The Duke and I (22 page)

 Simon looked at her, first with surprise, then with curiosity.

 "You can never see them in London," she continued, keeping her voice purposefully light. "Either the lights are too bright, or the fog has rolled in. Or sometimesthe air is just too filthy to see through it." She shrugged and glanced back up at the sky, which was overcast. "I'd hoped that I'd be able to see them here in Hampstead Heath. But alas, the clouds do not cooperate."

 There was a very long moment of silence. Then Simon cleared his throat, and asked, "Did you know that the stars are completely different in the southern hemisphere?"

 Daphne hadn't realized how tense she was until she felt her entire body relax at his query. Clearly, he was trying to force their evening back into normal patterns, and she was happy to let him. She looked at him quizzically, and said, "You're joking."

 "I'm not. Look it up in any astronomy book."

 "Hmmm."

 "The interesting thing," Simon continued, his voice sounding less strained as he moved further into the conversation, "is that even if you're not a scholar of astronomy—and I'm not—"

 "And obviously," Daphne interrupted with a self-deprecating smile, "neither am I."

 He patted her hand, and smiled, and Daphne noticed with relief that his happiness reached his eyes. Then her relief turned into something a little more precious—joy. Because she had been the one to chase the shadows from his eyes. She wanted to banish them forever, she realized.

 If only he would let her...

 "You'd notice the difference anyway," he said. "That's what's so strange. I never cared to learn the constellations and yet when I was in Africa, I looked up into the sky—and the night was so clear. You've never seen a night like that."

 Daphne stared at him, fascinated.

 "I looked up into the sky," he said with a bewildered shake of his head, "and it looked wrong."

 "How can a sky lookwrong?"

 He shrugged, lifting one of his hands in an unknowing gesture. "It just did.All the stars were in the wrong place."

 "I suppose I should want to see the southern sky," Daphne mused. "If I were exotic and dashing, and the sort of female

men write poetry about, I suppose I should want to travel."

 "You
are
the sort of female men write poetry about," Simon reminded her with a slightly sarcastic tilt to his head.

"It was just bad poetry."

 Daphne laughed. "Oh, don't tease. It was exciting. My first day with six callers and Neville Binsby actually wrote poetry."

 "Seven callers," Simon corrected, "including me."

 "Seven including you. But you don't really count."

 "You wound me," he teased, doing a fair imitation of Colin. "Oh, how you wound me."

 "Perhaps you should consider a career in the theater as well."

 "Perhaps not," he replied.

 She smiled gently. "Perhaps not. But what I was going to say is that, boring English girl that I am, I have no desire to go anywhere else. I'm happy here."

 Simon shook his head, a strange, almost electric light appearing in his eyes. "You're not boring. And"—his voice dropped down to an emotional whisper—"I'm glad you're happy. I haven't known many truly happy people."

 Daphne looked up at him, and it slowly dawned on her that he had moved closer. Somehow she doubted he even realized it, but his body was swaying toward hers, and she was finding it nigh near impossible to pull her eyes from his.

 "Simon?" she whispered.

 "There are people here," he said, his voice oddly strangled.

 Daphne turned her head to the corners of the terrace. The murmuring voices she'd heard earlier were gone, but that just

might mean that their erstwhile neighbors were eavesdropping.

 In front of her the garden beckoned. If this were a London ball, there would have been no place to go past the terrace, but Lady Trowbridge prided herself on being different, and thus always hosted her annual ball at her second residence in Hampstead Heath. It was less than ten miles from Mayfair, but it might as well have been in another world. Elegant homes dotted wide patches of green, and in Lady Trowbridge's garden, there were trees and flowers, shrubs and hedges—dark corners where a couple could lose themselves.

 Daphne felt something wild and wicked take hold. "Let's walk in the garden," she said softly.

 "We can't."

 "We must."

 "We can't."

 The desperation in Simon's voice told her everything she needed to know. He wanted her. He desired her. He was
mad
 

for her.

 Daphne felt as if her heart was singing the aria from
The Magic Flute,
somersaulting wildly as it tripped past high C.

 And she thought—what if she kissed him? What if she pulled him into the garden and tilted her head up and felt his lips touch hers? Would he realize how much she loved him? How much he could grow to loveher?

 And maybe—just maybe he'd realize how happy she made him.

 Then maybe he'd stop talking about how determined he was to avoid marriage.

 "I'm going for a walk in the garden," she announced. "You may come if you wish."

 As she walked away—slowly, so that he might catch up with her—she heard him mutter a heartfelt curse, then she heard his footsteps shortening the distance between them.

 "Daphne, this is insanity," Simon said, but the hoarseness in his voice told her he was trying harder to convince himself of that than he was her. She said nothing, just slipped farther into the depths of the garden.

 "For the love of God, woman, will you listen to me?" His hand closed hard around her wrist, whirling her around. "I promised your brother," he said wildly. "I made a vow."

 She smiled the smile of a woman who knows she is wanted. "Then leave."

 "You know I can't. I can't leave you out in the garden unprotected. Someone could try to takeadvantage of you."

 Daphne gave her shoulders a dainty little shrug and tried to wiggle her hand free of his grasp.

 But his fingers only tightened.

 And so, although she knew it was not his intention, she let herself be drawn to him, slowly moving closer until they were but a foot apart.

 Simon's breathing grew shallow. "Don't do this, Daphne."

 She tried to say something witty; she tried to say something seductive. But her bravado failed her at the last moment. She'd never been kissed before, and now that she had all but invited him to be the first, she didn't know what to do.

