The Aristocrat and the Single Mom

by Michelle Douglas

  ‘I could change them for my trainers, but they might spoil the effect.’

  ‘I’ll drive.’

  The heat dissipated a little. Relief pounded through her in equal measure with regret. Gritting her teeth, she did her best to ignore the regret. She did not need the strain or temptation of a fifteen-minute walk home in the moonlight with Simon. He’d take her arm because he was that kind of man—thoughtful, heedful of the niceties—and his scent would drench her senses. She’d lean into him to test his strength and balance; she wouldn’t be able to help herself. They’d stop, turn to each other in the moonlight and…

  No! No! No!

  Taking the car was far more sensible. She bit back a sigh and led the way through the house and outside to the car.

  Kate couldn’t remember the last time she’d enjoyed a meal more. The food was heavenly, of course. This was Fletchers, after all. The prawns were moist, the poached salmon succulent, the lemon-myrtle tart refreshing, the champagne French and the view to-die-for. They sat in an intimate alcove at a table for two—all candlelit white linen and crystal—with the fairy tale lights of the bay spread out before them. As a setting, it was perfect.

  As a dinner companion, so was Simon.

  He went out of his way to make her laugh and relax—paying her compliments so extravagant that nobody in their right mind could take them seriously. And somehow that seemed to shrink the attraction between them to a manageable level. Everything became easy and free between them again. Like it had at the beach on Friday.

  Only this time there was no self-deception.

  And, because things were so easy and relaxed, when Simon suggested a walk along the boardwalk after dinner, she readily agreed. ‘I need to after stuffing myself silly with all of that divine food,’ she confessed.

  He glanced down at her shoes and his mouth kinked upwards. ‘We’ll make it a short walk.’

  She smiled because he was right. These shoes were killers. He might do his best to hide it, or maybe she’d done her best not to see it, but he had an innate sense of protectiveness several kilometres wide. And it warmed her.

  They walked along in silence for a bit, the only sound the swishing of the tiny waves as they curled up onto the sand and back again. The kind of sound that Kate thought could lull a person into a false sense of security…if they let it.

  Finally, she stopped. If they went much further they’d be right above the spot where they’d kissed. She didn’t want Simon recognising it…remembering it. She did her best to eradicate her own recollections.

  She spread her arms out in a futile attempt to embrace the view and distract him. ‘Heavenly, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  But his eyes were on her face and not on the view. He already had recognised their location. She could tell from the way his eyes travelled over the park, the beach, and the flare in their depths told her he remembered that kiss.

  Heaven help her but her womb tugged and throbbed in instant response.

  ‘I’ve had a wonderful night, Simon.’ She swallowed. She wanted to tell him not to spoil it now, but the words wouldn’t come.

  ‘I have too.’

  He reached out, pushed a strand of hair back behind her ear. His touch lingered on her cheek and it took all of her strength not to lean into it.

  ‘There was something I didn’t tell you down there in the park on Friday.’

  She shouldn’t ask. Instinct warned her not to ask. ‘Oh?’

  ‘That wasn’t just about the best kiss I’d ever experienced. It was far and away the best. What’s that saying—the best by a baker’s dozen or something?’

  ‘A country mile,’ she murmured automatically. She had a feeling he’d got it deliberately wrong to make her laugh and she really wished she could. ‘The best by a country mile.’ But a girl needed air in her lungs to laugh. ‘Simon, you have to forget about that kiss.’ So did she.

  He shook his head. ‘I mean to cherish it.’

  The admission stole her breath. When he turned to her in the moonlight, cupped her face with one hand, she didn’t back away. When his mouth descended towards hers, she didn’t ask him to stop. When his lips brushed hers, she couldn’t contain a sigh. She didn’t know who then took the step forward to close the gap between them—she felt so attuned to this man she thought it might have been both of them. Together. At the same time.

  His head dipped again. His mouth covered hers, moved over her lips with a firmness, a sureness, that left her trembling. The kiss told her he knew her, that he liked her and wanted her. She opened up to him immediately and told him she knew him and liked him too.

