Her Favorite Duke (The 1797 Club #2)(16)

She bent her head. They both knew the consequences of what had happened here. They would spend a night together, unsupervised. The talk when they returned to James’s estate would be vicious and instantaneous. Probably it was already happening amongst the party guests.

Because of that, Meg and Graham would likely have to marry right away after this. If she had a child any time in the next year, people would whisper that it could be Simon’s, even though that would not be possible.

A child. Simon gritted his teeth. The idea of her having a child with Graham was the thing he most often tried to avoid when he thought of her future. Of course, it would happen eventually. Northridge needed heirs and spares to carry on his title, just as they all did. Graham and Meg would probably have a huge family in the end. How could he resist her, after all, once he’d had a chance to touch her?

Simon’s stomach turned.

“What do we do?” she asked.

The resignation to her tone cut him to his very bone, and there was nothing he could do to console her. Especially not with his body on edge like this.

He sighed. “Go to bed,” he suggested. “We’ll go to sleep and wake up early and hopefully be able to make our way back through dryer elements.”

She lifted her gaze to his and her body let out a great shiver. He frowned. Despite the blankets and the fire, she was still cold. Come to think of it, so was he. And with night descending it was only going to get worse in the drafty cottage.

He stood up and looked down at her. He was about to suggest something that was likely the worst idea he’d ever had. Something he wasn’t completely certain was for her own good or his satisfaction. Something ungentlemanly no matter how much he tried to tell himself otherwise. If she slapped him across the face, he would deserve it. And yet he was still going to say it.

He needed to say it.

“Meg, the best way to fight a chill like this is…body heat,” he managed to force out past suddenly very dry lips. “Would you be…opposed…to sharing the bed? For the purposes of increasing warmth only.”

Her mouth opened in shock and he saw a dozen emotions cross her face. One was most definitely the kind of interest that an unmarried lady would do well to deny. He tried to ignore that interest and gritted his teeth as he waited for her to process the request.

“But we’re…naked. Our clothes won’t be dry for—”

“Hours, yes,” he agreed. “We can’t put them back on until morning, probably, or risk getting even colder.”

She swallowed. “So we would lay naked together in a bed.”

When she said it like that, it slammed Simon up short. “Yes,” he whispered. “But I promise you Meg, I wouldn’t do anything untoward. As soon as morning came, I would leave you. We will go home and there is no reason in the world that anyone would ever have to know what happened here. I’ll tell your brother and Graham that I slept in the outer hall and that you took the bed. I’ll even tell them that you leaned a chair against the door to protect your chastity.”

“You would lie,” she said.

He shrugged. “I would protect your future.”

She turned her face at that statement. “It would be our secret,” she said, still soft and her tone as unreadable as to her thoughts.

He nodded slowly. “Yes.”

“And you are certain it will help with warmth?”

“It will,” he said swiftly, for that, at least, was true even if the remainder of his motives were suspect.

She stood. “Then we should do it. I can see you’re cold—you stayed in wet clothing far longer than I did. I would rather have this secret and not get sick or freeze than mince and mewl and protect myself from you, someone I trust implicitly.”

Simon swallowed back a strangled groan. If she knew the wicked things in his heart, she would not trust him. No one would trust him. He hardly trusted himself.

But he smiled at her and motioned for the bedroom. “You go in and get yourself situated under the blankets so I won’t…see anything. I’ll stoke the fire out here and join you in a moment.”

She gave him one last lingering look and then slipped past him and into the bedroom, where she shut the door behind her. When she was gone, he let out a long, heavy breath.

This was a terrible idea. Terrible. And yet everything in him thrilled at the idea of this one stolen night with Meg.





Meg watched as Simon leaned over the fire in the bedroom and stoked the flames as high as they would go, sending a bright glow into the small room. He took the time to adjust their drying clothing, turning each item and moving the chairs and pieces to different hooks. When he touched her chemise or her stockings, she jolted with the intimacy of that action.

When he was done, he faced her at last, and she caught her breath.

In the firelight, with that blanket riding low in his hips and his bare chest so perfectly muscled, he was beautiful. So beautiful he almost didn’t seem real anymore. But then he never had been fully real, in a way.

Simon had always been her fantasy man, brought to life in physical form. A man with mischievousness and fun, intelligence and strength, confidence and competence. She had spun him up to be almost perfect, so much so that whenever they’d been apart, she’d told herself that her memory couldn’t be right. But then they’d meet again and there he was: perfect.