“And Ardmore?”
He didn’t need to explain what he meant. Rachel shook her head, crowded with bittersweet memories of a humid café on a rainy day, Simon sitting across from her, a walnut-dotted slice of cake.
“I’m out of the revenge business.” In the distance, Rachel could see the shadowy bulk of Carrisford, windows sparkling golden, the doors forever closed to her. “There’s nothing for me here.”
Simon’s eyes were on her face, grave, inscrutable. “My ship leaves for New York in two days. The Aquitania out of Southampton.”
So this was the end. Rachel swallowed hard against a burning sense of loss. “You’re not staying, then.”
Not that it made a difference. Their paths would never cross in the normal course of things. Not unless Simon needed a secretary.
Simon ducked his head. “My mother and Ginny are settled in New York now. I’ve been away from them too long.”
“That’s … wonderful. Really.” Horrible to feel so sad for herself when she should be happy for him. Rachel pushed up from the bench, making an effort to speak lightly. “You needn’t worry. I’ll clean my bits and pieces out of the flat. You’ll hardly know I was there.”
Simon followed her to his feet. He raised a dark brow. “Won’t I?”
“A bit of Jeyes Fluid. You said it yourself. It can clean away anything.” Rachel struggled out of his coat, dumping it unceremoniously over his arm. “If you like, I’ll see you to the docks and wave my hankie at you.”
She was speaking nonsense, she knew, but it was the only way to keep the dark, sinking misery from engulfing her. Sound and fury signifying nothing. Simon should understand. He was the expert.
Simon reached out, grasped her hand. His coat slipped unheeded to the ground beneath their feet. “Come with me.”
Rachel looked down at their joined hands, back to his face. “To the flat?”
“To New York. That is where the ship is bound.” The same old delicate note of irony, but there was something else beneath it, something uncertain, diffident. Simon’s hands tightened on hers. “Well? Will you come with me?”
It was the champagne talking. Only she was the one who had been scarfing down the bubbly, not Simon.
Rachel shook her head blankly. “You don’t really want me there.”
“Don’t I?” But then Simon ruined it by adding, “Did you think I would just leave you here?”
Rachel twitched her hands away. “Wouldn’t it be easier just to find me a scholarship at Somerville?”
The words hung in the air between them.
Clumsily, earnestly, Rachel said, “Don’t you see? I can’t have you burdening yourself with me out of … out of guilt.” She was twisting her hands together, drowning in her own words. “I thrust myself on you, remember? I pushed you into this. You don’t owe me anything.”
Mad schemes, a lifetime ago. The purr of the engine of his car. The reflection of the headlamps off the planes of his face, then so strange to her, now so vital.
A faint smile twisted Simon’s lips. “Didn’t I tell you before? My actions are invariably self-serving.”
She didn’t believe that, not anymore. “You don’t have to rescue me.” Rachel kicked at gravel with her toe, feeling the bite of it through her thin evening slipper. No point in allowing herself to dream of New York, New York with Simon. “We had a business arrangement. Which is now concluded.”
“Is it?” Simon’s voice was a lazy drawl, but there was something in it that made Rachel look up sharply. Gently, he ran a knuckle across her cheekbone, his eyes still on hers, with a single-minded intensity that took her breath away. “Let’s put that to the test, shall we?”
Everything moved with tantalizing slowness. Simon’s fingers, stroking the hair away from her face. His hand, cupping her chin. Slowly, so slowly, giving her time to object, to pull away.
She ought to pull away, Rachel knew, but her hands were already on his shoulders, feeling the flex of them, the taut muscles beneath her fingers, the tension he kept so carefully in check.
Rachel’s eyes drifted shut and she lifted her face to the warm brush of Simon’s lips, teasingly light.
“A business arrangement?” he murmured, and he sounded so amused, so … Simon, that there was nothing for Rachel to do but go up on her tiptoes and kiss him, with a vague thought that it was a good thing her lipstick had long since worn off, since otherwise Simon would be bearing the imprint of it quite firmly on his lips just now.
