She made a sound of frustrated anguish and pushed her thighs higher, clutching at him in desperation, and he made an echoing sound of frustration very near to a curse, and shoved the pillow away. Then he drove the breath from her lungs with the simple efficacy of lifting her legs flat against his chest.
The sharp, aching pleasure bolted back through her. She heard a high, keening moan and knew it came from her, that it was a sound of approval as much as distress, because it felt so good, too good—a pleasure so intense it was almost pain.
But Simon was relentless. He leaned into the strength of her legs and she watched him, rising above her with such grace and beauty that her heart constricted. She felt him, apart from her and yet in her all at the same time, and she knew in that instant what it meant to be undone—to let go of every last tie to reality, and give way to the glorious upending emotion that shot through her.
She closed her eyes and felt him stroke his hand down her belly, into the thatch of curls shielding the place where they were joined. He teased his fingers through the hair, then slipped his fingers lower, ever so slightly lower, to the sensitive flesh below.
Tamsin cried out and bucked up hard. It was too much and not enough all at the same time. She felt her head begin to thrash against the sheets, from side to side. But Simon wouldn’t let up. He pulled her tight against him, holding her hips still as he surged inside her. He held her just so, so that something changed and sharpened, and it felt good, so good. She felt like she was going to break into a hundred pieces of bliss.
And then she did. And he pulled her to his mouth and kissed her just as she screamed.
Heat and joy and peace and relief cascaded through her body in rushing, tumbling waves, leaving the glorious serene warmth behind.
And then, in the next second, it was he who tensed, and with a sound that was both joy and anguish, thrust himself into her, one last time.
Tamsin felt strange and weightless, as if she couldn’t feel the bed beneath her. As if all the feeling had drained from her body, leaving her pleasantly, gloriously numb. She watched with a sort of detached amusement as Simon let go of her and sat back on his heels, slipping away from her body.
He looked as dazed and disoriented and ridiculously happy as he had that first evening upon the sofa. She felt her lips curve into a broad smile, heard the puff of laughter that blew across her lips.
“My darling, Tamsin, Are you laughing at me?”
She heard the wicked amusement in his voice. “No, I am laughing with you. Sharing your marvelous sunny outlook on life.”
“You look rather sunny yourself.” He reached out to stroke her thigh as he collapsed down alongside her, and then scooped his hand around her belly to pull her snugly against his chest, before he pulled a thick eiderdown over them. “Seems a shame to cover it all up. But it’s powerful cold night, my curious, determined Miss T,” he whispered against her hair. “Happy Christmas, Tamsin.”
Tamsin smiled in wonder at the strange scratchy feeling of his chest against her back and closed her eyes in contentment. “Happy Christmas, Simon.” She felt so happy, so safe in his arms that she wanted to stay and savor the moment for just a while longer.
“I meant what I said—or rather what I wanted to say before.”
“Hmm?” She was too content to think of what he had said.
“That I’ve warmed to the idea. Of marriage. To you.” He hugged her tighter, as if she might not realize that he was talking about her. As if she might not know that he was proposing to her.
She turned so she might see his face in the silver moonlight. “But Simon, you said—”
“I said a lot of things I didn’t mean. I spouted a load of nonsense to keep people—to keep you—from finding out who I really am. But you found out anyway.”
“I did.” She took his dear, familiar, beautiful face between her hands. “You really are the most remarkable man. And I love you.”
His smile was a benediction. “And I love you. So very much. Enough to share this house with you.” The crinkled twinkle in his eyes told her he was teasing.
She kissed him. “You don’t need to bribe me with the house—access to the neighbors would have done it.”
Simon kissed her back. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
“No.” But she smiled and kissed him again to lessen the sting of her—temporary—refusal. “Not yet. Not until I set things right.”
“Tamsin, things are already right,” he insisted. “This”—he kissed her to make his point—“is right. It’s Christmas—make me happy by giving me the gift of marriage.”
