Again and Again

Chapter 9

That evening, dinner seemed endless for Simon, course after course passing in a blur. He ate without tasting, drank without noticing, conversed without recalling a word. Finally, the last glass of port was drunk at table, the men joined Jane in the drawing room for tea, the clock eventually struck eleven, and praise God, his hosts suggested an early bedtime before the next day’s hunt.

Simon immediately returned to his room where he paced and waited for the house to quiet. He couldn’t be seen leaving his room, especially after being warned off by Jane. Impatient, chafing at the need for further delay, he made the circuit of his room countless times, the hands on the clock seeming to move so slowly he felt like hitting something. But at last, no sound could be heard and opening his door, he glanced up and down the corridor. Blessed silence. Stepping out into the hall, he softly shut the door, and quietly moved to the third-floor stairway where he paused, listening. Absolute quiet. He smiled. Even his duenna, Jane, was asleep. Taking the stairs at a run he came to a stop on the top landing. Several doors faced on the corridor. Two on his right, three on his left… the children, nanny, playroom and governess. Which was Caroline’s?

She looked up as he came into her room. Setting aside the book she was reading, Caroline surveyed him with a cool glance. “What took so long?”

It wasn’t welcome, it was sarcasm. “You were the last room on this floor; the nanny snores, the children are both asleep, even the cat is sleeping. Also, I’d promised Jane not to bother you,” he said, shutting the door behind him. “So I had to wait until she was sleeping.”

“A man of honor.”

He stood with his back against the door. “I was particularly careful with my wording.”

Even in the indistinct candlelight, she caught the flicker of amusement in his gaze and for a moment she couldn’t decide if she was relieved or annoyed. The same old Simon. Had she expected someone different? Lifting a sheet of paper from the bedside table, she held it out. “Here.”

His brows rose, but he didn’t move. “What’s that?”

“The rules of the game.”

“Meaning?”

“Forgive me. Were you coming up here to propose?”

“What if I were?”

“I’d say you were being particularly careful with your wording again.”

“I’d forgotten what a little bitch you can be.”

“No, you hadn’t. We both know each other too well. Read this.” She extended the paper again.

This time he moved forward, plucked it from her fingers and sitting down on the bed, leaned toward the candle flame and began to read. His mouth twitched on occasion as did the muscle high over his cheekbone, but he made no comment as he perused the document, save for the air he blew out of his nostrils on reading the last line. “What makes you think I have to agree to any of this?”

“If you don’t, I might decide to leave suddenly- say, when you’re out hunting.”

“You’re bluffing.”

“You don’t know if I am or not”

A small silence ensued.

“You’re dancing a damned fine line, here,” he observed, tipping his head toward the sheet of paper before slowly surveying her. “You don’t look the part in that buttoned-up nun’s nightgown… the ladies who make demands such as yours are generally-”

“I suggest you don’t finish that statement,” she said with exquisite softness.

He shut his mouth.

She smiled. “You can be sensible.”

He glared at her for a moment before his frown eased. The line between propriety and desire was a fine line for him as well. While he wanted her for all the obvious reasons, there were additional reasons that he chose not to acknowledge. Particularly not after chasing up and down the countryside looking for her like some jilted, lovesick swain. Any tender emotions he might have felt had been extinguished by days of frustrating search. So, perhaps they were both on the same page-literally.

He glanced down at her list. Although inamoratas generally couched their demands in more diplomatic language, this was distinctly Carolinesque in its bluntness. “Very well,” he said, looking up, holding her gaze. “I agree to your rules.”

Her look of triumph was quickly shuttered, but he’d seen it. “You may not win every round, pet. Keep that in mind.”

“This isn’t about winning or losing, Simon. It’s about me keeping my position and you recognizing my need for it.”

“You may not need it for long at these prices.” Setting the paper on the bedside table, he drew out some bills from the inside pocket of his dinner jacket. “I believe you said five hundred pounds.”

“It’s a business arrangement. Not an unfamiliar one for you, I’m sure.”

“Your price is high.”