 His fingers loosened slightly around her wrist, but then they tugged, pulling her along with him as he stepped behind a tall, elaborately carved hedge.

 He whispered her name, touched her cheek.

 Her eyes widened, lips parted.

 And in the end, it was inevitable.

 Chapter 10

 Many a woman has been ruined by a single kiss.

 Lady Whistledown's Society Papers,14 May 1813

 Simon wasn't sure at what moment he knew he was going to kiss her. It was probably something he never knew, just

something he felt.

 Up until that very last minute he'd been able to convince himself that he was only pulling her behind the hedge to scold her, upbraid her for careless behavior that would only land both of them in serious trouble.

 But then something had happened—or maybe it had been happening all along, and he'd just been trying too hard not to

notice it. Her eyes changed; they almost glowed. And she opened her mouth—just the tiniest bit, barely enough for a

breath, but it was enough that he couldn't take his eyes off of her.

 His hand snaked up her arm, over the pale satin fabric of her glove, across bare skin, and then finally past the wispy silk of

her sleeve. It stole around to her back, pulling her closer, squeezing out the distance between them. He wanted her closer.

He wanted her around him, atop him, beneath him. He wanted her so much it terrified him.

 He molded her to him, his arms wrapping around her like a vise. He could feel the length of her now, every last inch. She was considerably shorter than he was, so her breasts flattened against the bottom of his ribs, and his thigh—

 He shuddered with desire.

 His thigh wedged between her legs, his firm muscles feeling the heat that was pouring from her skin.Simon groaned, a primitive sound that mixed need with frustration. He wasn't going to be able to have her this night—he

wasn't able to have her ever, and he needed to make this touch last him a lifetime.

 The silk of her dress was soft and flimsy beneath his fingers, and as his hands roved along her back, he could feel every

elegant line of her.

 And then somehow—to his dying day he would never know how—he stepped away from her. Just an inch, but it was

enough for the cool night air to slide between their bodies.

 "No!" she cried out, and he wondered if she had any idea the invitation she made with that simple word.

 His hands cupped her cheeks, holding her steady so that he might drink in the sight of her. It was too dark to see the exact colors that made her unforgettable face, but Simon knew that her lips were soft and pink, with just a tinge of peach at the corners. He knew that her eyes were made up of dozens of shades of brown, with that one enchanting circle of green constantly daring him to take a closer look, to see if it was really there or just a figment of his imagination.

 But the rest—how she would feel, how she would taste—he could only imagine.

 And Lord, how he'd been imagining it. Despite his composed demeanor, despite all of his promises to Anthony, he burned for her. When he saw her across a crowded room, his skin grew hot, and when he saw her in his dreams, he went up in flames.

 Now—now that he had her in his arms, her breath fast and uneven with desire, her eyes glazed with need she couldn't

possibly comprehend—now he thought he might explode.

 And so kissing her became a matter of self-preservation. It was simple. If he did not kiss her now, if he did not
consume
 

her, he would die. It sounded melodramatic, but at the moment he would have sworn it to be true. The hand of desire

twisting around his gut would burst into flame and take him along with it.

 He needed her that much.

 When his lips finally covered hers, he was not gentle. He was not cruel, but the pulse of his blood was too ragged, too

urgent, and his kiss was that of a starving lover, not that of a gentle suitor.

 He would have forced her mouth open, but she, too, was caught up in the passion of the moment, and when his tongue

sought entry, he found no resistance.

 "Oh, my God, Daphne," he moaned, his hands biting into the soft curve of her buttocks, pulling her closer, needing her to feel the pulse of desire that had pooled in his groin. "I never knew ... I never dreamed..."

 But that was a lie. He had dreamed. He'd dreamed in vivid detail. But it was nothing next to the real thing.

 Every touch, every movement made him want her even more, and as each second passed, he felt his body wresting control from his mind. It no longer mattered what was right, what was proper. All that mattered was that she was here, in his arms, and he wanted her.

 And, his body realized, she wanted him, too.

 His hands clutched at her, his mouth devoured her. He couldn't get enough.

 He felt her gloved hand slide hesitantly over his upperback, lightly resting at the nape of his neck. His skin prickled where she touched him, then burned.

 And it wasn't enough. His lips left her mouth, trailing down her neck to the soft hollow above her collarbone. She moaned at each touch, the soft mewling sounds firing his passion even more.

 With shaking hands, he reached for the delicately scalloped neckline of her gown. It was a gentle fit, and he knew it would take no more than the lightest push to ease the delicate silk down over the swell of her breast.

 It was a sight he had no right to see, a kiss he did not deserve to make, but he couldn't help himself.

 He gave her the opportunity to stop him. He moved with agonizing slowness, stopping before he bared her to give her one last chance to say no. But instead of maidenly dismay, she arched her back and let out the softest, most arousing rush of breath.

 Simon was undone.

 He let the fabric of her dress fall away, and in a staggering, shuddering moment of desire, just gazed at her. And then, as his mouth descended to claim her as his prize, he heard—

 "You bastard!"

 Daphne, recognizing the voice before he did, shrieked and jerked away. "Oh, my God," she gasped. "Anthony!"

 Her brother was only ten feet away, and closing the distance fast. His brows were knit together into a mask of utter fury, and as he launched himself at Simon, he let out a primeval warrior cry unlike anything Daphne had ever heard in her life. It barely sounded human.

 She just had time to cover herself before Anthony's body crashed into Simon's with such force that she, too, was knocked to the ground by someone's flailing arm.