Chapter Five
It was slim pickings, but a packet of dried fruit Simon assured her had been brought to the cottage by James and the other men just a few months ago and a bottle of wine would tide them over. It wasn’t as if they were going to stay here forever. Simon almost laughed at that thought, though there was nothing funny about this situation. If they were going to stay here forever, never go back to the consequences, Simon knew exactly what he’d do. And it would have nothing to do with food or honor.
Meg shifted in her place at the table and adjusted her ever-sliding blanket. It was fascinating to watch it move over her skin, and yet he forced himself to look away. These wayward thoughts were entirely too dangerous in their current situation. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to lose all reason and do something rash that could never be taken back.
The room was utterly quiet, and Meg looked upward, drawing his attention to the banging of the rain on the roof. It had eased up slightly from the torrent it had begun as hours before, but it was still far too hard to consider making a run back to the house on foot. Especially in the increasing darkness outside.
“It’s not going to stop, is it?” she asked, her voice thin and her face pale in the candlelight.
He swallowed at that question. It could fit so many things about this situation, but she meant the rain. He had to focus.
“No, I don’t think we’ll see it let up any time soon, considering it’s been doing this for almost two hours.”
She bent her head. They both knew the consequences of what had happened here. They would spend a night together, unsupervised. The talk when they returned to James’s estate would be vicious and instantaneous. Probably it was already happening amongst the party guests.
Because of that, Meg and Graham would likely have to marry right away after this. If she had a child any time in the next year, people would whisper that it could be Simon’s, even though that would not be possible.
A child. Simon gritted his teeth. The idea of her having a child with Graham was the thing he most often tried to avoid when he thought of her future. Of course, it would happen eventually. Northridge needed heirs and spares to carry on his title, just as they all did. Graham and Meg would probably have a huge family in the end. How could he resist her, after all, once he’d had a chance to touch her?
Simon’s stomach turned.
“What do we do?” she asked.
The resignation to her tone cut him to his very bone, and there was nothing he could do to console her. Especially not with his body on edge like this.
He sighed. “Go to bed,” he suggested. “We’ll go to sleep and wake up early and hopefully be able to make our way back through dryer elements.”
She lifted her gaze to his and her body let out a great shiver. He frowned. Despite the blankets and the fire, she was still cold. Come to think of it, so was he. And with night descending it was only going to get worse in the drafty cottage.
He stood up and looked down at her. He was about to suggest something that was likely the worst idea he’d ever had. Something he wasn’t completely certain was for her own good or his satisfaction. Something ungentlemanly no matter how much he tried to tell himself otherwise. If she slapped him across the face, he would deserve it. And yet he was still going to say it.
He needed to say it.
“Meg, the best way to fight a chill like this is…body heat,” he managed to force out past suddenly very dry lips. “Would you be…opposed…to sharing the bed? For the purposes of increasing warmth only.”
Her mouth opened in shock and he saw a dozen emotions cross her face. One was most definitely the kind of interest that an unmarried lady would do well to deny. He tried to ignore that interest and gritted his teeth as he waited for her to process the request.
“But we’re…naked. Our clothes won’t be dry for—”
“Hours, yes,” he agreed. “We can’t put them back on until morning, probably, or risk getting even colder.”
She swallowed. “So we would lay naked together in a bed.”
When she said it like that, it slammed Simon up short. “Yes,” he whispered. “But I promise you Meg, I wouldn’t do anything untoward. As soon as morning came, I would leave you. We will go home and there is no reason in the world that anyone would ever have to know what happened here. I’ll tell your brother and Graham that I slept in the outer hall and that you took the bed. I’ll even tell them that you leaned a chair against the door to protect your chastity.”
“You would lie,” she said.
He shrugged. “I would protect your future.”
She turned her face at that statement. “It would be our secret,” she said, still soft and her tone as unreadable as to her thoughts.
He nodded slowly. “Yes.”
“And you are certain it will help with warmth?”