  Sensation and desire surged to life. His hands explored the curves of her hips and waist, touching off sparks and fireworks, urging her closer. Their moans and gasps mingled. His mouth on her throat…her hands working their way under his dress shirt to the bare skin of his back and stomach. The only sounds their sighs and the swishing of waves and the plashing of a night bird as it hit the water.

  A night bird.

  Water.

  Kate didn’t want to think, but one part of her mind kept niggling and niggling at her until she kinked open one eye…and saw stars, heard a car roar off down the street.

  They were in a public place!

  She took a step back. Simon released her immediately, then swore at whatever he saw in her face. She took in his kissed-to-within-an-inch-of-his-life dishevelment. And then her own. She took another step back and did what she could to straighten her dress, her hair…her mind.

  ‘Simon, I don’t do flings.’ Even if her blood was doing a heck of a good impression of a Highland fling right now. ‘You’re only here for a fortnight. I have a child, so even if you do long-term commitment it won’t be with me.’ Her blood started to slow. ‘This can’t happen. I thought we’d agreed on that this afternoon.’ She sagged as the last of her energy fizzed out of her.

  Simon bent at the waist, rested his hands on his knees. Finally he straightened. ‘You’re right. I’m sorry.’

  Kate took one look at the grim set of his lips and staggered across to a park bench, unsure if her legs would hold her up much longer. After a hesitation, Simon joined her.

  ‘Don’t even think of asking me if I’m okay,’ she snapped when he opened his mouth. He closed it again. ‘Of course I’m okay.’ It was only a kiss. Even if it had felt more like a full-frontal assault on her senses.

  He dragged a hand down his face, massaging the skin around his eyes, and she knew he hadn’t emerged unscathed either. She forced her eyes to the front, stared out into the inky depths of the bay.

  ‘Why don’t you like children, Simon?’

  She needed talk, chatter, to distance herself from the devastation of that kiss. It made her blurt out the question uppermost in her mind.

  ‘It’s not that I don’t like them!’ He reared back to stare at her. ‘It’s just that I’m no good with them.’

  She blinked. She shook herself. ‘What makes you think you’re not good with them?’

  He folded his arms and glared out at the water. ‘Some people are good at business or sport. Others have musical talent or are good with children. I’m good at business. I’m okay at sport. I missed out on the good-with-children gene.’

  Something inside her clicked. His disquiet when Jesse and Nick had camped in the back garden. His concern that riding the boom nets on The Merry Dolphin could be dangerous…She tried for light. She had to keep this light. ‘And the musical talent?’

  Obligingly his lips curved upwards, but it was more a polite attempt at a smile than the real thing. ‘Zilch.’

  The beach in front of them glittered white. On the water, a path to the moon, sprinkled with stars, shivered silver.

  ‘I’m good at gardening. I’m great at piloting a nineteen point eight metre mono-hull with twin screws, and I’m good with kids. But I had to learn all of those things, Simon. I wasn’t born with an innate talent for them.’

  ‘You must’ve had a leani
ng towards them.’

  ‘Nope, it was just fate or…or circumstances.’

  He turned to meet her gaze and she shrugged. ‘My father took me out on boats from the time I was a baby. I had a boat licence long before I ever had a car licence. Taking over Merry Dolphin Tours was a natural progression. It made my dad happy, and that was important to me.’ She stared out at the water and bit back a sigh. ‘The gardening was my mother’s thing. My mother left home when I was six and Danny was just a baby.’

  Simon took her hand. She squeezed it gratefully. Her mother’s desertion still hurt all these years later.

  ‘She loved the garden. When she left I decided to keep it up just in case she ever came back. She never did, but by the time I’d come to that realisation…and come to terms with it…the gardening had become a habit. Somewhere along the way, I’d come to love it. And kids.’ She started to laugh. ‘Seriously, Simon, before Jesse I knew nothing about kids.’

