He responded with a disarming smile. ‘If I was planning to assassinate an enemy of the state, or even a personal enemy, I would hardly admit it to you.’
‘Ah, an enemy of the state.’ She nodded, wanting to believe it, even though she did not. ‘That would make sense, I suppose. Even though Napoleon has finally been put in his place, his supporters are still everywhere, I expect, and no doubt a gentleman of your stature is involved in all sorts of political machinations to bring them to justice. I personally think it quite beyond the pale that certain gentlemen backed the losing side in secret and now expect to get away with it. Even so, I’m sure it’s not good form to kill one’s enemies at house parties. Not that my aunt would willingly invite a traitor, but if traitors were that easy to identify they wouldn’t stay in business for very long, would they?’
Judging by his expression, the duke found her conversational meanderings highly amusing and clearly didn’t take her seriously, which was insulting. She could be quite insightful when she put her mind to it. They would have to part soon, and she wouldn’t have an opportunity to speak with him alone again. That was a pity, since she found him interesting, even if he did intend to murder one of her aunt’s guests. Making a favourable impression and not being looked down upon and dismissed as a harmless child mattered to Clio more than the death of some hapless stranger, who probably deserved to be done away with anyway.
This was Clio’s first society party, she reminded herself as she struggled to condone her behaviour, and she most definitely did not want this glamorous duke to dismiss her as an irrelevant distraction, even if she was unsure what she did want from him. She must have broken a dozen rules already by speaking with him alone—her aunt would be appalled if she ever found out. But then again, he had accosted her in a very unorthodox manner and she was damned if she would wilt like a blushing maiden who was afraid of her own shadow. Being predictable was not her style.
It amused Clio to imagine how Beth would have reacted if he had pressed himself against her in such an intimate fashion. It had felt very intimate to Clio, and her cheeks flooded with colour at the recollection. It suddenly seemed insufferably hot in the tack room and she wished she’d had the presence of mind to bring a fan with her. Beth, she knew, would not have pretended that the incident hadn’t occurred. She would have taken it as a declaration of intent and would certainly not have bitten his hand. Clio couldn’t help smiling at that particular recollection.
However, regardless of the circumstances of their meeting, she didn’t want the duke to think her incapable of grasping the fundamentals of anything more taxing than the latest fashions, so she abruptly stopped talking. Why it mattered to her so much what he thought of her she had yet to fathom.
Still unable to decide if he had just told her the truth, she wanted his respect and had no desire for him to think of her as a reckless child who talked too much. When he looked at her with such a deep, penetrating gaze she most certainly didn’t feel like a child. What she did feel was unlike anything she had ever experienced before. A warmth spread from the pit of her stomach to the outermost reaches of her body, overheating her despite the fact that the sun had dipped and a cool breeze had usurped the sun’s warmth.
‘I must ask for your discretion, Miss Benton,’ the duke said. ‘There is someone who has been invited to this party and who means us harm, and it is my duty to root him out.’
‘Then I will help you,’ she said without hesitation. ‘No one notices me and it will not surprise you to learn that they often forget I am in a room.’ He raised an amused brow. ‘I don’t gabble away ordinarily,’ she proclaimed indignantly. ‘I am only doing so now because you make me nervous.’
‘Nervous?’ He chuckled. ‘I find that very hard to believe.’
‘Well, you should believe it. You are a duke, in case you had forgotten.’
‘As if I could,’ he replied with a droll smile that made Clio wonder if he would prefer not to be. Most likely because his brothers had had to die in order to make way for him, which must have distressed him enormously, even if they had disliked one another. Clio didn’t have any siblings but her soft heart quailed for the situation that this rugged, confusing and contrary duke found himself in.
‘I have heard you spoken of in the most reverent and respectful terms for weeks now, so naturally I am terrified of you.’
‘Ha!’ He threw back his head and laughed.
‘Well anyway, you really must excuse me, your grace.’ She bobbed the suggestion of a curtsey. ‘Some of us must recall our duty, you know.’
