishing her a little, but she had learned over the months just how to tantalize him in much the same way, and so now she exerted herself until he was groaning with the attempt to restrain the heat of his passion. Suddenly, he moved over her, taking her swiftly, but she was ready for him, and the culmination of their efforts came in long waves of pleasure.

“I thought you were suffering from exhaustion, sir,” she said demurely a moment or two later as she lay within the shelter of his arm, her head resting in the curve of his shoulder.

“And so I am,” he retorted, “and all these sirs of yours sit mighty unnaturally upon your lips, I’m thinking.”

She chuckled. “At the moment I’m feeling submissive, my lord, but the attack will pass, I daresay.”

He grunted, but the sound was a contented one. They lay quietly then, not speaking, until Diana knew by his even breathing that Simon had drifted into sleep. Lying there beside him, she was unaccountably reminded of their first night together.

After all the excitement and festivity of the wedding, held at Trent House in Grosvenor Square, it had come as a shock to find herself suddenly and completely alone with Simon in his own house in Duke Street. But Simon had been so loving, so gentle, so careful of her sensibilities—She nearly chuckled aloud at the last thought. She could scarcely have laid claim, even then, to many sensibilities, only to a vast curiosity. And Simon’s first touch had sent veritable flames racing through her body.

Not that their first experience had been altogether successful, she remembered, smiling. One might even have described certain moments as awkward and others as definitely painful. But the pain had passed and the awkwardness had diminished in time until they had learned how best to please each other. And the fact that Simon had truly set himself to please her was one of the things she liked best about him. He still made the effort—in bed, at least. But in other ways, their relationship had deteriorated drastically.

Why, she wondered now, staring into the glowing coals of the dying fire, had they fallen out of love? For surely, despite anything Lydia might say or anything that might pass between them in bed, they no longer truly loved each other. The mighty flame of passion that had burned so brightly between them almost from the moment of first meeting had gone out. At best there was little more left than coals like those smoldering now in the little fireplace. Perhaps they had tumbled so quickly into love that it was merely a surface thing that had consumed itself.

If the love between them had not died, then how could Simon treat her as he did now? He had not been used to scold her for every little thing she did. And she! Diana squirmed, thinking of some of the things she had done in the past months, things she had said, belittling things, things meant to hurt and ridicule him, even before his friends. Once, after three glasses of champagne, she had even told the tale of Simon’s first kiss, of how he had practically dragged a young cousin into the folly at Alderwood. She had made it sound as though he had attacked the poor girl, and she had quite neglected to mention that Simon had been ten and the cousin eight at the time.

She had not done anything quite so reprehensible since, but she could not honestly deny the fact that she had done things she ought not to have done. Nor could she deny flirting, even with Lord Roderick Warrington. Rory was quite as much fun to flirt with as any other man, and perfectly harmless, of course, though Simon could scarcely be blamed for thinking otherwise. He did not realize that his twin was tail over top in love with the beautiful Mademoiselle Sophie Beléchappé.

Just before Simon’s untimely entrance into the Double Cube room at Wilton, Rory had been confiding his fears to Diana that the lovely Sophie’s beauty was being exploited by her detestable brother, the Vidame de Lâche, in his peacetime efforts to regain possession of the family château. De Lâche had recently sent for both his mother and sister, Rory told her, to spend Christmas at Versailles, where he was pleading his case with the First Counsul. Why else, Rory had demanded to know, would de Lâche, a scoundrel if ever he’d known one, wish for his sister’s presence, if not to use her beauty and innocence to achieve his own ends? Poor Sophie was defenseless, he had added, because the comte, a victim of the gout, had been unable to accompany her, and madame la comtesse, though quite a grand lady, would be no match for her unscrupulous son.

Thinking the matter over as she lay now beside the gently snoring Simon, Diana was conscious of a wish that she could tell him the whole. He still believed his brother to be a competitor for her affections, and until his jealousies could be laid to rest, she was certain the road ahead of them would be a stormy one.

On the other hand, she told herself, her flirtations were perfectly harmless, as were her so-called escapades in general. Simon was merely attempting to force her into the sort of submission he believed proper for the future Marchioness of Marimorse to show her husband.

He must be taught that she was made of sterner stuff. After all, he had fallen in love with an independent Diana, one as unaccustomed as he was himself to having her will crossed. And she had fallen in love with a man who had seemed at the outset content to love her as she was. But then he had begun to try to change her to suit some patterncard he had designed for his wife.

If she were to allow him to effect all the changes he seemed to want, neither one of them would ever be happy. Better that she remain true to herself. He would not divorce her, after all. Such a course was scarcely heard of among their set. So they would be stuck with each other for many years to come. With this last thought lingering, she slipped out of the circle of his arm, pushed him hard enough to make him roll over, so as to stop his snoring, then curled up against the warmth of his back, where she quickly fell asleep.

Simon woke her early the next morning. “Bustle about, sweetheart. The chaise will be at the door in an hour and a half.”

She stretched, regarding him sleepily. “What time is it?”

“Nearly half past seven.”

Diana groaned. “I’ve rarely been up before midday in months, Simon. Surely we needn’t leave before ten.”

“You were asleep before midnight, my girl, and you have managed to be up before, early enough for the occasional hunt breakfast at half past nine.”

“Oh, Simon, you know perfectly well that whenever breakfast is ordered for half past nine, the servants know better than to set anything out before ten or even eleven o’clock, and the hunt scarcely ever begins before noon even in the most well-appointed houses, no matter what good intentions everyone expresses the night before.”

He chuckled, admitting the truth of her words. “But that doesn’t matter today, Diana mine. I nearly wore that team out yesterday, and I’ve no wish to injure any of them, so today we travel by easy stages.”

“You could hire a team in Marlborough and send someone back for yours later,” she pointed out.

“I could, if I wished to do so. If this were spring or summer, I’d even have my own cattle stabled there with my own lads to look after them. But it is winter, and I’ve no great opinion of the stables, even at the Castle, and I’ve no one to leave with them. We’ve plenty of time to travel slowly if we get an early start. So, up you get. I’ve already rung for a maid.”

Diana sighed. Behold the master, she thought. But now that she was wide awake, she had no real objection of getting up and getting dressed. She noticed that Simon was already fully clothed and decided he had been up for an hour or more. He wore his buckskins again and the dark brown jacket, but they had been brushed and pressed, and his topboots seemed none the worse for their smudging but were as glossy as ever. His shirt and neckcloth were fresh, both snowy white and the latter neatly tied, although Rory, who was more of a dandy than his twin, would no doubt have scorned its simple arrangement.