The Duchess Hunt (22 page)

Simon disagreed – all he knew was that he would
want to know, and everyone deserved to know where they’d come from, even if the
truth was difficult to bear. But he was willing to let it go, for now. Theo and
Mark were busy with other things, and Luke – well, God only knew when he’d be
seeing Luke again. He wanted proof first, to know for certain, and then he
would have time to think about how best to approach that particular facet of
the problem.

“We’ll talk about it later, then,” he said
tiredly, rising to leave.

For now, he had other concerns. Verifying
Stanley’s proof. Proposing to Georgina Stanley.

Telling Sarah.

Chapter
Fourteen

Sarah lay naked beside Simon in bed, her
arms wrapped around him, sated and drowsy from their lovemaking but still
awake.

Something was wrong, she knew. Something
had been wrong for almost a week now. She had tried to ignore it after that
first time he’d told her he didn’t want to discuss it, but each time he’d come
to her since that night – the night they’d made love for the first time – it
had been present. A near palpable darkness that had seemed to hover behind him,
press down on his shoulders. The heaviness of whatever it was pressed into her
as well, a crushing heaviness on her heart.

“Simon.” She drew back to look into his
face. “Tell me what happened last week that weighs on you so.”

He gazed at her, then sighed. “I have
tried not to bring it here with me. I see that I have failed.”

“Not exactly.” He’d never seemed
distracted or anything but completely focused on her when they were together.
“But I do sense a black cloud hanging over you. And it builds and grows more
thunderous every day.”

“I’d planned on telling you tonight.” He
turned and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, then looked back over his
shoulder at her, his expression grim. “I’d still like to pretend it doesn’t
exist, but you have to know.”

She looked at him in rising terror, but he
turned away, not meeting her eyes. “Dress. This will require clothing.”

The pressure on her heart deepened as she
obeyed him, slipping her nightgown over her head, then, even though it was warm
enough without it, she pulled her robe on, wrapping the edges tightly around
her body before cinching it closed with the belt.

When she’d finished, he’d drawn on his
trousers, and his long, white shirt was draped over his torso, making him look
like a half-naked pirate, dangerously handsome with his tousled light brown
hair and piercing green eyes.

He dragged a chair next to the bed, then
sat on the edge of the bed and gestured to the chair. “Sit.”

She sat, looking at him warily, every
nerve in her body brimming with trepidation.

He stared at her for a long moment, his
hands clenched in the mussed blankets. Then, he said, “We both knew this would
happen. I’d just hoped it wouldn’t have to be so soon.”

She stared at him, uncomprehending. Surely
he couldn’t be talking about them. Their discovery of each other had only just
begun.

“After tonight… I can’t come to you
anymore. What is happening between us must end. It is over.”

“No.” It came out as a harsh whisper
before she could stop it. A tidal wave of pain crashed through her, and she
closed her eyes and clenched her fists to combat it.

It struck her… she’d thought she loved
Simon before. Now, since he’d started coming into her bed, she realized how
much she truly did love him. How quickly he had become her universe.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

She opened her eyes and looked at him. His
gaze was stark, his hands still clenched. He didn’t want this, either.

“Why?” she asked, her voice hoarse.

“Circumstances beyond my control are
forcing me to offer marriage to… someone.”

She blinked at him, the different
scenarios running through her mind, all of them so uncharacteristic of Simon.
She shook her head. “How…? Did you compromise her?”

“No!” he choked out. “Sarah…” He slid off
the bed and came to her, kneeling before her chair and looking up into her
face, only open honesty showing in his. “There has been no one but you this
spring, no one but you for a long time. It’s nothing like that. There are other
compelling reasons – none that have anything to do with her or me or any prior
relationship between us, but with my family’s reputation and my brothers’ and
sister’s futures.”

She shook her head, unable to make sense
of his words. The dukedom wasn’t in financial peril – or was it? No, it
couldn’t be. And why marry to protect a sibling’s future? Had Luke ruined some
lady, and was Simon offering himself in lieu of another type of payment?

It would be like Luke to make such a dire
mistake. It would be like Simon to do whatever he could to save his brother…
and the family name.

Her eyes filled with tears, and she
blinked furiously to not allow them to spill. She was an expert at deceiving
the world when it came to her feelings about Simon. She must continue to be so,
now more than ever.

He slid his hands up the outsides of her
thighs and pressed his forehead to her knees. “Don’t… look at me like that,” he
said brokenly.

“Like what?”

“Like the world is coming to an end.”

My world
is
coming to an end, she thought.

“We knew. I tried to warn you. Warn myself
—”

“Who is it?” she whispered, cutting off
his words.

He seemed to deflate a bit against her.
“Georgina Stanley.” With seeming great effort, he pulled back and stared at her
from his position on his knees.

“Oh.”

Beautiful, proper Miss Georgina Stanley.
She was exactly the sort of lady Sarah had always thought Simon would marry.
Until recently. Until he’d started coming into Sarah’s room at night and had
somehow put ideas into her head that his wife would be more like… her.

His lips were so tight their usual pale
pink tinge had faded. “I don’t want this. I don’t want her. I want…” His voice
faded, then he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter what I want,” he said softly.
“It is what it is.”

“When will you arrange for the betrothal?”
It was astonishing how smooth and clear her voice sounded. How she could
pretend that the sharp dagger of pain hadn’t stabbed a hole into her heart. How
it was possible her lungs were still capable of drawing breath.

She knew he wasn’t betrothed yet. Simon
was the sort of man who wouldn’t go near a woman once he was bound to marry
someone else.

