The Pretender (38 page)

Throughout that afternoon Pearson kept all callers away and kept a steady supply of tea and cakes running to the parlor. Simon had spread a map out on the table, and the three of them traced every second of that fateful night.

Agatha was pleased to prove to be of some help, knowing James well enough to ask pointed questions about his habits. Thanks to her, James was able to recall that before he had visited his mistress, he had stopped at a confectioner's for his lady love's favorite bon-bon.

"Is this her house, Jamie?" Agatha pointed to a small side street on the map.

"No, it belongs to a friend of hers. She is married, so we took care to be discreet."

Disturbed, Agatha looked away. An affair with a married lady seemed so tawdry. Agatha was not sure she liked knowing that her idolized brother had the flaws of a normal man.

Simon stood and stretched. "Chocolates are all very well and good, but what I'd like to know is how the Voice of Society knew so much about your activities."

"Voice of Society?" James looked up from the map. "What are you talking about, Simon?"

"You know, Jamie, that gossip note that runs in the paper. The Voice of Society regularly reported on the activities of the Griffin."

"I'll be damned. Is that how all that got out? But no one truly believes that rot, do they?"

Agatha put her hands on her hips. "Jamie, when will you learn not to scoff at any source of information?"

Hoping for reinforcement, James looked at Simon, but Simon only grinned. "She took the words out of my mouth, I'm afraid."

James shrugged. "Vinnie adores that codswallop, but I've never read it."

Agatha perked up. She'd been waiting all day to learn the name of the mysterious lover. "Who's Vinnie?"

"Someone I know."

"Your mistress," Agatha guessed.

"Well, she isn't a real mistress. I didn't keep her or anything. She is merely a married woman with time on her hands."

Vinnie.
Oh, no
. Certain knowledge sent a shock through Agatha. "Lavinia."

"What?"

"Lady Winchell is your lover."

"Well, yes. You needn't go all missish on me, Aggie," James said defensively.

"But don't you see? Lavinia could be working for the French!"

The two men blinked at her. She spread her hands in her urgency. "Now it all makes sense. Lavinia knew where you'd be that night. She was suspicious of me from the start. Did you ever speak to her of me?"

"I told her a few boyhood stories, but I've always been very careful never to give anyone your name or your location. She couldn't have known about you. You're jumping to conclusions."

"But she tried to seduce Simon!"

A knowing expression crossed James's face, and he shook his head indulgently. "I see it now. You cannot let petty jealousies cloud your thinking. This is serious business. Honestly, Aggie, I'd have thought better of your logic."

Infuriated, Agatha lashed back. "Honestly, James, I'd have thought better of your taste."

Frowning, James leaned back. "See here, Lavinia's not an operative. She's selfish and shallow and far too interested in fashion and gossip to care about politics."

Agatha made an appeal to Simon. "You see it, don't you?"

Simon was eyeing her doubtfully. "It seems very circumstantial, Agatha. But I'll have someone check out her history if it will make you feel better."

A verbal pat on the head. She wanted to scream out loud with frustration. "I know that James thinks of me as perpetually twelve years old, but I'd have thought that you would have some trust in my intuition, Simon."

"I believe in hunches—
if
one is operating under good information."

"What better information do you need than the fact that every time we turn around, Lavinia is there?"

"It could be many things. Coincidence. A taste for meddling. Even perhaps attraction…"

He didn't finish, but she saw the glance he exchanged with James. Blasted male ego. "Oh,
of course,"
she said snidely. "You are so irresistible that any woman would be insane to care about something as tedious as treason while you are in the same room."

"Watch out, Simon. This could get ugly," muttered James, who was carefully backing away.

Agatha ignored her brother. She had Simon in her sights and moved in on him.

"Let me understand you. Lavinia cannot be an operative for the French because she's a woman, and because she finds you attractive. I, on the other hand, was not only a suspected traitor, but a whore! Now, how can that be, Simon? How is it that Lavinia merits your support, while I only invited investigation?"

Simon stared at her as she advanced. "Agatha—damsel— what's gotten into you?"