‘You might want to do something about your hair before you enter the drawing room,’ he replied, chuckling.
He then offered her an elegant bow, whistled to his dog, stretched out his long legs and walked towards the house with his man at his side. Clio watched him go, already wondering if she had just imagined the entire exchange.
The interlude had made her late, and she rushed towards the house, entered by a side door and ran up to her room. Daisy wasn’t there, of course. She would not have expected to be needed again and would be below stairs, taking in all the bustle with interest and hoping, no doubt, to encounter Mr Godfrey. Clio wished now that she had taken more notice of the duke’s man so that she could decide whether or not he would make a suitable beau for Daisy. Unfortunately, she had found it impossible to look at anyone else when the duke was in the room, effortlessly dominating it with his authoritative presence.
No matter. Clio was perfectly capable of fixing her hair herself, or so she thought until she glanced in the mirror. And groaned.
‘Whatever must he have thought of me?’ she muttered.
Her hair looked like a bird’s nest, complete with a strand of straw adhering to one ear. How on earth had that got there? Perhaps she needed Daisy’s services after all, but decided against ringing for her since she would want to know how Clio had managed to get herself into such a state. It was a question that Clio wasn’t prepared to answer now.
Perhaps not ever.
She sat in front of the glass with a resigned sigh, removed a few pins and set to with the brush. She left the top part of her coiffure as it was, since it hadn’t suffered too badly, and left the long curls tumbling over her shoulders. It wasn’t terribly sophisticated, but no one would take any notice of her.
When she had repaired the damage, Clio took a moment to reflect, even though she was now horribly late. Away from the duke’s distracting presence she found it easier to think about what she had overheard. And she was perfectly sure that he had deliberately distracted her in the hope that she would forget the gist of his conversation with Mr Godfrey.
As if she could!
If he had intended to appear incapable of cold-blooded murder, he had succeeded better than he could possibly know. Clio had been captivated by an honourable, surprisingly down to earth and rather dissatisfied individual. Her opinion had not been affected in any way by his rugged good looks or lazy, persuasive charm, or because she wanted to believe in him. Of course it had not! She wasn’t quite that shallow.
Was she?
If he mentioned in passing to her aunt that their paths had already crossed then she would know that he was duplicitous. That would be the acid test, she decided. He had spared her a few minutes of his precious time to ensure that he had won her over, but wouldn’t leave anything to chance. If Clio retaliated by repeating what she had overheard, he would naturally deny it, and his man would back him up.
‘Very well,’ she told her reflection. ‘The situation calls for guile. There have to be some advantages to being a helpless, bird-brained female. If he doesn’t give me away then I shall believe in him. But I shall also watch him, and all the other gentlemen at this party. If I sense animosity then I will know who his intended victim is and find a way to warn him.’
Satisfied with a plan that would appease her conscience—she could not possibly allow her aunt’s party to be marred by something as distasteful as murder—she stood up, smoothe
d down her skirts and made her way downstairs. She smiled when she entered the room and saw Beth looking delicious in a froth of pale muslin, yet dissatisfied. Dissatisfied since her grand entrance would have been wasted.
The duke was not yet in the room.
Ezra and Merlin strode into the house in Godfrey’s wake, using the servants’ stairs. A plethora of footmen and maids carrying ewers and trays jumped out of his way, flattening themselves against walls as he took the stairs three at a time.
‘This way,’ Godfrey said, when they emerged on an opulent landing with doors on both sides.
Ezra wasn’t surprised when Godfrey stopped in front of the most ornate double doors and thrust them open. Ezra stepped into a suite that overlooked the rear garden and offered a view to the woodland beyond it. Stepping onto the balcony and craning his neck, Ezra could just see the tack room in the far distance and was surprised to discover that he would infinitely prefer to have still been there, exchanging spirited ripostes with the challenging Miss Benton.
‘What will you do about the chit, your grace?’ Godfrey asked, pouring hot water into a ewer and indicating with a significant glance at the clock and an impatient gesture that Ezra should get a move on.
