All or Nothing, page 6
She considered it. A day of games, society, and probably appeasing her lust with one or more of Throckmorton’s guests, or a day of watching Simon paint watercolors of the same spot over and over.
There was something terribly and inexplicably attractive about that idea.
“I’ll sleep through sunrise, I think,” she said. “And perhaps the one after that. But you may count on me for luncheon and thereafter. I’ll borrow a few more novels.”
His pleased expression warmed her.
They came within sight of the house. Throckmorton perched on the terrace balustrade making notes in a little book. Managing his treasure hunt, no doubt. He raised his hand in eager greeting when he saw Simon.
A wild, possessive impulse seized her. The viscount was snide and a bother and Simon didn’t belong to him, whatever Throckmorton thought. She caught at Simon’s arm as he raised it in answer. “Maybe we should kiss,” she said in a rush. “Just once, for show, to cement the pretense.”
“Right,” he answered slowly. “Of course. As we talked about in the carriage.”
“Exactly.”
He gave a jerky little nod.
She took hold of his lapels and kissed him.
Chapter 4
Simon stood rigidly straight, kissing her back with only a slight stirring of his lips, but his chest rose and fell sharply against her knuckles. So Maggie curled a hand around the back of his neck and touched her mouth to his again, hope wriggling in her stomach like a fish.
His mouth opened beneath hers with a gasp, his arms curving around her shoulders. His splayed fingers lifted her against him gently, making her throat close as if she’d swallowed honey. Sweetness pooled between her legs and sparkled like sugar in her chest. Their tongues met; he tasted like the wine in the picnic basket currently dangling from his hand and knocking against her knees.
When she pulled back, his fingers tightened—but he said ruefully, “I think we shouldn’t do that again. I liked it too much.”
She smiled at his dazed expression, feeling sad and triumphant at once. “Let me know if you change your mind.”
His bark of laughter was startled, appalled, or maybe just strangled. But he tangled his fingers with hers as they went back toward the house, swinging their hands between them. It might have been for Throckmorton’s benefit, but it felt friendly.
The quiet of the lakeshore at dawn, the grass wet with dew and the first rays of sunlight gilding the cool lake, had convinced Simon his choice of location was a right one. He was filled with tired, confident peace: a rare and highly enjoyable occurrence. A couple hours more of sleep before his eight o’clock drawing would be just the thing.
His watercolor had dried on his way back to the house. Holding it by one corner, he slipped his boots off in the corridor and entered the bedroom in his stocking feet, smothering a yawn. The curtains were drawn, but enough light filtered in to faintly illuminate the bed.
He stopped, as if he had opened the door onto a stiff wind.
Maggie’s face was half-buried in the pillow and a lumpy heap of counterpane covered most of her, but her arms were stretched out toward his empty side of the bed. One bare leg emerged from beneath the quilt. Her cap had slipped in the night, and a slice of dark hair and two long rag-ends peeked out. When he had come in last night, fifteen minutes after she retired, she’d been dampening her hair at the basin, rolling it into curls, and tying it up with strips of rag.
Somehow it was so much harder to resist her in the dim light of morning, with this sleepy quiet in his heart. Or—not to resist her, for she was only sleeping, and offered no arguments or seduction. But his own attraction to her drifted up and he couldn’t find the energy to quash it. If she woke now and smiled, he would go to her.
Yesterday’s kiss still rattled around inside him like a marble in an empty box.
He stripped to his shirt and pantaloons and climbed into bed. Her outflung hands were inches from his face; he could smell her juices on them.
Her eyes opened when his weight settled on the mattress, but she squeezed them shut again and turned her face into the pillow, curling inward.
His disappointment was crushing.
“Mona,” Clement said diffidently. There was no one else at breakfast, though it was past ten. Simon supposed everyone had been up late, and probably drunk their own weight in brandy besides. Clement himself was pale, his eyes bloodshot and his movements careful.
Simon’s heart clenched. You should take better care of yourself. But if Clement ever did, it would be in his own time. Simon’s efforts had only ever served to annoy him.