“The easier for you to decline, I thought”

“Did you really?”

“What?”

“Think I’d decline.”

“In all honesty, I was hoping you might” She softly sighed. “It would make everything so much easier. You understand that, don’t you?”

“I understand I’m going to be jumping through considerable hoops.” His brows rose. “It must have taken you some time just to write down all those conditions.”

“They’re necessary. I don’t want you compromising me.”

“In public, you mean,” he drawled, his gaze openly carnal.

“Of course in public. If sex with you was compromising, I would have long since been in jeopardy, now wouldn’t I? Really, darling, such ingenuousness. Have you been amusing yourself with virgins of late?”

“I’ve never had a taste for virgins.”

“I’m gratified to hear it.”

“With one exception, of course,” he said, softly. “Long, long ago. And that particular instance still remains one of my fondest memories.”

Her blush was evident even in the dim light. “Kindly refrain from journeying down memory lane. You and I have come too far.” She lifted her hand in a small sweeping gesture. “As you see.”

“Very well… then we’d better get to it,” he said briskly, rising to his feet. “Since you’ve stipulated I must leave by half-past one.”

“I need my rest I have two children to teach.”

He kicked off his shoes. “And one client to please.”

She refused to be baited. Her smile couldn’t have been improved upon by the actress, Sarah Kemble, herself. “Perhaps if I don’t please you, you may not return, and I’ll no longer have to deal with your impudence.”

His narrowed gaze held hers as he slid off his dinner jacket and waistcoat “Rest assured, darling, you always please me. Now, kindly take off your nightgown. We don’t have much time.”

When she didn’t move, he half smiled. “If we’re going to play by these rules, you’ll have to do your part.”

“I don’t have to do anything except leave tomorrow when you go hunting. You’re the one who wants something. You’re the one who’s disturbing my sleep and life. I’m perfectly content to pretend I barely know you. In fact, I would prefer it. So, don’t give me orders.”

“Or,” he said, softly, “I could take you away, now, this minute, anywhere I chose, so perhaps I can give orders after all.”

“I’ll scream.” She smiled. “Checkmate.”

“Maybe I don’t care if you scream. Maybe I don’t care what Ian and Jane think. By the time they can get out of bed, I’ll have you downstairs and into my carriage.”

“It’s not harnessed.”

“How do you know?” He smiled. “Checkmate.” A brittle silence fell.

“Now take off your nightgown.” He slid his suspenders down his arms. “What if I don’t want to?”

“I gave you five hundred pounds. You have to.” She scowled. “You’re not making this very easy.”

“Whoa.” He held up his hands. “Who’s not making this easy?”

“You don’t understand.”

“You’re right about that,” he said, grimly, “life isn’t always about you having what you want when you want it.”

“You seem to be having your way more than I.” She snorted. “If that were the case, you would be back downstairs in your bedroom and I would be peacefully sleeping.”

“So you have no interest in making love?” His voice was velvety and low, his dark gaze heated and what she wanted was always equivocal when Simon was close. “I can’t afford to lose this job,” she said, her voice trembling slightly at the last.

“You don’t need a job. I’ll take care of you.” “For how long? You see how practical I’ve become.”

“If you need money, I’ll give it to you.”

She glared at him. “Of course I need money.

What a stupid thing to say. Do you think I’d be a governess if I had money?“

He blew out a breath. ‘Jesus, Caro, tell me what you want me to do.“

“I want you to leave me alone.”

He was silent

“Did you hear me?” Challenge in each syllable.

He shook his head. “I can’t.”

“Of course you can.”

He shook his head again. “No, I can’t” Although the reasons he couldn’t weren’t entirely clear. Or maybe they were clear, but he refused to acknowledge them. Or maybe wanting and having were two different things, although the wanting part wasn’t open to discussion right now. He began unbuttoning the collar button on his evening shirt.

“Simon, don’t!”

“I’m willing to accede to your rules, but that’s all I’m willing to do. I’m not leaving. So scream if you wish.”

“And if I do?”

“I’ll take you away, right now, this minute.”

