Heaven help her. Appalled denial vibrated through her, robbed her of breath. This was the last thing she needed to hear a week before her wedding to Grenville.
Once she’d have cut off her right arm in exchange for the merest possibility of Simon Metcalf declaring his affections. Now she told herself that this was only another ploy to gain her attention, even as she yearned uselessly for it to be true.
“You don’t even know me,” she said in a flat voice.
“Devil take you, Lydia, of course I do,” he said stubbornly, and for the first time he sounded genuinely disgruntled.
She realized that up until this instant, he’d been sure of winning her to whatever purpose he intended. Definitely coaxing her away from Grenville and into an affair. But surely not into marriage—even at Fentonwyck, he hadn’t mentioned a proposal.
His self-confidence rankled. “Curse you, Simon. I’m not surrendering my maidenhead to a footloose rogue in a carriage in the middle of Mayfair.”
Unforgivably he laughed. “We don’t have to stay here. I’ll take you to my rooms. Hell, I’ll take you to the moon if it means I finally have you.”
“Don’t be crude,” she snapped, frustration bubbling up into rage. She was so angry, she had difficulty drawing in a full breath.
This time when he sighed, she heard the desolation underlying his humor. Her renegade heart fisted with regret as anger receded without disappearing. She’d been wrong when she’d thought that what occurred between them left his emotions uninvolved. An iniquitous yen to give in to him, to ease his sorrow surged, but she forced it back.
“Take me home, Simon.” Absolute despair bolstered her command.
“Will you tell Berwick you won’t have him?” Simon didn’t sound like the lazy, charming, amused man she knew so well. His brief vulnerability had vanished. He sounded like a displeased tyrant quizzing a rebellious subject.
His autocratic manner made Lydia seethe with r
enewed resentment. “I most certainly won’t.”
He turned on the seat and gripped her arms with unlover-like firmness. “You can’t kiss me like that and marry another man, God damn it.”
“Just watch me.” She wrenched free, bruising herself in the process. Her voice broke and thickened. She wasn’t far off crying. Simon’s return had left her feeling ripped into two ragged, bleeding halves. Tonight had capped off a horrible week with the noxious revelation that she’d never be free of her first love. “I’m going to marry Sir Grenville Berwick next Wednesday and you can’t stop me.”
She waited for more outrage, more demands, but Simon slumped against his corner with another sigh that caught at her heart, much as she wished it didn’t. “How can I change your mind?”
She glared at him through the gloom, wishing this fraught encounter would end. The longer this quarrel lasted, the more they’d hurt each other. She already felt torn to shreds. “You can’t.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
She bit back a tirade about Simon waltzing back into her life and expecting her to receive him with open arms. She bit back a rancorous reminder that she was a woman of her word and she’d given her word to another man.
She’d already said more than enough. What was the use of berating Simon? He wasn’t for her. He’d never been for her. She’d be safe with Grenville, and if in the secret reaches of the night, she dreamed of another man’s touch, well, who was to know?
“Please take me back to Rothermere House.” She paused to dislodge a lump in her throat that felt bigger than the Rock of Gibraltar. “If you have any pity, you won’t come near me again. You say you love me. I’m not sure about that.” She gestured to stem his automatic protest. “But we were friends once, good friends. For the sake of that old friendship, please find the compassion in your heart to leave me alone.”
Silence crashed down between them with the force of an ax. She knew Simon struggled against arguing. Against, God help her, sweeping her into his arms and persuading with seduction where he couldn’t persuade with words.
Don’t let him touch me.
The deplorable reality was that she wasn’t sure that she could resist his touch. So weak she was.
He remained unmoving at the far end of the bench. The young man she’d known so well had harbored strong principles beneath his light-heartedness. Moments ago, the man he’d become had released her upon her request, although she knew it countered his deepest instincts. She knew it countered his deepest instincts now when he raised the blind over his window and turned to give her a short nod. The light from the carriage lamps outside shone on his face and turned his stern features into fine-carved stone.
“As you wish, Lady Lydia.”
Chapter Five
Across the crowded supper room at the Merriweather musicale, Simon watched the way the candlelight gleamed on Lydia’s hair, its color richer than the rubies circling her throat. Seeing her, he couldn’t help reliving their passionate encounter in the coach, as he’d relived it over and over since he’d left her to return home alone. He hadn’t trusted himself to remain in that confined vehicle without touching her, whatever promises he made.
For five days since then, he’d struggled to conform to Lydia’s request for peace. Now he sipped his lukewarm champagne without tasting it and wondered yet again if he’d been a fool to agree.
But she’d sounded so weary and lost, how could he refuse her? Even if it broke his heart to obey.