Days of Rakes and Roses

by Anna Campbell

  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 t
rollop; 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.

  “I do.” She battled to sit up without success.

  “You’re driving me mad,” he groaned.

  “Then go away where you’ll never see me.” Even as she spoke, her heart clenched with denial. She didn’t want Simon to go away. She wanted him to stay close. As close as he was now.

  Closer.

  “I’ve been away too damned long.” His hands held her firmly against him.

  “At least go back to your seat.”

  “No.”

  “I’ll scream.”

  White teeth glinted in the shadows above her face as he smiled. “Then by all means scream.”

  He gathered her up and rolled until she half-lay against the seat, captive beneath him. Lydia told herself she felt constricted, confined, uncomfortable, at risk of spilling to the floor with the coach’s jolting.

  It wasn’t true. She felt desired.

  She sucked in a breath redolent of Simon and flowers. His body crushed the white roses pinned to cascade gracefully from the shoulder of her gown. The heady scent filled the carriage, heavy with sensuality.

  His lips brushed hers, gently this time. Arousal flooded her, melted any ice lingering in her veins. Awareness tightened her skin and made her reach for him. Whether to push him away or drag him nearer, she couldn’t have said.

  For a second that seemed to last an eternity, his lips rested on hers. Undemanding. Warm. Silky. As if testing his recollection of kissing her. As if waiting for her consent. The carriage’s lurching slid her against Simon’s body, tormented her with the promise of a surcease of longing.

  Without taking the kiss deeper, he raised his head. Frustration coiled in her belly like a hundred snakes. “You said you’d scream,” he taunted softly.

  How dare the rapscallion challenge her? She opened her mouth, ready to caterwaul her lungs out. If she called, Jenkins would stop the carriage and she’d be safe to return to Grenville with only a slightly tainted conscience.

  She felt Simon tense as he waited for her to summon rescue. Their bodies were entwined so intimately that he must count her every breath, just as she counted his. She’d never been so near to him, even when he’d kissed her in the hayshed.

  Blast his importunity. He wouldn’t have everything his own way. True to her word, she opened her mouth. Deliberately the low cry that emerged reached no further than Simon’s ears. A soft sound of surrender.

  Lord above, she was bold. She deserved to be condemned.

  Tomorrow she’d repent her weakness. She knew that to her bones. She’d see Grenville and hate herself. But this chance to kiss Simon once more before she resigned herself to a lifetime of unimpeachable behavior was irresistible.

  Simon laughed softly. “Objection noted.”

  Before she could scold him for mocking her, his mouth descended. Forgetting anger, forgetting duty, close to forgetting her name, she drowned in dark rapture. Her hands curled into his broad shoulders and she kissed him back with all the anguished passion she’d suppressed since he’d left her.

  “Lydia, Lydia, Lydia,” he murmured, his grip crushing the breath from her. She didn’t mind as long as his mouth conjured such wonderful sensations.

  Trailing heat, his hands slid up to cup her breasts. She jerked when his thumbs brushed her nipples through her bodice. A deep pulse set up between her legs, a pulse of demand that only Simon could satisfy.

  He touched her nipples again, more deliberately, with more incendiary effect. She shook in a fever of desire and pressed closer, never mind the danger of what they did.

  His kisses flared from subtle exploration to red hot insistence. Even through her inexperience, she realized he intended to take her. Now.

  That knowledge doused her recklessness like a bucket of freezing water. However he made her burn, she couldn’t allow this madness to reach its conclusion. If she jilted Grenville, it would only remind the world of her mother’s lapses. And she owed her betrothed better than this betrayal. He shouldn’t suffer because of her fatal weakness for Simon Metcalf.

  Lydia went rigid and whimpered against Simon’s seeking mouth.

  “What’s wrong?” His breath glanced across her face, reminded her that only inches separated them, inches she could bridge in an instant. After tonight, they’d never be this close to one another again. The thought set up a new rift in a heart that she’d believed had already been thoroughly broken.

  A hollow laugh escaped her, closer to a sob than humor. “You know what’s wrong. I’m engaged to Grenville.”

  “But you love me.”

