by Wendy Vella
“Because he returned injured.”
Claire felt the hot sting of tears as she nodded, her cheek rubbing over his chest. She hated crying yet when she thought of Anthony she couldn’t stop herself. “Yes, and he suffered so much. Sometimes the pain was terrible, and he would clench his hands into fists to stop himself crying out. But the nights were the worst.”
“And because you were awake, you kept him company?”
“He died in my arms. My beautiful brother went to war a strong and healthy man and came back broken.”
“And after he died, you could not sleep?” Simon said softly.
“For so long, I saw him every time I closed my eyes.”
“Have you ever taken laudanum?”
His fingers were stroking her hair and brushing her cheek now and then, and the feeling was heavenly. “I think Plimley puts it in the tisane he gives me occasionally, but it is only a very small amount, and I wake feeling horrid.”
“I’m glad. Prolonged use is not good for you.”
“Yes.” Claire sighed, closing her eyes because they felt so heavy.
“What happens when you get into bed and close your eyes? What stops you from sleeping, Claire?”
“My head is suddenly filled with thoughts. They tumble around and around, keeping me awake. The harder I try to sleep, the more alert I feel. I get so frustrated and angry because I cannot control it.”
“Surely your mother and Mathew–”
“They don’t know,” Claire whispered.
He ran one long finger down her cheek. His touch was so light, yet she felt it through her entire body.
“Why doesn’t your family know, Claire?”
“I have no wish to worry my mother, as there is nothing she can do for me, and I have not discussed it with Mathew as I’m not close with him.”
“As you were with Anthony?”
“Yes.” She sighed again. Thinking of Mathew made Claire feel sad. He would never forgive her for this.
“Am I right in saying your inability to control your ability to sleep makes you want to control everything else in your life, ever-competent Miss Belmont?
“You’re very astute for a man.”
She heard the rumble of his laughter against her ear. “I don’t know if I should be flattered or insulted.”
“The thing is, Simon, I need to be in control because I fear if I wasn’t, I would never leave the house. I do get sleep but not a lot, and some days, just getting dressed seems too much of an effort. I am continually worried I will fall asleep somewhere–a play, a musical.”
“I cannot believe you have managed to fool us all for so long. Truly, it is a feat, especially as you never look anything but beautiful. Your face never shows fatigue.”
“People only see what they want, Simon, and most evenings, all the women are looking at is my dress and jewelry and men, well-
“They’re looking at your breasts.”
She was too tired to be outraged so she huffed instead.
“You should be treading the boards, my dear Miss Belmont. A woman with your acting skills would be famous in no time.”
“I would be hopeless at remembering my lines, I’m afraid. I have to re-read everything.” Lord, his fingers felt glorious as he slipped them beneath her hair and rubbed her neck.
“There I would be able to help you. I’m brilliant at remembering things. In fact, I know none better. Perhaps we could form a team?”
She could hear the strong beat of his heart beneath her cheek. His skin was warm, and the hand stroking her was slow and steady. Before Claire realized what was happening, she felt herself being pulled down into sleep…
CHAPTER TEN
She woke disoriented. There was daylight coming in through the open curtains, and she distinctly remembered closing her eyes in the darkness, yet she could recall nothing in between. Moreover, this was not her room, and there was something warm beneath her cheek. Opening her eyes, she saw a smooth expanse of skin and a dark nipple.
Dear lord, she’d slept the night on Simon’s chest.
Tilting her head back, she looked up at his face, and sleepy grey eyes looked down at her.
“How do you feel?” His voice was husky, he looked like sin, and Claire had the ridiculous urge to climb on top of him and place her lips on his.
“I…uh, I–”
“Speechless, Claire? How delightful. I must remember to embarrass you when you attack me in the future.”
“I slept, Simon,” Claire whispered, realizing just what she had done. “Really slept.”
“Yes you did, clever girl, and there is no need for embarrassment. However, there will be a payment for using me as a mattress.”
She tried to get off him, placing her hand on his chest but he placed his own over it so she couldn’t move. “Release me, Simon.”
“Payment first.” He turned her on her back and loomed over her.
“Wh-what are you doing?”
“Are you ticklish, Claire? Shall we test that famous control of yours?”
“What? No, don’t you dare!” she cried as his hands moved over her body in a way that made her giggle and squirm. “Stop, please, Simon!” No one had tickled her for years–in fact, since her childhood. “Th…this is improper,” she stammered, trying to slap his hands aside.
“Well, well, not quite so controlled, after all, are we, Miss Belmont?”
Claire felt him go still, and she looked up at him.
“You’re beautiful in the morning, Claire.”
They looked at each other silently for long, heated seconds, and then his body pressed hers into the mattress.
“Simon,” Claire whispered, her hand reaching up to touch his face, mapping its contours as their gaze remained locked. Slowly, he lowered his head until their lips met. His body held her still, and his hands cupped her head as his mouth took her on a sensual journey that had Claire’s head reeling in seconds. He explored her gently, teasing her lips as he placed one hot, lingering kiss after another on her mouth, and Claire lost every other thought but him. He surrounded her; the planes of his solid chest pressed against her breasts, his thighs trapped hers, and the feeling was exquisite.
