School For Heiresses 2- Only a Duke Will Do (12 page)

“I still haven’t seen what it entails.”

That was precisely what bothered her—the way he evaded her questions. And the fact that accepting his help would mean being around him, talking to him…stirring up the old feelings for him. Feelings she didn’t dare act upon.

Her heart thundered in her ears. Was it worth the risks?

Before she could answer herself or him, something large and furry tumbled over her shoulder and fell into her lap. She laughed, relieved to put off the decision a while longer. “Raji, you little devil. I thought you preferred riding on the perch.”

“Apparently not when you’re around.” Simon cast his pet a stern glance. “You should leave the poor woman be. She is not your keeper.”

“I don’t mind,” she said, cradling the adorable creature in her arms. Simon said something in Hindi to his pet. They were about to pass under a low-hanging branch, and suddenly Raji scrambled up the hood of the phaeton, then leapt right onto the oak and disappeared.

“Damn.” Simon brought the phaeton to a swift halt. “The rascal has a mind of his own. I must retrieve him before he scampers too far.” He sprang out, then turned to her. “You should come, too. Since he’s fond of you, perhaps you can coax him back.”

“Of course.” She let Simon help her down, then headed into the woods where Raji had disappeared. Simon gave his tiger some orders before joining her.

She could see no sign of Raji, and began to worry that they would never find him. Even Simon’s shouted commands brought no results. After several moments of wandering and calling, they reached the end of the woods. Still no Raji.

Simon turned to her. “We’ll have to wait until he tires of exploring. Which he will do eventually.”

“But he could hurt himself!”

“He’s a monkey. You may not realize it, sweetheart, but they actually spend most of their time in trees.”

“Very funny,” she said, but the word “sweetheart” reverberated through her chest in a most alarming way.

“We might as well wait for him to find us.” Simon gestured to a fallen oak. “Let’s sit, shall we?”

She shot him a sharp glance. “Wouldn’t he find us more easily at the phaeton?”

“Not necessarily.” He strode to the log and swept it clean with his leather driving gloves, which he then peeled off and slapped against his thigh. “Besides, I’d rather sit here than on the side of the dusty road, wouldn’t you?”

Removing his frock coat, he laid it over the log, then gestured for her to take a seat. The fact that it left him scandalously clad in his shirtsleeves and striped waistcoat didn’t seem to occur to him. Or did it? Suspicion sputtered to life. “What did you say to Raji in Hindi that sent him leaping from the phaeton?”

“I told him to leave you be.” Simon tossed his beaver top hat onto the log. “He must have taken it to mean he should run off.”

“Fiddlesticks.” She planted her hands on her hips. “I saw how well you managed him today; he obeyed your every command. So admit it—you didn’t really tell him to leave me be, did you?”

A reluctant smile touched his lips. “You are too clever for your own good.”

“Too clever for the machinations of a scoundrel like you,” she scoffed. “Now tell me what you said to Raji.”

Mischief glinted in his eyes. “I said, ‘Go find the bananas.’”

“You know perfectly well there are no banana trees here!”

“Exactly.” He strode toward her with clear intent.

A little thrill coursed down her spine. “But he’ll get lost or—”

“Don’t fret yourself over it.” His dark smile made her toes curl in her half boots. “He’s been trained to look for a while and then return to his owner.”

Torn between laughter and outrage, she backed away from him. “You mean you sent that poor thing on a wild banana chase? That’s awful!”

“Trust me, there’s nothing Raji likes better than a good swing through the trees.” He stalked her with a tiger’s easy grace. “Besides, a man has to find some way to be alone with the woman he’s courting, doesn’t he?”

The words hung in the air, tantalizing her with the forbidden, alarming her with the reality. Once again she’d made a huge miscalculation. And judging from the predatory look on Simon’s face, she

’d best beat a hasty retreat.

Chapter Nine

Dear Cousin,

Why can’t Miss North and the duke both pursue their ambitions? Assumptions like yours are why women like myself refuse to marry—because once we achieve our life’s dream, we are loath to toss it aside for the dubious pleasures of matrimony.

Your irate cousin,

Charlotte

S imon wasn’t surprised Louisa had caught on to his ploy so quickly—he could scarcely believe she had let him take it this far.

