The Lady Always Wins(7)

Ginny stepped forward. “Are those diamonds on your cuff links?” she asked, caught halfway between horror and wonder.

He grinned. He always smiled any time she betrayed emotion. “Pretty, aren’t they?” He took one off and threw it to her.

She caught it automatically. “Oh my Lord,” Ginny said. “You’ve become one of those dreadful nouveaux-riches that I’m always hearing decried in the papers, flashing your money about.” But she opened her hand to look at the little gold piece that he’d tossed her way. When she did, her breath caught. “It’s a beetle,” she finally said. “A gold beetle with diamond eyes.”

“I had them made four years ago.” He didn’t quite look her way. “I have fond memories of beetles.”

From any other man, this statement would have been odd. From Simon…

It had all started with a beetle. Ginny had been ten years old, and she’d only come to stay with her aunt two months before. But summer had come, and with it, the Davenants. Mr. Davenant was a famous London barrister who took his family to the country when the law courts shut down out of term-time. The other inhabitants of Chester-on-Woolsey were far less exalted personages, and they’d held the family in collective awe.

His son, Simon—eleven years old, and already a student at Harrow—had known it. He had sauntered by Ginny, where she played at spillikins with two of her new friends.

“Be careful,” Emily whispered, gesturing toward him. “He’s a regular beast.”

Simon noticed them looking, and he’d come over.

“You’re new,” he said to Ginny.

“Yes.” And then, because he was taller than her and looking her over with an imperious demeanor, she added: “Sir.”

He opened his fist to reveal a great big fat beetle—one with a brilliantly iridescent carapace. “I’m going to put this down your dress,” he announced.

Ginny had already known one important truth: The only way to silence a boy who was trying to disgust you was to refuse to admit that he’d succeeded.

So she reached out and plucked the beetle from Simon’s hand. “Oh,” she exclaimed. “How beautiful! You picked her because she was beautiful, didn’t you?”

“I did not!” He stepped back, insulted.

“I’m going to call her Mrs. Rainbow,” Ginny cooed.

“It’s a boy beetle! His name is Mr. Slugfit!” When neither of these pronunciations drew a response, he tried again. “I got it off a dead body!”

“Oh, no,” Ginny said, running a finger lightly along the beetle’s back. “Poor Mrs. Rainbow. What a dreadful ordeal. You’re safe now.”

She’d ignored Simon’s gagging noises all afternoon, and taken Mrs. Rainbow to tea. And that was how the game had begun—with a beetle and a casual announcement. Over the course of that summer, they’d made their way from “You can’t catch a fish,” to “I’m going to beat you to the top of that tree.” They’d become friends—friends who would never have admitted their friendship, of course, but fast friends nonetheless.

To find that he’d made cuff links of beetles… Ginny sighed and turned over the trinket. “Are you filthy rich, then?”

He held her eyes, his face somber. “I positively stink with wealth,” he said. “And if you don’t mind, I’ve only got forty-eight hours to seduce you, now. I was hoping to convince you to walk with me to the oak today.”

“Am I supposed to be so overcome with nostalgia when you bring me there that I succumb to your most desperate overtures?”

“My irresistible overtures,” he said confidently. “And yes—you’ve got the general idea.”

Ginny let herself appear to think this over. “Well. I’m overcome with the need to fetch my bonnet.”

But she didn’t go. Instead, she stepped forward and took his wrist. She heard the slight intake of his breath as she examined his hand—a man’s hand, big and broad, with a callus on his thumb and index finger where he’d wielded a pen. Little nicks marred his skin, ones that hadn’t existed seven years ago.

She turned his hand over.

“On second thought,” he said. “We could adjourn to your bedchamber now.”

Ginny undid the backing of his cufflink and slipped it into place. “Poor Simon,” she said, making sure the little diamond-eyed beetle was secure. “Do you want me very, very badly then?”

His other hand touched her face. Slowly—almost unwillingly—she let him raise her chin from contemplation of his wrist. His eyes seemed dark, and they glittered with some unspoken emotion. “Yes,” he said. “God knows I’ve wished it otherwise over the years. But yes. I have wanted you since I first knew what want was.”

Under the rules of the game, she should make light of that admission. She needed to say something to defuse those words of their latent power.

But she could not make herself do it. Some things were too true to dismiss.

He leaned down and ever so lightly brushed his lips against hers—so softly, it was as if their breath kissed, rather than their mouths.

“Go get your bonnet,” he told her.

Chapter Three

THEY DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING for the first minute of their walk. Then he noticed the men working in the field and he turned to her in shock.