Three Weddings and a Murder (27 page)

And then his parents had found out they’d been seeing each other in secret.

Ginny sighed and shook her head, pushing away those old memories. He was too old to be disciplined by his father now. Simon was watching her carefully, as if no time at all had passed since their clandestine meetings so many years ago. They came up under the oak and stopped, turning to one another.

The leaves were the light green of spring. Everything was different from the day of their summer kiss all those years ago. Almost everything—there was still that sense of charged expectation, that tingling in the palms of her hands.

She had to say something. “You never did become a barrister.”

He shrugged. “Ginny, I’m rude and arrogant. Half the time, I forget myself and curse, and never mind the company. Do you know what would happen if I did that before a judge?”

She couldn’t help herself; she smiled.

“Besides, my father would have expected me to work with him, and after what happened with you…”

“He wasn’t wrong.”

“Devil that,” Simon muttered.

“Your father was right,” Ginny repeated. “When I knew you would be destitute, I told you I was marrying another man. A
wealthy
man. You can’t argue with that, Simon. It’s a fact.”

Telling Simon he couldn’t argue with something was, she remembered, an exercise in futility. He could argue with a deaf chicken. But this time, even though he glowered, he managed not to say anything back. Finally, he looked heavenward and tried something else. “So. How did marriage suit you?”

“He was a good man,” she told him.

“Old, though.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Thirty-three when I married him. Were it not for his heart, he would still be alive.”

He looked up once more. “God help me for asking this, but…he treated you well?”

Ginny sighed. “He did. He was a good companion.”

His voice lowered. “Was he anything else?”

“If he’d wanted a chaperone,” she said tersely, “he surely would have advertised for one. I was his wife. In every way. And one cannot spend seven years with a man, through sickness and health, without coming to care for him. He was a good friend. He didn’t ask for my love when we married, but he needed my loyalty. You know what his nearest relations were like.”

Simon scowled and kicked up leaves underfoot. “Lovely,” he said.

“But then, that is not what you were asking. What you really want to know was whether I missed you. And I missed you every single day. I tried not to—I didn’t want to be unfaithful in my marriage, even if it was only inside my skin. Nonetheless, on the days when I didn’t think your name, there was an unfillable void inside me. I kept hoping that you would marry so that I would know that what had been between us was over and done. But you didn’t. I went on for years, trying not to think of you.”

He didn’t say anything at all. But he reached out and took her hand, pulling her to him. Her heart pounded heavily in her chest.

“So there you are,” she said, as calmly as she could manage. “That’s the first part of your promise, already come true. I can’t make myself regret those years. But I regret your absence more than you can ever know.”

He was holding her, but he didn’t look at her. Instead, he examined the leaves above them. “I’m going to seduce you today,” he announced.

The game had never had this edge before—this crackling sense of both bitterness and arousal. But no matter how quickly her pulse beat, Ginny made herself speak calmly. “I thought you had granted yourself three days for that. Accelerating the schedule, are you?”

He frowned up at the branches. “No. I need that last day to stomp on your bleeding heart. Don’t forget that.”

“Of course. You need time to properly revel in my abject misery.”

He should have agreed.

Instead, he reached out and laid his fingertips against her cheek. She knew what he’d claimed at the beginning. But what she saw in his eyes…

Simon never did anything by halves. He brought every bit of his bristling, awkward intensity to any task worth doing. And now, he ran his fingers lightly along the curve of her face.

“Come here, Ginny,” he said in a low, laughing tone, “and let me kiss you.”

Her breath seemed too hot for her lungs. His hand left a trail of sparks along her face. She took one step forward, and that was enough for him. His mouth sought hers. She had a moment—so small—to savor the smell of him, before his lips came down on hers and drove all other thoughts away.

There was only Ginny and Simon, and a kiss that had been seven years in the making.

The last time they’d kissed, they’d both been virgins. Eager, willing, lustful virgins, yes—but virgins nonetheless. Even their most heated kisses had been innocent.

There was nothing innocent about the way Simon touched her now. He set his hand in the curve of her spine and pulled her forward until her skirts molded against his legs. He slid his fingers down, down, until he cupped her buttocks, and then he leaned into her and nipped her lower lip.

Ginny let out a gasp, but no sooner had she opened her mouth then his tongue met hers, tasting her, taking her.

He knew just how to touch her this time—one hand pressing her body flush against his, the other drifting up her ribs to settle against the side of her breast, a warm weight not so much giving her pleasure as promising that it was certain to come.

This was a man who knew what he wanted. This was a man who knew what
she
wanted. And yet there was still a rough edge of irascibility in his kiss. He held her just a fraction too tightly; he scarcely let her breathe. She could almost sense him exulting in her shivers.
See,
his kiss seemed to say,
this is what you missed, all those years
.

She’d missed it dreadfully. She’d missed
him
.

He deepened their kiss, pressing her against the trunk of the oak. Bark met her back; he leaned the weight of his body against her and then kissed his way down her jaw. His fingers, cupping her breast, made little circles. And his form… God, he was a delight, slim and yet muscular. The hard ridge of his erection pushed against her.

“God, Ginny,” he growled against her skin.

She put her hand on his chest and pushed him away—only an inch, but enough to let the cool air flow over her skin, enough to take a deep breath, to try to cleanse her whirling thoughts.

“Don’t even argue,” he said. “I’m having you in my bed tonight.”

She could scarcely think. She was certain—almost certain—that his claims of stomping on her heart were pure balderdash. He had really only ever seemed brash and arrogant on the outside. But she knew him. The more he swaggered, the more uncertain he was feeling.