She hurried back down the path toward the road. “It’s getting late, sir. We should return to town.”

She thought to flee him, did she? The devil she would.

Reaching inside his waistcoat pocket, he called out, “Don’t you want to know how much money Lord Trusbut donated to the London Ladies Society?”

That made her halt. She hesitated, probably weighing whether to engage the enemy in this cozy spot, but the reformer in her won out over the cautious spinster.

When she faced him, he was dangling the bank draft from his fingers. Her face darkened. “That belongs to me, and you know it.” She held out her hand. “Now give it here.”

“‘Give it here’?” He chuckled. “That may work for my sister when she deals with your lummox of a brother, but I’m not so easily led.” With a grin, he tucked the draft inside his pocket. “If you want it, you will have to come and get it.”

Though color suffused her lovely cheeks, her eyes glittered in the rapidly dimming light. “I am not going to play your games,” she told him with typically feminine condescension. “Hand me the draft, Your Grace.”

His grin vanished. “Call me Simon, and I will.”

“Your Grace, Your Grace, Your Grace—”

“I will make you call me Simon if it’s the last thing I do,” he growled, then lunged for her. She whirled and ran from him. “I shall never say it now, sir,” she called back as she weaved through birches and elms, her bodice ribbons trailing out behind her like a comet’s tail. Fortunately her skirts hampered her speed, so he caught up to her within moments. Snagging her about the waist, he yanked her back against him so hard that he knocked off her hat. “Call me Simon,” he hissed in her ear as her sweet derriere nestled against his groin. “Call me Simon or you will never see that draft.”

She stopped wriggling, and for a second he thought he had won. Until she brought the heel of her very sturdy half boot back into his shin. Hard.

“Ow!” He released her at once. The bloody female had kicked him!

She turned and slid her hand inside his pocket, jerking out the draft with a cry of triumph. When she read it, she froze. “Oh my word.”

Simon glared up at her as he rubbed his sore shin. “I hope that warms your mercenary little heart.”

“Two hundred pounds! Do you know what we can do with two hundred pounds?”

“Hire hackneys?” he grumbled as he straightened.

“Add nicely to our fund for our candidate.”

He went cold. Not if he had anything to say about it.

She stared at the draft, a guilty flush touching her cheeks. “Um…what amount had Lord Trusbut offered before you convinced him to change it?”

“Twenty.” When her startled gaze shot to him, he added, “I strongly encouraged him to add a zero.”

After promising privately that he would prevent the group from pursuing their political aspirations. Trusbut might be willing to placate his wife’s new interest in reform, but he was as wary as the other lords about letting some charitable group trot a questionable political candidate about the country giving incendiary speeches.

“Thank you. It is much appreciated.”

Her unwitting thanks troubled his conscience, but he told himself he would make it up to her once they were married.

Contrition shining in her eyes, Louisa folded the draft, then slipped it inside the pocket of her morning gown. “I’m sorry I kicked you. It was most ungenerous of me. This is far more than I expected, Your Grace.”

If she called him “Your Grace” one more time, he would take her over his knee. “Surely I deserve more than a mere thanks,” he snapped.

She stiffened. “Now see here, I am not the sort of woman to offer—”

“Call me Simon, damn it.”

Her eyes went wide. “Oh.”

The color suffusing her cheeks gave him pause. “You thought I was going to ask for something else, didn’

t you?”

She dropped her gaze. “No, I-I wasn’t…I just thought—”

“That I was going to ask for a kiss. Or something equally scandalous.” He stepped nearer. “Perhaps you were even hoping I would.”

“Certainly not!” But she couldn’t meet his eyes. “I told you already that I have no desire to—”

Taking her off guard, he tugged her into his arms, then kissed her. Suddenly, firmly…briefly. When she lifted her startled gaze to him, he said, “There, you have your kiss. Now call me Simon.”

A laugh sputtered out of her that she quickly squelched. Her lips formed a prim line once more, but their twitch betrayed her. “I told you, I shan’t be so familiar with you.” She pushed against his chest. “And I certainly didn’t mean for you to—”

He kissed her again, but before she could shove him away, he drew back. “I am happy to give you as many kisses as you please, as long as you call me Simon.”

