Page 15 of Love in the Time of Scandal
He gave her a curious glance, but she just tipped her head to one side and waited, beaming back at him. Benedict shook off his hesitation; if she meant to refuse him, she wouldn’t have closeted them. It was a good sign. He reached for her hand. “Miss Lockwood, it’s been a very great pleasure becoming acquainted with you.”
“I have also enjoyed your company, my lord.”
“We get on well together, don’t we?” He eased a step nearer. “And share so many interests.”
She leaned toward him almost playfully. “Are you mad for me?”
“I beg your pardon?” Benedict frowned in bemusement. “I am deeply fond of you and expect we will only grow closer as time goes on. I believe we would be happy together, and I very much hope you agree.”
“But now,” she said, a little insistently. “At this moment, are you madly in love with me? Would you fight a duel over me? Would youdiefor me?”
“Die for you,” he repeated in disbelief. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“I want to marry a man who adores me,” she exclaimed, clasping both hands to her heart. “A man who declares his undying love for me every day!”
Suddenly he knew what had happened. “Did Miss Weston tell you to say that?” he asked, thin-lipped.
“Do you love me?” she boldly demanded. “If you do, you should have no trouble saying so!”
“That interfering little baggage,” he said under his breath. “Miss Lockwood, this is not what I expected from you—”
“Perhaps this is how I really am.” She put her hands on his chest and stepped closer, thrusting her face up almost accusingly. “You’ve never even tried to kiss me. Don’t you want to?”
He wanted to wring Penelope’s lovely neck. Benedict’s temper strained at the seams. How dare she instill her extravagant romantic notions into a proper young lady’s head? Where was the sweet, anxious-to-please Frances Lockwood he’d decided to marry? If he wanted this bold, demanding sort of woman, why, he might as well marry Penelope herself.
With jerky motions he took her hands in his and removed them from his chest. “Forgive me,” he said, controlling his voice with great effort. “Something seems to have come over you—”
“I just want to know if you love me.” She pulled free and raised her chin. “I thought you must, because you spoke to my father. You led him to believe you want to marry me. If you want to marry me, you must care for me, and yet you won’t say it.”
“What am I supposed to say?” he snapped. “What reply did Miss Weston tell you to demand?”
Her expression became almost mulish. “This has nothing to do with her. Why are you always asking about her?”
He shoved his hands through his hair. “Christ! She’s the last person I want to speak of!”
“Your language, sir,” she gasped, but Benedict had had enough.
“I cannot guess if this is your true self or if you’re just acting some part you think would amuse Penelope Weston, but I must tell you, it’s not very appealing. You want me to fight a duel over you? Over what? Do you expect to carry on with all sorts of men without even bothering to be discreet about it? Because that’s what drives men to duel, my dear—a faithless woman who doesn’t give a damn about the consequences of her actions. And if you intend to be that sort of woman, I most certainly will not be swearing my undying love to you, let alone risking my life for you.”
Her blue eyes were perfectly round, glistening with shocked tears, and the plume in her hair quivered with her every breath. “You—you—you heartlessmonster. I don’t want to see you ever again!” She turned on her heel and stomped across the room with her hands in fists at her sides. The door crashed against the wall when she flung it open, and he listened to her footsteps patter rapidly down the hall.
“Damn it!” Benedict stalked back and forth across the room. “God bloody damn it!” He slammed his fist into the wall, cursing again as pain jolted up his arm. He shook out his fingers and seethed.
She was the devil. That was the only explanation. A golden-haired, blue-eyed devil with a siren’s smile, whose sole mission in life was to undermine his plans and then gloat over the smoking ruins of his hopes. He could just imagine her satisfied little smile when Frances Lockwood told her the news: he’d been rejected once more and lost yet another prospective bride. In honesty, he didn’t think Abigail Weston’s refusal had been Penelope’s doing, but there was no question that she had instigated Miss Lockwood’s little drama tonight.Would you die for me?Was that what women wanted these days? What the bloody blazes was the world coming to?
Benedict flexed his aching fingers and told himself to think. So Frances Lockwood didn’t want to see him ever again. Perhaps that was a mercy. Even if she changed her mind, the damage was done; there was a side of her he’d never seen before, and he could only be glad she had revealed herself before it was too late. But it was incontrovertible that Penelope Weston had wrought some mischief, and he positively burned to confront her about it. If he didn’t, she might take it as a sign of cowardice or weakness. It was all too easy to imagine Penelope blithely telling every young lady of thetonthat he was a coldhearted scoundrel whom everyone else had already refused to marry.
“Damn,” he muttered once more. It wasn’t remotely true, but two rejected marriage proposals were bad enough, and rumors like that could dog a fellow for years—and he didn’t have years to spend on finding a bride. He really hadn’t thought it would takethislong. England was full of ladies in search of a handsome nobleman to marry, and at least a few had plump dowries. It just appeared none of them wanted him.
Unlike many of his mates, Benedict felt more than ready to marry. Not out of any poetical yearning for love or because he was eager to settle down, but because he was tired of being jerked back and forth by his father’s whimsy like a puppet on a string. The Earl of Stratford kept a tight rein on his family, controlling his wife and children through every means at his disposal. Benedict had managed some level of escape, but he was still tied to his father by the purse strings. More than once the earl had cut off his funds with no warning. More than once Benedict had had to go crawling back to beg for money, which was given only after a period of penance and some act of contrition. For years he’d endured it, but his father’s demands grew too punishing. Stratford had set him every objectionable task possible: sacking loyal servants of long standing, making unreasonable demands of solicitors and tradesmen, snubbing acquaintances who displeased the earl, bullying art dealers who didn’t meet the earl’s standards. Enough was enough.
For a gentleman in Benedict’s position, though, independence wasn’t easy. He had no profession except soldiering, and that hardly paid well—if anything, it cost a great deal. He had no capital to invest, not even a small sum he could have used to take himself to America or the West Indies, where a man might start from nothing. He had no head for politics, no exceptional talent, nothing except his name and his face... which were both, to be blunt, very appealing to ladies. Obviously the answer was a wealthy bride.
Unfortunately heiresses seemed to be in short supply this year. Even including scandalous widows and the daughters of merchants, he’d met only a few women who seemed tolerable. Benedict didn’t really want to exchange his father’s tyranny for a wife’s, but every woman of reason and property had half a dozen suitors already. When his sister wrote to him last spring that a wealthy man with two beautiful daughters had bought an estate near Stratford Court in Richmond, it seemed like a gift from heaven. A quick journey home proved him right. Abigail Weston was beautiful, kind, modest, and sensible. To his delight, they got on well together. He could envision a companionable life with her. For a few short weeks last summer, everything had seemed within his grasp.
If only he had known that courting Abigail Weston would wind up being a colossal mistake. It certainly hadn’t appeared to be one at the time. No one had told him she was secretly in love with another man. No one had warned him he’d lose her to Sebastian Vane, who had once been his dearest friend before his father had managed to ruin that, too.
Losing Abigail’s hand hurt, and not merely for the sting of being found wanting next to Sebastian. In her, he thought he’d found the perfect solution: a wife he could care for and respect, with a fortune that would render him, finally and for all time, independent of his father. Instead he had been rejected, rather strongly, and then he’d had to endure his father’s contempt over his failure, because he must have cocked it up very badly if the lady preferred a man with a bad leg and a deranged parent.