“It will,” he said swiftly, for that, at least, was true even if the remainder of his motives were suspect.
She stood. “Then we should do it. I can see you’re cold—you stayed in wet clothing far longer than I did. I would rather have this secret and not get sick or freeze than mince and mewl and protect myself from you, someone I trust implicitly.”
Simon swallowed back a strangled groan. If she knew the wicked things in his heart, she would not trust him. No one would trust him. He hardly trusted himself.
But he smiled at her and motioned for the bedroom. “You go in and get yourself situated under the blankets so I won’t…see anything. I’ll stoke the fire out here and join you in a moment.”
She gave him one last lingering look and then slipped past him and into the bedroom, where she shut the door behind her. When she was gone, he let out a long, heavy breath.
This was a terrible idea. Terrible. And yet everything in him thrilled at the idea of this one stolen night with Meg.
Meg watched as Simon leaned over the fire in the bedroom and stoked the flames as high as they would go, sending a bright glow into the small room. He took the time to adjust their drying clothing, turning each item and moving the chairs and pieces to different hooks. When he touched her chemise or her stockings, she jolted with the intimacy of that action.
When he was done, he faced her at last, and she caught her breath.
In the firelight, with that blanket riding low in his hips and his bare chest so perfectly muscled, he was beautiful. So beautiful he almost didn’t seem real anymore. But then he never had been fully real, in a way.
Simon had always been her fantasy man, brought to life in physical form. A man with mischievousness and fun, intelligence and strength, confidence and competence. She had spun him up to be almost perfect, so much so that whenever they’d been apart, she’d told herself that her memory couldn’t be right. But then they’d meet again and there he was: perfect.
Perfect for her.
Except that he was forever out of reach. At first because she’d been far too young for him to consider. Then because James had set her marriage to Graham, ending all possibility of a different life or future.
But tonight Simon moved toward her and she could almost pretend this was their wedding night. That he was hers and tonight he would make her his. Her body reacted to that fantasy, her nipples abraded by the rough blanket and her thighs getting wet with excitement she should not feel.
He turned his back to her, and she supposed she was meant to close her eyes. She did so, but only partially, still wickedly watching him as he dropped the blanket around his waist and added it on top of the covers that would protect them from the outside temperatures. Her mouth went totally dry as she stared at his muscular backside, his strong thighs. Then he turned and she almost gasped out loud and gave away her naughty observation of him. His member—she knew men called it a cock—was…well, it was very large and it appeared to be semi-hard. How he roamed about in the world with that thing between his legs, she did not understand.
He pulled the blankets back and she squeezed her eyes shut the rest of the way as he moved himself into position next to her. The bed was narrow, only barely fitting two people, and their arms touched as he settled into place on the flat pillow.
“Good night, Meg,” he said, his voice rough and low beside her.
“Good night, Simon,” she whispered back as she stared up at the ceiling.
They lay like that for she didn’t know how long. It could have only been moments, but it felt like hours. She was so fully aware of the brush of his arm against hers. The weight of his body on the uncomfortable mattress. The sound of his breathing in the silence of the room.
Her mind spun on all of it, wildly out of control. No matter how much she wanted it, this night should not have happened. And Simon would likely suffer for it more than she would. Oh, people would whisper and hiss and she might lose some friends who judged her or called her a wanton without any basis for such censor. But once she married Graham, people’s memory of this mistake would fade.
But for Simon, the effects would likely go on longer. And she could imagine James and Graham would not be happy with him. She would protest their judgment, of course, but would it matter? She could well picture James telling Simon he shouldn’t have followed her at all or should have taken a horse to get back sooner or should have, should have, should have…
Her upset, created during the party when she’d seen Simon and Graham standing together—the future that had been thrust upon her and the one she would never have—had caused a great deal of problems now. And for the one person she would never have hurt in this world.
She rolled slowly, facing him in the dark. “Simon?” she whispered.
There was no answer. His face was turned slightly, so she couldn’t tell if his eyes were closed or open.