Ezra knew he was right. He was being appallingly rude in keeping Lady Fletcher waiting simply because he could, knowing that no one would chastise him for his bad manners. He hated people who took advantage of their positions in order to do as they pleased—people like his father, who had been a prime example—and had no intention of falling into that pattern of behaviour.
Thus resolved he stripped off his shirt and breeches and attended to his ablutions. A glance in the mirror confirmed his fears about his hair.
‘Absolutely nothing, for the time being at any rate,’ Ezra said in response to Godfrey’s question.
‘She clearly misinterpreted what she overheard and is bound to tell someone.’
With his head immersed in the basin, Ezra shrugged. ‘Who will believe her?’ he asked when he emerged and dried his face on the towel that Godfrey handed to him. ‘Even so, keep an eye on her maid, and everyone else below stairs for that matter. If the would-be assassin is here, he must have a servant with him. Keep your ears and eyes open.’
‘Don’t I always?’ Godfrey replied, holding out a clean shirt which Ezra slipped over his head. Godfrey was a decade older that Ezra and had been in his service since before Ezra’s life had changed forever. Ezra trusted him absolutely and knew that he would take Ezra’s secrets to the grave if it came to it.
‘I’ve already started down that route,’ he said. ‘Had to find a way to occupy the time while I waited for you to grace us with your regal presence.’
Ezra grunted as he buttoned his patterned silk waistcoat, adjusted the fall of his neckcloth and absently pulled a brush through his tangled hair. ‘Even so, I have a feeling that something will happen this week. Something that will affect the rest of my life—always assuming I live beyond this week, that is.’
‘Don’t worry, your grace. Only the good die young.’
‘Anyway, I shall keep a weather eye on the impertinent Miss Benton…’
Godfrey chuckled. ‘I am perfectly sure you will.’
‘I owe it to her father to keep her in my sights. She is more attractive than she realises. Benton had private means and if she has been left well provided for…well, I don’t suppose she will be astute enough to recognise the fortune hunters for what they are when they start gathering at her door.’
‘Sure you’ve got your priorities right?’ Godfrey asked, holding out Ezra’s coat so that he could slip his arms into it.
‘Not at all,’ he said cheerfully, turning towards the door that Godfrey opened for him. ‘Wish me luck. I have a feeling I am going to need it.’
Ezra jogged down the stairs, his disinclination to play a leading role in this cattle market tempered by the presence of the highly diverting and slightly worrying Miss Benton, whose welfare he had taken it upon himself to safeguard. For all her lively intelligence, she was still an innocent, with no mother to guide her. He owed her protection to her late father, a man whom he had respected enormously, not least because he had saved Ezra’s life.
Ezra thanked Lady Fletcher’s butler, who had clearly stationed himself at the foot of the stairs to await his arrival, when he thrust the doors to the drawing room open and announced him. All conversations ceased and every head turned in his direction. Ezra suppressed the urge to turn tail and run as he silently cursed his brothers for leaving him in a position he had never aspired to.
‘Your grace.’ Lady Fletcher, small and rotund, stepped forward and curtsied. ‘How good of you to join us.’
‘Lady Fletcher. Thank you for inviting me. I apologise for keeping you waiting. I was unavoidably detained.’ He cast a quick look around the room, ready to bestow a collusive glance upon the engaging Miss Benton, but she was nowhere to be seen. ‘You have not changed a bit since I last had the pleasure of your company.’
‘Ah, you flatterer.’ The lady flapped a hand, clearly pleased with the compliment. ‘Anyway, you are here now and I am sorry that the journey inconvenienced you. Now, who are you acquainted with?’
Without waiting for a response, Lady Fletcher led him towards a young woman, a very pretty young woman whom, it transpired, was her elder daughter. She curtsied and blushed, exuding confidence in her ability to charm him. Ezra knew nothing to her detriment, but didn’t feel so much as a spark of interest. He said and did all the right things, not giving any outward clue as to the nature of his thoughts, and was pleased to be introduced to the younger daughter.
‘And then there is my…oh, where is she?’
