The Perfect Lover Read online

  She closed her eyes again.

  Simon looked at Portia.

  Smiling, she returned to the seat, bent and kissed Lady O’s cheek. “Thank you. We’ll come back—”

  “I’m perfectly able to get myself back to the house if I wish.” Cracking open both lids, she fixed them with her best basilisk stare. “You two take yourselves off—no need in the world to hurry back.”

  When they didn’t immediately move, she lifted both cane and parasol and shooed them. “Go! Go!”

  Smothering grins, they went.

  “She’s incorrigible.”

  Gazes touching, they ducked through the archway into the rose garden.

  “I don’t think she’s ever been anything else.”

  He reached for Portia’s hand, twined his fingers with hers. They walked on, swiftly leaving the rose garden for the less structured gardens above the lake.

  Ten minutes later, they paused where the path they’d followed crested the rise above the lake. He looked out over the water; not another soul was in sight. “Come on.” He led Portia down the narrow path and onto the wider path circling the lake.

  She fell into step beside him. He kept hold of her hand; he was reasonably sure none of the others was likely to wander this way, not in the next hour.

  When he led her past the front of the summerhouse, she glanced at him. He could sense her thoughts, but instead of asking where they were going, she went straight to the heart of things. “What did you want to talk about?”

  Now the moment was upon him—them—although he knew what he needed to say, he wasn’t sure how to proceed. Thanks to Kitty, he hadn’t had time to plan what was, in truth, a most crucial engagement in his campaign to win Portia to wife. “I ran into Kitty after I left you this morning.” He glanced at her, met her widening eyes. “She’s guessed, more or less correctly.”

  She grimaced, then turned thoughtful. Frowned. “So she may cause problems.”

  “That depends. She’s so caught up in her own games, she’ll only lash out and mention us if provoked.”

  “Perhaps I should speak with her.”

  He stopped. “No! That’s not what—”

  She halted, looked at him questioningly.

  He glanced about the lake path, heard a high-pitched girlish voice float down from the gardens above. They’d reached the pinetum; a path led on, winding beneath the specimen trees. Tightening his hold on Portia’s hand, he drew her on.

  Stopped only when they were surrounded by tall trees, cloaked in dappled shade—totally private.

  He released her, turned, faced her.

  She watched, waited, mildly curious . . .

  Ignoring the constriction about his lungs, he drew breath, met her midnight blue eyes.

  “I want to marry you.”

  She blinked, then stared. “What did you say?”

  Her voice was oddly weak.

  He set his jaw. “You heard me.” When she continued to stare, dumbfounded, he repeated, “I want to marry you.”

  Her eyes only grew rounder. “When did you decide this? And why, for heaven’s sake?”

  He hesitated, trying to see ahead. “Kitty. She almost said something over the luncheon table. At some point, she will—she won’t be able to resist. I was already thinking of marriage and didn’t want you imagining, if I waited to speak until after she caused a ruckus, that I was offering because of that.”

  With any other lady, letting Kitty create a scandal and then offering ostensibly because of it might have been a reasonable way forward, but not with Portia. She’d never accept an offer made out of social necessity.

  “You were already thinking of marriage? To me?” The stunned look in her eyes hadn’t faded. “Why?”

  He frowned at her. “I would have thought that was obvious.”

  “Not to me. What, precisely, are you talking about?”

  “I’m sure you haven’t forgotten you spent last night in my bed.”

  “You’re perfectly right—I haven’t. I also haven’t forgotten that I specifically explained that my interest in such proceedings was academic.”

  He held her gaze. “That was then. This is now. Things have changed.” An instant passed. Eyes locked on hers, he asked, “Can you deny it?”

  Portia couldn’t, but his sudden talk of marriage—as if the subject had always been there, an unstated element between them—left her feeling like a deer suddenly facing a hunter. Paralyzed, unsure which way to turn, shocked, astonished, her wits literally reeling.

