by Thea Devine
But what had she expected? She had treated him badly those many years ago, and had not been all that cordial at the dinner table the week before, truth to tell.
And old memories died hard, as she herself knew. And age did not always confer wisdom nor time salve over old wounds.
"Stirring up soup," she said lightly.
"Well, exactly," Lady Apperson said.
"Nonetheless, sometimes a man needs dessert," Corinna murmured.
Oh, but did she really mean that? She wanted no attachments, not yet. Why was she feeling so prickly about the whole thing? She had no claims on Simon, none at all, except that of an old friend.
A dear old friend.
So why was she thinking about him so much? Why was her mind so occupied by her first breathtaking view of him that night, before she knew who he was, when a man could be perfection in the eye of the beholder, and all things were possible?
She shook off her restiveness. Simon ought to have called on her. It was excessively bad of him not to have called. She didn't deserve that, even if she had refused to marry him.
"A man must calculate the ingredients," Lady Apperson went on, "make sure everything is… symmetrical."
"Indeed, a man doesn't like rough edges, or uneven pieces," Corinna mused. "Anything he chooses must be the freshest available, nothing old, stale, soggy or misshapen for him. I quite see how it is with Simon. He must definitely tend his soup to obtain the best result. And you have the right of it: it is never too soon to start once a man makes up his mind."
So there. That was all there was to it: Simon was worlds too busy to attend to old friends. She would see him now and again at a musicale, a dinner party, at Almack's eventually, should she secure a voucher, and it would be the same as it had at Lady Apperson's dinner: badinage overriding bad feelings that simmered beneath nonetheless.
Fine. Put Simon out of your mind.
"Oh, this season promises to be the best in recent memory," Lady Apperson went on gleefully. "It will be so much fun to watch Simon brought to his knees."
And that was an image that positively possessed her. Simon on his knees. The Simon of the broad shoulders and well-turned leg who was the darling of the ton. The worldly, weathered and wealthy Simon who reeked of danger and sensuality. The one who made virginal hearts flutter and who was as elusive as the wind.
That Simon.
Corinna was hearing a lot about that Simon as Woodholme's old friends began to call. Too much about that Simon, she was beginning to think.
He was a flirt and a tease. He had a look in his eyes that no woman could resist. His kisses were so treasured that whomever he had kissed never told, for he valued discretion above anything.
Ha! Corinna thought agitatedly, she could tell them all about Simon's boyhood and fumbling kisses, and many other things. But she wouldn't stoop that low.
When had Simon become such a lover?
STOP IT!
He was the talk of the town.
"A very stable man in the matter of running his estates, Corinna," another caller confided. "You never would have guessed it would be so, all those years ago. Put everything on a profitable footing not two years ago, he did. His father almost wasted it all away. Would that he had lived to see how successfully Simon recouped all he lost."
"Truly," Corrina said dutifully. "He would have been so proud." He would have gotten in the way more likely, a man who was stuffed with his own importance, so certain his way was the right way, and who never listened to anyone's advice. Poor Simon.
Not so poor now…
"And then," another caller told her, "there were a good half dozen young things who thought he might offer for them last year. Elusive is not the word for him. He got out of all of that with a wink and smile, and somehow everyone still thinks highly of him. Well, they will be right back in the fray this year, wading through the new crop of showy flowers vying for his attention. My lady, I must say, you are well out of all of that."
"Indeed I am," Corinna agreed. Here was the exact right person to spread her message. "I would not be in their shoes for any money. I have had my turn; I want for no more—my marriage was full, loving and Woodholme was the best companion in the world. I shall never find his like in this life again. And I am determined to honor his memory in that way."
There. Lavinia Linley would tell everyone now—Corinna was not looking for a husband. She would be content to sit on the sidelines, secure in the fond remembrances of her deceased husband.
Was that clear to Lavinia?
"You are exactly right, my lady. You would be hard put to find a man as fine and noble as was Woodholme. So you thinking only to… ?"
Perfect. Lavinia would relay this entire conversation in all the right quarters. "To resettle myself in London, and partake of the season's entertainments from the vantage point of a woman who is past her first blush, and seeks nothing more than to reacquaint herself with old friends and make a new life here. Nothing more."
"Of course," Lavinia said suddenly, "someone did mention that your father and Simon's had had some agreement that you two would wed all those years ago."
Crunch… Corinna felt like someone had squeezed her heart. This of course was the true reason for Lavinia's visit, then. "Did they?" she murmured. "How very odd. Why ever would anyone talk about that when everyone knows Simon is looking for a wife?"
"Well. You were to have been…"
"My dear Lavinia—no one was to have been anything. How young were we at the time? Our fathers cooked up this notion. Nothing ever happened. Who would even remember it after all these years?"
"You," Lavinia said pointedly.
"Well, of course I would. But why would you?" Oh, that was rude, and bordering on something even more violent. And she had wanted so much for Lavinia to be on her side in the matter of her expressed intentions.
"It wasn't me," Lavinia said righteously. "It was mentioned in passing only."
"And away like the wind, I hope."
