Page 99 of A Portrait of Love

And at night …

Her cheeks burned when she thought of what they did in the bed they shared all night, every night.

Simon not only made love with her, he slept with her, holding and stroking and cuddling her, as if he could not get enough of being near her.

He was earthy, open, and joyous. He saw no shame in the pleasure they gave and took—no matter how shocking society would have found the things they did—and would have been happy to remain naked with her all day and night.

Honey knew that he’d not been a monk. She’d heard the rumors at Whitcomb, seen the way the female servants eyed him. He was scarred and battered, but his wounds—some of them quite severe—seemed to add to his allure.

Women liked to nurse and heal the sick and wounded. Not that Simon presented himself as either. Certainly not when they were in bed. But there was something deep inside him that was broken, and she had to warn herself against the compulsion to fix him. He had not asked for fixing and it was nobody’s place—not even a wife’s—to impose such help.

The Duke of Plimpton sent messages at least twice a week.

And, at least twice a week, Simon tossed them into the fire.

“I don’t wish to think about my brother,” he told her when she protested that perhaps something bad had happened. “And I particularly do not wish to know if there has been some disaster that I most likely could do nothing to fix. No doubt he’s missing me, with only poor, downtrodden Raymond there to do his bidding.” His eyes had hardened then, and she had quickly backed away from the encroaching bleakness, too much of a coward to press the matter.

And so the days had passed in a happy, sensual blur.

Until it was their last day, which they decided to spend dining in their room.

The meal was delicious and they talked and laughed and bickered as they always did, now. But even so she sensed an extra layer of reserve settling upon him.

“Are you excited to be going home?” she asked as they finished a delicious berry trifle and lazed at the table with glasses of wine.

He shrugged, his smile fading a little. “This has been a pleasant idyll, but our real lives beckon, do they not? You must be eager to paint—have you been away from your work this long in the past?”

“Not for years,” she admitted. “But I have my sketchpad, which fills a void.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Is tonight the night you allow me to see it?”

It was a game between them: she sketched, he begged to see them, she deprived him. She didn’t know why, maybe it was just that she enjoyed his teasing attention. But part of her wanted to keep something that was just her own. After all, he had hardly opened himself to her, yet she was already so vulnerable to him.

“Not yet,” she said, swirling her glass and gazing at the ruby liquid.

“Not even if I show you something new and astonishing tonight?”

She blushed even as she laughed. “I do not believe there is anything left.”

He shook his head, taking her glass and setting it on the table before leading her into the bedroom. “The fact that you would doubt me breaks my heart.”

“Well, you will just have to convince me, my lord.”

Which is exactly what he set about doing.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The journey to Shropshire took several days longer than her first visit to Whitcomb.

Honey had assumed the task of massaging salve into Simon every evening and learned that his thin, damaged skin caused him more pain than he ever let on. Riding in a carriage—even the luxurious coach he had engaged—was never enjoyable for days on end.

They read to each other, played a game of chess on a traveling board, looked out the windows, and talked. But on the last day of their journey Simon became more morose with every mile.

Peel had left several days before them so, they traveled with only the services of Simon’s groom, John, a man who’d accompanied Peel from Whitcomb and was riding back with them.

“We are almost there.”

Honoria looked up from the book she’d been trying to read to see a long, tree-lined drive flickering past the windows.