“Christ, Claire, we have to stop.” Simon’s words were ragged as he tore his mouth from hers. Slipping his arms around her body, he held her close–so close, she could feel the thud of his heart against her own. It was wonderful to be held like this. It was almost as if they were one person. The feeling of being safe and cocooned–the wonder of it–felt so good.
“I have to leave the room now, Claire.” His voice was a rasp as he eased away from her and climbed off the bed. She watched as he found his shirt. His muscles rippled as he pulled it over his head, and then she could see no more of that wonderful golden skin.
“Simon, I can never thank you for helping me sleep last night.”
He didn’t turn to look at her. Instead he made for the door. “The enjoyment was not all on your side, Claire, I assure you.”
Letting himself out of the room, Simon closed the door and quickly headed outside. Finding a trough of water, he plunged his hands inside, and then when that did not cool his ardor, he submerged his head. God, he was on fire. Waking with her in his arms had created a furnace of need inside him. His body was hard from their kisses, and the feel of her breasts against his chest would be etched there forever. He’d done the right thing by stopping. He knew that even if his body did not. They would be together for days, and she trusted him. He would not break that trust now. Plunging his head back into the water again, he finally felt his body begin to cool.
He’d realized as he’d held her last night that he wanted Claire Belmont very much. Waking with her soft body pressed against his chest was exquisite torture, and the look of wonder in her brown eyes when she’d realized she had slept all night was something he would remember for a long time. When he’d turned her beneath him, his intentions had only been to make her smile, but that had all changed as he’d touched he
r. Suddenly he’d wanted to strip off that prim nightdress and fist one hand in her curls while he parted her thighs and drove inside her. He would need to be strong in the coming days, because Simon wasn’t sure if he had her in his arms again that he would be able to walk away.
In one day, he had learnt much about her. Her life was a play she enacted to keep the secret of her sleeplessness at bay. He admired her strength. Few could cope with so little sleep, yet she did so masterfully. Looking to the doorway, he saw it was still empty, so he made his way around the house and down the little path he knew so well to where the gardens lay. A riot of color greeted him. He felt the last of his tension ease as he walked down the path, studying the plants and shrubs he had bedded with his own hands. Bending occasionally, he pulled a weed or dead leaf, and then he stopped to inspect a rose he had planted not long ago.
“This is not the right place for you, my friend. We need to move you before you give up completely.” Simon bent to dig in the loose soil with his bare hands, making a wide trench around the plant. He then dug deeper and eased the roots free.
“Why do you have your hands in the dirt, Simon?”
His fingers stilled before he looked up at Claire, who was almost upon him. He had not heard her approach because he was focused on the rose. “Uh–”
“Why have you dug a little trench around that plant?”
“It needs moving. The light is not right for it here.”
He could feel her eyes on the back of his head as he continued to ease the plant free. Why did he suddenly feel as if he knelt before her, stripped of all his clothing? She had been vulnerable yesterday; today it was his turn, it seemed.
“The owner of this house is quite the gardener, Simon. Do you know him well?”
It was a simple question, yet Claire Belmont rarely asked a question without a purpose.
“The gardens here are beautiful,” she added when he did not answer.
“Yes they are.” Standing, Simon carried the little bush to where it would be happy and then bent to dig a hole to place it in.
“What type of rose is that?”
“Old Blush,” Simon said shortly, hoping she would simply walk back up the path and let him settle the little plant in its new bed.
“Does the owner not mind you digging about in his garden and uprooting his plants?”
He finished what he was doing, then patted the soil into place. He could almost hear the rose thanking him, sighing in relief. “Just ask the question, Claire,” he said, standing to look at her. Surrounded by his flowers, she looked like the most beautiful bloom of them all. Morning sun stood at her back, and he could see the outline of her long, slender limbs through the skirts of her pale rose dress.
“Sometimes when the moon is bright and I struggle to sleep, I go to our gardens in London and pull weeds. It helps to calm me, and often I take a blanket and just sit there and enjoy the peace the garden offers,” she said.
Simon didn’t tell people his garden was his passion because most would not believe him. He wasn’t ashamed; he just couldn’t be bothered with the questions he suspected would arise. Looking at Claire, he could see she was genuine in what she had said.
“Who owns this house, Simon?”
“I do.”
“And are you also responsible for the beauty that is all around us?”
He felt a rush of pleasure at the knowledge that she thought his gardens beautiful. He spent a few seconds brushing the dirt off his hands while he worked through his answer. “It is something I have always liked to do.” He caught her scent as she moved closer–a subtle blend of rose and honeysuckle, both flowers he loved.
“I would say you love doing it, Simon,” she added, looking around her. She then bent to pull a weed that had wound itself around the stem of a flower. Standing, she presented it to him.
“Why, Miss Belmont, how sweet of you.”
“I am all that is sweet, Lord Kelkirk.”
