Page 53 of The Duke and Lady Scandal
“Very well,” Lady Josephine said more quietly. “The dinner gong will sound soon, so you’dbothbest return in short order.”
“We will.” Alexandra nodded and smiled.
Lady Josephine apparently retreated because Alexandra returned to him. And in her usual perceptive way, she could read his expression.
“What is it?”
“Allie,” he said, repeating the nickname Lady Josephine had used and that had apparently put an odd look on his face.
“Yes.” She dipped her head, momentarily shy. “It’s what everyone calls me.” Her eyes flashed as a little grin tipped her bee-stung lips. “Except for you.”
“Alexandra suits you.”
A beatific smile lit her face. “I’ve always preferred it, but no one else seems to agree. To my family, I’m always Allie. Little Allie. Or little Lex, though only Papa called me that. And now sometimes my brother if he’s trying to soften me.” She tipped her head. “Why do you prefer Alexandra?”
“It’s a beautiful name. Long and luxurious. A bit more complicated than Allie.”
“Am I complicated?”
He drew closer, reached up, and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I mean that as a compliment. Complicated in the way that a tangled case can be more interesting than a simple one.”
“And what do you prefer to be called?” she asked softly. “Ben? Benedict?”
Drake winced. “Not Benedict. My mother called me that when she was cross. And now Helen does when she’s taking me down a peg.”
“Ben.” She uttered the single syllable with more thoughtfulness than anyone had ever offered his name. “I do like it.”
He laughed, full-throated and in a way he hadn’t in, well, as long he could recall.
“I’m glad you approve.”
Even from the garden, they could hear the sound of the dinner gong.
“We have to go in,” she said without an ounce of enthusiasm.
“I suppose we do.” Ben felt much the same. He’d forgo the whole dinner and any of the conversation he’d hoped to have with Wellingdon to stay out here with her.
“I’d rather leave now. With you,” she told him boldly.
“As would I.”
“We’d cause a scandal.”
He’d take a scandal if it meant time with her, but he wouldn’t subject her to the judgement of the Wellingdons or Haverstock.
He knew they must rejoin the group and held out his arm. She immediately wrapped her hand around it, and he laid his other hand over hers. He already disliked how they’d have to pretend once they were back inside. Pretend they hadn’t just shared a kiss that still heated his blood. A kiss that had shaken him. Changed him.
He couldn’t walk away from her now. Therewas the time before he’d met Alexandra Prince and whatever he was becoming now, and he did not wish to go back.
“I won’t provoke him again, I promise.”
He was so far gone that it took him a moment to realize who she referred to.
“I wouldn’t have you change to suit Sir Felix Haverstock. Or anyone.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught her grinning.
He vowed to himself then and there that he would make it his mission to evoke such smiles from her again.
