Summer Is for Lovers

Summer Is for Lovers Page 31

by Jennifer McQuiston

  It proved impossible to keep her thoughts focused on her stroke when Dermott was still ahead of her. The self-righteous prig. Could she bring herself to marry a man like that? Her muscles screamed at her, but her heart screamed louder.

  Her mother was right. There were worse things than being a spinster.

  And one of them was losing to the wrong man.

  The shore seemed to loom above her now, and another six swimmers fell to her determined progress. Her brain felt fuzzy, but her gaze locked with certainty on a white shirt and a gray swimming costume, barely visible as their wearers sluiced through the water. She aimed for them, swimming harder than she had ever done in her life. Time was suspended, counted by strokes, not seconds.

  One, two, three.

  Breathe.

  And then she was past them and the crowd was on their feet and cheering and Caroline staggered ashore, alone.

  DAVID EMERGED A few seconds behind her.

  She had done it.

  Christ above, but he was proud of her, his own second place finish be damned.

  He surged toward her, the crowd falling away around his determined stride. And then she was in his arms and he was kissing her, really kissing her. And she was kissing him back, her hands tangling in his hair and anchoring him to her as if she might drown should he let her go.

  The roar that had erupted from the crowd when she had won the race paled in comparison to the noise that rose above them now. But beyond the excited shouts and whistles, Dermott’s angry voice rang out, bleeding through the haze of pleasure. “Get your hands off her!”

  David pulled away from her with a reluctance he felt to his bones. He was, after all, kissing the woman Dermott still counted as his betrothed. A woman he had no right to touch, much less maul in such a suggestive manner, in such a public venue.

  “Is this what you want?” David asked her, searching her eyes. “Is he what you want?”

  Caroline shook her head. “You are whom I have always wanted. I love you, David Cameron. Whether you want me to or not.”

  And then she was in his arms again, her lips finding his in a hard, quick kiss that nonetheless stole what little breath he had left.

  “I love you too.” The words near tumbled out of him, tired of being denied for so long. He had not thought to ever love again, had thought himself unworthy of such a sentiment, and such a partner. But now that it had found him, despite his best efforts to the contrary, he didn’t want to ever take it back.

  He raised his hands to frame her face, reveling in the privilege it was to touch her. “Every word I offered to Dermott and the others on the beach that night was true . . . I just didn’t want to admit it to myself. You are a woman worth holding, a woman who inspires loyalty and passion and deserves such things in return. You are my match, Caroline. My true match. I was an idiot to pretend you were not.”

  A smile broke out on her face, a smile so luminous his body tightened around its brilliance. “Yes. Well. If I love an idiot, so be it.”

  She pulled away and turned her attention toward the man who stood glowering at them two feet away. “Mr. Dermott, I am ending our betrothal because I love this man. I presume you have no objections?”

  Dermott’s face darkened, if such a thing were even possible against the dusky rage that already held him in its grip. “Yes, I have an objection. You . . . you . . . you cheated during this race!”

  “How did I cheat?” David heard the edge in Caroline’s voice. It was an edge that Dermott seemed to miss entirely.

  Then again, the man didn’t know her the way David did.

  “You both cheated,” Dermott’s face shone a mottled red. “That wasn’t a proper swimming stroke. No self-respecting Brit would swim like that. Why, at Oxford, that would have been an automatic disqualification.”

  “This isn’t Oxford.” A woman’s voice rang out. A lady who could only be Caroline’s mother emerged from the crowd. Her blue eyes flashed indignantly, and she held her chin up with every bit as much spirit as he had come to expect in Caroline. “ ’Tis Brighton. And there is nothing wrong with that.”

  “Indeed.” The voice came from behind them, and David turned to see Lord Avery, his daughter close by. The man offered an authoritative smile, but his tone brooked no argument. “There are no rules requiring a particular swimming stroke for this competition. I should know. I wrote them.” He paused, and then inclined his head toward Caroline’s mother, who turned a suspicious shade of pink at the viscount’s attention. “It is good to see you again, Lydia.”

  Dermott sputtered another short moment, then careened off into the crowd. David waited to see which of the summer set would follow. He was, after all, their veritable leader.

  No one moved except Lord Avery, and he only held out a stack of five-pound notes, neatly tied in a bundle. “It is my pleasure,” he announced, “to present Miss Caroline Tolbertson with this purse of five hundred pounds, and to declare her the winner of Brighton’s forty-third annual swimming competition.” He shook her hand. “Congratulations, young lady. That was quite the show you put on.”

  CAROLINE ACCEPTED THE money with trembling hands. In the confusion of her last-minute entry, she had nearly forgotten about the purse.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Miss Baxter declared, bouncing with excitement at her father’s elbow, the small dog similarly bobbing in her arms. She beamed, the very picture of someone with a secret too delicious not to share. “Oh, I cannot wait to go back to London and tell all my friends I met Brighton’s famous lady swimmer.”

  Caroline opened her mouth, prepared to correct the girl’s misimpression. After all, she was no lady, just the daughter of a Brighton businessman. But before she could form the necessary words, Caroline caught sight of her mother. She and Lord Avery had drifted to one side and Mama was laughing at something the viscount was saying.