“I hate you,” she whispered.

“No, you don’t”

“Then I should.”

“Don’t. I’ll live with your ridiculous rules. That makes you triumphant”

“Damn you, Simon!”

He smiled. “Is that a yes?”

“Only to the most obtuse.”

“I doubt you’re obtuse either. Make up your mind.” He glanced at the clock. “If we’re staying here, there’s not much time left.”

He’d take her away if she refused; he’d made that plain. “No comments in public, now?”

“I’ll be completely circumspect”

“You won’t be staying long, will you?”

“Probably not,” he lied. His curfew tonight was less than two hours away and he didn’t want to waste it in further conversation.

“Very well.”

He laughed. “Your enthusiasm is gratifying.”

She glanced at his obvious erection. “It doesn’t seem to have affected your interest.”

“We’ve missed you.”

“I suspect you say that to all your women.”

“Are you mine, then?”

She took note of the time. “For an hour and a half I am.”

“I’m flattered,” he said as casually. “Would you like me to undress you?”

“In these kind of arrangements, don’t the ladies usually undress themselves?”

“Are you asking me or telling me?” he asked with a hard look, his hands arrested on one gold cuff link.

“Good God, Simon. I didn’t sleep my way across Europe, so kindly stop acting like a jealous husband.”

His eyes narrowed further as he set the cuff link on the bedside table. “Did your husband have reason to be jealous?”

“Are we questioning degrees of intemperance here? Because I don’t think you of all people have the right. And I doubt, in these circumstances, you grill the ladies you’re about to sleep with on their virtue.”

“I’ve never exactly thought of you in those terms.” He slid the second cuff link free, set it aside and tugged his shirt out of his trousers.

“Then don’t start. But if you’d rather, I wouldn’t mind saying good night and best wishes for your future. Truthfully, I’d prefer that.”

“No.” His voice was unrelenting and partly muffled as he pulled his shirt over his head. He tossed it aside.

“Yes, Captain.”

He went still, his gaze shuttered. “I haven’t heard that for a long time.”

“Your scars stand out in the candlelight.” His nude torso was burnished by the flickering light, his virility impossible to ignore.

‘They’re almost gone,“ he said, brusquely.

They weren’t, nor would they ever be, she thought, remembering how she’d helped care for him when he came back from Waterloo, nearly dead.

He didn’t remember the misery of those days, he recalled instead the bewitching game they’d played as he’d recuperated. His sigh was part memory, part regret. “What the hell went wrong?” he murmured.

She didn’t need clarification. She shrugged. “Too many things to count.” She looked past him for a moment, at a loss to even begin to define when the ruin had begun. Then her gaze returned to his and she suddenly smiled. “Do you want to play because I don’t want to remember the disasters.”

He inhaled softly, the disasters having come in stages he didn’t want to think about either. He nodded. “You choose which one.”

“The one where you knock on the door.”

His mouth turned up slightly at the corners. “Your favorite.”

“You asked,” she said, not quite able to read his tone. “Would you rather do yours?”

He shook his head. “I like that one too.”

She tipped her head faintly, her gaze on his trousers. “I can tell.”

He chuckled. “They were all my favorites. What the hell happened to us?”

She could have told him the truth-that aside from any number of adjunct disagreements he hadn’t been ready to think of marriage… not really, although they’d talked about it since they were young. “I felt like traveling,” she said, lightly instead, rising from the bed and moving toward him. “But right now, Captain, I can’t let you in,” she murmured. “It’s very late, and I’m alone in the house.”

The words were like a line from a song, forever etched in his memory and he answered as he had so many times before, “Forgive me, my lady. But I have my orders to bivouac here.”

She clutched the front of her nightgown, holding it tightly at her neck. “Surely… there… must be… some mistake.”

The hesitation in her voice was exactly the same, innocent, winsomely appealing and he felt the same surge of desire he’d always felt when he heard it “I’m afraid there’s no mistake. The campaign has moved this way and we’re in pursuit…” His voice trailed off.

She didn’t find it difficult to mimic apprehension; he was gazing at her with naked lust. “I… don’t know… what to say.”