“Simon?” she repeated, this time with less certainty.
“What?” he responded, his voice tight.
“I-I’m sorry I ruined today,” she said slowly. “I’m sorry I caused all this trouble by running off from the party.”
He didn’t say anything, but he shifted just a little. His shoulders relaxed a fraction. She took that as the encouragement he didn’t say out loud and continued.
“I feel like I should explain myself,” she said with a sigh. The darkness, the intimacy of lying in a bed together, it all made it seem safe to say what was in her heart. Not all of it, of course. But some. If Simon understood, then perhaps this would be easier, somehow. “I-I don’t want to marry him.”
There, the words were out. Words she had never spoken to any other soul. She’d somehow expected when she said them for them to lose some of their rotting power. But instead, it made her anxiety about her future all the stronger.
“Meg…” Simon said, his tone a warning.
But she was past warnings now. Now the words seemed to fall from her lips even if she didn’t want them to. “It isn’t that I don’t like Graham, or that he isn’t a fine match. God knows he is a fine match—any woman would fight to be in my place. But that doesn’t change the facts. And the fact is that there isn’t a connection between us.”
“Meg,” Simon said again, this time with more urgency.
“Not the connection that there is when I’m with—”
Simon rolled unexpectedly, pushing her onto her back on the mattress, his hands coming to grip her upper arms as he loomed over her, his body covering half of hers as he stared down into her face with wild eyes. Her jovial, playful friend Simon was not there in this man’s face that was so close to her own. He had been replaced by a dark, hard, passionate Simon who held her down and made her body ache even more with a wanting that was wrong and right all at the same time.
“Stop,” he hissed. “Don’t say another word, Margaret, or I’ll—I’ll—”
What little breath she had left in her lungs caught in her throat. “What? What will you do?” she asked.
He groaned deep in the back of his throat and then his mouth crushed down on hers. Simon was kissing her. The shock of that was so powerful she didn’t think to fight it.
His grip loosened on her arms and she lifted them up, wrapping them around his neck and drawing him closer as relief flooded her. It was like a dam had been broken, one built from years and years of stolen glances and hidden longing. Now everything she’d ever felt or wanted from this man was cascading over her and she was lost to its power. To his power.
His mouth was rough on hers, opening so his tongue could push inside her. She allowed it, meeting the kiss with her own, unpracticed, yes, but just as passionate. He stroked her tongue, seeming to taste every inch of her as his weight pushed her into the pillows. She was beginning to understand and did the same to him, eliciting another soft groan from him.
His hands moved, too, sliding down her bare sides, gripping her hips in the darkness beneath the blankets and pushing himself against her. She lifted to his weight, gasping when the hard cock she’d seen earlier thrust against her lower belly, insistent and hot.
“Simon,” she gasped into his mouth, overwhelmed by pleasure and need all at once. It was all so heady and dangerous and wanton and wonderful.
He froze at the sound of his name, his hands stilling, his mouth stopping. Then he released her in an instant and jumped off of her as quickly as he could. He caught the blanket on top and wrapped it around himself as he paced away to the fire.
“No!” he shouted, loud enough that the room almost shook. She thought that the exclamation was as much to himself as to her, and she winced at the pain in that one little word.
“No,” he repeated, and there was even more pain in the softer admonishment.
He moved toward the door and she sat up, the blankets sliding from her breasts as she did so, but she didn’t care.
“Where are you going?” she asked. “Please, Simon.”
“I can’t, Meg,” he said, spinning to face her. He stared, and she blushed before she covered herself. “I can’t, don’t you see? No matter how I want to, no matter how I need to. He is one of my closest friends. Practically a brother when I had no one else in the world. They both are. I’m sleeping on the floor. I should have done so to begin with.”
Her lips parted. “But the cold—”
“Then I’ll freeze,” he snapped, exiting the room and slamming the door behind himself.
She flopped back on the bed, covering her face with her forearm as the tears began to fall.