He pursed his lips at her implication. “If we came to a point when we parted company, I would provide handsomely for you. You would not be put out on the street.”
She suddenly smiled, though it was a brittle expression. “So you are saying you would be doing this for my own good. For my well-being.”
He threw up his hands in frustration. “You act as though I’m offering you charity.”
“Are you not?” she snapped, and spun on him with sudden passion.
“No,” he cried with equal vigor. “Great God, woman, have I not made it clear enough that I want you? This request is a selfish one. I make it because I ache to feel your body next to mine in my bed. If I cannot have it one way, I will beg for it another.”
He caught her forearms and she gasped, but didn’t pull away when he dragged her against him.
“I make this request because I want to taste you in every way, I want to fill your body with my own, I want to hear you sigh and moan when I claim you. That is why I ask you to be my mistress. Everything else is secondary.”
Before she could answer, he dipped his lips to hers and kissed her. Despite her brittle posture and tart words, the moment their lips touched, Lillian’s arms came around him, her fingers clawing into the back of his jacket as she maneuvered to get closer. He obliged, cupping her backside to fit her against him, letting her feel how much she could arouse him with just the slightest touch.
“You see,” he murmured as he dragged his lips away from hers and to her throat. “We both want this, Lillian.”
She stiffened at his words and struggled away, staggering back a few steps. He saw hurt in her eyes, anger, very proper reactions from a lady who had just been made what could be viewed as an insulting offer. But somewhere in those ever-changing hazel depths he also saw desire. A hint that his offer was tempting to her.
Even though she was hell-bent on refusing him.
“I’ve spent a lifetime living with disappointment, Your Grace,” she panted as she smoothed her gown. “It is something you will learn to live with, as well.”
He shook his head. “Lillian—”
“No.” The word tore from her throat with a sharpness that silenced him. “No, Simon. I cannot do this. What you want is impossible, for so many reasons.”
Then she turned away and started back up the hill toward the house, leaving him without another word, without further explanation and with no hope that he would ever hold her in his arms again.
He turned toward the water so he wouldn’t see her disappear over the hill. When he was certain she was out of earshot, he fisted his hands at his sides and muttered, “Damn.”
Lillian was so upset, she could hardly see as she stumbled away from Simon and back toward the protection of the manor house. What a fool she was! When she came to meet with him, she had thought the question he might ask was for her hand in marriage. The idea that she would have to reject him had haunted her all morning.But that wasn’t what he wanted at all. Just like everyone else around him, Simon didn’t think her worthy of the title of wife or duchess. Whore was more suited.
Well, mistress, but what was the difference really? A dressed-up whore was still a whore.
The fact that she was actually disappointed that he hadn’t asked her to wed was bad enough. After all, she didn’t want to marry into this family. Even if she was inexplicably attracted to his son, she despised the late duke and remained bent on revenge. That didn’t exactly bode well for a happy marriage.
And yet the reaction that upset her more was the fact that some small part of her, a part she was trying desperately to crush with little luck, actually found Simon’s insulting offer to be tempting.
When he said he wanted her in his bed and described so bluntly what that meant, she had found herself picturing how magnificent it could be. She had no doubt he would be a spectacular lover. His kisses made her melt, if he went further she just might combust.
“Stupid girl,” she chastised herself as she turned away from the house and paced toward the gardens.
She wasn’t ready to face the other guests, or worse, bump into Simon as he returned from their wicked little meeting. At present, she didn’t think she could endure it.
Actually, she feared she might launch herself into his arms and take him up on his offer. After all, how many chances would she get at a great passion in her life? She was firmly on the shelf if just for the fact that she was more than twenty-five years old. Add to that equation her lack of funds, her wayward brother, and her scandalous mother, and there was no way she would ever marry well. She had meant it when she said she no longer even considered such a thing to be possible or acceptable.
In the past, she had to admit she had considered being a man’s mistress. There was some security to the position. And yet no man had ever inspired her to take that thought beyond a passing fancy.
Until now. Despite everything, she could clearly picture what kind of life she would have as Simon’s paramour. And it wasn’t a bad one.
It didn’t seem to matter that she could see Simon was truly his father’s son. Despite his pretended honor, he was willing to take a lady into his bed as his mistress, driven to slake his desires no matter the consequences. And yet she was not repulsed. She still wanted him.
So was she any better than he?
She shook her head as she wandered the gardens, not even seeing the newly blooming flowers or fresh foliage around her. In her current situation, all she could think about, all she could concentrate on, was Simon. His handsome face. His devastating kiss. His remarkable offer that made her tingle all over when she considered it.
There was no question about it, she had to finish what she had come here to do. She owed it to her family to fulfill the promise her brother could not. But it was clear to her now that she had to do it sooner rather than later.
Before she fell too far under Simon’s sway. Before she took him up on his tempting offer and found herself in his bed.