And then Simon’s arms came around her and his lips slanted to meet hers and that was the last thing Rachel was capable of thinking for quite some time. There was nothing but the feel of Simon’s lips against hers, his arms around her, the dark gardens around them, the music from the party faint in the distance, and the dizzying smell of sandalwood, tobacco, and the flower in Simon’s lapel, crushed to sweetness.
She had no idea how much time elapsed, only that, when they parted, the wind felt colder without Simon’s arms around her, and her legs were embarrassingly unsteady.
“I thought—” So much for sangfroid. Rachel’s voice was breathless, as much of a betrayal as the trembling in her hands. She took a deep breath and tried again. “You said that you didn’t want a pound of flesh.”
“The pound of flesh is optional,” said Simon raggedly. He braced a hand against the back of the bench to steady himself. “Come with me to New York. You can share my cabin or not, as you please. If you’d rather not … It’s your decision.”
Not entirely. At least, not if that kiss was any indication. She would like to think she was made of sterner stuff than that, but Rachel wasn’t sure she could weather a transatlantic voyage with Simon a cabin away.
Paying for her passage, for her clothes … No. No matter how badly she might want to be with Simon, every feeling rebelled against such an arrangement.
It would gnaw at her, she knew. And what if he grew bored with her? He wouldn’t toss her aside, she knew him better than that, but it would wear on them both, eating away at them, bit by bit, until all affection was gone.
Is that what had happened to her parents?
“As flattering an offer as that is…” Rachel bit down hard on her lip. What was the point of beating around the bush? “I can’t, Simon. I won’t be your mistress.”
Looking down at Rachel, Simon said ruefully, “I had something more in the line of orange blossoms in mind. I’m making a pig’s ear of this, aren’t I? I’m out of the habit of proposing. Shall I go down on one knee? Or is that too much of a cliché?”
The shrubbery, the bench, the folly on the rise all suddenly seemed curiously insubstantial. The world dipped and swayed. “You were already there,” Rachel said hoarsely. “You’ve the gravel on your trousers to prove it.”
“So I have.” Simon made no move to brush it off. “I’ve got it all backward, haven’t I? But the sentiments remain the same It’s not much of an offer, I know. One broken-down journalist, without much in the way of prospects, slightly mad about the edges. And then there’s America to consider. A country full of people who’ve never quite learned to speak the language. My stepfather isn’t a bad sort, though. And I rather think you’ll enjoy my mother.”
What would it be to be part of Simon’s family circle? To sit across a dining room table from the dark, clever-looking woman in the portrait in Simon’s mother’s flat, go shopping with his sister? But, most of all, Simon. Arriving with him, arm in arm, leaving with him at the end of the evening, going to bed with him every night.
Wondering, always, if he had proposed out of pity.
“Stop, please.” Rachel wrapped her arms tightly around her chest to keep herself from reaching for him. “Simon, I can’t. I just … can’t.”
“There is the plumbing.” Simon’s voice was bland, but his eyes were watchful. “I hear the Americans do that rather well.”
She had thought she hurt before, but this was a new ache. Rachel forced herself to say, “It’s not that.”
Si
mon abandoned all pretense at humor. “Would it make a difference if I said I love you?”
Rachel pressed her eyes shut, lips quivering on an unhappy laugh. “You can’t even say it straight out.” If ever she’d needed proof, there it was. If he really loved her—Rapidly, Rachel said, “I’ll find someone to take me to the train. There’s no sense in your leaving, too.”
Simon made a quick, impatient movement. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I’ll run you home.” He stilled, like a rabbit in a field. “Unless you’d rather be shot of me.”
Rachel made an abortive move toward him. “Simon, no. The last thing I want is to be shot of you. I—”
I love you.
Rachel broke off, horrified at herself, at what she had so nearly said.
“Appreciate my assistance, I know,” Simon said, with an approximation of the old drawl. “Don’t worry. I’ll spare you further importunities. One proposal a night is my limit.”