  When she didn’t immediately reply, he went on, “Aside from all else, your involvement in last night’s proceedings was anything but academic.”

  She blushed, lifted her head. Why on earth was he taking this tack? She tried to harry her whirling wits into order. “Regardless, that’s no reason to imagine we should wed.”

  It was his turn to stare. “What?”

  He uttered the word with such force, she jumped. He took a prowling, menacing step closer.

  “You came to my bed—gave yourself to me—and you didn’t expect we would wed?”

  Their faces were no more than six inches apart; he really was stunned. Eyes wide, she held his gaze. “No. I didn’t.” She hadn’t got that far in her deliberations.

  He didn’t immediately answer, but something changed behind his mask. Then his eyes grew darker, his features harder; a muscle flexed along his jaw.

  “You didn’t . . . just what sort of man do you think I am?”

  His voice was a low growl—a very angry growl. He shifted fractionally nearer; she nearly took a step back, only just stopped herself. Spine rigid, she held his gaze, struggled to understand why he was suddenly so furious . . . wondered if he was pretending . . . felt her own temper rise.

  “You’re a rake.” She said the word clearly, distinctly. “You seduce ladies—it’s the primary characteristic in the occupational description. If you’d married every lady you’d seduced, you’d have to go and live in Arabia because you’d have a harem.” Her voice had gained strength; her belligerence rose to meet his. “As you’re still living here, in this sceptered isle, I feel confident in concluding you don’t marry every lady you seduce.”

  He smiled, a feral gesture. “You’re right, I don’t. But you need to revise your occupational description because, like most rakes, I never seduce unmarried, virginal, gently bred ladies.” He stepped closer; this time she backed. “Like you.”

  She fought to keep her eyes on his, aware her breathing had accelerated. “But you did seduce me.”

  He nodded, and closed the gap between them again. “I did, indeed, seduce you—because I intend to marry you.”

  Her jaw dropped; she nearly gasped. Then she dug in her heels, tipped her chin high and locked her eyes, narrowing to shards, on his. “You seduced me because you intended to marry me?”

  He blinked. Halted.

  She saw red. “What aren’t you telling me?” She jabbed a finger into his chest; he eased fractionally back. “You intended to marry me? Since when?” She flung her arms wide. “When did you decide?”

  Even she could hear the almost hysterical, certainly horrified note welling in her voice. She’d evaluated the threat, accepted the risk in going to his bed, but she hadn’t seen, hadn’t known the real threat, the real risk.

  Because he’d hidden it from her.

  “You—!” She went to box his ear but he caught her fist. “You deceived me!”

  “I didn’t! You deceived yourself.”

  “Hah! Anyway”—she twisted her hand; he let her go—“you didn’t seduce me—I seduced myself! I was willing. That’s different.”

  “Maybe, but it doesn’t change the fact. We were intimate, whatever led to it.”

  “Rubbish! I’m not going to marry you because of it. I’m twenty-four. The fact I was a gently bred virgin doesn’t matter.”

  He c
aught her gaze. “It did—it does.”

  That he considered the fact gave him some claim over her didn’t need to be stated; it hovered, very real, a tangible truth between them.

  She set her chin. “I always knew you were a throwback to medieval times. Regardless, I won’t marry you because of it.”

  “I don’t care why you marry me, just as long as you do.”

  “Why?” She’d asked before; he still hadn’t answered. “And when did you decide you wanted to marry me? Tell me the truth, all of the truth, now.”

  His eyes hadn’t left hers; he drew in a deep breath, then exhaled. Other than that, not a single line in his face or muscle in his body eased. “I decided after the picnic in the ruins. I’d thought of it after we first kissed on the terrace.”

  She wished he wasn’t standing so close she couldn’t fold her arms defensively before her. “You must have kissed millions of women.”

  His lips twisted. “Thousands.”

  “And I’m supposed to believe that because of one kiss—no, two—you decided to marry me?”