“Tomorrow.”

She let out a little cry of pain before
she could stop it.

And he was drawing her off the chair, onto
his lap, and cradling her close.

Don’t cry. Do not cry. You will
not cry in front of him, because you knew this was going to happen. You
knew
it, Sarah.

This was the last time he’d ever hold her
like this. It hurt. More than she could have ever comprehended it would.

He held her face against his chest,
pressed his own face into her hair.

“I have to do this. For my family.” His
words came to her, fractured and broken. “Please understand.”

She did understand, or at least a part of
her did.

Mostly, she understood that her life
loomed before her, a bleak and desolate wasteland without him.

And then he was kissing her. Everywhere.
His lips were frantic, his movements erratic, like he wanted to touch every
part of her at once. One last time.

That, she understood completely. Because
she was kissing him, too, her movements equally jerky, equally fumbling.
Everywhere. Her hands moved over his jaw, his night beard rasping against her
palms. Down the front of his chest, then dipping beneath his shirt and moving
up again until they reached his heart, hesitating there for seconds while she
felt the frantic pounding beneath her fingertips. His fingers worked toward the
hem of her nightgown, or her robe, or both, and her hands pressed around his
sides.

Unchecked tears ran freely down her cheeks
now, and as he laid her on the carpet, he bent down and kissed them away. And
then he pressed inside her, and she gasped at the rush of sensation.

The trembling started in her core and
spread in long fingers outward. She couldn’t control it. She was a mass of nerves,
her skin more raw and sensitive than it had ever been, her heart speared open
and laid bare.

Simon’s mouth moved over her, furiously
frantic. He collected her into his arms so that she was somehow cradled beneath
him. His body pressed firmly over hers, but he supported the majority of his
weight on his forearms and knees. He was heavy and warm, but he trembled with
her, his chest heaving with the harsh breaths he made with each deep plunge his
body made into hers.

She was lost, swirling in a chasm of pain
and desire and ecstasy. Her shudders deepened, and then her womb contracted
hard, and she cried out and arched beneath him, completely at the mercy of her
body’s demands.

He groaned, and somewhere from deep within
the chasm, she heard his words as his seed spilled into her body.

“Sarah. Sarah. It’s you I love.
You
.”

Simon entered Baron Stanley’s London
drawing room. Lord and Lady Stanley rose from their pink-upholstered chairs to
greet him, along with Georgina. He greeted them all politely.

The room was papered in pink, and a pink
carpet blanketed the floor. Even the fire glowed pink, a garish reflection of
the surrounding color.

“And good afternoon to you, Your Grace,”
Lady Stanley gushed. “A very good afternoon, indeed.”

For her, perhaps.

Ever since he’d told Sarah he’d need to
end things last night, he’d felt rather as if he’d been skinned alive and was
bleeding all over the place. This felt unreal, like some kind of nightmare he
wished he could wake from. And he wished he’d wake in Sarah’s bed. Then, he’d
turn to her, pull her tight against him, take comfort from her sweet smell, her
sweet body…

“Your Grace.” Miss Stanley gave him a very
proper curtsy.

He took her hand and squeezed it. “Miss
Stanley. I’m so glad you are here.”

He’d known she would be. He and Stanley
had planned all this yesterday, when Stanley had called on him to hear his
answer. Simon had neglected many of his duties in the past week to seek out
Stanley’s proof. First, he and Sam had ridden to Croydon to seek out Fiona
Atwood. They’d found her in a small hovel. The place reeked of cheap gin. And
although Stanley had named the high price it had taken the duchess to buy Theo
and Mark and assure no one in London would ever set eyes on Fiona Atwood again,
it seemed the woman had squandered it in spirits and gambling.

And still… beyond the smell of alcohol
emanating from the overweight, wheezing woman as she told them her story, of
how she didn’t want to give up her “dear boys” but the duchess had left her
with no choice, Simon saw undeniable hints of his brothers in her. The brown
eyes and the hair – which on this woman now hung gray and limp, but Simon could
see the hints of the light brown curls it had once held.

Sam had seen it too. In the end, both of
them believed the woman was Theo’s and Mark’s mother.

The next day, Simon had retrieved a copy
of the agreement Stanley had signed regarding Luke, and he’d taken it to
Prentiss, his solicitor. After giving Simon his heartfelt wishes that none of
it had ever happened, Prentiss had verified the veracity of the agreement.

Lukas Hawkins was the illegitimate son of
Baron Stanley and the Duchess of Trent. The truth of it still sat like a sour
pit in Simon’s stomach.

Lady Stanley gestured to the table. “There
is hot tea. And a peach marmalade, which is quite delightful. Georgina, dear,
will you serve His Grace?”

“Of course, Mama,” the young lady said
demurely. She stood behind the tea service – a replica of the tea service at
Ironwood Park, the one Sarah had served him from.

Simon’s feet were rooted to the floor as
images of Sarah, her smooth white body, her long limbs, her head thrown back in
ecstasy, her hands roaming over his skin, whipped through him. Her bright
smile, and those lovely blue eyes that had burrowed so deeply under his skin…
The fresh, sunlit taste of her. The sweet smell of her…

“Do sit down, Your Grace.”

Stanley offered him a raised brow. “I’d
perhaps offer you something a bit stronger, Trent. A nip of sherry, perhaps?
I’d choose brandy, myself, but I know how much you despise spirits obtained in
the manner in which I have obtained mine.”

Simon didn’t answer.