Days of Rakes and Roses

by Anna Campbell

  Or at the very least, it was dangerous. And she’d decided at seventeen that she’d never do anything dangerous again. Her blood still ran cold when she remembered her father’s contemptuous tone as he’d called her a brainless slut like her mother.

  As if the memory alerted long buried instincts, Lydia glanced over Grenville’s shoulder to the staircase sweeping down into the ballroom. A tall man in immaculate black tailoring paused on the landing and surveyed the room. A cynical smile curved familiar lips. Light from the chandeliers slanted across gilded hair. He stood loose-limbed and relaxed, as if the entire world offered him welcome.

  “Lydia, are you well? Lydia?”

  Grenville’s worried voice pierced her blind distress. She realized that she’d stopped dead in the middle of the dance. She hadn’t blushed for years, but uncomfortable heat flooded into her cheeks now.

  Dear God, let her misstep go unremarked. And what had caused it. She glanced around nervously, the old horror of scandal gripping her. Nobody seemed to have noticed her stumble.

  She made herself move again, but her feet felt like bricks and she staggered against her partner. Grenville’s hand tightened around her waist. “My dear, are you feeling faint? The room is close and the night is warm. You’ve been working such long hours, getting that new soup kitchen running. Should I take you onto the terrace?”

  “Yes… yes, please take me outside.” She hardly recognized the stammering reply as her own. To remain upright, she curled her hand over Grenville’s shoulder. Her heart raced so fast, she felt light-headed, as if the ground shifted beneath her.

  She was addled to think that the man on the staircase was Simon. Not after all this time. Not now when she finally came so close to severing the chains of her past.

  For years, she’d pined after him. Then when he didn’t contact her after her father’s death, she’d finally understood that Simon had no intention of returning for her. Stupid girl. Five years before that without so much as a note should have indicated his indifference.

  Even after finally acknowledging that Simon cared nothing for her, no man could compete with the ghost of her first amour. Until she’d met Grenville and realized that life could offer rewards separate from Simon’s unattainable love. Independence. A family. Dedication to service.

  Deliberately she didn’t look toward the staircase again. She had to be mistaken. The illusion resulted from wedding nerves and the fact that so close to her nuptials, memories of her long-lost love would inevitably resurface. Simon had left England immediately after the incident in the hayshed. She’d only rarely heard about his doings—Simon Metcalf’s exploits were considered too outré for the ears of an unmarried girl, even one past first youth. He’d fallen in with a rakish crowd on the Continent; raffish women, louche aristocrats, penniless adventurers. If polite society mentioned Simon Metcalf, it was in censorious terms. The last report Lydia had of Simon was from somewhere in the remote reaches of the Ottoman Empire.

  Still the merest idea that he could be back in London made her heart flutter like a bird longing to break out of its cage. Would she never be free of him?

  With his usual aplomb, Grenville steered her through the crowd toward the French doors open to the fine night. With the unseasonal warmth, many guests had resorted to the garden. Lydia and Grenville’s progress toward the terrace aroused no curiosity, thank goodness.

  Lydia soon returned enough to herself to deride her loss of control. Even in the unlikely event that the man was Simon, she hadn’t seen the reprobate for ten years. She was no longer a dewy-eyed adolescent panting for his attentions. She was renowned for her poise and her ability to quell unrest in a bread line with a single word.

  They didn’t make it to the terrace. Her brother strode toward her. To anyone who didn’t know Cam well, he appeared his usual cool self. The Rothermeres specialized in looking untouched, even through scandals that threatened to blow their world apart. But as he caught her arm, she saw a spark of what could be guilt in his green eyes. “Lydia, I’ve got a surprise for you. An old friend is here to wish you well.”

  Every muscle in her body stiffened into horrified immobility. Although for all her self-serving denial, she’d known from the first that the man was Simon. What on earth was Cam doing bringing him to her betrothal ball? She suddenly remembered that her brother had always defended his friend to their father, even after Lydia’s indiscretion. But Cam must know that tonight, Simon Metcalf was the last man she wanted to see.