  He stared down into her laughing face, frown lines marring the perfection of his forehead. ‘But you love him. And you’ve obviously done a great job of raising him.’

  ‘Thank you. And yes, of course I love him, but I had to learn mothering as I went along. It’s not something that just comes naturally, you know.’

  Simon released her hand to stare moodily out to sea. Kate willed him to look at her. ‘I don’t believe there’s any such thing as a good-with-children gene, Simon.’

  His lips twisted. He laughed but it lacked mirth. ‘You can’t make me good with kids just by wishing it, Kate.’

  She stared at him some more, taking in the stern lines of his mouth and the set of his shoulders. ‘Someone or something has put you off children.’

  He sent her an exasperated glare, resting his elbows on his knees. ‘You don’t give up, do you? Take my word for it. All my life I’ve been bad with children.’

  Who had put that idea into his head?

  Her heart started to thump. The expression on his face—proud, defensive, shuttered—made her want to cry. ‘Fine,’ she snapped back, because she wasn’t going to cry. She might not be able to stop herself from caring, but she wouldn’t cry. ‘Give me one example of when you’ve been bad with children.’

  The glare became a scowl. ‘You’re worse than Felice when it comes to nagging.’

  In answer she folded her arms and raised an eyebrow.

  ‘God give me strength,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Fine! Last month I became godfather to a baby girl. She’s my friend Tim’s first.’

  Kate unfolded her arms to stab a finger at him. ‘There’s at least one person who thinks you’re okay with kids.’

  ‘Give me a break, Kate. Where I come from, having a lord as a godfather is a status symbol.’

  She hunched her shoulders at his bitterness. ‘I think you’re undervaluing yourself. I bet your friend Tim doesn’t care if you’re a lord or not.’

  He didn’t reply. She made herself unhunch. ‘I don’t see any proof yet.’

  He stood, started to pace. ‘During the christening service there’s a point where I had to hold the baby.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Well…’ He stopped pacing, shoving his hands in his trouser pockets. ‘I couldn’t.’

  ‘What do you mean you couldn’t?’

  ‘Fiona, Tim’s wife, kept telling me I was holding the baby all wrong. I tried to follow her instructions, but the baby kept squirming and there was this crazy long dress getting scrunched up and…’

  ‘And…’ Kate prompted. Good Lord. He hadn’t dropped the baby in the font or anything, had he?

  ‘It was a bloody nightmare! Fiona started yelling that I was going to drop the baby and snatched her up. There were all these other children running around and banging into things and breaking them. I’ve never been happier to get out of a place.’

  Kate wanted to laugh but the expression on his face stopped her. She leapt up and moved across until she stood directly in front of him, her heart aching for him. ‘Simon, all first-time mothers are paranoid and over-protective. You can’t take something like that to heart. One does not automatically know how to hold a baby. It takes practice. You didn’t hit a six the first ball you ever faced in cricket, did you?’

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘This is the same. Babies are really hard, especially when they’re not your own.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Especially when they’re that small. Just because you were part of the christening from hell doesn’t prove anything.’

  ‘This is not an isolated incident, Kate, just the last in a long line.’

  His hands went to his hips. Nice hips, she couldn’t help noticing. She dragged her gaze back up to his face.

  ‘None of my friends bring their children when they visit me.’

  ‘I’m betting your house isn’t child-friendly.’ If he lived in some grand manor house it probably contained an array of antique vases and heirlooms that would make the mothers of toddlers break out into a cold sweat.

  ‘I don’t even know what child-friendly means,’ he said, almost in triumph, as if this proved his point.

  Did he really believe this nonsense? Had he ever considered the fact that his friends quite obviously sensed his discomfort when children were about and did what they could to put him at his ease?

  ‘Simon—’

  ‘A child was injured in my care once, Kate. I will not let that happen again.’

  She glanced up into the lean, proud face—now shuttered—and a sheen of ice filmed her skin. She didn’t try to offer him any kind of sympathy or condolence. She sensed he wouldn’t welcome it. She took his arm and set his feet on the concrete path instead.