"The merest breath of a mention, and of course, no one will ever hear a word about it from me."
"Thank you, Lavinia. And I truly appreciate your apprising me of it. It is good to be aware of what people are saying."
"Exactly," Lavinia said, as she made ready to take her leave. Corinna could see her already making a mental list of everything they had discussed, everything she would share with her next best friend in absolute confidence.
So be it. She could share the moon, for all Corinna cared. Lavinia probably would. But it still would not be enough to make Simon come.
The next event was a card party—for about fifty—or perhaps a hundred—of Lord Baiter's best friends, with tables set up all around the lower floor of his commodious townhouse in Belgrave Square.
There were a half dozen games of whist, several more of vingt-et-un, and faro in the upper hallway… and Corinna couldn't decide which or whether to partake of the play, as she wandered through the crowd dressed in the mauve silk which Fanny had insisted upon because, "it will be such a crush that in the end you will be happy you are wearing something light as air."
Fanny was right in that: within the hour, the atmosphere had become constricted from the warmth of so many bodies milling around in a fairly limited space.
But more than that, it was Simon who fanned the heat in the room, striding in as if he owned the world, utterly commanding everyone's attention, and then making himself agreeable to whatever young lady was nearest to hand, propelled by mothers who wanted to get a foot in the door before the season went into full swing.
Corinna eyed them all with some skepticism. It was easy to see which of them had any backbone at all, and which would be lumps of clay.
Simon needed a woman with a spine, and these chits were hardly women anyway, with no strength of will at all, and barely any conversation except to say yes and no, and do you think so my lord?
Corinna shuddered. She was never that young, she could not have been. And watching this display, she was c
oming to think that the absence of a mother had been a prime contributor to her becoming a person with some character and decisiveness.
Surely Simon was aware of all that—but watching him, as young ladies in yellow and blue flower dresses fawned over him, she wasn't certain that any man didn't need someone to point out the proper direction when his mind was so befuddled, he was drowning in his own soup.
It made perfect sense. And she could posit that to him, did he but desire to continue their childhood friendship and call upon her, which he already should have properly done.
Truly. It had nothing to do with his shoulders or the look in his eyes.
Nevertheless, she found she did not like watching him escort this and that flittering young thing to the various tables to view the play and discuss the finer points of vingt-et-un.
There was thankfully a welcome distraction in that dinner was served as well, which provided an opportunity for less frenetic conversation; there was also lively wagering at the tables, and on the side, about Simon and who he would spend the most time with this night, and what her chances were of engaging him to that extent at the next party.
It made Corinna grit her teeth. Even here, Simon was the one whispered about, speculated about, and watched covertly as he went from room to room, spending his charm like silver coins among the sweet and simpering.
Thank heaven there weren't that many. A half dozen of them, perhaps, to whom he devoted his attention equally. Escorting one into the dining room, getting another something to drink, having a bit of conversation with the third… she had to admit he did it handsomely, with a kind of irresistible air of rakish charm that, if one looked closely, one might perceive was coated in irony.
Surely the insipidity must be wearing. Surely a few moments with a dear old friend would be welcome.
She wished it weren't so, that he would approach her, but apart from acknowledging her presence in passing when she arrived, it was quite obvious that was not going to happen.
He looked so good to her. And he was a known commodity.
Maybe.
She considered him for a moment as he came toward one of the butterflies with a glass of ratafia.
She knew him. They had been neighbors, they'd consorted together for as long as she could remember. He was older than she, and he had been like a brother to her, teaching her to ride, to dance, to do her sums, to mind her manners. To kiss.
She'd practiced her incipient feminine wiles on him, and he had never let her get away with a thing. He'd been indulgent and strict, and it had never occurred to her as she was growing up that he might want her as a wife. Or that her father and his were conspiring to make it so.
And when it was broached, she found it inconceivable. He was her friend, her confidant, her brother. He had never touched her, only kissed her on the lips in that respectful, seeking way of a new lover, that aroused nothing in her breast, and then, he never kissed her as often as she might wish, and most times on the cheek or forehead.
The whole thing was, she could never see Simon Charlesworh as her fantasy husband, and she hadn't wanted his kisses or his hand in marriage. And he had to have known it. She'd been so certain at the time that it was plain as pudding.
And so she had pursued what she wanted, a wealthy worldly much older man, and had spent two contented years with him in an affectionate, loving, instructional marriage that, while it lacked a certain glorious excitement, provided her with all the other things she thought she had wanted.
What had she mourned when Woodholme died? Companionship. A presence in her life. A wise advisor. A guiding hand.
And so, after five years, a feeling of abandonment, a consuming loneliness, and a massive waste of time filling up her life with meaningless and useless flirtations, she had come home… to what, she hadn't known, until the Apperson's dinner party.
At which point, she had veered utterly off-balance. And watching Simon now, she felt that transcending moment of anticipation wash over her again.
It mattered not that he sought a wife; he was still the anchor of her childhood and her former life, and she needed him—now.
But it wouldn't do to approach him. That was the most frustrating part… the proscribed dance between a man and a woman. She must not look like she was in pursuit, especially because her reputation had preceded her.