“Yes, Clementine?” he said, using the old pet name since they were alone.
“I have to call on my mother this morning. Would you come with me?”
Oh, God. “Of course.” Simon got up to pour himself another cup of coffee for the ordeal ahead. “How did you get her to remove to the Dower House, anyway?”
“She hasn’t,” Clement said glumly. “She’s still living in her old rooms here. She’s only staying there for the party, and that took me a week to talk her into.”
Simon shuddered in sympathy. Clement’s mother loved him dearly—at least, Simon thought she did—but she was not easy to be around, and her idea of maternal behavior was unorthodox, to say the least.
“She’s got a dog now,” Clement said, even more glumly. “It’s horrible. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
The King Charles spaniel had a whining face even for a spaniel, but Simon wouldn’t have held that against her if not for the barking, which was singularly piercing, excited, and unremitting. Lady Throckmorton beamed. “Look, Hetty likes you!” Hetty bounded onto the settee, climbed into Simon’s lap, and began leaping for his face, still barking. “How have you been?”
“Well, thank you.” Simon extended his neck as far as it would go.
“Leave Simon alone,” Clement told the dog, lifting her back to the ground. She climbed back up, undeterred.
“Oh, Simon doesn’t mind, do you? Do you need anything in the village, Simon? I’ve been meaning to take my phaeton out. I think the fresh air would do me good and Hetty loves driving. Don’t you, Hetty?”
Simon’s relief when she plucked the dog out of his lap and into her own warred with his terror at the idea of getting into her phaeton. Lady Throckmorton was not an unskilled driver, but an inattentive and fearless one, prone to sudden stops that threatened, in an open phaeton, to send one flying over the horses’ heads. After years of silent terror, Simon had finally vowed never again to let her drive him after a particularly harrowing journey when she hadn’t looked at the road for more than five seconds together, being occupied in asking him questions about his personal life and showing him the miniature of himself Clement had given her for her birthday.
“Should you like to go for a drive?” she crooned to the dog, which licked her face and bucked about in her hands. “I think she would!”
Clement made an apologetic face at Simon. “We wouldn’t all fit in your phaeton, Mama.”
“Oh, we could squeeze in.”
“Hetty’s barking will fright the horses. They almost ran away with us last time.”
Simon blanched.
“They’ve grown accustomed to her by now,” Lady Throckmorton said blithely, rising from her seat. Clement and Simon stood—out of politeness, but it looked like assent. “Let me fetch my pelisse.”
Simon thought of Maggie’s training in saying no. He stifled a giggle, imagining using such blunt tactics on Clement’s mother.
But why not? Would he really risk his neck to preserve his manners, when Lady Throckmorton had so few of her own? “My lady.” She ignored him. He repeated himself, louder.
“Yes, Simon, what is it?”
“I’m sorry, but I’d rather not go.”
“Oh, don’t be silly, you could use the fresh air too. I’m sure you boys have been burning the candle at both ends.”
“Lady Throckmorton.” He waited until she raised her eyes, and then, despite his inner quailing, looked her coolly in the face. I don’t care what she thinks. I don’t care if she’s angry. I don’t care if she thinks my manners are atrocious. “I don’t want to go. Let’s say no more about it.”
The words dropped like stones into the—well, it wasn’t silence, for Hetty was still yipping.
“Oh!” Lady Throckmorton sat with a nervous laugh. “If you feel that strongly about it, I’ll go alone, later. But surely you need something in the village. To mail a letter perhaps.”
Simon felt terrible. He shook his head.
She fussed with her skirts, not looking at him. “How have you been? It’s been so long since you visited.”
He swallowed a protest that it hadn’t been that long. “I’m well, thank you. I’ve just been in town.” He hardly dared glance at Clement—but his friend mimed an admiring whistle. Simon flushed with sudden, sheepish triumph. It had worked! He didn’t have to go driving with Lady Throckmorton!
“Would you like some more tea, then?”
Simon was already buzzing from all the coffee he’d drunk at breakfast, but he thought it behooved him to be gracious in victory. “That would be lovely, thank you.”
