Secrets of a Summer Night (Wallflowers #1)(36)

Envisioning Annabelle stretched na**d in his bed, Simon felt his lust rekindle, and he struggled to retrieve the thread of conversation. “What gave you the impression that I had any interest in Miss Peyton?” he asked in a noncommittal tone.

“The fact that you nearly fell off your horse when you saw her in her drawers.”

That elicited a reluctant smile from Simon. “With a facade like that, I may not give a damn about what’s beneath.”

“You should,” the earl said emphatically. “Miss Peyton is a selfish jade if I’ve ever seen one.”

“Westcliff,” Simon asked conversationally, “does it ever occur to you that you might occasionally be wrong? About anything?”

The earl looked perplexed by the question. “Actually, no.”

Shaking his head with a rueful grin, Simon spurred his horse to a faster gait.

CHAPTER 11

As the girls walked back to Stony Cross Manor, Annabelle became uncomfortably aware of a twinge in her ankle. She must have turned it during the Rounders game, though she could not recall the precise moment when it had happened. Sighing heavily, she hefted the basket in her hand and lengthened her stride to keep pace with Lillian, who looked pensive. Daisy and Evie walked a few yards behind them, both of them involved in an earnest conversation.

“What are you worrying about?” Annabelle asked Lillian in a low voice.

“The earl and Mr. Hunt…do you think they will tell anyone about having seen us this afternoon? It would put a nasty dent in our reputations.”

“I don’t think Westcliff would,” Annabelle said after a moment’s thought. “I was inclined to believe him when he made that remark about amnesia. And he doesn’t seem to be a man who is given to gossip.”

“What about Mr. Hunt?”

Annabelle frowned. “I don’t know. It didn’t escape me that he made no promise to remain silent. I suppose he’ll keep his mouth closed if he thinks he has something to gain from it.”

“You should be the one to ask him, then. As soon as you see Mr. Hunt at the ball tonight, you must go to him and make him promise not to tell anyone about our Rounders game.”

Recalling the dance that would take place at the manor that evening, Annabelle groaned. She was relatively—no, positively—certain that she could not bear to face Hunt after what had happened that afternoon. On the other hand, Lillian was right—one couldn’t assume that Hunt would be silent. Annabelle would have to deal with him, much as she dreaded the prospect. “Why me?” she asked, although she already knew the answer.

“Because Hunt likes you. Everyone knows that. He’ll be much more inclined to do something you ask.”

“He won’t give something for nothing,” Annabelle muttered, while the throbbing in her ankle worsened. “What if he makes some vulgar proposition to me?”

A long, apologetic pause ensued, until Lillian offered, “You may have to throw him a bone of some sort.”

“What kind of a bone?” Annabelle asked suspiciously.

“Oh, just let him kiss you, if that’s what it takes to keep him quiet.”

Astonished that Lillian could make such a statement in so nonchalant a manner, Annabelle inhaled sharply. “Good God, Lillian! I can’t do that!”

“Why not? You’ve kissed men before, haven’t you?”

“Yes, but—”

“One pair of lips is like any other. Just make certain no one sees you and get it over with quickly. Then Mr. Hunt will be placated, and our secret will be safe.”

Annabelle shook her head with a strangled laugh, while her heart began to pound painfully hard at the idea. She couldn’t help but remember that long-ago secret kiss in the panorama theater, the seconds of devastating sensual upheaval that had left her shaken and speechless.

“You’ll just have to make it clear that one kiss is all he may expect from you,” Lillian continued, “and that it will certainly never happen again.”

“Pardon me for casting aspersions on your plan…but it stinks like six o’clock fish. One pair of lips is not like any other, if they happen to be attached to Simon Hunt! And he’ll never be satisfied with something as trivial as a kiss, and I couldn’t offer him anything more than that.”

“Do you really find Mr. Hunt so repulsive?” Lillian asked idly. “He’s not bad, actually. I’d even go so far as to call him handsome.”

“He’s so insufferable that I’ve never really taken notice of his looks. But I will admit that he’s…” Annabelle fell into a confused silence, considering the question with a new and unsettling thoroughness.

Objectively speaking—in the unlikely circumstance that one could ever be objective about Simon Hunt—he was indeed a good-looking man. The word “handsome” was usually applied to people with highly chiseled features and slender, elegant proportions. But Simon Hunt redefined the word with his bold, cleanedged countenance, his audacious black eyes, with the strong blade of a nose that could only belong to a man, and the wide mouth that was forever edged with irreverent humor. Even his unusual height and brawn seemed to suit him perfectly, as if nature had recognized that he was not a creature to be formed by half measures.

Simon Hunt had made her uneasy from the first moment they met. Although Annabelle had never seen him any way other than perfectly dressed and thoroughly self-controlled, she had always sensed that Hunt was, at best, half-tamed. Her deepest instincts had warned her that beneath his mocking facade, there was a man who was capable of an alarming depth of passion, perhaps even brutality. He was not a man who could ever be mastered.