“Forgive me. But my orders are plain.”

“If you insist on coming in… you must stay… in the parlor.”

“Of course. You needn’t fear, my lady. You’re completely safe.”

“Thank you.” A faint smiled played about her mouth and she nodded at his partial nudity. “You’re ahead of me.” She waved her hand in a small circle as though moving them along. “Would you like to dry your coat by the fire?” Her voice had reverted to her actress intonation.

“If I may…”

She turned and made a pretense of placing his coat by an imaginary fire, her breath in her throat

He came up behind her like he had so many times before; she could feel the heat of his body, the hard length of his arousal pressed into her buttocks. As she shivered at the sudden flaring heat, his erection moved and swelled against her.

“I’ve been on campaign for weeks,” he whispered, lifting her hair from the back of her neck, the coolness a signal memory from the past. “I haven’t seen a woman for so long…”

She stiffened in anticipation.

And then he bent his head and touched his mouth to the nape of her neck.

So light a kiss shouldn’t have made her so frantic, so covetous and eager. It hadn’t always. Not to this staggering degree. Please, please… now, she wanted to say. I can’t wait another second.

But he whispered, “I’m sorry, my lady. I shouldn’t have done that.”

And for a flashing moment she wasn’t sure what was now and what was then. But he’d stepped back, like he was supposed to and she turned to him. “I don’t know if I can do this,” she breathed, her agitation plain.

He took her hand and rubbed it across the front of his trousers, so she could feel the breadth and length of his desire. “You have to,” he said, not caring if this was fantasy or reality, knowing why he was here.

She jerked her hand away.

He didn’t move, although he’d quickly scanned the room. “You can’t go anywhere,” he whispered. “I won’t let you.”

Inundated by carnal longing, she drew in a sharp breath. “Because you’re-the captain.” She’d almost said My captain, but caught herself just in time.

He’d heard the minute pause, took note of the altered wording, resolved to change it back again now that he’d found her. But he uttered the expected words in order not to frighten her. “You needn’t worry, my lady. No one will know.”

“Your troopers will know.”

“Not unless I invite them in. Would you like me to?”

“No… no-no.”

He saw the uncertainty in her eyes, heard it in her breathy reply. “Are you sure? They won’t touch you.”

“You said you wouldn’t touch me.”

“I haven’t yet.” His voice turned silken. “Not really.”

Her skittish gaze glanced downward to the bulge in his crotch and her voice when she spoke, was almost inaudible. “There’s more?”

“Invite me in and I’ll show you.”

“You are in.”

“In here,” he murmured, touching her mons, slipping his fingers downward, forcing the soft linen of her gown into the moistness of her vulva. “Lift your gown,” he ordered. “I can’t feel you.” His dark eyes held hers. “And I want to.”

“No… no-I couldn’t… I can’t-my family would disown me. I’m betrothed to the local curate.”

His gaze was half-lidded; his fingers buried in her cleft were damp from her wetness. “I won’t tell the curate. He’ll never know.”

She shook her head. “He’ll know. Truly, he will.”

He stroked her gently, the fabric of her nightgown slippery under his fingers. “I’ll be gentle,” he whispered. “You could have lost your virginity riding.” He brushed her mouth lightly with his. “You ride don’t you?”

She quickly nodded, her thighs pressed tightly around his hand, her breath coming in short little pants.

“Lift your gown, my lady… for me.”

Temptation in the wilderness or in a small English hamlet or in a governess’s room under the eaves. Unable to resist, she closed her fingers on the fabric of her gown, bunched the skirt in her hands, and slowly lifted it.

“That’s a good girl,” Simon whispered, stroking the smoothness of her exposed belly. Sliding his hand downward, he nudged her thighs apart and slipped in one finger palm deep. “Ummm… you’re a very good girl. Have you let your curate feel you all wet and juicy like this-have you?”

She shook her head, not meeting his gaze.

“So I’m the first man to touch this?” He stroked her liquid flesh. “I think you could take more than one finger, couldn’t you?” he whispered, probing her slick passage.