  Simon very nearly told her he didn’t care what she believed, but behind her anger, he sensed growing fright, the welling of a deep-seated fear, one he understood and had tried hard not to trigger.

  He was very close to seriously queering his pitch with her; he might take months, even years, to win her back.

  “It wasn’t only that.”

  Her jaw set; she tipped her face higher. “What, then?”

  Her eyes had clouded; he couldn’t read them. He eased back a little, wasn’t surprised when she shifted back and folded her arms across her chest.

  “I’d already decided I wanted a wife and family before leaving London. When I met you here, I realized we would suit.”

  She blinked. “Suit? Are you mad? We’re—” She gestured, searching for words. Lowering her arms.

  “Too alike?”

  “Yes!” Her eyes snapped. “You can hardly claim we’re compatible.”

  “Think of the last days. Think of last night. In what matters in marriage, we’re perfectly compatible.” He caught her gaze. “In every conceivable way.”

  Portia refused to blush again—he was doing it on purpose. “One night—that’s hardly a reasonable basis on which to make such a decision. How can you tell the next time won’t be”—she gestured wildly—”boring?”

  His eyes, burning blue, pinned her. “Trust me. It won’t.”

  There was something in his face, a hardness, a ruthlessness, that was quite different from anything she’d seen in him before. She kept her eyes on his, tried to ignore the aggression flowing from him. “You . . . really are serious.” She was having great trouble taking that in. One moment, she’d been logically following her step-by-step investigation into the physical attractions of matrimony—next thing, here they were, discussing a marriage between them.

  He looked up, exhaled through his teeth. “Why is it so hard to imagine I’d want to marry you?” He’d addressed the question to the heavens; he looked down at her. Growled, “And what’s wrong with the idea of marrying me?”

  “What’s wrong with the idea of me marrying you?” She heard her voice rise, tried to rein it in. “We’d make our lives a living hell, that’s what! You”—she landed a backhanded slap on his chest—“you’re a despot, a tyrant. A Cynster! You decree and expect to be obeyed—no, not even that! You assume you’ll be obeyed. And you know what I’m like.” She met his gaze, defiant and direct. “I won’t meekly agree with what you dictate—I won’t meekly agree with anything you say!”

  His lips had thinned, his eyes had narrowed. He waited a heartbeat. “So?”

  She stared at him. “Simon—this is not going to work.”

  “It is. It will.”

  That was her cue to appeal to the skies. “See?”

  “That’s not what’s worrying you.”

  She lowered her gaze, looked at him. Blinked. Into soft blue eyes she’d long known to be deceptive—there was nothing soft behind them, nothing but invincible, steely determination, inflexible resolution, rocklike, conqueror-like will . . . “What . . . do you mean?”

  “I’ve always known what worries you about me.”

  Something inside her physically shook. Rocked. She held his gaze for a long moment, finally found the courage to ask, “What?”

  He hesitated; she knew he was deciding how much to reveal, how much to confess he’d seen. When he spoke, his voice was even, low, yet still hard. “You’re frightened I’ll try to control you, to curtail your independence, to turn you into the sort of lady you’re not. And that I’ll be strong enough to succeed.”

  Her mouth was dry. “And you won’t? Try, or succeed?”

  “I’ll almost certainly try, at least to curtail your wilder starts, at times, but not because I want to change you. Because I want to preserve you. I want you for what you are, not for what you’re not.”

  The emotional risk she faced with him had just intensified and increased, well-nigh beyond bearing. Her heart had swollen and blocked her throat; it was difficult to draw breath.

  “You’re not just saying that?”

  He was quite capable of it; he’d just proved he saw far more than she’d ever guessed, that he understood her far better than any other ever had. And he was ruthless, relentless in getting what he wanted.

  He wanted her.

  She had to believe it—there was no longer any option.

