Chapter 2
“Chase me!” the girl purred, a naughty grin about her lush mouth and a very decided twinkle in her lovely blue eyes.
“When I catch you, what do I get?”
She tossed her head and grinned.
“Why, Mr. Gracely, are you hinting for kisses?”
Simon heard that voice as clearly as if someone had come up behind him and whispered against his neck—a sensual drawl sweetened with arousal and laughter.
“At least two kisses, nothing else will satisfy me, Miss Fanny.”
“I am glad to hear it, Mr. Gracely, for it will not satisfy me either.”
Laughing like a hoyden and tugging her skirts to her shins to reveal shapely stocking-clad legs, the loveliest girl he had ever seen ran across the lawns, her mass of blonde hair streaming behind her, curling to her hips. He chased her in easy strides, knowing he could catch her if only he increased his speed a bit. But he liked this romping, this sensual tease that contained laughter as well as sensual anticipation and hunger. Simon caught her, tumbling her to the thick carpeted grass but ensuring she landed on his body. As she came up above his chest, beautiful blue eyes glittered with humor, and her curtain of hair enclosed them in an intimate space.
“Do you know just how lovely you are?” he asked raggedly, brushing a finger over her nose. “I am afraid I will want more than your sweet mouth.”
“Simon Gracely, I do not think I should be kissing you,”she gasped even as she dipped her head to touch her lips to his.
“Then run, for I do not have the willpower to resist you, Miss Fanny.”
“Heaven help me. I cannot seem to help myself either.”
And their mouths touched, and his heart had trembled with shocking intensity. Nothing had ever been as perfect as her mouth on his. God, how sweet she tasted, and the violent hunger that pulsed to life jerked Simon awake. He lay there in the overly large four-poster bed, his hands fisted at his side, his heart a pounding mess, his damn breath harsh and ragged on the air.
“Why am I dreaming of you, Fanny Fairbanks?” he murmured in the silence of his chamber. “It has been three days, and you’ve been haunting my sleep. Why?”
He vaguely recalled her as Colin’s baby sister, a young girl full of life and laughter. Simon and the young miss hadn’t had much interaction in the few times he had visited the Fairbanks’s country home. Well, not that he could recall. And he tried to remember then until his head ached, and he rubbed at his temple to soothe the growing tension.
“Who is she to me?” he snarled.
Receiving no answer in the silence of his room, Simon rose from the bed and went about preparing for the day. He did not ring for his valet, for he had become accustomed to dressing himself during the brief but brutal months he’d been in the war. Despite having been home now more than a year, he had been in deep convalescence. Only during these past few months had Simon begun feeling human again, though not whole, or fully himself. There was a piece of his memory that was missing. It had confounded the physicians his mother had hired, and the advice had simply been, “Perhaps in time the period before he went to war might be recovered, or perhaps he might never regain those memories.”
At first, the void had petrified him, but Simon had ruthlessly suppressed those feelings, for he had faced worse. He had seen friends and good, honorable men he respected bloodied and dying on the battlefield. Simon himself had faced the darkness of death and had come back from it. What about a few missing years of his life was there to be frightened of? It had taken a few weeks, but he had stalwartly faced down his fears and accepted that those missing years had been mere ordinary days of his life before he had bought a commission to war.
Standing in front of the mirror and tying his cravat, Simon faltered.
“Do you remember who I am to you?”
Perhaps those missing months had not been so mundane as he believed. Miss Fairbanks's lovely eyes had been wide and hopeful yet also deeply wounded. It was that pain, as if she had lost something precious; he thought about every night since that damn ball. It kept him restless and awake. Still, as he fell into sleep, he did not dream of that private agony she seemed to suffer but of compelling visions that must be a part of his memories. Yet when he discreetly queried his sister, Vanessa swore he had no attachment with Miss Fairbanks, and they had not socialized in the same circles.
Were his dreams then mere fantasies because he had encountered a beautiful woman who had roused his senses to an astonishing degree?
Since the war, he found crowds and tightly packed spaces sickened him. That night, he had gone out into the gardens to breathe and had sensed someone behind him and turned around. His immediate reaction to Miss Fairbanks’s loveliness had been shocking and visceral. His heart had started to thump, and he had been…aroused. Not even when Lady Katherine, the lady he was set to marry, had arrived had Simon been able to calm the unexpected racing of his heart.
“Stop thinking about Miss Fairbanks,” he growled, tugging the final knots of his cravat.
His bedroom door opened, and his valet, Owen, walked in with a pained grimace on his face.
“Your Lordship, you should ring for me to assist you.”
“I was quite able to manage in dressing myself,” Simon said with some amusement at Owen’s aggrieved expression. “Is the viscountess at home?”
“Yes, my lord, she is taking tea with Miss Vanessa in the drawing room. I believe they are anticipating your presence.”
Simon went downstairs and read the newssheet while he ate a breakfast of thinly sliced ham, kippers, eggs, and toast with three cups of coffee before he joined his family in the drawing room. His sister and mother sat with their heads dipped closely together. They glanced up in unison at his entrance, their remarkable beauty so similar they could be sisters. Both had dark tresses, oval-shaped faces with elegantly slanted cheekbones, delicate noses which they used to stare down on those they considered their inferiors. They only differed in their eyes, with his sister owning to vibrant green eyes and his mother’s a light brown.