A flash of turquoise had the desired effect and Lady Fletcher was now assured of Ezra’s complete attention when a slightly flushed Miss Benton joined her aunt.
‘Ah, here she is. Your hair, child!’ Lady Fletcher looked dismayed at a sight Ezra found mesmerising. The urge to run a strand of the hair in question through his fingers had not, it seemed, dissipated. ‘Your grace, may I present my niece, Miss Clio Benton?’
‘You may indeed.’ Ezra executed an elegant bow in response to Miss Benton’s demure curtsey. Demure if one discounted the impudent smile that somehow managed to slip past her guard. ‘It is a pleasure, Miss Benton,’ he said, taking her hand and raising her from that curtsey. ‘Do you reside here?’
‘I do.’
‘And a very welcome addition to our little family dear Clio is proving to be,’ Lady Fletcher said. ‘But now, girls, you must excuse us. There are others whom the duke must meet.’
‘Until later, ladies,’ Ezra said, embracing all three with his words. But his gaze lingered upon Clio.
‘Ah, there you are.’ Ezra’s mother leaned forward and proffered her cheek, which Ezra dutifully kissed. ‘We were beginning to wonder what had become of you.’
‘I am here now.’ Ezra nodded at Conway, his cousin and his mother’s constant companion. ‘Evening, Silas,’ he said affably.
‘We were about to send out a search party,’ Silas replied, managing to imbue his words with a wealth of disapproval. ‘Your poor mama was beside herself with worry and I myself was all of a fluster.’ He fanned his face with his ever-present handkerchief to emphasise his point.
‘Overreaching your authority again, Silas?’ Ezra raised a provocative brow. He didn’t care for the fussy little man, but saw no harm in him. He drew the line, however, when he voiced criticisms. If Ezra had to be the duke, he would fulfil that situation in his own fashion. ‘If my conduct threatens your health, perhaps you should consider returning to your own home and remaining there in seclusion. It doesn’t do to take risks.’
‘Good heavens, no! I hope I am not that selfish. Your dear mama needs me. She cannot possibly manage without me.’
Ezra cast a look in his mother’s direction, anticipating a denial that was not forthcoming. He wondered how she could tolerate so much flummery, even though a part of him understood why s
he found it welcome. Ezra’s father had been cold and distant with his wife, a lady whom he had married purely for her fortune. He then left her to her own devices in the country, visiting occasionally to fulfil his marital duty, simultaneously carrying on with a string of not particularly discreet affairs. Silas poured all the attention upon her that she could possibly require in return for a roof over his head and a comfortable living. Every so often though, Ezra felt obliged to remind the fussy little man that he only lived so well at Ezra’s pleasure.
His mother was still a handsome woman, but she had never had much time for her sons, preferring to immerse herself in her own affairs. She continued to remain distant with Ezra, but not because she mourned the loss of her two older sons. She had been equally indifferent towards them. Ezra sometimes thought that the disappointments had been too much for her and that she had given up on life. However, she had pushed Ezra to attend this party and hoped he would have chosen a wife by the end of it. He glanced across the room at Lady Beth, aware that she was his mother’s choice, and felt nothing more than indifference tinged with boredom. He also knew that the moment he did take a wife, his mother would consider her duty done and retire to the dower house to pursue her own life.
And possibly be a little less circumspect about her lover.
Ezra suppressed a chuckle. He wasn’t supposed to know about her ongoing affair with Lord Brennan, a man only a decade older than Ezra, but Ezra had his spies and made it his business to know about everything that happened in his family. That way, there was an outside possibility that he would remain alive. His mother, if she had bothered to confide in him, would have discovered that she had her son’s blessing. He would not, however, pay Brennan’s debts, which he happened to know were substantial, and the debts in question made him wonder if that was why he had attached himself to an older, well-connected woman. Even so, everyone deserved a chance for happiness, including his emotionally barren mother. He did wonder though where it would leave the insufferable Silas if they were to put their affair on an official footing.
Fit for a Duke: Dangerous Dukes Page 4