  She struggled out from beneath Simon’s body, surprised he let her go. Trembling and angry, she curled against the corner of the carriage. “You’re so presumptuous.”

  Slowly Simon rose to sit at the other end of the bench. It wasn’t far enough away for her. Guilt beat at her, made her feel ill.

  In the space following her accusation, she heard Simon’s uneven breathing. They’d verged dismayingly close to the point of no return. And so swiftly. Years of perfect virtue, then one kiss from this scoundrel and she lost her head.

  “But you do love me.” His voice lowered into softness. “Just as I still love you.”

  Heaven help her. Appalled denial vibrated through her, robbed her of breath. This was the last thing she needed to hear a week before her wedding to Grenville.

  Once she’d have cut off her right arm in exchange for the merest possibility of Simon Metcalf declaring his affections. Now she told herself that this was only another ploy to gain her attention, even as she yearned uselessly for it to be true.

  “You don’t even know me,” she said in a flat voice.

  “Devil take you, Lydia, of course I do,” he said stubbornly, and for the first time he sounded genuinely disgruntled.

  She realized that up until this instant, he’d been sure of winning her to whatever purpose he intended. Definitely coaxing her away from Grenville and into an affair. But surely not into marriage—even at Fentonwyck, he hadn’t mentioned a proposal.

  His self-confidence rankled. “Curse you, Simon. I’m not surrendering my maidenhead to a footloose rogue in a carriage in the middle of Mayfair.”

  Unforgivably he laughed. “We don’t have to stay here. I’ll take you to my rooms. Hell, I’ll take you to the moon if it means I finally have you.”

  “Don’t be crude,” she snapped, frustration bubbling up into rage. She was so angry, she had difficulty drawing in a full breath.

  This time when he sighed, she heard the desolation underlying his humor. Her renegade heart fisted with regret as anger receded without disappearing. She’d been wrong when she’d thought that what occurred between them left his emotions uninvolved. An iniquitous yen to give in to him, to ease his sorrow surged, but she forced it back.

  “Take me home, Simon.” Absolute despair bolstered her command.

  “Will you tell Berwick you won’t have him?” Simon didn’t sound like the lazy, charming, amused man she knew so well. His brief vulnerability had vanished. He sounded like a displeased tyrant quizzing a rebellious subject.

  His autocratic manner made Lydia seethe with r
enewed resentment. “I most certainly won’t.”

  He turned on the seat and gripped her arms with unlover-like firmness. “You can’t kiss me like that and marry another man, God damn it.”

  “Just watch me.” She wrenched free, bruising herself in the process. Her voice broke and thickened. She wasn’t far off crying. Simon’s return had left her feeling ripped into two ragged, bleeding halves. Tonight had capped off a horrible week with the noxious revelation that she’d never be free of her first love. “I’m going to marry Sir Grenville Berwick next Wednesday and you can’t stop me.”

  She waited for more outrage, more demands, but Simon slumped against his corner with another sigh that caught at her heart, much as she wished it didn’t. “How can I change your mind?”

  She glared at him through the gloom, wishing this fraught encounter would end. The longer this quarrel lasted, the more they’d hurt each other. She already felt torn to shreds. “You can’t.”

  “You’re making a mistake.”

  She bit back a tirade about Simon waltzing back into her life and expecting her to receive him with open arms. She bit back a rancorous reminder that she was a woman of her word and she’d given her word to another man.

  She’d already said more than enough. What was the use of berating Simon? He wasn’t for her. He’d never been for her. She’d be safe with Grenville, and if in the secret reaches of the night, she dreamed of another man’s touch, well, who was to know?

  “Please take me back to Rothermere House.” She paused to dislodge a lump in her throat that felt bigger than the Rock of Gibraltar. “If you have any pity, you won’t come near me again. You say you love me. I’m not sure about that.” She gestured to stem his automatic protest. “But we were friends once, good friends. For the sake of that old friendship, please find the compassion in your heart to leave me alone.”

  Silence crashed down between them with the force of an ax. She knew Simon struggled against arguing. Against, God help her, sweeping her into his arms and persuading with seduction where he couldn’t persuade with words.

  Don’t let him touch me.