And the truth was, he had the power to stomp on her heart even if she
didn’t
take him to bed. She’d proven that to herself seven years ago.

Maybe she
was
mad. Maybe she was lonely. Maybe it was simply that she couldn’t imagine that a man who had made cuff links in her honor four years past would ever hurt her. She gave him her most brilliant smile. “If you have just forty-eight hours to seduce me, we had better spend as much time as we can in bed.”

B
Y THE TIME SIMON
crashed through the front door of her house, he was wild with desire.

He didn’t care who saw them—he only knew he wanted her, and he was finally going to have her.

But she conducted him into the front parlor where they’d had tea before. Somehow, she managed to look untouched by lust. Only the sparkle in her eyes and the rough redness of her lips where he’d kissed her gave any hint that she had said they would go to bed.

Would it be churlish to demand that they make their way there now?

She walked to the window and looked out at the tulips. Half the field was denuded now; another wagon was being driven away. She shook her head sadly.

He should have comforted her. He should have reassured her. But truth was, he had nothing to reassure her with. Instead he crossed to the door behind her and locked it.

She must have heard the sound of the key turning, because she smiled. She didn’t protest or turn to him. She drew the curtains, hiding the disappearing flowers behind folds of crepe. And then, slowly, she turned to look at him.

They were both still fully clothed, and yet he felt flushed and exposed.
Do this right,
his better self admonished. But the rest of his body thrummed in an insistent counterpoint:
Do this now.

He closed the distance between them, but she touched him first—setting her hands on his face and pulling him down to her. If there was any more powerful aphrodisiac than the fact that she wanted him, it was her scent, that subtle indefinable sweetness that marked her out among all other women. He kissed her, hard.

Her mouth opened to his with a practiced fluidity. Their kisses had stopped being just kisses; they were promises now, initial payments made on expectation. Her lips bruised his. And her hands on his jaw unleashed a deep-seated hunger: not just for sex, but for her. He felt as if he’d been famished all his life, and had been dropped in the midst of a feast. He wasn’t sure what to try first.

And he wasn’t alone. She undid the buttons of his coat, and then slid her hands around his waist.

It had never been like this when they were younger. He’d wanted her, of course, but her innocence had made her shy, and his had made him awkward. More awkward, at any rate.

There was no shyness in her now. She knew what her body was for, and what a man might do for her. When he slid his hand up her ribs, she sighed and turned her head. When his palm cupped her breast, she exhaled and kissed him harder.

She melted into him as he slipped his thumb beneath her neckline, sliding between her skin and her corset. He found the hardened tip of her nipple, and shivered at that simple, undeniable proof of her arousal. He rolled that nub between his fingers, and she let out a shuddering sigh, pushing against him.

Somehow, over the years, she’d grown comfortable with her own body, with her own pleasure. He wasn’t going to think about how that had happened. It was all the better for him. For
them
.

For now, he kissed her. Lust built between them, sure and steady, stoked by touch after steady touch. Her hips pressed against his. The curve of her waist fitted into his palm. She belonged there, her legs between his, her arms around him. He wanted it all—the gasp she let out, the tilt of her chin.

God. This should have been his—all his—these past years.

He pulled away from her, but only so that he could reach around to undo her gown. It was held together in back with little hooks and eyes.

“You do that awfully well,” she murmured.

“Hmm?”

“Undoing the back of my gown without looking at what you’re seeing.”

“Do you suppose I was celibate all these years?”

She shook her head.

He’d only been celibate this last year, once he’d heard her husband had died. “I’ve done this before. Often enough that I’ve learned how to take a woman apart.”

Her eyes shivered shut. “Oh, you could do that back then, too.”

“I was referring to your clothing. I didn’t get to do that. Just your stockings, that one time.”

“Mmm.” The last little clasp gave way, and he slid her gown down her shoulders. Her corset was fastened in the back; he undid the laces, and pulled it out of the way. “There we are.” Her chemise clung to her skin, outlining full, sweet breasts. He could see the dark hint of her nipples through the sheer cloth.

He’d never seen her naked. They’d kissed—and more—but they’d stayed on the frustrating side of chaste. Her doing, really; he’d certainly made no great efforts on that front. For all her talk of being a mad Barrett, she’d always been the practical one.

The most he’d managed to see was her legs, and once—on that memorable occasion when he’d removed a stocking—her thighs. Now he wanted everything. Not just her sex, slick and waiting for him, but her breasts, her buttocks, the dimple of her navel, the curve of her spine. He wanted to taste her all over.

And then, as if she knew how best to torment him, she pulled her shift over her head, and let it fall atop the rest of her clothing. His mouth dried. Her nipples were erect; he leaned forward and traced a finger lightly in a circle around one.

She was even more beautiful than he’d imagined. His hand cupped her hip, exploring the curve of her body. The triangle of dark, coarse hair between her legs begged to be touched. Tasted. By dint of pure will, he managed to hold himself back.

“This is some kind of diabolical plan on your part,” he said. “To drive me mad with lust, and then walk away, leaving me in dire pain.”

“Wouldn’t that be perfect?” she responded with a smile. Her eyes shivered shut as he played his fingers up her ribs. “You’ve said that you’ll seduce me and stomp on my heart. Instead, I bring you to the point of begging. Then I walk away, declaring myself the victor.”

His heart almost stopped beating. “Are you going to do that?”

She looked up to the ceiling. “Oh, I’m sure I will,” she said, with an air of unconcern that was rather belied by the flush in her cheeks. “That would be an excellent dastardly plan for me. But it’s all too easy to thwart. You could drive me so mad with desire that I forget to deny you.”