She had hurt him. Numbly, Rachel followed along behind his lean form, striding through the gardens, toward a gate that let out into the field where he had parked the car, so many hours ago. She wanted to reach out to him, say something to put it right, but the words I love you were frozen on her lips, stilling all other speech.
Would it make a difference if I said I love you?
Not like that. And what did she know of love? Rachel stumbled miserably along in her heels, not sure if the problem lay with the shoes or with the turf, which seemed to be undulating alarmingly. She’d believed her parents loved each other; they had been the model by which she judged all others. Not the brief spark of infatuation, but real, enduring love, love that outlasted separation and death.
She tripped and would have fallen, but Simon was there, bracing her, his hand on her elbow.
“How much have you had?” he said, not unkindly.
“Too much.” Rachel’s tongue didn’t want to move properly.
Did she love him? She didn’t know. All she knew was that she wanted to go to New York with him, more than she had ever wanted anything, to explore new places with him, laugh over the eccentricities of the natives with him, spar with him, argue with him.
Desperately, Rachel tugged at Simon’s arm. “You’re better off without me. Really, you are. I’d be a liability to you.” Foolish tears prickled at the backs of her eyes. “I’m not Vera Merton. I’m not even Rachel Woodley. I’m not anyone.”
They stopped beside the car, Simon’s arm around her, bracing her. “You’re yourself. Isn’t that enough?” His hand brushed her cheek, so fleetingly that she thought she might have imagined it. “You are,” he said quietly, “the strongest person I know.”
Rachel looked at him in confusion, listing to one side, one heel half off, not feeling strong at all, feeling, in fact, like a sodden mass of yesterday’s wet washing.
“Although somewhat green about the gills just now,” Simon added smoothly. With a practiced hand, he heaved her through the door of the Daimler. “Get in, lean back, and try not to be sick until we get to London.”
* * *
She wasn’t sick, but she did fall into a sodden and restless sleep.
When she woke, she was on the vast bed in Simon’s sister’s room, chastely covered with a blanket, still in her green gown, and there was a jug of water and a bottle of aspirin on the bedside table.
There was a folded note propped against the water jug.
Rachel crawled her way across the coverlet with small, painful movements that didn’t jar her aching head. The blinding whiteness of the pillows made her eyes hurt. The sunlight casting a striped pattern across the carpet made her stomach heave.
She had only the vaguest recollections of Simon helping her inside, of the porter’s joking comments, and her own stumbling steps, and a brief, blurry recollection of fumbling for the latchkey.
Disjointed images of the evening bombarded her: her father in his vast gallery, John’s self-satisfied puffery, and, above all, Simon. Had she dreamed his proposal? Rachel wanted to crawl back under the covers, pull them over her head, and stay there until day faded to night.
But there was Simon’s note on the bedside table.
He had folded the paper into a tent. Rachel knocked it off the nightstand, catching it just before it fell to the floor. With clumsy fingers, she opened the note.
Stay at the flat as long as you need.—S
A wave of pure misery swept over her. Stop being an idiot, Rachel told herself. Simon was being kind. Kinder than she deserved.
She forced her wobbly legs out of bed, forced herself to fold the note and set it down flat on the nightstand, instead of reading it again and again and again in the vain hope that some other message or nuance might appear to temper the brusque finality of it.
What did she expect? She had turned him down. He was hardly going to be leaving her sonnets.
The idea of Simon leaving anyone sonnets brought a rueful smile to her lips. Although, once, with Olivia …
No. She wasn’t going to be jealous of Olivia.
And, besides, what did it matter? Simon would be away in New York in a day, well rid of both Standish daughters. Drearily, Rachel dragged on a skirt and jumper, ruthlessly applying cold cream to last night’s makeup.
Simon would have regretted it if she had said yes, she told herself belligerently, as she splashed cold water on her face in the bathroom. She might have delivered a blow to his ego last night, but she had saved him the much greater blow of finding himself saddled with a wife who couldn’t mix in his world, a bastard without antecedents or connections, a sham and a fraud.
The strongest person I know.