He snorted at the falsehood. “Of course you are. It was someone completely different who told me my waistcoat was better suited to hang in your windows than from my body.” He turned, making his way to the small shed at the rear, where he found water. Washing his hands, he then scooped some out in the old cup he left beside it and carried it back to where Claire and his rose waited. Dropping to his knees he poured the water around the plant.
“To be fair, had I known of your love of color,” she said, sweeping her hand in a half circle, “I would not have been so critical.”
“That waistcoat received numerous compliments.”
“From women only, I imagine–women who wanted to insinuate themselves into your good graces.”
Leaving the cup on the ground, Simon stood and closed the distance between them. She looked right standing here in his garden. “The Earl of Dobbie liked it.”
She snorted. “The Earl of Dobbie is too old to know better.”
“Daniel told me Eva wanted a dress made of the exact material, which should probably have told me something.”
She giggled, and the sound reminded Simon of her lying beneath him on the bed whilst he’d tickled her. Clearing his throat as his body stirred to life again, he suggested they return to the house and prepare to leave.
“Were these gardens the result of my hands, I would be very proud, Simon.” She said the words over her shoulder so did not see his smile.
“How do you feel after your night’s sleep?” he questioned her, changing the topic.
“Wonderful, which is probably not how I should be feeling, considering what I am about to do. However I do feel that way. My eyes are not scratchy, and my limbs are not heavy. I feel ten years younger, Simon. Thank you.”
“It is a chore, to be sure, but it seems I will have to sleep with you every night from this day forwards just to ensure you get a restful night’s sleep.” She laughed, as she was meant to. “Now if you pack your things, Claire, I shall rouse my lazy coachmen, and we shall get back on the road.”
They talked of plants, and she demanded he tell her all the varieties of roses he knew. After stopping for something to eat at a small inn, they were soon again on the road. Claire again started questioning him, this time asking him how many species of flowers he could name, to which he replied lots and far too many to mention.
They played word games as the carriage rolled on and then sat in companionable silence until he fell asleep, as he always did when he was in a carriage for too long.
Simon woke once again looking at Claire. He could get used to waking up looking at her. She was far prettier than his valet.
“You should bring a stick, then you could poke me when I nod off,” he said yawning.
“The idea has merits, however I also enjoy the silence,” she said looking out the window.
“Because I rattle on so much?” Simon teased stretching his arms, trying to work out some of the knots he had received from being trapped inside a small space for too long.
She didn’t answer him, instead shrugging and looking out the window and he could tell while he slept that once again the weight of what she was doing had settled heavily on her shoulders. No longer was she the teasing woman of earlier.
Lifting the hatch above his head he instructed Merlin to leave the main road to Liverpool and find a quiet, less frequented inn to stop at for the night, where he hoped they would not run into anyone they knew. The chances were unlikely, as the London season was at its height, yet he would not take that risk. Simon watched Claire grow quieter as dusk began to fall. She had stopped talking completely by the time they pulled to a halt outside a small establishment.
“It will be all right, Claire.” Simon took her hands. “We will prentend you are my wife tonight, as this will give you protection and put us in the same room. I will take the chair or the floor,” he added as she opened her mouth to argue, as he knew she would.
“All right. If you think that is best.”
He was surprised at her agreement but did not comment, instead l
eading her inside.
“I wish for two rooms, please–one for my wife and I and another for my coachmen.”
The proprietor had narrow eyes, to Simon’s mind. However he was clean, and from the little he had seen, his establishment appeared to be, too.
“Your men can sleep in the stables.”
“I want my men in the room next to my wife and I,” Simon said politely. “If you have a problem with that, sir, we shall find somewhere else that does not.”
The man grumbled and then nodded for them to follow him.
“I want a private parlor, also,” Simon added, hearing loud voices coming from somewhere inside the place, “and a meal set out, if you please. Plus warm water for bathing. Again, I will pay for these privileges.”
Their room overlooked the courtyard below and appeared clean enough. It held a chair, a bed, and a rug on the floor.
“If you could have tea readied, sir, I will bring my wife down shortly,” Simon said to the man before he left.
“Yes, my lord.”
Claire had wandered toward the window and was looking down below.
“Come, we shall have some tea and await the fine evening meal I’m sure the proprietor is now conjuring up for us,” he said, holding out his hand to her.
“I think I should just stay in here, Simon.”
“It is a private parlor, so you will be safe,” Simon said, watching her fidget with the curtain. “Now tell me, besides the fact that you have lied to your family and are about to go to Liverpool to pick up your brother’s illegitimate child, what else is bothering you, Claire?”
“This is wrong, Simon.”
She was looking down at the courtyard, but he suspected she was not really seeing it. “What is wrong?”
“You helping me, being here with me. I have put you to so much trouble and this is not your problem. My selfishness could bring so much trouble down on your head.” She turned now, and he saw once again that her brown eyes were filled with worry.
“I thought we’d dealt with that matter, Claire. It is my choice to help you and one I make gladly. Now please take my hand, wife, as I’m hungry and have no time for your vapors.”
