Romancing His English Rose (Entangled Scandalous) (13 page)

“Oh…good,” Rose said, seeming quite pleased by his statement.

Who would have thought the shy, bookish, red-headed, bespectacled girl would turn out to be the amazing, brilliant, enticing woman with whom he was currently sharing a bed? If he had known, Simon would have bedded her years ago! So much for getting her out of my system.

“I am such an idiot, Rose,” Simon moaned, dropping his forehead to rest against hers.

“No you’re not,” Rose replied loyally.

“Oh, but I am. I let my own stubborn pride get in the way of seeing you for the truly incredible woman you are. Can you ever forgive me?”

Rose cocked her head as if thinking about it. “I think I can find it in my heart to do so, yes,” she said finally, her eyes shining.

Unable to wipe the grin off his face, Simon replied, “It dawns on me that it is going to be morning soon and it would probably not do for me to be found here…like this…with you.” He flashed a devilish wink.

Rose sighed. “I suppose you are correct.”

“Don’t worry, darling,” Simon assured her as he rolled reluctantly away, pulling her into his arms for one last hug. “I will see you later today. We have much to discuss. Perhaps we should just meet at tonight’s ball. I think we both need some sleep.”

…

Rose nodded morosely and wished that what they needed to discuss was more matrimonial in nature and not just about Caleb. However, beggars could not be choosers and she was happy that Simon was finally seeing the advantages of a future with her. And now it clearly sounded like he was at least planning to marry her…someday.

Simon got up and began gathering his clothes. Rose sat in bed wrapped up in a blanket and watched him get ready to depart. It was fascinating to see him unabashedly walk around her room without a stitch of clothing on. She would never look at her room the same way again. In every corner she would remember Simon in some way, shape, or delightfully naked form.

When he was dressed, Simon went to Rose and tenderly kissed her good-bye. “I will see you in a few hours at the Abingdon ball.”

“All right,” she whispered, her lips still tingling from the sweet kiss. And that was when she knew…she could love Simon Trumbull if he would just give her the chance.

Chapter Sixteen

Great minds think alike.

—The Duke of Lancaster

Simon waited for Rose anxiously in the Abingdon ballroom. The feelings Rose evoked in him the previous night scared the hell out of him. Never in his wildest dreams did he think making love to Rose would be so exciting, so exhilarating. Even now, when he knew he should stay away from her, he was wondering when he would have another chance to kiss her, to hold her, to—

Simon shook his head again. He really needed to get a hold of himself. This was Rose, for God’s sake, not some tavern wench.

But he knew that. And that was probably what scared him the most… His passions aside, Simon was feeling something else, something stronger, something that could very well be…the beginnings of affection.

That was when he saw her. She looked beautiful as she walked over and laid her hand warmly on his arm and Simon thought perhaps it was time to reevaluate his priorities. Never in his wildest dreams did he think he would want Rose—as a wife, as a lover, or even as a friend—but the last few weeks had proven to him that anything was possible.

Maybe it was time he opened his mind—and heart—to all the myriad possibilities—even those that may coincide with his parents’ wishes.

Oh, God…they are going to adore this, Simon thought with a strangled laugh, because now he was going to have to marry her—not want to, not need to, not even contracted to—no, he had to marry her. His very happiness depended upon it.

Simon looked up at Rose in amazement. She was looking back at him with a shy smile.

“Good evening, Rose.” Simon said.

“How are you this evening?” Rose replied.

“I am well…very well, now,” Simon replied warmly. “And you?”

Rose giggled. “I am very well…now…too.”

Simon chuckled. This was the most inane conversation he had ever had with Rose and yet he didn’t even care.

“You look lovely tonight. I must say, I particularly like your hair this way. It really is such an attractive color. So warm and vibrant. I always feel it’s a shame when you hide it away in the tight little buns.” Simon reached up to finger a silky crimson lock. Rose tilted her head to give Simon more access, and he obliged the action by pushing his hand deeper into her hair and cupping her head with his hand.

“Ah,” Rose began, clearly finding it difficult to concentrate with Simon’s hand in her hair, “I don’t believe everyone would agree with your assessment of the, um, color…”

“Those people are complete featherheads, then,” Simon whispered, before reaching up to cup Rose’s face in both hands and leaning in to drop the lightest, sweetest kiss on her lips.

Rose sighed against his mouth and when Simon lifted his head and saw a look of pure bliss and contentment on her face, more than anything Simon wanted to freeze that moment, call in a portrait artist, and have him capture that sight for all time.

When her lashes finally fluttered open, she blushed warmly. “You are probably the only one who thinks my hair color the least bit attractive. Most of the ton thinks red the most unfortunate shade. And I’m pretty sure there are very few featherheads among them.”

Simon slowly let his hands drift down through her long soft hair before lowering them even farther to hold her hands. “Most of the ton wouldn’t know true beauty if it jumped up and bit them,” he replied.