Chapter 12
Another afternoon had come and brought another gathering with it, yet Simon could hardly concentrate on taking his tea and chatting amiably with the ladies around him. There were too many distractions running a race in his mind.
First and foremost, there was Lillian.Since she had run away after his offer the day before, she had been in hiding. Last night it was a “headache” that had kept her from joining the party for supper and cards afterward. He had been tempted to storm up to her room to see her just as he had the day of the picnic, but had managed to refrain. After all, she couldn’t stay secluded in her room forever, could she?
Or perhaps she could.
Today she had taken a tray in her room for breakfast rather than join the others, and the same for luncheon. He’d been at the breaking point, ready to violate her privacy and demand they talk about what had transpired between them.
Luckily, he hadn’t been forced to do so. Somehow she had been persuaded by Lady Gabriela to join their party for tea, but she kept herself as far away from him as humanly possible. She never looked in his direction, never acknowledged when he stared at her across the room, longing to talk to her. To touch her. To somehow explain himself to her and make her smile at him again. It was amazing how much he had come to depend on that in such a short time.
Perhaps the entire situation was simply a lost cause. He sighed and stirred his tea absently. He had made his offer to her, however foolish it was that he had listened to Rhys’s advice to make her a mistress. He had done it and he couldn’t take it back. Nor could he change the fact that she had refused him.
A smart man would wash his hands of the matter and go back to the task of finding a suitable bride. A smart man would forget Lillian entirely.
Apparently he had grossly overestimated his own intelligence.
No, he had to think of other things. Get his mind off the troubling and temping Miss Mayhew. Unfortunately, when it was not she who filled his mind, it was something else that was just as confusing and far
more unpleasant.
His father.
He had always believed in the façade the late duke put on. They had been remarkably close, and Simon had never seen so much as a crack in the face his father put on for the world. But now, the deeper he searched, the more it seemed that it was, indeed, something the late duke had “put on.” A lie.
At the very least, his father had allowed himself to be corrupted by politics a handful of times. While he crusaded for good, he had given money to and taken it from those who worked against the very causes he championed.
But Simon feared there was worse waiting for him in the tangle of paperwork and correspondence. Certainly there were hints of blackmail, lies, and dark secrets.
Pushing to his feet, Simon shot an apologetic smile at the ladies who had been surrounding him while he was lost in reverie. No doubt they had come here expecting an attentive host, and for that he was truly sorry.
But he had things to do. Inescapable duties that he now felt compelled to pursue.
“I do apologize, ladies,” he announced to the room. “But as much as I have enjoyed your company this afternoon, there are a few things I must attend to before we reconvene for supper later on. I hope you’ll understand and I bid you a good day.”
Without waiting for a response, or even registering the looks of shock, anger, or disappointment on the varying faces around him, Simon turned on his heel and departed the room in a few long strides.
In the hallway, he felt slightly less stifled and quickened his step toward his father’s office. But just as he stepped inside and began to close the door behind him, a hand reached through the door and shoved it back toward him.
He stepped back in surprise as his mother entered the room, her gaze flashing with emotions he could clearly read as anger and frustration. With a sigh, he nodded in acknowledgment.
“Madam,” he said. “Is there something I can do for you?”
Before she answered, his mother threw the door shut behind her and then turned on him. He almost drew away, for in that unguarded moment he saw something else in her stare. Hatred. And it was directed toward him.
“What you can do for me?” she raged, the hate gone from her eyes but lingering in the tension in her voice. “You can stop ruining everything I have planned for you. Everything you have been given!”
Simon turned away and paced around the stacks of files toward the window. “I don’t know what you mean, Mother.”
Instead of allowing him the space he had taken by walking away, his mother charged after him.
“You know very well what I mean. You were abominably rude by walking out in the middle of tea. Before you had even crossed the threshold of the chamber, several of the chaperones were talking about returning to London since it is clear that there is no point in them being here.”
He faced her. What she was describing was indeed a problem, as he had to find a wife, and the last thing he needed was for rumors to spread and make that task difficult. But somehow he couldn’t muster the ability to care.
“I am truly sorry to hear that the others feel I’m wasting their time—” he began, but she cut him off.
“You are wasting their time!” his mother snapped, throwing up her hands in disgust. “You ignore all your guests except for the least acceptable of them, you sneak off…”
Simon arched an eyebrow. She was trying his paper-thin patience now, and he had little positive emotion to buffer his response when he said, “Please do not dare to accuse me of such a thing. Not when you have been creeping away for hours, sometimes days at a time, for as long as I can recall.”
To his surprise, his mother’s anger and frustration seemed to bleed away, leaving behind a panicked fear that he had never seen before.
“That—that is my business, Simon,” she said, quieter than before.
He shrugged, too exhausted to press her. “And this is mine, Mother. You must realize I have duties that stretch beyond this party. Beyond my eventual marriage. There are things I’ve found here that must be dealt with.”
