Passions of a Gentleman (Gentlemen of Honor #3) - Rose Gordon Page 0,20
proper order.”
Rae scarcely heard whatever inane comment Simon just said over the blood thundering in her ears.
“Arrangements?” she said flatly.
“Your dowry,” Juliet said. She looped her arm through Rae’s. “Now our part is to plan the wedding and…”
“May I speak to Simon alone?” Rae cut in.
Drake and Juliet exchanged a look that ended with Drake lifting his left shoulder. Juliet turned back to Rae. “I suppose that’ll be permissible for a few moments.” She bit her lip. “But the door is to remain open.”
Well, of course it was, Rae didn’t want to actually have to marry Simon!
An amused expression on his face, Simon strolled over to her and offered her his arm. “Where shall we go, m’dear?” he asked as they walked toward the door of Drake’s office. He slowed his steps. “The creek?”
Her face flushed thirty degrees hotter.
“Your bedchamber?” he offered again.
Rage shot through her and she dared not chance a glance over her left shoulder to see if Drake and Juliet heard his scandalous statement. She squeezed the crook of his arm as hard as she could and started walking forward.
Ever the gentleman, he walked forward.
“Just who do you think you are to suggest such a thing?” she hissed as soon as they were in the hall.
“Your betrothed,” he said with a wide grin.
She pierced him with her eyes.
He laughed.
“Why must you always mock me?” she burst out, yanking her hand away from his arm.
Simon folded his arms over his chest. “I don’t always mock you.”
“Yes, you do.”
The wretch rocked back on his heels. “When?”
“Just now.” She ground her teeth. Did he require a reminder? “The creek? My bedchamber?”
“Such a fetching color.”
Rae pressed her lips into a thin line. “What are you about?”
“Pardon? Did you mean what am I talking about?”
“No, I meant exactly what I said: what are you about?”
Simon poked out his bottom lip and tapped his index finger against his chin. “Well, if I were given a vote, I’d be in favor of legalizing whiskey stills and fiercely oppose being served turtle soup every time I am invited to a dinner party. I’d like to see taxes abolished and our country to do something to stay at peace with France. I’d also be in favor of doubling the portions of clotted cream served with biscuits and fewer servants present at dinner—”
“If you don’t answer my question you won’t be present at dinner.”
“Oh?” Simon waggled his eyebrows at her. “Will you be joining me—” he dropped his voice to a stage whisper— “wherever I might be?”
“On a steam packet bound for the unknown?” She shook her head. “No, I’ll be here.”
Simon leaned forward, pressing his forehead against hers. “I’d sure like to see you try to force me on a steam packet.”
Rae’s breath caught at his closeness, her nostrils filling with his spicy scent. “I—I wouldn’t,” she stammered, taking a step away from him and pressing her back up against the wall. “Drake would bodily put you there.”
A sharp bark of laughter reverberated through the hall. “And why would he do that?”
“Because I asked him to.”
“And would you ask him to put you on the same steam packet, my love?”
Rae’s pulse raced. “Don’t call me that.”
Simon closed the gap between them again, leaving her nowhere to go. “Why not?”
“Be-because I’m not.” She licked her lips and lifted her hands up to his shoulders to push him away.
“Then why would you tell your sister that you are?”
Her eyes widened and her hands clutched his shoulders as if they were the only things keeping her from falling to the floor in a boneless heap. “P-pardon? I did no such thing.”
Simon’s green eyes searched her face. His face softened and his hands came up and gently covered hers. “Then why…”
Rae lowered her eyes. “There’s another.”
“Another?”
“Another gentleman,” she clarified. Well, he wasn’t a true gentleman in any form of the word, but Simon didn’t need to know that.
Something flickered over Simon’s face, but what it was, she couldn’t identify. “Is he here?”
“Yes.” She blushed. “I mean, no.” Closing her eyes for an extended blink, she took a deep calming breath. Why was it he made it so hard for her to articulate? “He’s in the village. Not here at Crumbles.”
She half-expected him to make some glib remark about her having a tendre for Drake, but he surprised her, when instead he said, “Is he the reason you've been so elusive in London?”
Biting her lip nervously, she nodded once. “He has my heart.” She swallowed the bile threatening to choke her.