small pond.
It was truly nothing more than a catch basin for the
water that flowed in and out in a twisting stream. Trees
edged both sides, but he was walking toward the one spot
along the pool where it had been cleared. Or maybe it was
nothing could grow among the rocks that were almost as
large as the ones peeking out of the water. As she glanced
along the stream, she was amazed to see another bridge
only a short distance away. It must be very old, for its
stones were weathered and covered with moss.
“Where does that bridge lead?” she asked.
“Nowhere. It’s unsafe.” His smile vanished as he
paused by the water. The lightheartedness he had exhibited
disappeared into his scowl. “It should be torn down.”
“Maybe it can be repaired.”
“That old bridge is not what I brought you here for.”
Again his expression changed. Since she had arrived here,
he had been so focused and somber. Now again his smile
had returned. An uneasiness that started somewhere in the
pit of her stomach tightened its grip around her until she
had to fight to breathe.
“Why did you bring me here then?” she asked.
“Because you want to go to Egypt.”
“I don’t understand.”
He chuckled, and her disquiet increased. Not disquiet,
she realized, but the tingling suspense of walking along
an unfamiliar street and not being certain if there was
danger or delight around the next corner.
Simon did not appear to notice her reaction, because
he said, “When I was younger, I believed this was a wishing
pool. If I tossed a penny in and wished hard enough,
anything was possible.” He pulled a coin out of his pocket
and placed it on her palm. “Try it.”
“Shouldn’t you be wishing you can complete the book
on time?”
“Why waste a wish on something mundane? Why not
wish for something more frivolous like your sojourn from
England?”
Darcy smiled, unable to halt herself. She wanted to
put the darkness of the past years behind her and look
toward the future. Maybe she was letting her own grim
spirits paint Simon with emotions he was not truly
experiencing. He seemed determined to make this amusing.
She would acquiesce and do her best to act as fanciful.
She closed her eyes, thought of herself stepping ashore
from a Nile boat, and tossed the penny into the pool.
“Now your wish will come true.” He drew out another
coin and let it fly in a lazy arc into the center of the pond.
“As well as mine.”
“What did you wish? Not something as mundane as
finishing your book on time, I hope.” She laughed, but the
sound trickled away like the water when he did not join
in.
For a long moment, he did not answer. Her breath was
lodged over her rapidly beating heart as he faced her and
stepped closer. The dizzying sense of having already shared
every thought within his head flooded her anew. This was
wrong. It would only lead to disaster.
“You are wrong,” he murmured.
“Wrong?” She wondered if he could hear her thoughts.
“To fear this.”
“I didn’t say I was frightened.”
“You don’t need to. I can see it on your face.” His
voice lowered to an uneven whisper. “Your lovely face.”
“Simon—Dr. Garnett,” she corrected herself, although
such formality was a flimsy shield, “I think we should
return immediately to the carriage.”
As she turned toward the path leading up to the carriage
that was, she noticed for the first time, out of view, Simon
gripped her shoulders and tugged her to him. She could
almost believe they stood in his office again when he had
drawn her close. Hadn’t he learned from that mistake?
Hadn’t she?
“Don’t go.” There was desperation in his plea. “To
see you with the sunshine on your face and the sound of
the water lapping at our feet . . .” His fingers glided along
her arms, drawing her even nearer. “Have you ever seemed
to recall something happening just as it did in a vivid
dream, a dream as real—maybe even more real—as this
moment?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Once or twice, and I’m caught
up in a whirlpool of events I can’t stop. But—”
“I have dreamed of this moment when you stand here
beside the flowing water with me. Exactly like this,
although, in that dream, I didn’t know your name. Yet I
could see your face.” He ran his hand along the brim of
her bonnet. “I even recall this lace shadowing your face.”
Knowing she should demand he release her, she heard
herself asking, “And what happened when we stood here
by the flowing water?”
“We spoke and then . . .” His mouth brushed her cheek.
She stepped back even as a yearning for so much more
than that reserved kiss rushed through her like an
undammed torrent. This was not enough. She wanted more,
the more she had been denied for so long. A part of her
mind pondered why she should be reacting like this to a
man she had met such a short time ago, but she heard
herself asking, “You dreamed this?”
“Not only that.” He drew her slowly to him. His legs
were hard against hers, even through the layers of her skirt
and petticoats.
