Her Favorite Duke (The 1797 Club #2)(65)

She laughed as she switched the knives and forks around. “You set it all backward.”

He grinned. “How am I to know?”

“You don’t pay attention when you sit down to eat?” she giggled.

He shrugged. “It seems I don’t. Perhaps I am too caught up in the company I keep to know which side is for knives and which for forks.”

“Of course. That must be it.”

He set food on her plate and his own, then sat down across from her. The table was so small that it was an intimate setting, and for a while they ate in companionable silence.

But as time ticked by, Simon knew he couldn’t put off the inevitable for long. At last, he set his napkin on the table and met her gaze.

“I’ve avoided your questions and your concerns these past few weeks,” he said. “And tonight I want to address them. So if you have something you want to ask, if you have something you need to know…I’m here to answer.”

She caught her breath, a sharp intake of air that told him she was surprised by his openness. She set her own napkin away and leaned back in her chair. “You are truly dedicated to this, aren’t you?” she whispered.

He nodded. “Yes, I am. The moment James told me you’d left, I realized that was like my own heart being torn from my chest. I was late in recognizing that losing you would be the closest thing to death, but I see it now and I will do anything to keep it from happening.”

She pressed her lips together for a moment. “Very well, then I open the floor to the same openness from my end. If you have any questions for me, I shall answer them with the same spirit of honesty that you have given.”

He drew back, for he hadn’t considered that as an option. He realized he did, indeed, have questions for Meg. But he wanted to clear her mind before he addressed his own. “You first.”

She ducked her head and a dark blush colored her cheeks. The unexpected reaction surprised him.

“What is it?”

“I’m trying to find a way to phrase my question,” she admitted. “Er, the morning James and Graham found us here, the morning everything…changed, I overheard you and my brother talking.”

Simon thought back to that morning that felt like a lifetime ago. “Go on.”

“He said that you…you and Roseford had…”

She trailed off, her cheeks going even darker, and Simon flinched as he recalled his conversation with James that morning. He cleared his throat. “You heard James say that Roseford and I had shared women in the past. And that I whored my way through London for years.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “In fact, I have sometimes wondered if that was part of your hesitation about…us. Although I have very much enjoyed the education you’ve given me since our engagement, I know I am an innocent when it comes to pleasures of the flesh. Perhaps I am not enough for you.”

His eyes went wide at that thought. “No!” he cried. “No, Meg, that isn’t it at all.” He pushed to his feet and paced away, running a hand through his hair. He had no idea how to explain what he’d done to her. How to make her understand. In the end, he settled on the truth. “I sowed my wild oats like many a young man,” he said. “Pleasure is…well, pleasure helps one forget pain, even if only for a moment.”

She nodded as if she understood that, and perhaps she did, considering their volatile relationship these last few weeks and the passions they had explored together. “And the sharing part?”

Simon swallowed. “After you were engaged to Graham, I was lost. Yes, I spiraled into debauchery for a while, hoping that a woman or five women or ten would make me forget the only one I truly wanted. Roseford and I shared a woman a few times, and I won’t deny that it was pleasurable. But it was empty. No one was you. And you were all I wanted. In truth, in the last few years I have hardly touched another woman. I had no stomach for it anymore.”

Her eyes were wide when he dared to look at her again. “So…wait, are you saying you were trying to…”

“Forget that it was you I wanted,” he answered with a nod. “Yes.”

Her expression softened. “And you don’t want that sort of thing now?”

He shook his head. “All I want is you and the thought of some other man touching you, even if I were in the room with you helping you find pleasure, makes me want to punch the wall.”

Relief flooded her features. “I’m so glad. The idea I wouldn’t be enough for you—”

“Meg, I want to make it clear,” he said. “Whether you accept me back into your life as your husband again or not. Whatever happens to us in the future, I will never touch another woman again as long as I live. You are and always have been, more than enough for me.”

She blinked. “You would not touch another woman, even I refused you?”

“I recognize it doesn’t seem like I’ve taken our vows very seriously, but I do. You are my wife and my love and I will never betray you.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, her voice thick with tears and emotions. She rose and moved closer to him. “And now I think it’s your turn to ask me a question.”

He hesitated for a long moment, and then he said, “You wept the night you and Graham announced the date for your wedding. And you’ve told me many times that you didn’t want to marry him. We’ve discussed why I never intervened, but why—” He cut himself off, not wanting to make an accusation toward her.