"Don't you 'damsel' me, Simon Rain! Was it because I didn't strip you naked in the study on first acquaintance? Or perhaps it was that I am not so elegant and refined?"

"Don't answer, Simon. There's no way out of that one!" warned James.

Agatha turned her head to eye her brother malevolently. "Get out."

James saluted her, then turned to Simon. "It's been nice knowing you."

His expression puzzled, Simon watched as James let the door shut behind him. "I do believe he meant that literally."

"He did. I'm sure you'll wish you had followed him."

He flashed a smile at her. "Are you trying to intimidate me, damsel?"

"No, of course not." She came closer and placed both hands on his chest.

Then she pushed, hard.

Simon landed half-sprawled on the sofa. Swearing in surprise, he quickly moved to stand. She pressed him back, finally resorting to straddling his lap to fix him to his seat.

With great precision, she said, "I want you to answer me, Simon. Why was I so questionable while Lavinia is so above suspicion?"

Agatha pressed both hands to his shoulders, pinning him in place for her inquisition. He was going to answer her once and for all. She opened her mouth to badger him again.

Then she felt it.

He was growing hard beneath her. She could feel him stiffening and expanding until he pressed directly against her cleft.

The hunger swept through her, and she felt herself throb in response. She froze there, wanting to undulate upon him, wanting to press his mouth to her breasts until she hardened against his tongue the way he hardened against her dampening center.

But this was not the safe darkness of night. This was not the secluded curtained world of his bed. And Agatha didn't know what to do with the sweeping tide of hunger that made her hands shake and her sex pulsate with need.

She gazed helplessly into his blue eyes, which had darkened with his own lust. She wanted him. Now. Not tonight, after a day of assumed indifference and heated glances.

Now. Here on the sofa, velvet be damned. With the door unlocked and the daylight streaming through the uncovered windows. Hard and fast—and immediately.

Simon felt the shift in her pose, and what was already hard became harder. Her skirts flowed over his legs like a private screen, and her breasts thrust forward at chin level. All he need do was release himself, and he could take her here, in the middle of the afternoon, with the rest of the household mere feet away.

It excited him deeply, and he knew he ought to wonder at himself, but the ache in his throbbing erection wasn't letting him think much at all.

When she eased forward to grind softly against him and kiss him with tender longing, he thought he might burst on the spot. Her mouth was soft and a little hesitant. He restrained his urge to kiss her blind and allowed her to set the depth of the kiss.

She grew more daring. Her tongue darted into his mouth in the way that he had taught her, and he felt a rush of triumph that he was the first to earn a kiss like this from her. Then he forgot ego as she pressed more fervently to him and the sweet boldness of her passion left him breathless for more.

His hands slid beneath the froth of petticoats to find the ripe flesh of her thighs. She wore no drawers, a habit he promptly decided to approve of. At the touch of his hands, she gasped.

He slid warm palms upward to clasp her bottom and watched as the desire grew in her gaze. Then he dipped his fingers into the tempting crevice of her bottom, slipping them forward until he felt her dew on his fingertips.

"What were you saying?" he whispered as he slid one finger deeper.

Agatha squirmed, but he tightened his grip on her, filling his hands with sweet womanly flesh.

"I truly… want to know…" She faded, her head falling back as she arched her back to ease his penetration.

She was liquid heat in his hands, and he took full advantage. Almost harshly, he drove two fingers deep within her. She arched against him in response, and he could feel by the way she melted bonelessly into his rough caress that she liked it very much indeed.

He pulled his other hand from beneath the veil of her skirts to satisfy his need to see her breasts. She was ivory-skinned, and he ached to see her nipples glow pink in the brilliance of daylight.

Urgently he tugged down the cap sleeves of her morning gown until the neckline hung from the rigid points of her breasts. Then he yanked it to her waist even as he drove his fingers into her once more.

She arched willingly into him again, offering her luscious flesh so sweetly that it made him ache in more ways than one. That she would give to him so trustingly, so generously, was more than he could ever deserve.