“But as things lie, I’ve already given us the gift of scandal, which I find I don’t want anymore.”
“What are you hatching in that clever, deliciously governess-y mind of yours?”
“Don’t worry, Simon, I’ll arrange everything. I have a plan.”
Chapter 23
Tamsin arrived quietly at her aunt’s house on Manchester Square to find the salon empty but for a single person—her mother seated rather forlornly on a chair facing the frozen white garden. “Mama.”
Mama turned her head sharply, but sat gaping at her daughter for some moments before she could speak. “You’ve come back.”
“Yes.” Tamsin tried to smile at her to show her she was well, and that all would be right now that she knew what she wanted. “Of course I came back.”
“I didn’t think you would.” Her mother shook her head. “I didn’t think you could.”
“Mama.” Tamsin reached for her poor mother’s hand.
Her mother stood, snatching her hand away, knocking over the chair. “How could you? How could you have done this to me? I was worried sick. Couldn’t sleep for wondering what had happened, what evil thing might have befallen you.”
“Mama.” Tamsin tried to have patience with her mother’s wild imaginings and righted the chair.
“Don’t you dare Mama me! I’ve been waiting for two days for your return. Listening every moment for your footfall upon the stair. Days. I’d given up hope.” The pain and terror in her mother’s voice were real. “I’ve had to write your father that you were lost to us forever.”
Tamsin felt suitably chastened. “But I’m not lost. I’m here. Nothing evil has befallen me.”
“And why not?” her mother demanded. “What else but the most horrible scandal, or the most terrible accident could keep you from your family? From your home?”
“Mama, I can explain.”
“Damned if you can, Tamsin. You’ve finally achieved your object. There is nothing I can do for you now.”
Tamsin refused to be defeated. Not when she knew how the story was supposed to end. “Certainly there is. It can be just like before. What was it you said—it’s only a scandal if you act like it’s a scandal?”
“But it is a scandal!” her mother wailed. “How could it not be? How could I keep this from anyone? You’ve been gone days, Tamsin. I had to leave the house on Hill Street—you knew the lease was up—but I could not leave London not knowing… I had to write your poor father, and he was so concerned that he felt he had to put in for leave to support me. He is at this moment making his way from Portsmouth Port to collect me, as I felt myself too weak to go home on my own, for what was I to tell your sisters when I got there?”
The pain she had quite purposefully inflicted upon her family weighed heavily upon Tamsin’s conscience. But she knew she could make it right, if only she could make her mama listen. “You can tell them that I am fine and safe and home.”
Mama was as stubborn as Tamsin was determined. “I still don’t know what I am to tell them of your shame.”
“Tell them I feel no shame, and that in recompense, you may add my portion to theirs, if you like.”
“May?” Mama drew herself up. “If I like? Of course your portion will be divvied up between your sisters. Of course! I won’t bother to ask you what you expect to live on—clearly my sister has offered you a place here—a position I had pla
nned to secure for your sister Anne, who has none of your advantages of beauty. What’s to become of poor Anne now—or any of your poor sisters—I’ve no idea.”
Tamsin softened her voice to show she understood the error of her ways. “You may still offer Anne the position, Mama, for I shall not be staying here and imposing upon Aunt Dahlia. I’ve made other plans. Other arrangements.”
“What sort of plan?” Mama’s brow beetled in confusion. “Where have you been?”
Tamsin decided to ease her mother into the truth slowly. “I went away to Hampstead to visit a friend—a friend who needed my comfort. So naturally I had to abandon London to help them.”
Her mother was not born yesterday—she took a long moment to consider her words. “It’s a good story, I’ll give you that.”
“Thank you.” Tamsin’s relief began to transform itself into surety. “Would you like to know how the story ends?”
“Only if it ends in marriage.”
“It does,” Tamsin assured her. “If you’ll help me?”
