Through the roar of his rushing blood, he tried to remember what promise had been given hours, what seemed eons, ago. They had gone to Windgate Priory to question Alistair . . . and along the way in the coach, Simon had stroked her to climax even as he had just done now. . . .
God, yes, he remembered. His recollection must have shown in his eyes and in the fiery flush of his skin, for as she searched his features, a smile dawned on her bowed lips.
She released his shirt and smoothed her hand down his body to the junction of his breeches. “It is a promise I intend to keep.”
Without ceremony Ivy pushed Simon down onto the edge of the bed. Leaning over to kiss him, she reached for the buttons of his breeches.
His hand came down on hers. “You don’t have to.”
“Oh, but I promised.”
“A promise made in passion doesn’t count.”
“Do you believe that passion robs a person of sincerity?” She shook her head. “I believe quite the opposite, that stripped of manners and pretense we say precisely what we mean. And
do
precisely as we most wish.”
Several times now he had shown her pleasure, and only once had he taken his own. Even then, her inexperience had forced her to play the passive role as he brought them both to fulfillment. Not this time. Perhaps it was the borrowed silk dress, for even as her breeches and waistcoat had emboldened her as a scholar and a human being, the gown imbued her with a new and thrilling power.
Tonight, the scholar gave way to the seductress.
Leaning over him again, she allowed her breasts to spill over the edge of her loosened bodice as she kissed him. Then with a wicked smile she pulled away, running her hands ever so slowly from his shoulders down his torso and to his thighs as she knelt before him.
His breath rasped as she unfastened the top buttons at either side of his trouser flap. Pulling his shirttails free, she ran her fingertips across his stomach, enjoying the sudden flinch of his muscles and experiencing a tightening of her own inner muscles deep, deep in her womb as she followed the light trail of hair that plunged downward from his navel.
Her heart pattering, she undid the remaining buttons, at first keeping one hand over the woolen fabric where he grew and hardened against her palm. The strength of that most essentially male part of him filled her with awe. His member pulsed against her hand and lightly she pressed back, then more firmly.
He ran a hand through her hair, freeing it from the combs that now thudded onto the carpet. “Oh, God, Ivy.”
His head was thrown back, his neck knotted, his features contorted as if with pain. She lowered the flap and his shaft sprang forward, thick and engorged, to point at her in a command for attention. She gasped at the sight, then peered back up at Simon’s face. He watched her from beneath heavy lids, his mouth hard as if with pain. Without breaking eye contact, she kissed the taut skin just above the bold black hair that framed his penis. His blue eyes blazed. He made a guttural noise, and his hand tightened in her hair.
“You will have to help me,” she whispered. “You must let me know if I am doing it correctly.”
“Blazing hell, Ivy ...” His voice was ragged, but filled with an intensity that heightened her courage. She touched the base of his shaft, her fingertips grazing the velvety warm skin of his scrotum. His lips peeled back to bare his teeth. “You . . . are doing it correctly.”
She put her lips on him then, and a violent shudder ran his length. Feeling empowered, she closed her mouth around him.
“Ah . . . yes, like that.”
Using lips and tongue she moved down his length, then back toward the tip, and paused.
“God, yes.”
An instinct she never knew she possessed prompted her to tease him with flicking strokes of her tongue. She added the gentle scrape of her teeth. Simon let out a rumble, while the pressure of his hand at the back of her head guided her motions.
“Like a peppermint stick,” he said on a rush of breath.
She paused, at first not understanding what he meant. Then it dawned on her, that he wanted not just the sensation of her lips and tongue but the sensation of sucking inwardly—as one did with a stick of candy. In the back of her mind she knew that later she would laugh at the irony of such an image, that something as innocent as sucking candy could be so sensual.
Now she didn’t laugh, for as she gripped the base of his member and used her mouth to bring him higher and higher toward the explosive crest, an aching need grew inside her, a selfish and overwhelming desire to ride that crest with him, to share in the glittering moment of climax, and to cling tight to him during the languid fall back to earth. She yearned to have him inside her, his power and strength filling her. She needed him so much, so very much.