  Simon stood at Cam’s shoulder and the comprehensive glance he swept over Lydia heated her blush to fire. The noisy room, loud with talk and music, faded into an echoing void. The sight of Simon jammed Lydia’s throat with painful silence. She couldn’t help remembering that the last time they were together, she’d been half out of her dress.

  As if from a long way away, Cam continued. “Sir Grenville, allow me to present an old family connection, Simon Metcalf. We grew up together. Simon, this is Lydia’s intended, Sir Grenville Berwick.”

  The courtesies the men exchanged were meaningless gabble in Lydia’s ears. All she heard was her heart’s pounding. She couldn’t tear her gaze from Simon.

  Devil take him, he was even more breathtakingly attractive than she remembered. All this time she’d told herself she’d idealized his looks. It turned out she’d hardly done him justice. Tall. Lean. Tanned with exposure to foreign suns. His once flaxen hair now a rich bronze.

  He arched a mocking eyebrow at her. His long, thin mouth curled with a sardonic amusement alien to the pretty youth with whom she’d been so head over heels in love.

  She stiffened with resentment. After all this time, he had no right to inspect her as if she was a sugarplum ready for devouring. Dear heaven, no man had surveyed the Duke of Sedgemoor’s straitlaced sister with such blatant sexual interest since…

  Since Simon himself had forsaken her for the excitements of his European wanderings, God rot him. Still, her skin tingled with a sensual response unacceptable in a woman due to marry another man in a fortnight.

  Anger came to her rescue and allowed her to sound composed as she curtsied and extended her hand. “Mr. Metcalf. I’d hardly have known you.”

  If he was half as perceptive as his younger self, he’d surely guess that she lied, although he bowed with a surprising smoothness of address. Young Simon had been charming, but even after Oxford, scarcely practiced in social niceties. Through their gloves, his touch seared.

  “Lady Lydia,” he said neutrally.

  How irritating. How lowering. This encounter with the girl he’d once pursued apparently left Simon completely unaffected. Lydia heartily wished she could say the same, but she’d be boiled in oil before she betrayed how her blood pulsed with exhilaration. An exhilaration she hadn’t felt since he’d kissed her in her father’s hayshed.

  He held her hand a fraction longer than decorum permitted. She was proud of how she drew free without snatching away as instinct urged. She was desperate to counter his assurance with coolness of her own. Her pride would countenance nothing less. “I’m delighted that you’ve returned to England in time for my bridal ball.”

  Ah, not quite so superior now. His dark blue eyes flashed in response to the veiled barb in her comment. “How could I stay away after reading Cam’s letter telling me you were engaged?”

  “Easily, I imagine,” she snapped, then glanced swiftly at her fiancé. But Grenville focused on haranguing Cam about some political matter, leaving her isolated with Simon in strangely public intimacy. Grenville clearly felt her reunion with a childhood friend sanctioned by her illustrious brother merited no special attention.

  Grenville had no reason to doubt her constancy. Her steady temperament was famous. It had been one of the qualities he’d extolled in his proposal. Even at the time, that had pricked at her vanity. Steadiness of temperament made her sound like a well-bred horse, not a woman capable of tormenting a man with desire.

  But of course, she’d never been that woman, had she? T
he one occasion when she’d believed a man’s heart beat faster for her, he’d disappeared from her life.

  “You haven’t changed a bit,” Simon said without emphasis.

  She didn’t take that as a compliment, given how silly she’d once been over him. Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, yes, I have.”

  She studied his face, seeking clues to his intentions. Just how had Cam lured Simon home from his exotic pleasures? Her brother must have been persuasive. As far as she knew, Simon hadn’t communicated with their family since the late duke had threatened him with ruin.

  Now she thought about it, Cam’s purpose in making mischief was transparent enough. He considered Sir Grenville Berwick a self-righteous prig and he’d frequently verged on quarreling with her over her choice of husband. Winkling Simon away from the fleshpots must be a last-ditch attempt to make her cry off her engagement. Surely her brother knew her better. She loathed the thought of setting tongues wagging, as she would if she jilted a good man in favor of a rapscallion whose name was a byword for license.