“I don’t know if I can,” her mother sighed. “What is it you hoped to accomplish with all this? Who is it you want?”
“I want”—Tamsin said the words slowly, testing them to make sure they were true—“to marry Simon Cathcart.”
Her mother closed her eyes as if the very idea pained her. “But he has no money.”
“Turns out he has,” Tamsin was happy to report. “Enough to marry. He owns a lovely house on Hampstead Heath.”
“But he’s simpleton, an idiot,” Mama insisted. “Everyone says so. So what if he has some grace and favor house on Hampstead Heath along with half the army? He doesn’t do anything.
Tamsin felt righteous ire rise hot in her chest. “Don’t say such a thing! He’s not an idiot. He’s an author—a very good one. He’s been secretly writing books—writing beautiful, truthful stories that people love. He is not poor. I daresay Papa will like him.”
Her mother fell back into her chair as if she had been pushed. “Why did you tell me he had no money?” she breathed. “Why did you not let me marry you to him from the first?”
“Because I didn’t know. Because I was blind. I thought I knew what I wanted, and I just couldn’t see that it was him.” The truth of her words was liberating. “I am sorry, Mama. I am sorry for all the trouble I put you through. But I had to find my own way.”
Her mother looked beyond astonished. “I am sorry, too. ” Her admission came on a heavy, weary sigh. “Sorry I did not listen to you. Sorry I tried to—”
“Put me beyond the reach of Cousin Edward,” Tamsin finished for her. “I know.”
She had an admission herself. “I wish I had talked to you. I wish I hadn’t let myself feel so desperate.”
“Desperate,” Mama echoed.
They’d both been desperate in their different ways, hadn’t they?
“So what is to happen now?” Mama asked.
“I’m not sure,” Tamsin admitted. “Simon and I had hoped—”
“Your pardon, Miss Tamsin.” Aunt Dahlia’s housekeeper stood at the door bearing a silver salver. “Letter has come for you. From Allingham House.”
That would be Lady Evangeline writing to tell her that their friendship must be at an end—that her disappearance and sham elopement had put her so far beyond the pale that not even Lady Evangeline’s friendship or patronage could help her now.
Tamsin broke the seal and opened the page. And was completely astonished.
“Tamsin?” Mama came to her side. “What does it say?”
“It says we’ve been invited. Most particularly, by Lady Evangeline herself. To Allingham House, for a betrothal ball.”
Mama sat heavily, as if her legs had given way. “Dare you go?”
“Oh, yes.” Tamsin felt entirely sure. “I have an entirely new plan.” A plan to turn her scandal into a romance worthy of one of Simon’s heroines.
Into the romance of the season.
Chapter 24
This time, it was Mama who was nearly shaking with nerves when they alighted from the hired carriage to attend Lady Evangeline’s betrothal party at Allingham House. Tamsin was too determined for nerves. And because she knew of all the people in London and Society, Lady Evangeline alone would recognize her ruination for what it truly was—victory.
And romance—the true chance for the intellectual life she had once envisioned for herself but now saw with Simon by her side. If she got it just right.
“Are you quite sure?” Mama asked.
Tamsin smiled, as serene as a swan. “I am.”
“And are you quite sure we’re going to be admitted?” her mother asked with a nervous glance at the very imposing door. “Despite your plan, you are still a ruined women.”
“I am.” Tamsin was undaunted. “Lady Evangeline wrote me our invitation herself. I have it here.”
Mama seemed to take some comfort in her surety. “I do hope you know what you’re about.”
“I don’t,” Tamsin laughed. “But I’m hoping that doesn’t matter.”
Mama took her hand. “I hope so, too.”
Thankfully, they were admitted without incident. In fact, the dignified major domo of Allingham House went so far as to welcome her by name. “Miss Lesley, Lady Evangeline bids you welcome. She’ll be very gratified to know you’ve been able to attend.”