“Hmmm,” Rose teased. “Would true beauty jump up and bite someone, I wonder? Seems in direct contradiction to what one might expect from beauty.”

Simon gave Rose an arch look. “Cute.”

To which she giggled, “No, I don’t think cute would bite anyone either.”

“Oh Rose, I love you, I really do,” Simon said with a chuckle. Then he heard the faint strains of a waltz beginning to play. “Come, let us dance.”

Simon was very aware of what he had said, and while he hadn’t particularly intended to say it right there in the middle of the crowded Abingdon ballroom, he was rather relieved that it was finally out there. It felt as if he had been holding those words in forever.

However, judging from the positively staggering reaction from Rose, he thought he may need to elaborate somewhat on the unexpected sentiment and the waltz seemed the perfect opportunity to hold her throughout what he hoped would be an intimate and revealing conversation.

Honestly, he didn’t think he could tell her his innermost thoughts without touching her in some way, and the kiss he gave her in full view of the party guests was already considered scandalous enough. So, Simon waited for the dance to begin. Once he was sure everyone else on the floor was involved with their own partners, he turned his attentions full force to the woman in his arms.

Rose’s body apparently knew how to dance the waltz without any conscious effort on her part—which he supposed said something about the excellence of her lessons—because she clearly was not focused on the task at hand. Her eyes were cloudy and distant, her forehead was wrinkled in either thought or confusion (or more likely both), and her movement was not being executed with her usual grace.

If Simon wasn’t so concerned about the eventual outcome of their discussion, he would have found her reaction humorous. As it was, he just wanted to hear how she felt about what he said and more importantly how she felt about him.

Simon cleared his throat in an attempt to gain Rose’s attention. When she looked at him—rather absently, he noted—he said, “Allow me to apologize for saying what I did—”

Rose blanched when she heard his apology and Simon quickly realized she thought he was going to take back his words. “No, no, sweetling…I do love you. Let me say that again, so that you don’t misunderstand me…I love you, Rose Warren, more than I ever thought possible.”

Rose still looked a little off, so he explained further, “What I was trying to say was that I hadn’t intended on telling you how I felt here, in the middle of the Abingdon ballroom. That is all.”

“You l-l-love me?” she said, with the barest of sobs sounding in her voice and appearing to gather force.

Simon immediately decided revealing his feelings on the ballroom floor had been a bad idea. He never expected her to cry. He rather thought she would be happy that he loved her. Hell, he rather hoped that she loved him in return.

“Oh, Rose, please don’t cry. I didn’t think telling you how I felt would make you unhappy.”

That only made Rose cry harder and Simon could no longer continue to dance pretending there was nothing wrong. So he scooped Rose up into his arms and, amid a cacophony of gasps, he carried her off of the dance floor in the direction of the nearest exit.

Hot on his heels were Rose’s friends…all of them. And apparently one or two of his.

When he reached the empty hallway, Simon paused to determine the best place to find some privacy. Luckily Miss Jardin was there—who would have thought that would ever be considered lucky, he thought—and she was able to point him in the direction of an empty room off of the main hall.

“In here, Simon,” Sarah said.

Simon looked at her askance. He was quite sure he had not given Miss Jardin leave to call him by his given name, but now did not seem like the time to bring that up. Besides, she was clearly a good friend of Rose’s, so it seemed an inevitability that she—and frankly, her entire gaggle of friends—would be calling him such soon enough.

Not wishing to remain in a public area any longer than necessary, Simon hurried into the room Sarah had pointed out. As fortune would have it, the library had a fainting couch and Simon was able to lay Rose down upon it. He knelt beside her and used his fingers to brush tear-dampened strands of hair from her face. “Are you all right?” he whispered.

Rose nodded jerkily but was clearly still too upset to speak.

When she tried, Simon pressed his fingers to her lips and said, “Don’t speak. Just try to calm down. Everything will be fine. I will talk to my parents tomorrow about…about nullifying…the marriage contract.” Simon thought just saying the word nullify would kill him, but he was beginning to realize that Rose’s happiness was far more important than his own.

Rather remarkable, that.

Rose let out a strangled gasp and began shaking her head frantically. “N-n-n-n, n-n-n—” Finally she gave up and just flung her arms around Simon and began kissing him with all her might.

To say that Simon was surprised by Rose’s sudden decision to kiss him would be the understatement of the century, but he certainly wasn’t going to argue about it. He was, in fact, rather enjoying it. In fact, it wasn’t long before the roles reversed and he became the aggressor. Again, no argument was heard.

…

Lady Lancaster quietly came upon the group and watched with amusement as the young people expressed their concern over their friends.

Alexander turned to the group and said, “Well, that is the friendliest breakup I have ever had the pleasure to witness.”

Emily hit him on the arm.

