“Your permission?” Isidore echoed. “Your permission for what? Would you have said that you wished to keep the rug that your father’s incontinent dog chose as his private privy, or the one with a rip down the middle?”
“Do you mock me?”
Surely there were women who would have cowered at this point. But Isidore had never cowered at anyone, including Simeon’s mother, and she wasn’t going to start now. “Absolutely,” she said. “Mock where mockery is due, I say.”
“You—” he said violently, and broke off.
“Yes?”
And then, when he didn’t answer: “Are you sure you don’t want to characterize my heinous crime? That of sending the furniture out to be repaired so that this house is livable, if not hospitable?”
“Where is my mother to eat dinner?” he asked.
Isidore opened her mouth—and paused. “In the Dower House?”
“All four of us, happily crowded in the corner?”
“Honeydew will find a larger table,” Isidore said.
“Could you please consult with me before you embark on projects such as emptying out the house?” he asked.
He had himself under control again. Isidore almost sighed. There was something magnificent about Simeon in a rage. Not that she wished to court that condition, she told herself. “Of course,” she said. “Instantly. Every time. I’ll ask you so many questions that you’ll grow tired of the very sound of my voice.”
He shot her a sardonic look, but at least his mouth relaxed.
“What on earth could have happened to this wall?” he asked, wandering over to examine a gap in the paneling.
“Your father kicked it,” she said, answering his query.
“My father—”
“Your father apparently kicked the paneling after a game of cards. The strength of his leg was such that he remained stuck with one foot in the wall and the other on the floor, until the footmen could extract him.”
Simeon turned around and ran a hand through his hair. “Isidore, have I lost my mind? Is this normal behavior for an English family?”
She smiled at that. “How would I know? I’m Italian, remember?”
“I spent the entire morning going through a most unpleasant stack of letters. They are all dated from six to eight years ago, and not only did each of them ask for money, but each had been denied by my father.”
He was a beautiful man: spare, large, wild-looking. Even his eyes were beautiful, filled with disappointment though they were.
He ran his hand through his hair again. “Am I truly mad, Isidore?”
“No,” she said promptly. “I should tell you that I had an argument with your mother this morning.”
“I apologize for my mother’s undoubted vehemence.” He leaned against the wall next to her.
“I lost my temper,” Isidore said, meeting his eyes. “I spoke in a most inappropriate manner. And I said things that I wish I hadn’t.”
“That pretty much sums up my experience of England,” he said, looking down at her.
Isidore suddenly felt as if her knees were weak. He was going to kiss her—he was—he did. His lips felt more familiar now. He licked her lips and she almost giggled, but then she put an arm around his neck and drew him close.
Thoughts fled as their bodies met. He was all hard muscle, and she melting softness. They both smelled of dust. But under the dust and faint smell of ink, she could smell the spicy cleanness that was Simeon. It made her tremble. It made her put both arms around his neck and hold on.
Chapter Nineteen
Revels House
March 1, 1784
That afternoon
Simeon was conscious of savage disappointment: in his father, every time he leafed through sheaves of rejected bills, in himself. He had returned from the Dower House the night before and retreated to the study until numbers swam before his eyes.
Yet his father wasn’t the heart of his problem. She was. He could fix the house, and pay the bills. He couldn’t fix what happened to him when he was around Isidore. He felt like a hunting animal seeing her, as if even the hairs on the back of his neck knew where she was in the room.
Finally, at this late date, he understood all the poetry of desire and lust that he had ignored before. Valamksepa used to recite the poetry of Rumi, a poet from 500 years ago; Simeon had exulted because he was free from the embarrassments described by the poet. And yet, Rumi was right: reason was powerless in the face of the lust he felt for Isidore. All he wanted to do was retreat to a bedchamber and—and rut.
Like an animal.
Not like a principled, thoughtful human being, like the kind of man he had always believed himself to be.