She should say no to such cool self-possession; she shouldn’t be so shameless in her need-so insatiable. And if she weren’t aching to feel him deep inside her, she would.

He touched her cheek. “Answer me.”

His dark, seductive gaze further incited the scandalous throbbing between her legs. He was too beautiful. That was the problem. She craved him for his beauty alone. “Yes, yes… yes,” she said, her voice sounding as though it were someone else’s. Someone ignominiously in rut; someone who would have lain with him anywhere.

And when his second finger eased inside, she whimpered and squirmed, the penetration quickening her senses, adding urgency to her carnal longing.

“Am I hurting you?”

The sound of his voice drifted through her seething hysteria, but she couldn’t find the breath to speak.

Her overwrought passions were answer enough; he forced his fingers deeper. At her breathy sigh, he felt her muscles contract, felt the slick lubricant of desire flow more profusely. She was ready for sex, more than ready and without asking permission, he added a third finger. Slowly exerting pressure, he penetrated deeper, stretching the verges of her vulva until his third finger was fully submerged.

She moaned, shuddered, uncontrollable desire vibrating through her body.

He looked up. “Relax, darling…” And when she did, he jammed in a fourth finger.

She gasped, delirium washing over her in heated waves. “I don’t want to play anymore,” she panted, reaching out, stroking his erection. “I want this.”

“Unbutton my trousers and you can have it”

Even through her fevered need, his unruffled calm was grating. Her hand stilled. “It doesn’t matter to you?”

“I didn’t say that.” His smile was wolfish, his fingers moving inside her with deft subtlety. “Indulge me.”

Grabbing his wrist, she arrested his compelling massage. “Since when do you need to be indulged?”

He unclasped her hand from his wrist and withdrew his fingers. “Since I’m paying you five hundred pounds a night,” he said, wiping his fingers on her nightgown.

She slapped his hand away. “Take your money back and leave.”

His gaze met hers. “We shouldn’t have started this,” he said, gruffly, his own feelings impossibly disordered. “But I’m not leaving. I’m going to make love to you. Me, Simon-no games,” his voice deepened, “whether you want it or not, although I think you do.”

She frowned.

“You know I’m right.”

She didn’t answer for a very long time. “I don’t want to feel what I’m feeling,” she said, ill-tempered and sulky. “Breathless with need, practically crazed.”

“I know.” His emotions in turmoil, he understood.

“I don’t think you do. I think this is another night with another woman in a long list of similar nights for you.”

“No,” he said, thinking of the days he’d spent looking for her, of the years she’d been abroad without him-with other men. “You’re wrong. This isn’t the same.”

There was another long pause. She sighed, grimaced, finally spoke. “You still have to observe-”

“Your rules? Agreed.”

She gazed at him with patent discontent. “I’m still not sure why you’re here or why I’m allowing this.” She blew air through her teeth. “Merde. Maybe I’m thinking too much.”

His smile was tight. “Maybe we both are.” Un-trammeled behavior wasn’t unusual in his life; this irrepressible craving was. “Why don’t we both stop analyzing?” he murmured. “I’m going to undress you because I want to, not for any other reason, and you’re going to let me.” Taking her hand, he began to draw her to the bed.

“Carpe diem,” she said, under her breath.

“I suppose,” he muttered. “Probably,” he added. His dark brows drew into a faint frown, and he forcibly tamped down the discontent that always came with too much speculation on Caro’s past. Having reached the bed, he turned to her, unbuttoned her nightgown in silence, pulled it over her head and pointed at the bed.

There was a certain irony in his reluctant seduction that made her smile. “I suppose since you’re paying me, I have to do what I’m told.”

“It would be a welcome change,” he grumbled.

“Oh, dear, was I supposed to be docile and amenable?” she purred, throwing him a look over her shoulder as she climbed into her narrow bed.

He snorted. “That I’d like to see.” Stripping off his trousers and undershorts in the same businesslike manner, he left them where they fell.

“I know what I’d like to see,” she murmured.

