Their search had been successful beyond Simon’s hopes. But he wished he had his brother back again.
Chapter 25
Simon was silent as they rode west after meeting Lucas. His expression was remote and Suzanne thought it best to leave him to his silence. After an hour of travel, she saw a small inn ahead. “The horses are tired and so are we,” she said. “Shall we stop for the night here? It looks pleasant.”
He agreed, saying only the bare minimum as they booked a room and dinner for the night. They groomed their horses together since the landlord was busy. Suzanne had always liked tending to her own horse. It was soothing and the horses seemed to like it.
As Simon brushed out his horse’s mane, he said, “Lucas’s mule was very well kept. He always loved horses.”
“A trait that must run in your family,” Suzanne observed. “The Magdalene is his most constant companion and surely his friend as well.”
Simon gave a muffled grunt that sounded like agreement. They dined on thick bean soup flavored by a ham hock and bolstered by good bread and a decent white table wine. Then it was dark and time for bed.
Simon stripped off his outer clothes and lay on the bed with a sigh. Suzanne slid over to him and rolled onto her side, resting her open hand in the center of his chest, where she could feel the strong beat of his heart against her palm.
He laid his hand over hers. “Thank you for your patience with my grouchiness.”
“You’re not grouchy. You just have much to think about,” she said. “Are you disappointed about today?”
“That’s the right word,” he said slowly. “Disappointed. It was an unexpected miracle to find Lucas alive and well. But I suppose on some level I thought that if I did find him, we’d immediately regain the kind of friendship we had as boys. As close as brothers. Now I realize that was foolish.”
“The caring is still there between you. The longer you talked together, the more I saw signs of the young man you grew up with. But you’ve been living very different lives for many years, and he has deliberately turned away from his youth. He never expected to see you again and I don’t think he knew what to do. He was glad to see you, though. I’m sure of that.”
In a voice of bleak acceptance, Simon said, “I believe he was, but I don’t fit in to his life anymore.”
“Not his life as it is now. But meeting you has surely stirred Lucas’s thinking. What the results might be, I can’t even guess.” She shook her head in the darkness. “I did sense that he envies what you have. Whatwehave.”
“What do you mean?”
“We have warmth and companionship together,” she explained. “His life is very solitary. He moves from place to place rather than living in a community as the monks do, and he doesn’t have a true religious vocation to balance what he’s missing. Unless he always preferred solitude?”
“No, Lucas was more outgoing than I. He liked people of all sorts. Men, women, children, young and old, rich and poor. People who know Frère Jude like him, but it’s still a lonely life.”
“Perhaps cutting himself off from normal human interactions is part of his self-punishment,” she suggested.
“You may be right, but nonetheless, he seems content with his life. One can do much worse.” Simon sighed. “I hope he’ll visit England before it’s too late to see his great-aunt and uncle. It would mean so much to them.”
“Perhaps he will. As you said, he knows where to find you.” She exhaled warm breath against Simon’s shirt-sleeved arm. She ached for his sadness at losing his cousin in a new way, but at least he was not alone.
Simon shifted to his side so she rolled onto her back. When he bent into a kiss, she gave a purr of pleasure because it was so warm and lovely and unexpected. She guessed he might be wordlessly expressing his gratitude that he was not alone.
His hand slid down her torso, rounding over her hip and down her thigh. She tensed for an instant when he pulled the hem of her shift up to her shoulders, exposing her bare skin to his caresses. Tension swiftly melted into pleasure at the intimacy of his bare skin on hers.
She wanted to protest when he ended the kiss, until he moved his lips to her breast. Arousal shot through her, pooling deep inside. She began moving her hips restlessly, wanting him to touch her there, between her legs.
He took his time. After honoring both breasts, his mouth trailed down her torso, tongue licking and breath warm against her skin. Lower, lower . . .
She gave a choked cry when he reached her most secret, yearning places. His lips and tongue, knowing and teasing, raised her desire to fever pitch until she could bear no more. She cried out, her fingers locking into his hair as her body convulsed.
As she melted bonelessly into the mattress, he gave a sign of satisfaction and rested his head on her soft abdomen. The whiskers on his cheek prickled pleasantly against her. Her clutching fingers relaxed into petting as she whispered, “Oh,my . . .”
He gave a low laugh. “Have you not done that before?”
She didn’t want to take anything away from this special moment, but honesty compelled her to say, “Yes, when I was very young. But he was more interested in impressing me with his skill than in pleasing me.” After a moment, she added, “I was pleased then, but nothing like as much as now because youdowant to please me.”
“Always,mon ange,” he whispered. “Always.”
* * *