He wrapped his arm about her waist and devoured her sweet offering, sucking and nipping her tender flesh while using his other hand to return the gift of pleasure to her.

Agatha was dimly aware that she was next to naked in the parlor, with Simon's hands and mouth upon her while she threaded her fingers through his black hair to urge him closer. She was even more vaguely appalled at her own wanton ability not to care.

"Tell me what you want," he growled into her breasts, his breath hot on her skin. "Say the words."

"I want you inside me," she gasped. He drove his fingers deeper in response, making her quiver. But it wasn't enough. "I want
you."

"In time," he murmured. "First I want to watch you come apart. Simon says, fly for me."

Agatha whimpered as he began to touch her in rapid stroking motions that sent ecstasy splintering through her.

With gasping sighs, she rode his probing fingers until she could stand no more. He seemed to sense that, and the pressure changed. Suddenly his slippery fingertips moved forward, caressing somewhere else entirely.

She remembered his mouth upon her there, tasting her, nibbling and flickering over her, and the memory combined with the new rougher sensations was enough to send her over the edge.

She cried out, then clapped a hand over her own mouth as she helplessly continued to spasm with pleasure.

"Oh, God, damsel—oh, God, I have to—" Dimly she felt his hands return to fumble between them and used the last of her conscious will to pull away slightly to allow him to release his erection.

Each brush of his knuckles against her threatened to set her off again. She leaned her face against his neck, trying to gather her wits and her strength.

But it was no use. When he at last drove into her with an animal growl of triumph, she felt the wave sweep her up once more.

Simon thrust forcefully into her slippery heat. Then he withdrew until he barely held his position at her cleft.

"Oh, please…" She quivered above him. "Simon… I need… please…"

Simon grasped her bottom hard and drove upward, forcing a cry from her lips. She shuddered in his hands as he pierced her again and again.

His woman.
His
.

She was such a sight above him, such a vision of abandon in the daylight. His own eruption began building. He took a hard pink nipple in his mouth and sucked deeply. In reaction, Agatha jolted violently upon him, then began to tremble anew.

When he felt her spasm around him, he'd not the control to hold out any longer. Burying his face into her breasts, he groaned aloud from the sheer shuddering power of his release.

She collapsed upon him, sagging in his grasp. He kept her there, only shifting enough to lean back against the cushions with her in his arms, still wrapped quivering around him.

He'd never seen a woman orgasm so powerfully, without reservation or self-conscious restraint. It was uniquely Agatha, although he had to admit to a certain exhausted pride in his own role.

She finally began to breathe more easily upon him. With one finger, he tipped back her chin to see her face.

"Are you still with me?"

She nodded, taking one last ragged breath. "I may be dead soon, but not yet."

"Why would you be dead?"

"Because it grows better every time. And if it grows better than
that,
I shall surely die."

"That good?"

"Yes, that good, as you very well know." She wriggled to lie beside him, her legs still draped over his. "You still haven't answered my question. And now I have another."

"Why am I not surprised?" He stroked a lock of her mussed hair from her face, although she was astonishingly unrumpled from what they had just done. In fact, she was lovelier than ever.

Her skin glowed with satiation, and her sweet lips were further swollen and pinked. Never had her brown eyes been brighter or her gaze gentler.

"Not merely pretty," he murmured. "I can't believe I ever thought you so."

She wrinkled her nose and shook her head. "Oh, I'm well enough, I suppose. But I'm no Lavinia."

He could tell that she was not merely fishing for reassurance. She honestly believed it. He obviously had not been doing his job. A man who couldn't make his woman feel beautiful was neglecting his function. Simon only wished he had the rest of his life to do it properly.

He took her face in both palms and made her raise her gaze to his. "Do you still want to know why I suspected you in the beginning?"

She nodded, watching him with wide eyes.

"This is why—this way that you make me feel by simply breathing the same air that I breathe. I couldn't believe it was real. I'd never been so susceptible to a woman before, and I couldn't believe it was not some artifice, some spell you wove apurpose."