  And Caroline realized that while she might be the daughter of a businessman, she was also the daughter of a lady. A smile spread across her face. She would leave Miss Baxter to her gossip, and even her misinformed truths. She supposed, in some way, she had the girl to thank for this incredible turn of events. Not that she was inclined to acknowledge even a single positive outcome of Miss Baxter’s meddling.

  One did not encourage bad behavior, even when applied to a worthy cause.

  Caroline turned to David, the money heavy and reassuring in her hands. “I am giving half of this to you.”

  David’s eyes crinkled about the edges, and he burst out in a hearty chuckle that had some in the crowd laughing along, though they clearly had no idea why. “I cannot accept it, Caroline. You earned it, ten times over.”

  “Sharing the purse was our agreement all along. And you need the money every bit as much as my family does,” she protested. “I want you to have it.”

  “Give it to your family,” he said, more gently now. “All of it. We don’t need it.”

  Caroline’s thoughts narrowed on a single word, out of the handful he uttered. “We . . . ?”

  He canted his head, his eyes warm. “There were some lucrative wagers placed on the outcome of this race. And I bet on you, lass.”

  The air in her lungs seemed to leach out of her skin. “You bet on me?”

  “Aye. We’ve no need to worry about money, not anymore.” He lowered himself to one knee, there along the shore, with the crowd pressing in and Penelope looking on with one hand clamped over her mouth.

  David grinned up at her, sending her stomach into an inspired free-fall. “I know this is but one of a hundred proposals you have received this week, Caroline. And I cannot offer you the fine social connections or the extensive selection of dry goods that your other suitors have no doubt promised you. But I can offer you my heart, unencumbered by my past. So if it’s not too much trouble . . . and if you feel even a fraction of the love I feel for you . . . would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

  Chapter 34

  DAVID KNEW CAROLINE was anticipating a wedding
night on the renowned Bedford Hotel linens. And she surely deserved one, after the hellish wait they had both just endured. If they had been in Scotland, where an irregular marriage could be had on any street corner, the deed would have been done two weeks ago.

  But he had wanted their vows to be said in Brighton, the town she loved so much. Had insisted on it, in fact. He had filed a notice with the civil registrar, knowing it was faster than posting the banns, but even then they had to wait the required fifteen days. Invitations had been penned. A reception planned. His father and brother had come down from Scotland on a Friday train. It was all a bloody circus.

  And now he was a married man. He wanted nothing more than to lay his new wife down on a bed of crisp, white linens and run his hands over her lithe body. But while Bedford linens were indeed high on his list of things to show her tonight, first he had a surprise.

  He pulled her down a path he knew she would not recognize, heading east along the high edge of the chalk cliffs. From this dizzying height, the wind howled in his ears, and the promise of the ocean was but a distant memory below. The half-moon offered a sliver of light to guide them, not nearly as much as the last time he had ventured out at night, and he had to rely on the lantern in his hand for much of the way.

  Though she seemed content to let him lead, she was not silent a single moment of the half-hour journey, suggesting her nervousness over the coming night might match his own anticipation.

  “Did you like my gown?” Her voice floated up over his shoulder. “Madame Beauclerc spent an entire week sewing seed pearls onto the bodice.”

  David nodded, wondering if it would be ungentlemanly to admit he had scarcely noticed that she still wore her wedding dress. He still felt dazed by his good fortune, unable to wrap his head around the fact that not only had she married him, she loved him. It had been difficult to appreciate what was covering his new wife’s body when all he could think of was discovering what she looked like beneath.

  “It was kind of Lord Avery and his daughter to attend the wedding.”

  “Yes,” he murmured, still distracted.

  “He and Mama seem to be spending a great deal of time together. He’s gotten her to go walking with him on the Marine Parade twice in the last week.”

  David nodded, thinking about another possible use for Caroline’s busy mouth.

  “And I was pleased to see that the Countess of Beecham came to the wedding, even if Mr. Duffington didn’t. Mama was thrilled to have such a prominent guest.”

  “Mmhmm.” He listened with only half an ear, though he was achingly aware of every syllable. He reveled in the husky sound of her voice, imagined the glow of her skin as he undressed her, one agonizing inch at a time.

  Mine, the beast whined, scratching at its cage.

  Soon, he reassured it.

  David shone the lantern to the right, looking for the landmark he had come to know so well over the past two weeks. Caroline leaned over his shoulder, peering into the scrubby growth of trees that had caught his attention. The press of her body felt like the softest of caresses, and he leaned back into her a long, simmering moment. It was the most thorough contact he had permitted himself in sixteen excruciating days, and he savored it, committing each of her breaths to memory.

  “Why did you stay away from me before the wedding?” Caroline whispered, breaking through his thoughts. Her voice rang faintly with hurt, and he smiled into the night to hear it. A husband liked to know that his wife wanted him.

  It stood to reason that a wife would wish to know the same.

