Page 11 of To Defend a Damaged Duke
“Hah!”Two laughs in one morning?Unheard of.“Then we must persist.”
Smiling fondly, Benedict walked with her for a while in companionable silence before halting to admire a cheerful splash of early crocuses.Did Tommy ever pause to appreciate early crocuses?Did Tommy even like crocuses?Benedict had no idea, but the man crashed his thoughts at every damned turn.Ahead of them, Isabella’s merry chatter cut through the crisp air.
“Francis is fretting about you,” Beatrice ventured.“He says you work too hard and are not yourself.”
“No,” agreed Benedict cautiously.In the days following his unhappy skirmish with Tommy, he’d risen early to avoid sharing breakfast with his brother and then skulked in the second study for the remainder of the morning until it was time for his daily tour of the stables.In between those illustrious activities, he had brooded.“I have…I have suffered with melancholia of late.”
“Ah.”She nodded sadly.“Your usual equanimity is being drained by that old friend.I have, on occasion, been well acquainted with her myself.”She gave his arm another tight squeeze.“I cannot imagine the strain a father’s sudden death and taking on all his duties has on a person.Though worth very little, it is my opinion that you are coping admirably.”
“Your opinion is one that I regard most highly, Beatrice.”
Stooping, she plucked a weed from between two blooms.“You are most kind, Your Grace.But if I may be so bold, I am…I am also of the opinion that ensuring the smooth running of your affairs is not your only concern.”
As Benedict stiffened, she added, “I have a sympathetic and discreet ear.”
“You are most kind yourself, Beatrice.”
At risk of losing sight of Francis and Isabella—heaven forbid someone spread rumours they were unchaperoned—they sauntered on in the general direction of their awaiting carriage.The breezy morning air carried the sharp tang of rain.Casting his gaze towards the lumpish grey sky, Benedict picked up the pace.Soon, they would be blessed by another dreary downpour.
“I recently had cause to spend time with a person I believed lost to me forever,” he began suddenly.Even that simple sentence pained him; it wasn’t something he had anticipated ever confiding in anyone.He pushed on.“A person, I am ashamed to say, I have treated very badly.”
“Are you referring to Lord Lyndon?If so, let me assure you the only person who has wronged Lord Lyndon is himself.Since your father’s passing, you have shown him nothing but compassion and generosity.”
“No.”Benedict shook his head.“Not Lyndon.Although I question myself over him daily too.Papa was of the strong opinion that one must be cruel to be kind.He believed keeping Lyndon poor would show him the error of his ways.But lately, I find myself questioning several of my own moralistic judgements and thus extend those questions to my dealings with Lyndon.And…I wonder if I come up short.”
Beatrice pondered this as the path weaved around a copse.Few of Benedict’s circle—and he included the menfolk—shared her thirst for knowledge, nor indeed, the wisdom she gained from it.
“I believe, Your Grace, that a man who thinks so deeply and questions himself so thoroughly ought, by his very nature, be more adept at guiding his morals along a wholesome route than a man arrogant enough to believe he is right simply because he is a man to whom others must defer.”
“At risk of drearily repeating myself, you are very kind.”
“Only to those who deserve it,” she countered with a chuckle.“To most, I am a harridan spinster with a tongue too tart for her own good.And I shall make use of its acidity by being so audacious as to ask if what concerns you has anything to do with love.”
Benedict made a strangled sound.What ailed him hadeverythingto do with love.“Both your tongue and your perceptiveness should never be underestimated, Lady Beatrice.”
The carriage was in sight; Francis and Isabella paused, ostensibly to admire the bare, clean branches of an elm but mostly to stretch out their fond farewell.
“I was in love, once,” Benedict admitted, his heart inexplicably racing.“When I was very young.”
Beatrice’s fine eyebrows arched with curiosity.
“I imagine you find that hard to believe, do you not?Someone like me, with thisscowlingcountenance?”
Examining him for a moment, she shook her fair head.“It’s not so hard to imagine.I see how your eyes rest so fondly on your brother and Isabella.You are not without soul.”
A soul which, at this exact moment, lay in tatters.His encounter with Tommy had awoken complex emotions dormant for many a year.He sucked in a breath.“Our love was unquenchable.Or so I believed.”
A stark memory of Tommy’s chest heaving against his own flooded his mind.Of him panting, laughing into Benedict’s mouth.“We…we thought we’d invented the damned thing.I was so enamoured.I trusted our roots would be entwined forever.”
“But it wasn’t meant to be,” Beatrice prompted.
He reached out to a low twig and snapped it off.Early crocuses be damned; hope, light, and spring were barely imaginable.
“It could never be,” he corrected.“Though neither of us considered it.We were too young and foolish to ever look beyond the end of our noses.The future was another continent, as far as we were concerned.”
“I’m surmising she was married,” Beatrice responded in her usual blunt fashion.“Or betrothed to another.”
And therein lay the problem.Tommy was neither.“If only it had been that simple.”