No, she must mind her manners, and she must wait until he came to her. So the only thing she could do was to engage in a game of cards, which supposedly was the purpose of her attendance at this party in the first place, and so, having decided that, she moved toward a table that was just disbanding.
Someone set a fresh deck of cards on the table, and someone behind her pulled out her chair, and when she turned to say thank you, she saw it was Simon and he was taking his place beside her as a fourth.
He raised an eyebrow. "Don't lead out of turn, Corinna. Lady Baiter and I are to partner. I believe you are acquainted with Mr. Talvaney?"
She wasn't, but she acknowledged him in her flirtatious way, and Lady Baiter, who had just joined the table.
"I believe Talvaney has the deal," Lady Baiter said. "Call the play, if you would."
"Short," Mr. Talvaney said and began dealing the cards, the first to Simon, until all were gone but the last, which he laid face up on the table.
From then on, the play became intense, terse and tight; it immediately became obvious that she and Simon were pitted against each other, and neither would give over.
"Misdeal," Simon said at one point.
"Misdeal?" Corinna murmured, deliberately, to provoke him.
"New deal," Talvaney interpolated.
"Revoke," Simon said.
"Misspoke?" Corinna queried.
"Abandon hands," Talvaney said sternly, tossing his cards face up on the table. Lady Baiter followed suit.
"Abandon plans?" Simon said lightly. "Yes, I'm conversant with that maneuver—not a sophisticated play, that. Leaves a man hanging in the wind. What were you saying, Talvaney?"
Talvaney cleared his throat. "New deal, Simon."
Simon shot a look at Corinna. "Is it?"
"Only the cards liable to be called," Corinna said softly, "which seem not to be the ones I ever hold."
"Cut the pack," Talvaney said dampeningly.
Simon cut. "We will play out the hand," he said, his dark and lively gaze fixed on Corinna.
"Will we?" she murmured, taking up her cards.
The trump card was laid on the table, and honors were called: two for three, four for four, and the game began in earnest.
"We have made book," Talvaney announced after ten minutes of intense play.
"We seem to mesh excellently well—in cards," Corinna said. "The remaining six points will flow to us as simple as syrup."
"I think not, my lady," Simon said resolutely. "Lady Baiter and I are but one trick short of book, and closing in fast."
A moment later, he took the next trick and murmured, "And now we are even."
"Oh, I think not," Corinna said sweetly, as she took the deal. "Don't be so eager, Simon. One wouldn't know what to think."
"But I know what to think," he retorted, "we are adversaries, after all," and he aggressively led with an ace.
"Oh, I am in the soup now," Corinna moaned theatrically, and the play turned almost cutthroat from that moment, to the point where other guests began to gather around to watch and wagering began, sotto voce, as to which partners would make the seven points first.
Simon felt brazen; Corinna was confident, and between the two, the air became hot, steamy, combative.
Corinna did not even know why it must be, but she knew she and Talvaney must win. There was no other course—for her pride alone.
But then, on one level it was no contest—she had spent a good portion of her social life playing cards in Paris. She was cool under pressure, and not easily distracted by an adversary's win.
And though Simon easily matched her in sang-froid, he did not have the advantage of hon
ing his skills continually.
In the end, she and Talvaney prevailed after a half hour more of play, and they were applauded as they quit the table, and money surreptitiously changed hands.
And that, Corinna determined, was the departure point.
"Cards on the table," she said as Simon politely escorted her back to the dining room. "I do wish you would call that we might talk over old times."
"Playing out of turn, Corinna?" Simon said. "The old times are past and gone, my lady, but—I would be delighted to pay my respects to the earl's widow."
Corinna smothered a comeback and straightened her shoulders. At least he would come. He said he would come. "I should be delighted to see you," she said, striking a formal note in her tone. She gave him her hand, suddenly aware that people were watching, people would gossip.
He was so tall, taller than she remembered, his hand was so warm, his eyes glinty with amusement because he was perfectly attuned to what was happening around them.
The dance must be done. She must have no recognition of improprieties at all—there were none, really. An old friend would be calling upon an old friend, albeit one old friend had had to make the request.
He bowed and relinquished her hand, properly waiting as her carriage was sent for. And then she had to leave and she watched over her shoulder as the carriage pulled away, watched as Simon most assuredly returned to the game.
And she knew exactly which game she meant—and it wasn't cards.
Chapter Four
Waiting heightened the anticipation. But it wasn't as if she sat around staring out the window, wishing and hoping. Rather, she shopped, she visited Lady Apperson, she walked with Fanny to the lending library, she rode sometimes in the morning, or had a carriage ride, took tea with acquaintances on invitation, and in the course of all this, heard more about Simon's comings and goings than she wished to.
And that was because Simon was not coming to visit her, and time was speeding by: Parliament would be in session within a fortnight or so, and the season would spin into full swing, and Simon would be so busy at that point with mamas wooing him and hostesses claiming him every night for their own specific entertainments that he would have no time for anything or anyone else.