  And to what purpose would she take up with Simon? Although he’d indicated news of her engagement had brought him here, he was hardly likely to want to marry her. No word since he’d left and gossip about his numerous conquests put paid to any such foolish notion.

  The only result Lydia could envision if she fell in with her brother’s plans was her disgrace. Her brother’s machinations seemed half-cocked, which was odd—Cam rarely did anything without plotting long in advance.

  Lydia had no difficulty working out what Simon wanted from the scheme. To cause trouble. She read the old reckless enjoyment of mayhem in his glittering blue eyes as she faced him down with what she prayed was a dismissive expression. Nor was he averse to the idea of a flirtation. She’d been out in society for nine years. She immediately recognized that particular light in a gentleman’s glance.

  “May I request the pleasure of this dance?” Simon asked with a charming smile that had her on guard immediately.

  “I already have a partner,” she said coldly.

  “That’s me,” Cam pointed out cheerfully, interrupting his conversation with Grenville to prove that he’d always been alert to what Simon and Lydia said to each other. “Your brother is happy to step aside in favor of an old chum.”

  The most bizarre element of Cam’s conniving was that he toyed so heedlessly with scandal. Camden Rothermere always trod carefully, as if to prove that he was a man of unwavering principle and decorum, whatever the circumstances of his birth.

  Lydia’s glare branded her brother a traitor. She’d have plenty to say to him once they were home. He shrugged with a hint of apology that didn’t mollify her at all.

  Gritting her teeth and consigning all Derbyshire men to Hades, she turned to Grenville. At her side, she sensed Simon’s avid interest in her interactions with her fiancé. She fought back the urge to jab her childhood love with her elbow and tell him to take himself and his curiosity elsewhere. Preferably Outer Mongolia.

  “Grenville, we’ve hardly spoken a word to one another all evening. I’m sure Mr. Metcalf will renounce his claim.”

  “I’d hoped to discuss Grenville’s plans for the next session in the Commons.” With unlikely enthusiasm, Cam clapped his hand on Grenville’s stocky shoulder. No chance now to divert her betrothed, curse her brother’s strategems.

  “My love, His Grace’s interest could be vital.” Grenville’s eyes brightened at the prospect of enlisting Cam’s political influence. Lydia had never deceived herself that at least part of her appeal to her fiancé was her kinship to a major powerbroker. “You go and enjoy yourself.”

  “In that case, this dance is mine.” Simon’s hand snaked out to circle her arm in a ruthless grip. Had she imagined that he’d gone unnaturally still when Grenville called her his love? Surely she had. Simon had never been the jealous type. She couldn’t picture him getting het up about a woman he’d known a decade ago.

  Quickly her eyes raked the room. To her surprise, the reunion of rakish Simon Metcalf and punctilious Lydia Rothermere hadn’t created a stir. She had no wish to alter that state of affairs by making a scene, so with ill grace, she nodded. “Very well.”

  Chapter Two

  Lydia had become so involved in her unspoken battle with Simon that she hadn’t paid attention to the music. She would have preferred to hear a cotillion which presented little opportunity for private conversation. But the tune playing now was undoubtedly another waltz.

  “Your enthusiasm warms my heart,” he said drily, stepping closer. In comparison to Grenville, who only had an inch or two’s advantage on her, Simon seemed dominatingly tall.

  “I can imagine,” she snapped, even as her own heart skipped a beat when he slipped one hand around her waist and took her hand firmly in the other.

  His touch shouldn’t still retain this power. Not after ten years. But every inch of her skin prickled with response. She drew herself up to her full height and regarded him with what she hoped was cold indifference.

  “I see you still favor roses.” His blue gaze rested on the flowers in the elaborate coronet of braids. “No matter where I went, whenever I saw roses, I thought of you. Do you remember I gave you a rose on that last day?”