Now her eyes narrowed. “Things? What things are you talking about?”
Simon clenched his fists behind his back. His mother despised his father. Telling her about the old man’s secrets felt like a betrayal, and he was reluctant to give her any more ammunition in her war against the man, even dead.
But he also knew his mother well enough to know she hated scandal more than she hated anyone else. Perhaps if she was aware of a little of what he was finding, she would retreat and allow him his duty.
“Father may not have been what he seemed,” he admitted softly.
A little smile tilted her lips, but it was brittle and humorless. “Is that right?”
Simon ignored the sarcasm dripping from every syllable and continued, “There were discrepancies with his support in certain legislation. A difference between his public face and his private dealings.”
One thin eyebrow arched as his mother said, “It does not surprise me. But Simon, these things can be ignored for now. No one knows this but you, apparently. Why stir up a controversy? Leave it be.”
“But there might be more,” he said, lifting his hands in a plea for understanding. “I am finding evidence that points to something deeper. Something more personal that Father may have been blackmailed over.”
Her lips thinned. “Simon, it is you who doesn’t understand.” She stepped forward, one index finger extended until she pushed it into his chest. “Leave it alone. Put it away and forget it. For all of us, it is better left in the past.”
Simon opened his mouth to answer, but she held up a palm to silence him. Slowly, she turned and stalked from the room, leaving him gaping after her in utter shock.
He had never known his mother to be so emotional. Normally she was reserved almost to the point of being icy. Yet when he accused her of running, he had actually seen her fear, and then again when he mentioned the blackmail he suspected.
Could it be that his mother had known about these things all along? That she also knew more about his father’s secrets? Would she truly protect a man she had openly despised?
Simon frowned. If there was something nefarious in the late duke’s past, that would certainly explain why his mother had hated the man.
But would it ultimately leave him hating his father as well?
“Thank you again for your assistance,” Simon said without looking up from the items he was sorting.Across the room, he heard Rhys’s voice muffled by all the clutter between them. “You know I’ll always do whatever I can to help you.”
Simon nodded to himself. Yes, and beyond that he also knew that Rhys could be depended upon for discretion. He trusted the other man like a brother, which was why he had called him here hours ago to continue what seemed like a fruitless search for more information on Simon’s father’s past.
“This is utterly frustrating,” he groaned, tossing a huge pile of useless paperwork in the rubbish bin to be burned later. “Perhaps there is nothing further to find, after all.”
“Simon…” Rhys said, his voice strained and strange.
Simon stood up slowly to peer over the mess between them. His friend hadn’t called him by his first name since he first took a lesser title years ago. That, coupled with Rhys’s strange tone, made Simon’s stomach clench.
“What is it?” he asked, coming around the desk toward his friend.
Rhys got up from his chair. He had a ledger in one hand and a yellowed, crumpled letter in another. He held out the envelope.
“I found something,” he said softly.
Simon reached for the missive, his hands trembling ever so slightly.
“What is it?” he asked, suddenly loath to open it.
“I’ve noticed this in your father’s ledgers before.” His friend’s voice remained strained. “If he bought a sheep, he often put the details of the transaction in the ledger along with the prices.”
“The letter is about buying sheep?” Simon asked, his voice breaking as
he met his friend’s eyes.
Rhys’s gaze flitted away. “No. But it is about a payment that was made to someone. You should look at it.”
Simon stared at the letter. Yes, his friend was correct. He should open it and face whatever horrible thing his father had done. But he found it difficult to do so. Almost impossible.
But finally he opened the aging envelope and unfolded the brittle sheets within. After a few moments of reading, he glanced up.
“This is about his firstborn son,” he whispered. “A boy who wasn’t me.”
Rhys nodded slowly. “From the date, it seems as if the child was born only a few months before you were.”
“A bastard,” Simon repeated dully. “And then the duke was so vocal about the irresponsible nature of his colleagues. He preached so loudly about taking care not to create fatherless children that he shamed the entire ton.”
Rhys looked at him with unmistakable pity. “To be fair to the duke, it seems he did make some arrangements for the child to be taken care of. That’s why it was in this ledger. A large lump sum was paid out in the boy’s name.”
Simon scanned further. “Henry Ives.”
“I’ve never heard of him,” Rhys said. “So he’s likely not of our social standing.”
Simon could only stare at the name, written in his father’s even, neat handwriting. Written so coldly, as if this was just another payment to another person. There was nothing in the letter that detailed the circumstances of the transaction. No indication whatsoever that his father cared about the baby son who could never carry his name. He never mentioned the mother’s name at all.
Worst of all, his father made note that he considered the matter closed now that the money had been received. He clearly had no intention of ever thinking of the child or its mother again.
“Billingham, this ledger was from the year of your birth, over thirty years ago.”
Simon forced some focus and looked up at his friend. “Yes?”
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