He swung back at the seductive whisper.

And his thick upthrust penis swayed in provocative allure. “Ummm… you’re going to hurt me with that great big-”

“Cock with your name on it,” he murmured, moving toward the bed.

She opened her arms.

And he felt a kind of joy he only felt with Caro.

A second later, the bed squeaked under his weight and a second after that they were joined and the creaking was so loud, Caro went stiff in his arms.

“Stop!” she hissed. “We’re going to wake-” Her words ended in a low moan as Simon held himself perfectly still within her, or almost still; the pulsing of his penis against her vaginal walls, against her clitoris, the faintest of sensations at the very mouth of her womb were unbearably intense.

“Don’t move,” he whispered, his mouth resting against her ear. “And you can’t make a sound,” he added, the faintest whimsy in his tone. “Can you do that?”

She nodded, delirium coursing through her body-willing to do anything to keep him inside her.

“Good girl.” His voice was warm against her ear as he slid his hand over her mons and upward just to where the dip of her stomach began. He flexed his hips minutely, forcing himself fractionally deeper at the same time that he put pressure on a small sensitive area under his fingertips.

She gasped, went rigid at the shocking pleasure and felt an orgasm begin in a headlong, monstrous rush of rapture. She began to scream and he covered her mouth with his. “No,” he said against her teeth. “Understand?”

She nodded or she thought she nodded, overpowered by the staggering pleasure.

He kept her in thrall to stupefying orgasmic pleasure, bringing her to climax over and over again until she nearly fainted from excess. And then he took his pleasure with his little governess courtesan, climaxing quietly in hot, deep, hammering, internalized waves that seemed to rise up from the very center of his body to explode on her stomach.

But neither was sated, their sexual hunger perhaps exaggerated by the days at Shipton, then-senses attuned to a new level of carnal need. And they explored the limits of sensation that night, on the floor, on the chair, against the wall-anywhere but on the noisy bed. Until with morning coming, Caro whispered nervously, ‘You have to go.“

He almost said, Screw your rules and the Carlisles, and everything that had to do with the curtailment of his pleasure. But he didn’t, because she was looking at him with a gravity even he recognized as deeply earnest. “I’ll be back tonight.” He didn’t ask; it was a statement of fact.

And like some lovesick maid, she murmured, “I’ll be waiting…”

“It’s going to be a helluva long day,” he grumbled, but he carried her to her small bed, tucked her in and gently kissed her.

And when he was dressed, he stood beside the bed for a moment, his smile affectionate. “I’m really glad I found you.”

He didn’t look like a disreputable rake or a celebrated duke or the man who fueled most of the lascivious gossip in the ton. He looked eighteen again, his cheeks flushed, the same smile on his face as the young boy she’d fallen in love with so many years ago. “Take your money,” she said, nodding at the bills on the table. “I don’t want it.”

He hesitated.

Take it or you can’t come back.“

He grabbed the bills and shoved them in his jacket pocket. “Thank you… for-” he tipped his head “everything.”

“I should thank you.” She smiled. “As usual. Now go, before I say something I’ll regret.”

He took a breath as though to speak, then grinned instead and turned away. At the door, he swung back and blew her a kiss. Like he always had a lifetime ago.

Then he was gone.

At the soft click of the latch, she fought back sudden tears welling in her eyes. She refused to cry about the past. What was done was done, and all the tears in creation wouldn’t change a single second. She and Simon wouldn’t be naive and young again, although the word naive and Simon perhaps had never been a match. But she at least would never be naive again. Nor would tears bring back her father or her former life. Or wash away the misery of her marriage.

And more pertinently, she’d be a fool if she waxed nostalgic about her relationship with Simon. It was sex-no more, no less. Although, certainly… the very, very best of sex, she mused, a half-smile playing on her lips. She might fault Simon for any number of sins, but she couldn’t fault him for his talents in bed. He was unrivaled.

She smiled. She probably shouldn’t have mentioned that to Henri. Although, under the circumstances-what with the light-skirt in her parlor that afternoon-he richly deserved it