  He set down the lantern and pulled her into his ready arms. “Didn’t you know, lass?” He cupped her face in his hands. “I couldn’t resist you. One touch, one kiss, and I knew I would be ruined.”

  “I had been hoping you might ruin me.” She tilted her cheek into the palm of his hand and wet her lips in a gesture that shot straight to that most neglected part of his body.

  “I wanted to wait for our wedding night.” His new realization that he was, in fact, a man of some honor demanded a principled path. Waiting wasn’t just something he had wanted to do.

  It was something he had needed to do.

  He brushed the pad of one thumb across the smooth texture of her cheek. He could not see her freckles in the meager light, but he knew where each one lay, and his lips longed to trace their path. But first there were things he needed to say.

  “I didn’t do that with Elizabeth, and I regretted it. I told myself there would be time to get it right later, a lifetime of exploration to make up for my fumbling lack of acuity.” He swallowed, looking down on his beautiful wife who stared so trustingly back from his cupped palms. “I know now not to take such a thing for granted.”

  “I think I can understand that,” she whispered. “As long as you promise to ruin me soon.”

  She lifted her mouth, seeking his, but he angled higher, brushing a kiss to her brow instead. At her sigh of frustration, he dropped his hands, fighting a smile. “Come,” he told her, picking up the lantern and pulling her under the branch of a small tree that had a “No Trespass” sign nailed to its trunk. “I have something to show you first.”

  “What is it?” Concern tempered the sensual exasperation that still simmered in her voice. “We cannot go this way.”

  “Trust me.” He tugged her deeper, starting down the steep path that angled away into blackness.

  “But this is someone’s land, and we cannot just—”

  “Caroline,” he said sternly. “If you would just hold your tongue and follow me, I promise that in two minutes’ time I will offer it a more pleasurable use.”

  She fell silent at that. He led her down a good two hundred feet, the scent of the ocean and the sounds of the waves growing stronger as they descended. When they finally came to a fence with a chained gate, David pulled a box from his jacket pocket, his fingers surprisingly steady against the black velvet.

  “I have been waiting two weeks to give you this wedding present. I trust you will agree it was worth the wait.”

  She looked down at the ribbon-wrapped box. Her mouth opened in a perfect O that had him thinking of very unladylike uses for it. Not that he wanted a lady tonight. No, David wanted the wild temptress she kept loosely bound inside her. He was determined to unlock her pleasure, and this gift was only part of his plan.

  She untied the ribbon, and he held up the lantern so she could see what lay inside. “You have given me a key.” She sounded perplexed.

  “It opens the padlock.” When she hesitated, he took it from her and removed the chain from the fence. “Go on,” he urged.

  She pushed a few feet in, and then her gasp echoed against the high cliff walls. “Why, it’s the cove!” she said, a delighted hitch in her voice. “But . . . we didn’t walk nearly far enough. And I never knew there was another entrance!”

  David joined her, taking up her hand. “There wasn’t. I made this one. Hacked the footholds out of the cliff wall. And surprisingly, the distance to the cove was never that far from Brighton. The old seaside route just took twice as long because of the irregular coastline.”

  “So this is what you’ve been doing the last two weeks?” She looked up at him, one dark brow raised high.

  “Aye.” He chuckled. “A man has to spend his frustration somewhere. It’s yours, lass. The beach, the cliffs, the land above . . . all of it.”

  She stared at him, her ever-changing eyes dark pools in the light from the lantern. “How is that possible?”

  “ ’Tis a wedding gift from my family.” David grinned, recalling how excited he had been when he had discovered the land above the cliff was for sale. “My father
arranged its purchase for us. I covered over the old seaside entrance and put up the new fence, so no one else can find their way here without this key.”

  He kissed the top of her head, breathing in the warm, vanilla scent of her. “You do not have to worry about others using it, not anymore. You can swim here, whenever you want, dressed however you like.” Although if he had anything to say about it, naked would be the preferred state of dress tonight. “We can build a summer house overhead, once my investments begin to pay out.”

  She reared back, her eyes searching his. “But . . . I thought we had decided to live in Scotland.” She was squeezing his hand so tight his fingers had started to tingle, along with other neglected parts of his body.

  “Who is to say we cannot have two homes?” He chuckled. “Scotland in the spring, Brighton in the summer. Now come.” He tugged on her hand. “There is more.”

  He drew her in further and her second gasp echoed in his ears. He held the lantern up high and could see his instructions had been followed to the letter. A bed had been prepared, there on the rock. A profusion of pillows lay at the ready with the Bedford Crest embroidered on the cases. A picnic basket sat nearby, a bottle of good Highland malt peeking from the rim.

  He turned to her, and smiled. Everything was ready. He was ready.

  He only hoped she was.

  “Welcome to your wedding night, Mrs. Cameron.”

  SHE SHOULD HAVE told him thank you.

  Somehow, he had known. Known who she was, and what she needed. He did not expect her to knit socks, or require her to be someone other than who she was. He had given her the most perfect gift imaginable, and a proper thank you was the least she should give him in return. But the sob that caught in her throat left her literally unable to form the words the moment required.

 

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