Days of Rakes and Roses by Anna Campbell

of arousal through him.
    He moved back into her, this time more easily. Her body welcomed him and when he met her eyes, they shimmered with love. Brief sorrow struck him for the years they’d lost. Then he stared down at the woman in his arms and knew that she had been worth waiting for. What they had now was deeper and more powerful after enduring through adversity.
    She sighed, the sound a long exhalation of pleasure, and rose to meet him. The night fractured into dazzling passion. Simon took her faster and harder, feeling her response spiral with his own.
    He thrust one last time and heard her breathing change. Her body convulsed around his and she lost herself to her peak. As her broken cry echoed around the room, hot darkness swamped him and he gave himself up to her.
    At last his wanderings were over. He’d found his way home into Lydia’s arms.
    Chapter Seven
     
     
    Lydia stirred from the deep, dreamless sleep she’d tumbled into after all the exquisite, unprecedented things Simon had done to her in his bed. The candles on the sideboard guttered low. Outside along Piccadilly, she heard the rumble of early traffic as wagons laden with produce rolled into London from the countryside.
    She lay alone and naked. Any virtuous woman would blush red as a tomato, whereas Lydia just felt… loved. She couldn’t muster any remorse over giving herself to a man without benefit of wedlock. Simon loved her. It turned out that he’d always loved her. After accepting such a miracle as truth, she felt revitalized, brave, and ready to take on the world. Only now did she realize how fear had tainted every breath she’d ever taken, with perhaps the single exception of those untrammeled moments in Simon’s arms at Fentonwyck.
    And last night.
    While conventional morality might dictate otherwise, committing herself to Grenville Berwick had been a craven, dishonest act, whereas loving Simon set her free to pursue her destiny. She loved Simon with all her soul and she could never be ashamed of that, whatever cruel names the world might call her.
    Perhaps she was more her mother’s daughter than she’d ever realized.
    After last night’s revelations, Lydia finally found it in herself to forgive her mother for seizing what small joy she could, whatever the consequences. Love, it seemed, had its own imperatives.
    Love had proven itself more satisfying than she’d ever imagined. And in ten lonely years, she’d spent a lot of time imagining. As her sleepy mind winnowed the glorious events of the preceding hours, she stretched across the rumpled sheets in an excess of lingering physical pleasure. Each beat of her heart spoke her lover’s name. Simon. Simon. Simon.
    Simon…
    Where was he? Clumsily she rose, wincing as muscles she’d never known she possessed protested. When Simon had joined his body with hers, she’d suffered brief discomfort, but she’d trusted him enough to follow his lead. A wave of heat washed through her when she recalled where his lead had taken her.
    “Simon?” She tugged a sheet from the bed and wrapped it around herself.
    Her voice echoed around the silent rooms. A horrible presentiment struck a chill down her spine. Hurriedly she leaned down to test the side of the bed where Simon had slept. It was stone cold.
    Dear God…
    Her heart lurched with foreboding. She’d urged Simon to escape to the Continent. But surely he wouldn’t leave without saying good-bye. Without asking her to go with him.
    Had he deserted her without a word the way he had ten years ago? The frightened, uncertain girl she’d once been might have believed that. The woman who had become Simon’s lover last night knew better. Whatever fate he faced, he’d face it with her at his side. They were united forever.
    Yet here she was alone.
    A frantic glance around the untidy bedroom revealed scattered clothes. Some, she blushed to acknowledge, were hers, but most belonged to Simon, who’d clearly retained his boyhood untidiness. The