“Thank you.” Tamsin gave over her evening cloak and took a deep, strengthening breath as she revealed the wine-red evening gown she had chosen—if she was going to be called a scarlet woman, she was going to look the part. She would be herself without hiding.
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay a part of this world?” Mama whispered.
“Quite sure.” There was nothing she wanted from Society save for Lady Evangeline’s friendship. And Simon.
Dear, kind, unsimple Simon.
Mama gave her hand another encouraging squeeze before they had to pick up their skirts and mount the tall stairs up to the ballroom of Allingham House.
They were left alone to take a slow promenade of the holly-bedecked ballroom. While no one was openly friendly, they were not openly snubbed—her friendship with Lady Evangeline had been noted.
After their leisurely circuit of the dance floor, they passed the time visiting the refreshment table, where Tamsin fortified her nerves with an early glass of French champagne. But the bubbles provided only temporary respite.
Because behind her mama breathed, “Tamsin.”
So she turned.
And there he was.
So tall. So handsome. So…everything.
Everything she wanted.
Everything she had missed so terribly.
He was at the arm of his aunt, the Countess Cathcart, who was one of the diamond-clad luminaries attending the most important social event of the season. But she was nothing next to the heroes of the peace: her husband, the illustrious diplomat, Earl Cathcart, and the warrior of the battlefield, the Duke of Wellington. And Lieutenant-Colonel Simon Cathcart, their brilliant negotiator, their strong right arm, resplendent in his regimentals. He looked more than handsome—he looked to be a man in full possession of himself. A man to be admired.
So naturally, he was surrounded by young ladies and their mamas who pushed their daughters forward in the hopes of catching the tall officer’s glad eye.
Oh, how she had missed his sunny, happy smile. Even though she knew now his smile had been a sort of mask—a mask that both revealed and hid his true self.
But the time had come. Tamsin swallowed the fear that scored her throat like acid, and stepped within the circle surrounding him.
Several of the mothers, no doubt having heard that she was beyond the pale, pulled their daughters away from her.
But Tamsin didn’t mind—she smiled and thanked them for clearing a path.
Until there she was in front of him. “Colonel Cathcart.”
For the longest, most fraught moment, he said nothing. And then only, “Is that you, my d
ear Miss Lesley?”
Hope made her giddy—victory, happiness and joy were within her reach. “It is. Colonel Cathcart, I wonder if I may be so bold as to ask you to dance with me.”
While the others gasped at her audacity, Simon did not.
He bowed to his aunt, the countess, and bowed to the phalanx of ladies assembled around her, and then held out his hand to Tamsin. “I should be delighted, Miss Lesley. It’s been an age since we last danced.”
The breath she had not been aware she was holding whooshed back into her lungs. “Too long.”
“Most exactly.”
A path seemed to clear before them—people backing away while craning to see what was going on. And what was going on was that Simon was holding her hand, and conducting her out to the dance floor as if he were a king escorting a queen to her throne.
And so when he stopped and turned to take his place in the set, she bowed to him, in a low, deeply respectful curtsey.
He took her hand to lead her up. “Well done, Miss T. That has nicely put the cat amongst the pigeons.”
Tamsin wasn’t sure she liked the allusion. “Are you one of the pigeons?”
“No. I’m one of the cats,” he declared. “A rather untamed one, what?” And then he smiled and tossed her the same sort of naughty, unrepentant wink he had given her that very first night.
And just like that, he opened all the possibilities. “I think I am glad to hear that.”
“I am just glad that you’re here, not hiding away,” he told her.
She gave him what she hoped was a saucy smile. “I might say the same.”
“A hit, Miss T. Acknowledged.” He sketched an elegant bow. “Your aim is as good as a gunner.”
“Thank you.”
They went apart from each other in the dance, casting off to weave down along the line until they were at the end.
“And I come back to my heroine, hoping that she has decided upon her story.”
“She has.” Tamsin had her answer ready. “She has come to rescue you.”
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