“Sugar, no milk?”
“Milk and extra sugar, please.”
“Oh, have you changed it? It always used to be no milk.”
It had been milk and extra sugar for as long as Simon had been drinking tea, but he nodded. “My sweet tooth grows every year, I’m afraid. May I have another macaroon as well? They’re delicious.”
She patted her cap. “I let you boys have the house, but I brought Cook with me.”
“Clever of you.”
“It’s actually rather refreshing, living alone. Consulting no one’s wishes but my own.”
Simon tried to remember an instance when she had consulted anyone else’s.
“I’ve been thinking of taking a lover,” she confided with a giggle. “Do you think Mr. Fleming would be discreet?”
Clement’s look of horror went to Simon’s heart. “Father’s lawyer? Mama, Father’s only been dead three months.”
“You needn’t look at me like I’m Queen Gertrude! I don’t mean to marry Mr. Fleming. But celibacy leads to all kinds of nervous disorders and health troubles, you know.” She winked at Simon, who tried not to cringe. “Honestly, Clement, I only think of it because I miss your father so terribly.”
Clement, recovering his equilibrium, did no more than roll his eyes in Simon’s direction. “I miss him too.”
“But how are you, Simon?”
“I’m well,” Simon told her again. “I’m still designing ornamental garden buildings. I’ve done one this year already, for Lord Pendleton, and I’m doing one for Clement now.”
She clapped her hands together. “Of course you are! My my, a man of business. You were always such a hardworking, ambitious boy. I knew you would be a great success at something or other. Why weren’t you more like Simon, Clement?” She sighed. “I suppose it was my fault, wasn’t it? How did your parents make you so well-behaved, Simon?”
Simon wished he could sink into the floor. This was not the first time, or even the twentieth time, that Lady Throckmorton had told Clement he ought to be more like Simon. But it never became less upsetting—for Clement either, he presumed, though they had never discussed it, choosing instead to pass it over in awkward silence.
“Are you thinking of marrying, Simon?” the viscountess went on.
Simon felt something very like panic. He had frequently considered, if he did one day want to marry, how painful it would be to inform Clement of the fact. He should have agreed to the drive; he might have broken his neck but at least they wouldn’t be having this conversation.
“I’m sure your mother must long to see you settled. I want grandbabies myself, you know, but Clement doesn’t care about that. He wouldn’t even consent to be introduced to Miss Duckworth-Trevelyan last Season. Don’t you think Miss Duckworth-Trevelyan is a charming girl who would suit him admirably?”
“I don’t believe I have the pleasure of her acquaintance.”
“Simon isn’t going to marry any time soon,” Clement said, very pale. “Seeing as he brought a little Jewish trollop to my house party.”
Despite the brief shock of hurt and betrayal, Simon still felt sorry enough for his friend that his “Clement, don’t,” lacked conviction.
It spurred Clement on anyway. “A charming girl, Mama, and in no danger of any nervous disorders.”
Lady Throckmorton blinked. “A Jewess! Oh Simon. Are you sure that’s wise? I know some men find their women very pretty, with those dark mysterious eyes, but you know they hate us really. How can you ever sleep easy next to one?”
Clement laughed, looking at Simon as if to say, Good Lord, where does she get this stuff from?
Simon did not know what to say. It was pointless and improper to say anything, and yet how would he look Maggie in the face, later, if he said nothing?
If he did marry her, Lady Throckmorton would expect to be introduced to her, and God only knew what she would say then!
He shook his head. Where had that come from? Of course he had no thought of marrying her. “I won’t defend Miss da Silva to you,” he said at last, “because it would imply her worth is a matter for debate. I will only say that at the moment, I esteem her higher than either of you.”
Indeed, why was he here at all? He looked at the pair of them, and suddenly he understood what Maggie had meant. Just now, he did not care a shred what they thought or felt. What difference did it make if they were angry with him?