Alexander raised his hands. “What?”

Shaking her head, Emily proceeded to push and shoo David and Alexander out of the room. The gentlemen put up a token resistance, but it was clear that there was nothing seriously wrong with Rose—and certainly not with Simon—so they finally gave up and left. They nodded at the duchess, but as of yet, the ladies had not noticed her.

Rose and Simon were still locked in their passionate embrace and showed no signs of stopping any time soon, so Hannah whispered to Sarah, Emily, and Hope, “Perhaps we should go?”

“We can’t leave them here alone!” Sarah whispered back. “Who knows what he will end up doing to her. She is clearly in no condition to say no…as we all just witnessed.” Sarah motioned to the couple in exaggeration to indicate what happened when Rose had tried to say no just moments earlier.

“She does have a point,” Hope acknowledged.

“Fine, then what do you suggest we do?” Hannah asked in some exasperation.

“Where’s a water pitcher when you need one?” Sarah said.

“I really don’t think we need to resort to that quite yet, ladies,” the duchess intoned from behind them.

“Lady Lancaster! You scared the wits out of me,” Emily gasped, putting a hand to her chest.

“Yes, well, then perhaps you should go sit down and rest for a while in the ballroom…your friends here can help you. And I suggest you spread the word that Rose is suffering from a headache and imply that she simply fainted during the dance and Mr. Trumbull is aiding her.”

The duchess looked pointedly at all of them and, amid a chorus of whining and moaning, the ladies left the room.

Once she was alone with the clearly oblivious couple, Lady Lancaster shut the door firmly behind her and clapped her hands loudly in an effort to intrude as modestly as possible upon the lovers’ private moment. When that didn’t seem to work, the duchess cleared her throat and became more ruthless in her approach. “Mr. Trumbull, Rose! I must ask that you stop that at once.”

…

Simon, having been fully aware of his audience the entire time he was kissing Rose (but not particularly caring), realized that Lady Lancaster could not be ignored as easily as the other on-lookers. So, with much regret, he slowly broke off his kiss with Rose.

Very slowly. So slowly, in fact, that to the casual observer he looked as if he were still kissing her. Which he was. Shorter, less involved kissing to be sure, but there was still much meeting of the lips.

“Ahem!”

“Arrgh, fine,” Simon groaned against Rose’s lovely, pliable, clearly kissable mouth. He lifted his head to confirm that Rose was no longer crying, but was in fact smiling. Indeed she almost seemed on the verge of laughter. He found he couldn’t be too upset, either, in light of the fact that apparently Rose did not want their engagement broken.

“Now, then,” Lady Lancaster said. “Perhaps you could tell me exactly what is going on here?”

Simon looked at Rose and Rose looked at Simon. They were both grinning at each other with large goofy smiles. Then Rose peeked over Simon’s shoulders to look at Lady Lancaster and then back at him. She cocked her head to one side and motioned in the direction of the duchess, as if to say, Shall we?

Simon sighed deeply and began to face the indomitable duchess, but before he had quite turned away from her, Rose leaned forward quickly and whispered in his ear, “I love you too, by the way.”

Simon whipped back around to look incredulously at Rose. “Really?”

Rose’s eyes were shining with more tears—and love, such unbelievable love—as she nodded ardently.

“Oh, Rose…” Simon sighed, leaning in for another kiss.

“Mr. Trumbull!” Lady Lancaster said loudly and Simon’s head snapped back up. Amazingly, he had forgotten for a moment that the duchess was there. He closed his eyes in mock defeat and got up from the floor where he was kneeling in front of Rose and instead sat next to her on the couch. She smiled at him and nothing in the world could have stopped his smile in return.

“Judging from the looks on your faces, I gather everything is all right?” she asked drily.

“Oh, yes,” Rose replied, eyes brimming over with happiness.

Simon just kept grinning.

“Hmph,” Lady Lancaster grunted. “You do realize that if you two weren’t already engaged, that little scene out there would surely have resulted in such?”

Simon looked at Rose and shrugged. Clearly that particular consequence was fine with him and he was quite sure with her, as well.

The duchess sighed, rather like a long-suffering parent. “And regardless of the fact you are currently engaged, I would highly recommend you marry sooner than later, after that spectacular exit.”

“I will certainly give that some thought, my lady,” Simon replied. He was beginning to become a bit annoyed by the woman’s concern about something that was between Rose and himself.

Lady Lancaster narrowed her eyes at Simon but said nothing else on the subject. Instead she said, “I suggest we return to the ballroom together. Perhaps entering with me will lend a little respectability to your actions.”

Simon was about to tell the dowager what she could do with her respectability, but Rose grabbed his arm and looked at him with pleading eyes. “She’s right, Simon. If nothing else, it will appease my parents. Because as much as I want to marry you, I don’t necessarily think we should do it next week. Do you?”