  He exhaled, looked down, then met her gaze again. She could see his temper, still very real, in the locked lines of his face. Could sense, even more clearly, his desire to seize, to capture, to simply take.

  A conqueror looked at her from behind his eyes.

  Slowly, he raised a hand, held it out palm up between them. “Take a chance. Try me.”

  She looked at his hand, then raised her gaze to his face. “What are you suggesting?”

  “Be my lover until you’re sure enough to be my wife. For the few days we’ve left here, at least.”

  She breathed in deeply; her wits were whirling—she couldn’t think. Instinct warned her she hadn’t yet heard all—hadn’t heard why he so amazingly thought they would suit—and perhaps never would. There were other ways to deal with that, to learn what he would not say.

  But if she wished to . . . she’d have to take a chance.

  Take a risk far bigger than any she’d imagined.

  She’d thought to approach marriage one step at a time, standing on firm ground all the way. Who knew?—she might, at some point, have reached the stage of contemplating marrying him. If she’d followed her logical, cautious route, she would have known what to do. Felt sure what she wanted.

  Instead, he’d leapt ahead to a stage she hadn’t until now envisaged, leaving her no time to catch up. Her mind was still reeling, but he was waiting for an answer—would insist on one—indeed, deserved one; she had to rely on instinct alone in deciding what to do.

  Her heart quaked; she stiffened her spine.

  Lifting her hand, she placed her fingers in his.

  They closed strongly, firmly about hers.

  The possessive touch jolted her. She lifted her chin, met his eyes. “This doesn’t mean I’m agreeing to marry you.”

  He held her gaze, then shifted his hold, lifted her hand to his lips. “You’re agreeing to give me a chance to persuade you.”

  Quelling the shiver the brush of his lips and the intent in his eyes evoked, she inclined her head.

  Simon silently let out the breath he’d been holding, felt the vise locked about his lungs ease. Never had he imagined dealing with his intended would mean dealing with Portia; she tied him in knots in ways no other ever had.

  But he’d got over the worst of it, eased her past the hurdle of his recent shortcomings and refocused them both on what mattered—what was to come. He wasn’t going to dwell on the fact she’d imagined he w
ould seduce her, then let her go; there was no point arguing about her error.

  She glanced at him, then turned to continue along the path. He consented but kept hold of her hand, striding slowly beside her.

  Knowing she was thinking, analyzing, dissecting. There was no way he could prevent it.

  The air beneath the trees was silent, still. Somewhere in the distance a bird called. The path wound through the trees; they could see the forecourt ahead when she stopped. Turned to him.

  “If I don’t agree to marry you, what then?”

  Lying would make life so much easier. But this was Portia. He met her gaze. “I’ll speak to Luc.”

  She stiffened; her eyes flashed. “If you do, I’ll never marry you.”

  He let the moment stretch. “I know.”

  After a moment, he grimaced. “If it comes to that, we’ll be at stalemate. But it won’t, so there’s no sense worrying about it.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him, but then grimaced, too, and turned to walk beside him once more. “You’re very sure.”

  They emerged into the forecourt; he looked up at the house. “Of what should be, yes.” Of what was to come—that was another matter.

  Reaching the front steps, they went up and through the front door, presently set wide.

  In the hall, Portia halted. “I need to think.”

  An understatment. She still felt as if she were walking in a dream, that none of what had happened had been real. She wasn’t at all sure what she’d got herself into, what she was now facing.

  Where they, he and she, now were.

  She drew her hand from his; he released it, but reluctantly. One glance at his face told her he’d much rather she didn’t think, that he was considering distracting her, but then he caught her eye, realized what she’d seen.

  He inclined his head. “I’ll be in the billiard room.”

  She nodded, turned away, opened the library door, and walked in. The long room was empty. Relieved, she shut the door behind her, leaned back against it. An instant later, she heard his footsteps heading down the hall.

  Her back against the panels, she waited for her whirling wits to subside, for her emotions to settle.