Page 7 of Chasing Benedict
Tucking the cravat into the breast pocket with his peppermints, Alex left the tiny, sparse room—shaken but not broken. As far as he was concerned, he and Ben were far from finished. They had hardly even begun.
CHAPTER 2
ETON COLLEGE, 1799
Benedict clamped his lips shut to muffle a whimper of agony. In his sleep, his mind forgot that movement of any sort was out of the question. The fiery stripes across his shoulders burned at the touch of nightshirt or bedclothes, so he slept in only a pair of old breeches, the sheets draped across his backside. The punishment he’d earned after being caught brawling in the late hours of last evening had been the harshest yet. Dame Culpepper’s unexpected appearance in the yard off the back of her house had earned him a caning at the hands of the headmaster. It was bad enough the dame had caught them red-handed; that cowardly bastard Lionel Blackburn had been waiting in the wings to report that the fights had been going on for months—and that Benedict had encouraged the other boys to engage in the vice of gambling by orchestrating bets.
Of course, Benedict hadn’t been alone in his actions, but pummeling Blackburn and his friends had painted a target on his back. He had been threatened with expulsion on more than one occasion, and was told after the lashing that this was his final chance. It had taken every bit of his self-control to keep from laughing in the headmaster’s face. They both knew all it would take was for his father to make a generous contribution to the college to ensure Benedict’s continued education. It didn’t matter that the viscount despised him; no Sterling man had ever been ejected from Eton, and his father wasn’t going to allow such a thing to besmirch their illustrious name.
As he lay there breathing through the pain of half a dozen cane marks, his head rested on a goose-down pillow, and his bedclothes were the finest that could be found in England. The warmth of the coal he’d purchased kept not only him warm, but all the other occupants of the room. He ate like a king every day, having learned that slipping a pint of gin to Dame Culpepper along with the money for ingredients to stock her larder was enough to earn the woman’s generosity. While those around him benefited from his improved finances, Benedict couldn’t pretend he had done it for any of them. Five of the boys he’d beaten had requested new living quarters, and those who shared his room now were tolerable if not exactly likable. However, a sense of self-preservation and resolve not to suffer another cold winter or half-empty belly drove him.
Benedict had been raised in a world where a good name, blue blood, and a fortune were supposed to make life easier. Yet, he had been denied the ease that guided the lives of his brothers and some of the other lads attending school with him. Despite his youth and lack of experience with the world at large, Benedict had learned one very important lesson: if he wanted anything for himself, he was going to have to fight for it. His father certainly wouldn’t smooth his path or give him a hand up, and his brothers were too fond of their places as the favored sons to go against the viscount.
“If you would just try harder to please him, things wouldn’t be so difficult for you,” his elder brother, Esmond, often said. “You must try.”
“You could stop clinging to Mother’s apron strings, for a start,” Francis, the secondborn, would agree.
Closing his eyes, he shifted his mind away from the wounds on his back and drifted toward slumber.
Benedict snapped open his eyes, his restless thoughts disturbed by the shuffle of footsteps and the thunk of something against the floor. A burst of lamplight made him squint, and he recognize the figure of Alexander Osborne, one of the new transplants from a different boardinghouse. He had replaced Lionel a few weeks before the end of the previous term, and had returned in the spring to resume his place on the other side of the room.
He was a peculiar sort, swathed in his decadent banyans when in their chamber, lounging on his bed to pore over the books he kept organized beneath the mattress. The boy was just as richly dressed outside this room as he was in it—perhaps more so. He stood out like a peacock among the somber, dark colors the other boys wore, seeming not to notice the attention he drew wherever he went.
However, it wasn’t Osborne’s dandified fashions that made him odd. Often, Benedict would feel a prickle down his spine, registering the sensation of being watched. He was used to being gaped at as the other boys passed rumors about him back and forth. But this was different. It was as if something within Benedict instinctively knew whose eyes rested on him, alerting his senses. Sure enough, whenever he glanced up, it was always to find Osborne observing him with a pensive look in his eye. Even more discomfiting was the fact that he never looked away when Benedict caught him staring. Sometimes Osborne would simply meet Benedict’s gaze, almost as if issuing a silent, but not necessarily threatening, challenge—one Benedict didn’t understand.
Other times, Osborne would offer a smile. Just the slightest tilt of his mouth in one corner. It disturbed Benedict to find his eyes drawn to those lips every time, an odd sort of fascination making him hot with embarrassment.
The same sensation overcame him now as he noticed Osborne wore another of his banyans—this one yellow, embroidered with green and blue thread. Beneath it was a half-open shirt. He knelt at Benedict’s bedside, a lamp resting on the floor beside him and a bowl held in one hand. His thick, dark eyebrows were knit with concern as his gaze swept over Benedict’s bared back.
Benedict didn’t care for the pity in Osborne’s eyes.“What the devil do you want?” he snapped, lifting up on one elbow.
A sharp sting flared in his back, increasing to a burning throb. He fell back onto his belly, issuing a pained groan into his pillow.
Osborne clicked his tongue, giving Benedict a stern look when he raised his head from the cushion. “If you keep that up, you’ll wake the others. Does it hurt very badly?”
Benedict scowled. “Does it look like it hurts?”
There was that smile again, coy and teasing, as if he were in on a secret Benedict hadn’t yet discovered. “It does, and I am sorry for it. It wasn’t well done of Blackburn to set the headmaster on you that way.”
“I ought to break his nose again,” Benedict said with a dry snort. “Apparently once wasn’t enough.”
“Ah, yes,” Osborne replied with a low chuckle. “I did hear talk of what led you to thrash him. I must say, I wouldn’t have done any less. He deserved it.”
“I know.” Benedict paused, furrowing his brow. “I’m still waiting for you to tell me why you’re kneeling beside my bed in the middle of the night.”
Osborne raised his bowl. “I heard you tossing and turning, and felt sorry for you. If you’ll let me … my valet has a remedy for such injuries. It might help.”
Before Benedict could protest, Osborne had reached into his bowl, lifting a piece of linen dripping with some sort of solution. The scents of peppermint and witch hazel wafted up Benedict’s nostrils as Osborne draped the wet linen over one shoulder. A cooling sensation permeated his skin, taking some of the heat from his lash marks. He sighed in relief, the tincture too soothing for him to pretend it didn’t feel sublime.
“There, you see?” Osborne crooned, going back into the bowl. “It won’t heal you overnight, but it will ease the pain so you can sleep. And if that doesn’t work, I have some whiskey stashed in one of my trunks. I only ask that you not tell anyone.”
Benedict grunted as another strip of linen was laid over his opposite shoulder. “I think I’d like that drink regardless. And mum’s the word.”
Osborne laughed again, though he seemed to do his best to keep the sound from traveling across the room. Yet, Benedict felt the laugh more than he heard it, like a deep vibration rippling through him. It made him shift on the bed, a sudden discomfort overtaking him. He wasn’t certain he liked the way this boy made him feel.
“What do you care that I’m in pain?” he asked, hoping that by being prickly, he could maintain some sort of distance between them. The last thing Benedict needed was the blow to his reputation if someone thought he had a friendly bone in his body.
Osborne shrugged, his dark eyes fixed on Benedict’s back as he applied more of his strips, covering every inch before starting a second layer to cover the first. “Why shouldn’t I care? You are a person with feelings like anyone else. It is difficult for me to see someone in pain and not want to do something to help.”