He had sat still and been polite to Clement’s mother for years, with no reward he could see, except that she thought his manners prettier than Clement’s. If he walked out now, would she even remember it next time he saw her? And was there any reason, at this late date, to believe that Clement would reward Simon’s restraint with restraint of his own?
Simon stood. “Thank you very much for the macaroons, my lady. I bid you good morning.” He bowed and walked out.
Clement didn’t follow him, which set his stomach churning by habit. It would be days of silent treatment for this.
What if Clement dropped him for good and all? What if he finally realized Simon would never change his mind, and so there was nothing to be gained from bothering with him any longer? Who would Simon write to, if Clement dropped him? Who would he tell about books, and sheet music, and funny things girls said to him in shops?
He ignored the fear, setting off for the main house. But it was only a minute or two before Clement called out behind him, “Oy, Simon!”
He waited, startled. He had been so sure it would be silent treatment. Had he judged Clement of six-and-twenty by the behavior of Clement as a student?
“I’m sorry,” Clement said. “I was only trying to get a rise out of my mother.”
Simon could pretend to believe that, or he could say what he thought and likely be told he was being fanciful, and doubt himself. He was so tempted to be grateful for the apology, and let it go.
Maggie wouldn’t let it go. Simon decided to risk it. “I think you wanted to get a rise out of me too. But it isn’t my fault your mother said something unkind, and it isn’t Miss da Silva’s either.” He hesitated. “And I’m tired of your jealousy and spite,” he concluded in a rush. “I want nothing more than to stay friends, but you make it damned difficult sometimes.”
Clement flinched back as if Simon had struck him. “Spite? Is that what you think of me? That I’m some cattish old woman?”
Was he being unjust? Simon felt the worst sort of heel, but he could not seem to dig up any more patience and charity inside himself. “After all these years I suppose I know better than to expect honesty from you. But we both know you’ve done your best to make Miss da Silva feel unwelcome. And don’t give me the silent treatment, either!” he said as Clement’s face froze and he began to turn away. “Tell me the truth.”
“It hurts to see you with her, that’s all.” Clement’s eyes were too bright. “I don’t accuse you of spite, but it wasn’t kind of you to bring her.”
“And is that why you invited Mr. Darling?” Simon demanded. “To hurt me? Or was it because he’s your lover and you wanted his company?” For some unfathomable reason, he added silently.
Clement grinned sheepishly. “A little of both?”
Simon laughed. God, what was wrong with him? Even now, a small part of him was flattered by Clement’s jealousy. Being desired always had startled and delighted him. It was so far from how he saw himself. Clement and Maggie were so brilliant and dazzling, so surrounded by admirers, and yet they chose plain old Simon.
“Is Aloysius hurting you?” Clement looked through his lashes.
A familiar jolt of lust hit Simon. “Of course,” he admitted. He’d never liked seeing Clement with other boys. It wasn’t even that he’d wanted fidelity; he’d only been afraid Clement would find someone he liked better. He had half resented all of Clement’s friends, and still did after everything.
Should he have talked to Clement about it? If he had, if he’d said a lot of things, if he’d said no to a lot of things years ago...would they still be lovers? Or would it have been over much sooner? “But it is what it is. I don’t blame you for loving him.”
“He doesn’t love me.” Clement put his hands in his pockets. “He went off with Skeffington yesterday, and stayed away all night. And he isn’t...considerate of me. In bed, I mean.”
“You should give him his marching orders.” Simon didn’t put much force into the words. He knew Clement wouldn’t.
“I should. But you know I’m no good without”—there was a pause, and then Clement nobly did not say without you—“a lover. I just cry all the time. And I can’t squander my time in tears at the moment. After you swarm of locusts depart, I’ve got to get down to business. Managing the estate and all that.” He glanced at Simon out of the corner of his eyes. “Are you sure you don’t want to give it another shot?”
And just like that, Simon’s lungs closed. “If we give it another shot, there won’t be anything left when we’re done,” he said, trying to soften it. “And I want there to be something left. Clementine, I know I was the one who broke it off, but don’t you remember how miserable we were? We were too close. I couldn’t breathe. Surely you couldn’t either.”