When he put a single fingertip under her chin, she
gasped at the flare of lightning searing through her. She
stared up into his jade eyes, unable to move and not wanting
to even if she could. His finger glided along her cheek and
curled beneath her cheekbone to sweep back down to her
chin. It drifted across her lips, sending the savage flame
through her, stronger this time.
Gently, tentatively, she raised a single fingertip to
outline the sensuous line of his mouth. Hearing her own
breath pulsing swiftly, she continued to gaze up into his
eyes. Shimmering sparks glowed there.
He tilted her face beneath his. When the soft thickness
of his mustache brushed her skin as his lips followed the
gentle angles of her face, her eyes closed. Quivers ran
through her as his tongue flicked its way along the uneven
shape of her ear.
Then, his mouth slanted across hers, and her arms
curved around his shoulders. He brought her down to kneel
beside him and drew her into the arc of his embrace. Her
senses filled with sensations as strong as the scent of
greenery around them, as unstoppable as the water, as
encompassing as the sunshine. Sensations excruciatingly
new and exquisitely familiar at the same time. She moaned
against his lips when his arms tightened around her.
Did she hear his husky laugh in the moment before
his tongue delved into her mouth to explore each facet? It
teased her, urging her to be as eager in finding their
pleasure. She ached to be even closer to him, to share what
With a gasp—this time of horrified dismay, Darcy
pulled herself away. Or tried to, for Simon’s arms did not
open to let her escape.
“Do not scurry away,” he murmured. “The hour is still
early, and the day’s heat is not yet upon us. Stay here and
warm me while—”
“Simon, what are you talking about?” She was
frightened by his strange words and her reaction to them.
A small whisper from deep within her mind beseeched
her to heed him and forget everything but the delight of
his kisses.
His eyes focused on her and then grew hard. The
enticing curve of his lips straightened. With a curse, he
released her. He opened his mouth, then closed it. He stood
and held out his hand to bring her to her feet. He released
her fingers so quickly her hand was left hanging in the air
between them. Turning on his heel, he strode toward the
carriage.
Darcy blinked. Had she been mad to kiss him like this?
A man she barely knew? Worst yet, her employer. He had
every reason to send her back to London immediately. She
had been so worried about doing a good job for him on
her typewriter. Not once had she imagined she might be
sent away from Rosewood Hall because she lost control
of herself.
Twice.
She put her fingers to her lips which still tingled from
his eager, deeply probing kiss. Among all the questions,
one thing was clear. When she wrote of Meskhenet
yearning for her lover’s kiss, she had had no idea of the
splendor of a man’s lips on hers.
A shiver etched along her spine as she imagined his
lips against hers again . . . as Kafele had kissed Meskhenet
in Jaddeh’s story.
Her breath caught in her throat when she imagined
Simon holding her while she wore the diaphanous gown
Meskhenet donned each day. Simon’s heated hands would
burn away the fabric to enlighten her skin with rapture.
His hair was not the kohl of Kafele’s, but she guessed the
breadth of his bare chest would be no less magnificent. In
so many ways, he reminded her of Meskhenet’s daring
gallant. Intense, driven by ambition, and creating an
undeniable fascination for her.
Don’t be an idiot. This had been a mistake.
She looked up to see Simon was almost to the top of
the hill. He glanced back, and as if no amount of distance
mattered, his gaze captured hers as it had when they stood
side-by-side.
Hastily, she lowered her eyes. She must not give him
more cause to think she was a wanton. Gathering up her
skirt, she brushed dirt from where she had been kneeling.
Her mind spun at the very idea of what had happened here.
As she walked up the hill in Simon’s wake, she tried to
piece together when the situation had exploded out of the
commonplace.
Simon stood by the carriage, and Nash sat in the box.
Nothing appeared out of the ordinary, but nothing could
be the same. She whispered the merest thanks when Simon
handed her into the carriage. She sat where she had before
and kept her gaze on her folded hands as it lurched into
motion.
“Darcy . . . Miss Kincaid.” Simon cleared his throat
and, when she glanced at him, stared at the front of the
carriage. “I’m not certain what came over me. It was most
unlike me to force my attentions on you.”
She did not want to argue, but, when he had drawn
her into his arms, she had seen genuine passion on his
face. The same passion she had seen when he spoke of his
work, and, she recalled with a shudder, the same passion
she had seen in her imagination when she thought of
Kafele. How could two men who were so many centuries
apart seem so alike?
