Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Simon Linwood, Duke of Everly, sat in the drawing room of his dear and perhaps only friend. He had escaped his own estate to come out here.
He had a glass in his hand, filled halfway with the drink of his choice. He swirled it in the glass absentmindedly and kept his gaze focused on the fire that was burning in front of him.
Rowan, the aforementioned friend, lounged casually on the other side of the room. He had a drink of his own, but he had company besides him. A lady. She was listening intently to some story of his while Simon mostly ignored it as noise.
“And so,” Rowan relayed in his usual dramatic fashion, “the poor fool realizes that he’s been betting against his own luck all evening. The result? He loses the deed to his townhouse—and the diamond earrings his mistress was wearing at the time. She wasn’t too pleased with him, I can assure you.”
The woman laughed brightly. Her dark eyes sparkled as she leaned closer to Rowan, her laughter softening to a purr.
“You do have a way of making trouble sound delightful,” she said.
“Oh, it is a matter of how you look at things. What you consider trouble, I might consider an opportunity.”
Simon would have rolled his eyes at the sentence if his mind were not so otherwise occupied. Instead, he remained silent, his gaze never leaving the fire. He had little patience for Rowan’s theatrics tonight. His purpose here was clear, though it seemed Rowan intended to make him wait for it.
The lady turned her attention to Simon.
“Your Grace, you have been so quiet all evening. Surely a man like you has stories of his own. Or perhaps…” She leaned forward slightly. “… you prefer your entertainment more… private?”
Simon’s eyes flicked to her, his expression cold. “I prefer silence.”
The last thing he wished to do was entertain the attention of some strange lady.
In fact, in no circumstance would he pay her any attention, much less when he was spoken for.
Spoken for. Ah, the words themselves sounded so strange, and sometimes Simon had a hard time accepting that this was what his life had come to now.
The lady seemed taken aback by his bluntness, if not completely offended.
“Well… I…” she looked towards Rowan for a rescue, but the latter only laughed loudly.
“Do not take it personally, dear,” he told her. “Our dear duke is a man of singular focus. You’ll have to save your charms for someone less disciplined.”
The woman’s smile faltered briefly before she recovered, her attention shifting back to Rowan, who welcomed it fully.
All the more for him, Simon thought. Besides, she was not his type.
It did not matter to him how outwardly beautiful a woman was.
If she was someone whose attention and affection were so easily claimed, then he was not interested in the slightest. Rowan had often given him a hard time for being far too picky with his tastes, but it was not an opinion to which he gave much importance.
He had every right to be as picky and as particular as he wished to be.
Simon took another sip out of his drink, suddenly wishing that the lady would disappear into thin air. Her presence was annoying to him.
Rowan seemed to read his mind, because a moment later, he spoke up again.
“My dear, will you give Simon and me a moment alone?” Rowan asked the lady, who initially looked disappointed but agreed nonetheless. She left the room promptly, and his friend turned to him.
“You really are more disciplined than I could ever be,” he noted. “To turn down a woman like that.”
Simon rolled his eyes. “I couldn’t care less.”
“Yes, you’ve made that clear,” Rowan laughed. “I fear there’s no hope for your soul.”
Simon shot him a dark look but said nothing. Regardless, Rowan caught on quickly.
“Fine, then. Tell me about this marriage of yours—I can see that you want to. What’s it like to finally be shackled?”
Simon’s jaw tightened. “I feel nothing. It is just what needs to be done.”
“You do not need to sound so bored about it. Surely she’s captured your attention in some way. You should be smitten.”
Smitten. Simon wanted to scoff at the suggestion, but restrained himself. He was the furthest thing from it; he did not even know the woman whom he was about to marry.
Heaven knows how he had managed to find himself in this situation. Perhaps it was payback for his sins.
“She’s irrelevant,” Simon said instead, though it was not the full truth.
She was relevant, if only in that he had thought about her more than a few times since meeting her. The woman had audacity, that much was certain.
Rowan did not seem convinced. “Oh, Simon, you’re a terrible liar. You’ve thought about her. Admit it.”
“If you keep up this line of questioning, I will be sure to uninvite you to the wedding entirely,” Simon threatened. He was in no mood to be probed.
Rowan raised his hands in mock surrender. “Fine, fine. I’ll drop it.”
“What about the investigation?” Simon changed the topic swiftly.
Rowan’s playful tone shifted immediately. “I’ve been asking around,” he said, lowering his voice now. “The gaming hells in London are rife with whispers if you know where to listen. My contacts are keeping their ears open, and I’m expecting news within the next few days.”
Simon nodded, his jaw tightening. “Good. The sooner we have answers, the better.”
“Always so impatient, Your Grace. We need time,” Rowan said. “Not everything moves at your pace.”
“I don’t have time for patience,” Simon said grimly.
Rowan studied him for a moment. “Perhaps I was too harsh. It is only natural for you to be like this… considering…”
Rowan did not complete his sentence, silenced by Simon’s glare.
“You’re not the man you used to be,” Rowan continued anyway. “But maybe this marriage will be good for you. A fresh start, a way for you to focus on other things for a change.”
Simon’s lips curled into a humorless smile. He highly doubted that.
Rachel.
She had been so much sharper, so much bolder than he had anticipated. It was a surprise to him.
Then, his thoughts turned darker. He thought about her figure and what she had felt like when he had been close to her. Her dress was modest, but that only added to his intrigue.
What was underneath it?
He imagined—no, he shouldn’t imagine—but the thought came anyway, unbidden: what might it feel like to peel away the layers of her demure gowns? Would her blush deepen under his hands? Would she shiver if his fingers traced the line of her spine, if his lips brushed her ear?
Simon sat up abruptly, highly bothered by the trajectory that his thoughts had taken.
“Something happened?” Rowan asked immediately.
But Simon said nothing, simply shaking his head and willing himself to snap out of whatever haze that had suddenly overcome him.
His thoughts were entirely inappropriate—worse, they were entirely unproductive.
“Thinking of her, weren’t you?” Rowan said.
Rowan was smirking knowingly, as though he could accurately read whatever had been going through Simon’s head a moment ago. It only annoyed Simon, of course, and he responded with a glare.
“Mind your own business.”
“Since when have I been known to do that?” Rowan said, laughing.
The lady returned to the room, and that was enough to distract Rowan for the time being. Simon decided to take it as an opportunity to make his exit. He no longer had any appetite for his friends’ questionings.
He rose from his seat, wincing at the manner in which the lady was already trying to gather the attention of his friend.
“I’ll leave you to your distractions,” he said, seeing the moment as the perfect exit.
He was only halfway across the door when Rowan spoke again.
“Simon,” Rowan called after him, laughing now, “do try to enjoy being married. Who knows? You might even like it.”
Simon didn’t bother responding. Would he like it? His guess was no. But then again, it would be unfair to close himself off to all possibilities. Still, it was not something that he wished to spend his time pondering over. After all, it was entirely unproductive.