As the thought concluded, he released his hold on her, and with both hands grasped her shoulders and tugged to raise her up. Could he have read her mind, or had he felt her hesitation? She felt suddenly torn, furiously longing to join her body with his while at the same wanting to pleasure him as he had done for her.
But a glance at him revealed an emotion imprinted like a brand across his features, the feverish, blazing image of the same sensations running riot within her.
Her heart lurched. Was she mistaken? In the next instant he’d blinked the sentiment away, but in that brief lowering of his guard, she thought she perceived a love as deep as that which she harbored for him.
He gave another insistent tug. “Ivy, come here.”
The temptation proved too much to resist, and
not
yielding to it proved too much to bear. As she rose, he gathered her onto his lap and drew her legs to either side of his waist. His hands dove beneath her hems. He caught hold of her hips and lifted her, then set her down upon his length.
She found herself ready—oh, more than ready for him—and he slid into her until she sheathed him fully. She shut her eyes to the sheer, exultant satisfaction of it, her last vision that of his determined, enraptured features, a desire fierce and plain to see, and mirroring everything she felt herself.
With his powerful hands he began to move her, each stroke up and down his length a loving caress against her soul. Completion brought tears to her eyes, cries from her lips that she muffled against his shoulder, and a shocking certainty that pierced her heart.
Sated and panting for breath, she sagged into the heat of his body and surrendered to the truth. Her smug assertion today that they could find pleasure through their bodies without intercourse was like a farmer claiming he could grow crops without the sun and rain. She had believed she could command these wild, wayward desires, but in truth they commanded her. Despite her fervent longing for independence, she was no free spirit, unfettered by the demands of another human being. Her mutinous love for this man controlled her, mind, body, and soul.
“Oh, Simon, I was wrong,” she whispered. She pressed her open mouth to the curve of his neck, tasting the mingled saltiness of his perspiration and her own tears. “What I said today in the coach about controlling our passion . . . I was wrong. So very, very wrong.”
His chest still heaving from exertion and the throes of the climax they had shared, he tightened his arms around her and kissed her brow. “Yes, dear heart. I know.”
Chapter 19
N
ot long after, Simon returned to his chamber and went through the motions of retiring alone. But some ten minutes after his valet left him, he donned his robe and cracked his door open. The gallery stretched empty and silent on either side of him. He slipped out and closed the door behind him.
Ivy’s door remained unlocked, as he had left it. He let himself in and stole across the room to her bed. The fire had burned down, the coals in the grate giving off a russet glow, just enough to light his way. Ivy lay on her side, her gentlemen’s nightshirt tied to her chin, the gown and feminine trappings having been returned to Gwendolyn’s room.
A second shadow on her pillow attracted his notice. Leaning close, he made out the shape of a little rag doll with button eyes and a tangle of yarn for hair. Ivy’s hand lay wrapped around the body, her chin tucked on the doll’s stuffed head.
His heart squeezed at the notion of Ivy seeking comfort from what amounted to a heap of discarded sewing scraps. That small, inconsequential doll bore witness to how young and inexperienced she still was, how alone she must feel. It spoke of how he had failed in providing whatever emotional succor she required.
She didn’t move as he lifted the bedclothes and slid in beside her. He snuggled close, fitting his hips against her sweet rear and draping an arm around both her and her doll. She didn’t stir, but he sensed that she was awake. He wasn’t surprised when she breathed a long sigh and peered at him over her shoulder.
“Simon ...” Her voice held a tentative caution.
“It’s all right,” he assured her. “We’ll only go to sleep now. And in the morning, I’ll be gone before you wake.”
Her doubts visibly warred with a clear desire to let him stay. They were not supposed to have made love, although all along Simon had perceived the impossibility of adhering to such a vow.
