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He placed a finger under her chin and lifted her face to his. Using his thumb, he wiped away the tear which had rolled down her cheek. “You are too hard on yourself, my sweet. You took responsibility for your mistakes and affected an apology. There is no shame in that. You’ve acquitted your honor quite well.”
She turned her face and pressed a kiss into his palm. “You have a remarkable gift for always making my heart happy,” she said with a sweet shyness. “Thank you, Simon.”
A whisper of a kiss feathered over his jaw, and he closed his eyes against the sensations. “I want to stay here and kiss you until we are both senseless with desire, but I must call upon the squire to see how he fares. He broke his damn leg trying to fox hunt.”
She slipped her hand around his neck, the wicked temptress teasing him with another kiss on his chin. Then their mouths met, and the fire of desire drowned his senses. Holding her close to his chest, Simon tenderly ravished her mouth with long, heart-pounding kisses. His lips devoured hers, and he stroked his tongue in her mouth with ruthless persuasion. Unable to stop touching her, he explored her mouth thoroughly, and the onslaughts of sensations were overwhelming.
She tasted of sweetness and fire, of innocence and wantonness. Each kiss went deeper, lingered longer, communicating lust, tenderness, and such burning love. His cock hardened on a fierce pulse of desires, and he had to beat back the raw need demanding he lift her and place her on the soft grass to make love with her. With a ragged groan, Simon pulled from her, littering small kisses across her cheek. He bit the curve of her throat, fighting the raging need to devour her.
“Simon!” she gasped, shivering in his arms.
He slid his hand along the curves of her thighs, worshipping the feel of her sweet, slender body, up to her hips. Lifting his head, he stared at her. “When I release you, run away from me and do not look back.”
The pulse fluttered at the base of her throat, her skin flushed, and her eyes had deepened to forest green. “And if I do not?”
“Then I will kiss you everywhere until you are wet and desperate for me, then I'll take your virtue, right here with the sun beating down on us."
An inarticulate murmur sl
ipped from her. Instead of being afraid at the sensual threat, his wicked minx boldly thrust her fingers through his hair and took his mouth with shocking carnality. The kiss was over before it began, and she jerked to her feet and hurried away, the wind carrying her soft laughter back to him.
Several hours later, Simon was bent over his medical journal, scribbling his observances noting in patients with symptoms which suggested they might have future problems with their health. He made it his duty, to carefully record his cases, the symptoms, the care he suggested, and their improvements or lack thereof. The door to the library swung open, but he did not lift his head. Thinking it to be his housekeeper who normally peeked in at this time of the day with a tray for him to eat, he muttered, “I'll be right with you, Mrs. Clayton.”
“Is that the greeting I’m to receive after six years?” a low voice murmured.
Simon snapped his head up, the breath whooshing from his lungs. “Speak of the devil!”
His brother’s dark blue eyes, very much like his own lit up with amusement. “Ah, speaking of me, earlier were you?”
Simon grinned, blotting the journal and lowering his quill. "Only this morning." He stood and bounded around the large desk to meet his brother in the center of the room. They hugged fiercely, and Simon was surprised to feel a lump forming in his throat.
“I missed you,” he said gruffly. “Why didn’t you send word that you were coming?”
“I missed you too,” his brother replied, slapping him on his back.
They pulled apart, and William dragged his fingers through his short-cropped hair. "I fancied I would arrive before my letter. But surely you expected me after your last letter informing me that Mamma is slipping into an ever-deeper state of melancholia."
Simon strolled over to the side table, lifted a decanter filled with whisky and poured two glasses. He handed one to his brother who took it with an expression of rich pleasure.
“Mother has been in Bath these last four months. She has bought a house in Camden Place and there is a sly rumor about town that she has the peculiar interest of a viscount ten years her junior. Her letters are filled with more cheer and good humor of late, but I daresay she will be thrilled to have you home.”
William nodded and sipped his drink. “I received a letter from Edward some six months ago, that he is getting married, to an American, and he means to bring her home for the family to meet her.”
“I received one too. Mother will be well pleased to have all of us once again under her roof.”
William ambled over to the sofa by the fireplace and lowered himself into its plush depth. “And little Lucy?”
“Not so little anymore, and not of a mind to forgive you for missing her wedding. You have a lot to make up for with your absence.”
“That I do,” he murmured.
Simon took in the changes in his brother. He seemed tougher, the dark swarthiness of his skin a testimony he spent most of his hours under the sun. Nor was he dressed in clothes befitting a duke with considerable estates and wealth, but in a manner of casual disregard of his station. He was dressed in dark trousers and an open-neck white linen shirt.
“It is very good to have you home, William. Though I do not believe Mamma’s melancholia is the only reason you’ve returned home.”
William took a healthy swallow of his drink. “I mean to marry. Fulfill my duties and obligations to the title.”
Simon stilled. “Are you certain?”