For a moment, Rachel let herself bask in the memory. Tempting to think that all the rest could be pushed aside, that for him she could just be Rachel and valuable in herself, whatever her parents might have been or done. She had never, in all her life, felt so much herself with anyone as she had with Simon. Even with Alice, she had had to mute bits of herself, make allowances. But not for Simon. He met her head on.
And that was quite enough of that. Rachel dried her face roughly with a towel, not sparing the area behind the ears. People believed in the meeting of minds, but who really ever knew anyone else? Her own instincts had, for the most part, been spectacularly poor.
A shrill buzz drilled into Rachel’s aching head. The doorbell, particularly strident after a long night out.
After one frozen moment, Rachel shoved the towel roughly onto the rack and bolted toward the door.
It wasn’t Simon.
The porter was half hidden behind a large bouquet of hothouse flowers, tied at the bottom with a ribbon bearing the insignia of a fashionable florist. “These came for you, miss.”
“Thank you, Suggs.” Rachel managed to refrain from pouncing on the card until the door was already closed, her eyes going first to the signature.
In appreciation of your friendship, J. Trevannion.
Lovely. Flowers sent to buy her silence. Just what she wanted. As for friendship … If you can’t say anything nice, her mother had always said.
Closing her eyes, Rachel leaned forward until the silky petals brushed her forehead. Once it would have filled her with unspeakable, guilty joy to have received flowers from her sister’s fiancé. Now, it just made her feel vaguely irritated.
Well, they were pretty flowers. They added a touch of color to the flat. Prosaically, Rachel rummaged in the cupboards until she found a vase, then set the vase on the glass table in the drawing room, nearly knocking it over as the bell rang again.
It couldn’t be flowers from John this time, unless he’d mistakenly sent a second bouquet. Which meant …
Breathlessly, Rachel flung open the door, Simon’s name on her lips.
“Hello, Rachel,” said her father.
TWENTY-FOUR
When Rachel didn’t say anything, her father said hesitantly, “May I come in?”
No, Rachel wanted to say, but her tongue and her mind didn’t seem to be working in conc
ert. Instead, she mutely stepped aside, allowing him entry.
Her father took a gingerly step inside. He had seemed far more formidable last night, in his knee breeches and silk stockings. Away from the grandeur of Caffers, he seemed somehow diminished, uncertain.
Rachel could see him taking in the shaded walls of the drawing room, the angular statuary, the white, white rug.
“This is a … pleasant place.”
“I’m moving out,” said Rachel bluntly. “Did you want something?”
She ought to offer him something, she knew. Tea, a cocktail. But she couldn’t force herself to perform the amenities, to pretend that he was just another visitor.
Go away, go away, go away, she thought. Hadn’t he hurt her enough already? Did he need to come back for another go?
Her father turned his hat around and around in his hands, as though unsure what to do with it. “I’m meant to be in Oxfordshire. We have a house party. But I needed to speak to you—to apologize.”
“If this is another offer to pay me off, you needn’t bother.” She had left magazines on the glass cocktail table, copies of The Tatler. We’re both in this week, said Cece. Mechanically, Rachel began stacking the magazines. “I meant what I said last night.”
Her father followed, hovering a careful distance away. “But I … When I received those pictures … Please, mayn’t we sit down?”
Last night, he had deliberately received her in a room without chairs.
Rachel dropped the magazines into the wastepaper basket. “I am quite comfortable as I am.”
Her father didn’t argue. “You sound so like her.” He looked at her, with something unguarded in his eyes, something painful to see. “Like Katherine. You don’t look like her. There is little of her in your face. But your voice, the way you speak—”
“Is hardly unique.” She didn’t trust this sudden change of heart. “And, as you say, I don’t look like either of you.”
Except the eyes, but she didn’t point that out.
“No,” her father agreed. “You have the look of my mother. I never saw her—she died before I was old enough to know her—but there were portraits.…” He stared down at the hat in his hands as though surprised to find it there. “Forgive me. I seem to have forgotten myself.”