She looked torn between anger and laughter. “You know perfectly well I wasn’t asking you to—”

He leaned forward to kiss her again, but she hastily pressed her hand to his lips. “Stop that, sir!”

“Simon,” he prompted against her gloved fingers. “Call me Simon, and I will stop.”

Another laugh bubbled out of her. “Are you deaf? I told you, I won’t call you Simon until I know the real you better.”

Imprisoning her hand against his lips, he began to kiss her gloved fingers one by one. “So you prefer that I keep kissing you—”

“You know that’s not what I meant,” she said in a throaty whisper. Yet she did not push him away or try to halt him as he unfastened the tiny buttons of her glove and opened it to feather a kiss over the lilac-scented skin of her wrist. When her pulse stammered into a wild thrumming, his own pulse leapt in response. She was not as immune to him as she pretended, thank God.

“You have such pretty hands.” He peeled her glove off, kissing every inch he bared. “Such delicate fingers.”

Her breath came in a hot, staccato rhythm against his forehead. “Don’t be ridiculous. I have short, stubby fingers. That’s why I play the harp so badly. Everyone says so.”

“Everyone is wrong.” He tucked her glove inside his trouser pocket, then skimmed his lips down her index finger to kiss her bare palm. When her fingers flattened against his cheek in a near caress, he exulted. “I remember your harp playing. It was wonderful.”

She laughed shakily. “Then you’re either mad or tone-deaf, or remembering another woman’s harp playing entirely. Regina’s perhaps.”

“It wasn’t my sister’s hands I dreamt of in Calcutta. It wasn’t her fingers I dreamt of having stroke my cheek.” His voice deepened. “The way you are now.”

Stiffening, she tried to pull her hand away, but he wouldn’t let her, caressing her palm with his open mouth until she softened.

“I don’t believe you thought of my fingers for one minute,” she said, but the yearning in her gaze showed that she wanted him to be telling the truth.

Oddly enough, he was. “No?” He paused in the midst of nibbling her sweet pinkie to seize her other hand, then rub her ring finger through the glove. “You have a scar on the second knuckle, right here, which you got when a terrier bit you. You told me about it at that dinner at the Iversleys.” When she had let him hold her bare hand briefly beneath the table.

“You…you remember that?” Her eyes widened to a sultry black that enticed him to lose himself in them. He stripped her other glove off and tucked it in his pocket. Placing her hands on his shoulders, he tugged her close, plastering her against him from thigh to breast. “I remember everything,” he rasped. Then he took her lips with his, his blood fired with the need to plunder her honeyed mouth. To hell with biding his time, being careful to keep from frightening her off with too much too fast. The only way to shatter her Joan of Arc shield was to remind her that she was a desirable woman, too passionate to languish as a spinster.

Too passionate and too damned luscious for words. She tasted of tea and lemon cakes—so thoroughly English that it intoxicated him, yet as exotic to him as any concoction of almond milk and coconut. And when she opened those soft-as-silk lips, coaxing him in, meeting his tongue thrust for thrust, it was all he could do not to lay her down beneath the birch and elms and satisfy his aching need. For a woman who seemed to have led a nun’s life of late, she certainly excelled at kissing. Just thinking of the men who might have dared to kiss her while he was in India made him kiss her more roughly, more possessively—

She tore her mouth from his, struggling for breath, her hands now buried in his hair. “What else do you…

remember about our time together?”

At least she didn’t thrust him away. “Obviously more than you.” The words came out harsher than he’d meant, and he nuzzled her sleek swan’s throat. “I suppose you were too busy with those idiots at court to think of me.”

“Idiots at court?” she echoed.

“The ones who taught you to kiss so well.”

He wished he’d kept his bloody mouth shut when she drew back to stare at him with a wounded expression. “So you do think I’m a wanton like my mother.”

Damn, he knew how sensitive she was about that. “If I thought you were a wanton, I wouldn’t be courting you.” When she tried to leave his embrace, he wouldn’t let her. “But clearly you learned to kiss from someone.”

She glared at him. “And what if I did? How many dozens of women did you kiss while you were away?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“I’m sure I would.” She tipped up her chin. “You probably had a string of Indian mistresses to rival a rajah.”

“No,” he said tersely. “No mistresses.”

Her eyes shone luminous in the fading light. “Then there were ladybirds.”