When the Duke Returns(87)

He was just pulling on his boots when she paused.

“Of course,” she said, “it’s a good thing that all of this doesn’t mean losing control, Simeon, don’t you think?”

“Yes.”

“Because while I might be worried that I would make some sort of untoward noise and wake young Godfrey, I would never have to worry about you.”

He followed her. Years in the desert had taught him a number of survival lessons.

One of them was never to ignore a gauntlet thrown at your very feet.





Chapter Thirty-five




The Dower House

March 3, 1784

Honeydew greeted them in the entryway to the Dower House, as if disheveled dukes were all in a day’s work. “Your Graces,” he said. “If you would be so kind as to keep your voices down, the young master is asleep.”

Isidore took off her wet pelisse and handed it to him. “My goodness, Honeydew,” she said, “you must take yourself to your bed. It’s begun raining again.”

“There appears to be some small chance of flooding,” Honeydew said.

“Nonsense,” Simeon said. “We’re on a hill.”

“The bridge leading to the village,” Honeydew clarified. “I took the liberty of sending your lady’s maid to temporary lodgings in the village; if the bridge went out, we’d have to house everyone in the barn and Miss Lucille would not be pleased.”

“Are you staying in the village as well?” Simeon asked.

“I shall retire to the barn again tonight, Your Grace. We need to keep an eye on the silver.”

“Good man,” Simeon said briefly. “We won’t keep you.” He closed the door behind his butler, thinking that Honeydew was a man he’d always want at his back, whether on a camel or in an English country house. He was loyal and honest, through and through.

Isidore had vanished. Simeon poked his head into the sitting room. The fire was burning low, so he threw on a couple more logs and walked over to look at his brother. Godfrey was lying flat on his back. In the blurry firelight he looked unnervingly like their father. He even snored like their father.

Simeon listened to the noise for a few seconds and then began to grin.

The little bedchamber wasn’t directly off the great room; there was a small passageway, almost a hallway leading to it.

He paused for a moment, wondering if husbands knocked at their wives’ bedchambers.



Isidore heard him outside the door and her heart leapt so high it felt as if it were in her throat. What on earth was he doing? He wouldn’t go to the barn with Honeydew, would he?

Would he?

She looked down at herself, reclining on the bed. “Come in!” she called.

The door opened and she saw him in the doorway. She gave him a moment, looking down at herself, trying to see her body through his eyes. She was plump in the right places, she thought, and sleek in others. She’d lit candles, and the reflection of small flames darted over her skin, making her look like a marble statue, the naughty Roman kind. Her hair tumbled around her shoulders, and Isidore had arranged it so that one of her breasts showed and the other didn’t.

“You may come in,” she said, feeling a nervous giggle in the back of her throat.

He closed the door with great precision and then put his hands to his coat.

“No!”

He raised an eyebrow.

“It’s your turn to learn about my body.”

He walked over to the bed. “May I sit with you?”

“No!” He looked so large that he made her feel dizzy. He sat down in a chair and crossed his legs. The look on Simeon’s face made him look younger than she’d ever seen him. There was devilment in those eyes. You couldn’t look like that when you were buried in a smelly old house, surrounded by bills.

“I want you to pay very close attention to this lesson,” she told him, propping herself up on one elbow.

He had to wrench his eyes away from her breasts, but he finally looked up. “I do. I mean, I am.”

She couldn’t help grinning. She sat up all the way. “These are my breasts.” She actually never touched them very much. But his eyes made her bold. She let her hands curve around her breasts, sweet and firm, the way she would like to be touched. “This afternoon…” She shook her head.

His eyes were wide and clear. “Not right?”

“Your hands are very strong. I had bruises on my hips.”

“I apologize.” The look of desire disappeared from his eyes and he stopped looking at her breasts.

“That wasn’t what I meant!” she said hastily. “I liked it, but…I would like this even more.” She smiled at him and, just like that, all the desire came back into his eyes.