“I can assure you as well,” Darcy said, “I’ve never
allowed such—”
“Liberties?” His laugh was taut. “Even trite phrases
seem uncomfortable now.” His fingers rose toward her
cheek, then he drew them back. “I have no excuse for my
actions, but for one that sounds absurd.”
“What do you mean?”
His smile was cold once more. “Do you wish to hear
of my compulsion to kiss you? A compulsion I couldn’t
resist?”
She raised her gaze from her folded hands to meet his
eyes. “I understand.”
“You do.”
“You couldn’t not kiss me, and I couldn’t not let you,”
she whispered, wanting to ask what he was hiding beneath
these proper manners. It took every bit of her flagging
strength to say, “If you wish me to present my resignation
and—”
“That isn’t necessary, for the incident won’t be
repeated.”
“I’m glad.” When had lying become so easy? She knew
it was insane to want him to kiss her again, but this
inexplicable longing refused to be ignored.
His eyes became emerald slits. “Tell me something.”
“If I can.” She grasped the window as the carriage
bounced into another hole in the road.
“Why does this odd feeling of familiarity persist? I
haven’t met you before you came to Rosewood Hall, and
yet, there is something about you that seems as familiar as
those people whom I have known all my life.”
“I can’t say.” Nor would she admit she had been
consumed too often by the same bewildering sensation.
“There might be someone else you have met who reminds
you of me.” She yelped as a wheel dropped into a hole.
Simon’s hand on her arm kept her on the seat. When
she turned to thank him, his fingers spread along her
shoulder. Her words seemed to shrivel in her mouth as her
own hand rose, unbidden. She hastily lowered it at the
very moment he yanked his fingers back from her.
He stared down at it as if he believed he had been
betrayed by his own body. Her expectation he would
apologize vanished when he continued as if there had been
no intrusion in their conversation, “It isn’t that you remind
me of someone. I have seen many faces in my travels
throughout Europe and Asia, and many people I have met
have brought other faces to mind. This is nothing like that.
This is a knowing, a longing born not of discovery, but of
rediscovery.”
“I’d rather we said no more of this.”
“Frightened?”
Yes, she wanted to shout. She was frightened of her
longing to be in his arms and of the sensation he described
so well. Rediscovery. That was what it had been. The
simple, inexpressible joy of finding something precious
that had been lost.
“It isn’t a matter of being frightened,” she said in her
best imitation of Miss Mumsey. “You are my employer.”
“So you’ve said already.”
“I trust you will forget this when I seek another
position. Without a good recommendation—”
“I don’t intend to ruin your reputation
as a competent
secretary.” He gave her another of his cold smiles. “Nor
as a young woman, especially when you have done nothing
wrong.” He reached for his book and, without another
word, began to read.
As the carriage continued to bounce along the uneven
road, Darcy stared out the window without seeing anything
they passed. She must pretend as he was that everything
could be just as it had been before. She feared that was no
longer possible.
Six
The carriage stopped in front of the largest cottage in
Halyeyn. Only a score of buildings made up the whole
village. Like the others along the single street, this cottage
was covered with a green cloak of vines. Marble steps
and an ornately turned balustrade hinted at an unanticipated
elegance within, for the steps and banister seemed more
likely to be seen in London than in this small village.
When Simon assisted Darcy from the coach, he
released her hand the very moment her feet touched the
cobbled road. She nodded her thanks, not trusting her voice.
Each touch, even an insignificant one, coursed a pleasure
through her that was both unwanted and desperately
yearned for. She should present her resignation as soon as
they returned to Rosewood Hall, but how could she? She
needed this position.
Walking through the gate and to the front door, she
saw that the highest peak of Rosewood Hall’s roof was
visible from this street. The small woods she could see
from her bedroom hid most of the house along with the
section of the garden where the overgrown shrubs
commanded the edge of the hill dropping toward the
village. The stream they had crossed on their way tumbled
down that hill. She wondered if there was a spring lost
somewhere among the bushes. This was not the time to
ask.
Simon knocked on the oak door. A gray-haired woman,
who squinted at them, answered so quickly Darcy
suspected their arrival had already been noted.
“Good day, Mrs. Lennox,” Simon said as he stepped
aside to let Darcy enter the house ahead of him. “I trust
the vicar is at home to guests.”
“I shall announce you, Dr. Garnett, if Reverend
Fairfield is willing to be disturbed. Today is sermon writing
day, as you should know,” the dour woman said, vanishing
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