Page 24 of A Portrait of Love

She could only stare.

He turned to give her his undamaged side. “Such beauty and horror, all in the same package.” His white teeth flashed in his face and his hand shot up. For a moment she though he was going to touch her but he reached higher and pulled down a strip of white—his cravat—from the post above her head. He dropped it around his neck and turned away, disappearing into the stables.

***

Simon had no idea why he was taunting her. Boredom? Perhaps.

Raymond had joined him at the St. George last night, the first time in two weeks. His cousin had spent about forty-five minutes chiding him—loudly—for arguing with Wyndham—making something of a scene himself in the tiny public room—until Simon had finally told him to bugger off if he didn’t have anything else to talk about.

Once Raymond left—in a huff—Lily sat her delightfully plumb bottom on his lap and kept him company through several pints. She’d wanted him to come upstairs, but he’d begged off and ridden home more than a little worse for wear.

Miss Honey Keyes had been on his mind for a good part of the night and again when he had woken at dawn, hard and wanting, and tossed one off.

After that he’d taken out Loki. He had hoped his vigorous ride would have work the restlessness from his system, but here he was, still as twitchy as a cat with two tails.

Simon stared at Miss Keyes’s shoulders as she rode up the narrow path ahead of him. She was stiff in the saddle, her body telling him she didn’t like riding, or at least she didn’t like riding in front of him. Or maybe she just didn’t like him.

The right side of his mouth kicked up at that thought. Well, she didn’t need to like him; she was nothing more than a distraction and it was just her bad luck that she’d wandered into the stables when she had. He was irritable. And angry. He wanted to do something rash, but he was—quite frankly—too damned bored with himself and his tedious situation to bother coming up with anything inventive to infuriate his brother.

And then she’d come along, looking at him with those cool gray eyes that could be leaden one moment and melting ice the next. They were extraordinary eyes in an unremarkable face. Well, except for her mouth—he liked that, too. It was too big for her small face and put the wrong ideas into a man’s head. At least a man who wasn’t very nice.

She had a long upper lip that was thin but shapely and a lower one that was plush and full and inviting for all that she tried to keep it prim.

And her height? He estimated she was close to six feet and improbably fine-boned and delicate, like bone china.

He remembered her—now. Pieces had come back to him slowly throughout the night—not entire memories, but wispy cobwebs—some of which stuck, some drifted out of reach. But he’d begun to flesh out the picture—or portrait, rather—until he had a clear enough recollection. The sittings during that odd, hot summer in London, his conversations with the serious, mature, and lonely young girl—those memories had all paled after his nephew died.

The duke, who had been cold before his son’s death, lost all remaining traces of the brother Simon had known and worshipped as a boy. On the outside he appeared the same calm, unshakeable Wyndham, devoted to his duty. But the loss of his son—four-month-old Edward— had been the death blow for Wyndham’s humanity.

Simon had watched it happening for years, with each death of his three children a little more life had leaked out of his eyes. At first Wyndham had looked haunted, and then harried, and—finally—just lifeless. Four children and only Rebecca had survived—and she was less than robust.

It had been unbearable to witness; Simon could only imagine what it must be like to experience.

He’d been overjoyed when he heard the doctor advised the duke and duchess against another pregnancy. Even though the decision had doomed Simon as heir, he could not stand to watch what another death might do to his brother.

As for the duchess? Well, it was difficult to say what his sister-in-law felt or who she loved, if anyone. Simon had never seen Cecily Fairchild show one particle of affection for her only daughter or her husband.

Wyndham had wanted Cecily—Simon could still recall just how mad his normally calm brother had been for the icy beauty—and now he was stuck with her.

Simon snorted. Be careful what you ask for …

For all Cecily’s die-away airs, Simon suspected his sister-in-law would outlive everyone else in the family.

The woman was cold through and through, which Wyndham had not discovered until too late.

Or maybe his brother had accepted her aloofness but believed that his love would change her?

If that had been his hope then Wyndham had spectacularly miscalculated.

Simon felt sorry for Rebecca with a mother like that. Their own father had been a cold, inhuman bastard but at least their mother loved him and Wyndham to distraction. She still loved them, for all that Simon had behaved like an ass for the past decade and a half.

He realized he was gritting his jaws so hard that his teeth hurt and forced himself to relax. Why was he thinking about any of this—about the past? It was ancient history and felt like something from five lifetimes ago. It must be the woman in front of him who was bringing it all back.

Simon studied Honoria Keyes’s rigid posture and was suddenly glad he did not have to look into her clear gray gaze. Something about the way she looked at him made him … anxious.

Well, at least that was part of the reason for his anxiety.

The other part was his brother’s unswerving demand that Simon marry, which was beginning to drive him mad.