  They walked along in silence for a while. ‘Will you tell me about it?’ she asked, ignoring the bite of her shoes. Something far more important than feet was at stake here.

  ‘I was fourteen,’ he finally said. He stopped. She didn’t urge him forward. ‘There’d been some do on at the estate the previous day, which was unusual because it was summer. My parents spent most summers abroad.

  ‘Did you and Felice go abroad with them?’

  ‘No.’

  He didn’t add anything further. Kate moistened her lips. Who had looked after them? One glance into his face and she thought it might be better not to ask. ‘I’m sorry. There was this party…?’

  ‘A few distant cousins on my mother’s side stayed overnight and it fell to me to keep the associated children out of the adults’ hair the next day.’

  ‘Why you?’ She couldn’t stop the question from popping out. ‘I mean, didn’t you have a nanny or something?’

  Just for a moment, amusement lit his eyes. ‘I was a fourteen-year-old boy, Kate.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ Of course! ‘Fourteen-year-old boys don’t need nannies.’

  ‘“Bingo”, to quote you.’

  ‘Felice would have only been four. She must’ve had a nanny.’

  Simon frowned. ‘I can’t place her nanny there that day at all.’ He shrugged as if it didn’t matter ‘When I was at the estate, Felice would follow me around like a little shadow anyway. If her nanny was there she’d have rightly figured Felice was with me.’

  And he hadn’t minded? The fourteen-year-old boys she knew would chafe at the kind of restriction that would place on their freedom.

  No, she could tell from his face that he hadn’t minded. With their parents gone most summers, he’d have been Felice’s only family, her only security.

  And now Felice had run away.

  Kate pressed a hand to her chest. The more she got to know this man, the more she could feel his pain…and his sense of failure.

  ‘Where were you the rest of the time?’

  He gazed at her blankly.

  ‘You said Felice followed you around when you were at the estate.’

  He stared straight ahead. ‘Boarding school.’

  Boarding school! ‘Charming!’ The word shot out of her. She covered her mouth with her hand. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean—’r />
  Amusement lit his eyes again as he turned to meet her gaze. ‘So no boarding school for Jesse, then?’

  ‘No way, José! I’m not going to miss out on watching him grow up, on seeing him every day that I can. I mean, what’s the point in having kids if…’

  She broke off, cleared her throat, realising this was Simon’s parents she was denigrating and perhaps that was not the most tactful move she’d made all night. ‘And Felice?’

  ‘Boarding school from the age of six. Like me.’ He must’ve seen the look on her face because he added, ‘My dear, boarding school is de rigueur in my circle.’

  ‘I’d be setting a new trend,’ she snapped back.

  He threw his head back and laughed. ‘I bet you would too but, according to my parents, boarding school was supposed to teach us backbone and duty. Independence.’

  She folded her arms and tapped a foot. She had to leave off tapping when the straps of her shoes bit into her toes. ‘I’d never leave something so important to a school.’

  ‘No, I don’t believe you would. You’re a wonderful mother, Kate.’

  He smiled down at her with such warmth she didn’t know what to do. ‘Thank you,’ she gulped.

  Had his mother been wonderful too?

  She’d sent her children to boarding school. She’d spent the summer holidays abroad while her children stayed at the Holm estate. Kate didn’t like the pictures her mind conjured.

  ‘Kate?’

  She snapped back to the present, tried to school her features. ‘We’re getting off the track.’ She sent him a tight smile. ‘All my fault, I’m afraid. You were telling me about the day after the party and finding yourself in charge of all those children. How many and how old?’ she shot at him, taking his arm and urging him forward again.

  ‘Not counting Felice, there were five of them.’ He shrugged. ‘I guess they ranged in age from six to eleven.’

  So altogether he’d been in charge of six children between the ages of four and eleven? A fourteen-year-old boy? What on earth had these people been thinking? ‘Young, then,’ she managed.