Without another word she tucked her chin against the doll’s head and closed her eyes. Her hair still held a faint trace of jasmine. He breathed in the scent and drifted off to sleep, his last thought an acknowledgment that where Ivy was concerned, his heart had fully betrayed him.
True to his word, Simon left her bed as the first splash of dawn stained the horizon. When next he saw her, downstairs at breakfast in the morning room, all trace of Ivy the woman had vanished, at least to those who looked no further than their expectations. In breeches, a striped waistcoat, and a warm tweed coat, she had become entirely Ned again. In turn, Simon was once more Lord Harrow, and something about that pretense, along with the formality that accompanied it, erected a disheartening barrier between them.
It was as if they could no longer laugh together, or touch in even the most innocent manner, much less steal the occasional kiss. Eye contact became strained, as if each peered across the deferential distance between master and assistant. Once, before they began their day’s work in the laboratory, he tried talking to her about these changes, but she remained evasive.
“It is best this way, at least for now,” she said, and went about her duties.
Best, he silently agreed, because they each had their separate tasks to complete. Ivy must fulfill her obligation to the queen. Simon must see to his rebellious sister, as well as continue his scientific endeavors. Keeping their distance was best, too, because not doing so led them round and round the same inevitable circle. They had been wrong, both of them, in ever thinking they could hold their passions tightly reined. If last night had proved anything, it was that together, they too easily lost sight of their goals, and not even the strictest reasoning seemed capable of neutralizing the volatile attraction between them.
Work became the only haven where they were safe, the laboratory the only room they might cohabit without falling into each other’s arms. On Wednesday, however, Ivy stood up after breakfast and announced that she would not be available to assist him for the next several hours.
“Why not?” he demanded a shade too severely. This sudden breach in their routine had caught him completely off guard.
She waited until the footmen had finished clearing off the buffet and exited through the swinging door to the servants’ hallway. “It occurred to me last night that I have been derelict in my duty,” she said. “Working with you . . .
being
with you,” she added in a brittle whisper before continuing more firmly, “has distracted me from the reason I was sent here. Your sister is still missing, but she must be
somewhere
, and finding her note in Ben Rivers’s office persuades me she is hiding close by, here in Cambridgeshire.”
“And you intend to search for her?”
She nodded. “Someone has to have seen her recently. I intend to make inquiries.”
“And supposing you end up chasing her off?”
“I’ll take that chance. With your permission, I’ll ride out on Butterfly and begin a circuit of the area.”
He pushed his plate away and stood. “Of course you have my permission. You’ll also have my company. I’m coming with you.”
“But . . .”
“You didn’t think I’d let you go alone, did you?”
Her gaze dropped to the floor. “I thought it would be best if I did.”
“We’ll keep to public roads,” he assured her, “and avoid crumbling follies.”
They spent that day and the next traveling as far north as St. Ives, and as far south as Saffron Walden. They called upon the families of Gwendolyn’s friends and checked the roadside inns along their route, but no one remembered seeing a woman of his sister’s description. Each night when they returned home exhausted and discouraged, Simon grabbed for the post tray in hopes of finding a letter from her, some word of her at all. More and more, he accepted the notion that whatever Gwendolyn had planned would be revealed at the consortium, and that he had no choice but to wait until then.
“I was so certain we’d find some trace of her,” Ivy said as she sank onto the drawing room settee that Thursday night. The strain of the day’s ride showed in the shadows beneath her eyes, in the slight trembling of her hands as she untied her neckcloth.
“I wasn’t at all sure we would.” Simon poured them each a brandy. After handing one to Ivy, he sat in the wing chair opposite, a safe and reassuring distance away. True to his word, there had been no off-the-road sojourns, nor had they utilized the private rooms at the inns they visited. When they’d taken their meals, it had been in the public rooms in full view of the other patrons. “If my resourceful sister doesn’t wish to be found, rest assured she’ll find a means of evading us.”