  “Did you? I don’t recall.” She lied, but he provoked her pride, pretending he still cared. Did he imagine he merely needed to smile and ask her to dance to turn her into a complete henwit again? Her voice hardened. “Just what asinine caper are you and Cam up to?”

  “Up to?” he asked with theatrical innocence as he swept her into a turn that left her dizzy.

  The moment she’d glimpsed him on the staircase, the wall of glass between her and the rest of the world had shattered. Ten years without seeing him and still he made her heart sing. It was absolutely unacceptable. She would not tumble back into infatuation with this intriguing scoundrel. He’d left her without a word and had spared her nary a word since. And she was betrothed to a worthy man who deserved her loyalty.

  The reminder of her duty made her straighten a backbone which showed a lamentable tendency to bend in Simon’s direction. “Don’t play games.”

  To his credit, he didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Cam thinks you’re making a mistake.”

  The handsome face above hers had settled into uncharacteristic austerity. He’d been a lighthearted, easygoing young man. That was one of the reasons she’d loved him. For all its luxury, life at Fentonwyck had been bleak, even before her mother’s death when Lydia was ten. Simon came from a large, loving family where nobody scrutinized the children’s every move for the risk of the world’s disapproval.

  “Cam has no right to interfere,” she said sharply. “And neither do you.”

  “Consider it a privilege of old friendship.”

  “Dead friendship.” She told herself that the description roused no pang. “If you expect to call on our childhood affection, you should have dropped me the occasional note.”

  “Now your father has passed on, it was safe to come back.”

  “Oh, valiant,” she said sarcastically. In spite of how they argued, their bodies moved in perfect accord. She followed each subtle nudge of Simon’s lead as if they’d danced together a thousand times. The heat of his touch throbbed through her blood.

  His expression turned wry. “Leaving seemed the best solution back then. You know the duke would have ruined the Metcalfs if I’d so much as squeaked in your direction after he caught us… kissing.”

  They’d veered close to doing more than kissing, she recalled with renewed mortification. Her father had been so livid to catch his daughter offering her maidenhead to a penniless commoner that he’d threatened Simon’s family. As Duke of Sedgemoor, he was capable of destroying a mere knight, even if the Metcalfs had held estates in Derbyshire since the Norman Conquest.

  “My father’s plans didn’t include marrying me to a man without title or fortune.”

  An uncharacteristic expression of guilt settled on Simon’s spectacula
r features. “Nonetheless, I hope you’ll accept my condolences on his passing. I’ve been out of touch with affairs in England or I’d have written at the time.”

  “And of course my father’s death five years ago was the only matter you could possibly want to communicate about.”

  He winced under her jibe. “I hadn’t played the man of honor with you. I should have stayed to protect you from your father’s temper.”

  “You tried.” To be fair, he had. He’d stood up to the duke until six stout stable hands had hauled Simon away, still protesting that Lydia bore no fault for what had happened.

  “Without succeeding. Was it very bad?”

  Yes, it had been awful. Unbearably, excruciatingly awful. Her stomach still tangled into knots at the memory. For the only time in her life, her father had beaten her. But worse than the physical pain and humiliation had been the prospect of never seeing Simon again. “I learned the error of my ways.”

  “I thought you might. I tried to as well. Then, when I finally mustered courage to ask some stray travelers about you, the gossip was that you were to marry Leath.”

  Startled, she tripped. Only Simon’s quickness saved her from an embarrassing tumble. Dear Lord, she’d have to pay for dancing lessons at this rate, or warn any partner he risked his toes when he stood up with her.

  “My father wanted the match.” But she hadn’t. The only man she’d wanted to marry had been kicking his heels on the Continent by that stage.

  “Even if you hadn’t agreed to marry the Marquess of Leath, I knew there would be a line of men begging for your hand. I was astounded when I received Cam’s letter saying you’d waited so long to make your choice.”

  “I…” She swallowed and stared directly into his eyes. “I found it difficult to trust any man.”

  Shocked, she watched the color leach from his skin and a stricken expression darken his blue eyes. His manner lost its taunting edge. “I’m sorry, Lydia. More sorry than I can say.”