by Cecilia Gray
A laugh slipped from Bridget’s lips.
Benjamin cocked his head, certain he’d misinterpreted the sound.
But there was another laugh and a giggle. “I’m sorry,” she gasped, covering her mouth as laughter rocked her body.
“You should be.”
“I just … This is just like something I read in a novel and I was just realizing how similar it was. Even what you were saying, and I doubt you’ve read this book. Or have you?”
“I assume I haven’t as I don’t know to what book you are referring.” He was dangerously close to shaking her.
“Well, you’ve done an amazing impression.”
“Have you listened to a word I’ve said?” he thundered.
Bridget reared back against the squabs and blinked at him slowly. “Yes, of course I have. You care for me.”
“I … I …” He let out an exasperated sigh. “I worry for you.”
“Because you care.”
“Don’t romanticize this.”
“But it is romantic. Oh, not in a love sense,” she assured him, having probably caught his expression of horror. “But in an adventurous sense. I’ve read of so many adventures and to finally live one!”
“Wait until you’ve been on the battlefield. Then you will have had enough of adventure.”
She stilled across from him, her expression one of concern and pity. He wished he could take back his words. He hadn’t even realized the thought had been haunting him until this very moment.
“Did many of your friends die?”
“Enough to be too many,” he said. “I just give thanks that Graham and my close friends returned. And even in feeling lucky, there is sadness.”
“But I read of Wellington and that the battle was won in under an hour and was the greatest example of military strategy to this day.”
“Reading about something and living it are different. Our casualties could have been far greater, and Wellington was beyond compare, but that is little comfort to the more than three thousand soldiers who lost their lives.”
She reached across the carriage and rested her hand on his knee.
It was impetuous and impulsive, and he recognized that it was not designed to tease but to comfort. It was probably something she would have done to a sister. Still, she was not sisterly. Not to him.
In fact, with his mind fogged from drink, he was beginning to look at her in a most unsisterly manner. Before he could think any further on it, he called to the coachman to stop the carriage. She sat back as the vehicle jerked to a stop. She eyed him questioningly.
“I trust you will actually return home,” he said. She nodded, her gaze wary. He supposed his abrupt change in behavior could have been a concern, so he gave her a small smile. “Have you had enough excitement for one night?”
“Is there such a thing?” She grinned back.
He should scold her again but found he didn’t have the heart for it tonight. “Remember,” he said, “not a word to a single soul.” The coachman had rounded to open the door and Benjamin began to descend.
“Wait,” she said.
He turned toward her, strangely intrigued to hear what she would say.
“Tell me plainly. Did you find it?” she asked.
His blood leaped beneath his skin. He could see the hope in her eyes that she still might discover it. He should lie and tell her that he had. He should lie to dissuade her. She was a woman of impulse, after all. Surely she would find something else to capture her interest. It would be so easy to tell her he had found the journal and had burned it—or he could leave out that last part. Regardless, it was lost to her. Then that optimism, that hope, that adventurous glint would give way to something more sensible.
But when he opened his mouth, instead he said, “No.” He hopped down into the darkness and cold and walked home.
Lord B.,
Having been given an appropriate amount of time to consider our previous circumstances, I realize that while my ideals and principles were in the right, my execution and actions had too much potential to have gone wrong, particularly in regard to my loved ones.
I thank you for your discretion.
B.B.
Miss B.,
I am certain I have no idea what you are talking about, as we have not been so fortunate as to see each other since your sister’s wedding.
B.A.
Chapter Three
Inaugural Belle birthday crush
July 2, 1817
Woodbury, England
It had been more than four months since the wedding, and Bridget had wondered whether she would arrive at Woodbury for the inaugural Belle birthday fete to find Sera changed after the honeymoon. Marriage was an odd thing. Bridget had two friends who, upon marrying, had decided that Bridget’s ways were now childish, her opinions now churlish. A part of her wondered—and dreaded—whether Sera might be the same.
Instead, Sera seemed very much the girl she had always been. She greeted them with an embrace so enthusiastic that it shook Bridget’s plait and the flowers which adorned it free from the secured spot on her head. There were no coy remarks of the kind her married friends often made, as if they had read a book from which she was banned. There were no judging glances, either. Rather, Sera went from room to room trying to gather guests and encourage games they hadn’t played since they were children.
But as much as Bridget loved being with her sisters, she had no time for games. She had a journal to find.
Sera grabbed her wrist and tugged her toward the ballroom where a small group, including the rest of her sisters, had assembled to play Keep the Crown with the children.
Bridget pulled back and offered an apologetic smile. “I’ve had too much punch,” she lied, just as a novel heroine might do if she needed to avoid a scene. Bridget didn’t think she had any natural talent for acting, but she did clutch her stomach. She added a groan for good measure.
“Shall I fetch the Woodbury physician?” Sera asked. “He’s in attendance. I believe he is participating in the sack races outside.”
Drat. It was just like Sera to be so considerate and accommodating.
“Please don’t trouble him. I’m sure it’s nothing that can’t be cured with a few moments alone lying down.” Bridget straightened. Her keeled-over posture might have been too much of a charade.
Sera laid a cool hand against Bridget’s cheek. Her sister was the perfect picture of concern with her hair an almost-white halo over the wide-set gray eyes that dominated her face. Guilt pricked at Bridget. It had seemed a harmless enough tale, but now she could see Sera would spend the rest of their birthday party worrying over her instead of enjoying the festivities.
“I feel better already,” Bridget promised. “But I don’t want to turn my stomach further.” It took a considerable amount of effort not to break down and confess all under Sera’s gaze. Of all her sisters, Sera was the only one to have that particular effect on her, and she had it on all of them.
Many rumors of Sera’s saintliness floated about London. They had returned from her honeymoon to discover London had invented a tale of Sera eliciting a confession from the Pope himself—truly a miracle, since they had not crossed paths with him in their travels.
Fortunately, Sera seemed to take Bridget at her word. “Please send for me immediately if your condition changes.”
“Of course I will.” Bridget turned and made a grand display of going to her room.
Only, of course, Bridget was not going to her room. Nor was she going to any of the libraries. She realized now that her search for the book in a library was predicated on Mr. Christian Hughes’s assertion that it was the most likely place for Benjamin to have returned it after the wedding. However, it was far more likely that, given his state of drunkenness, he would not have gone to the trouble of reshelving it.
Bridget had been shaken by this realization only a week before, while reading a delightful account of one young man’s drunken night in Vienna in a small volume of sh
ort stories she’d lifted from the shelves of a rather pompous count. Now that she was intimately more familiar with the ways of drunken men, Bridget knew there was small likelihood that Benjamin had remained cogent or caring enough to return the book. He was more likely to have taken himself to his room and passed out.
She would certainly keep such a volume of salacious importance by her bedside. However, the fact that Benjamin had yet to discover the book meant it had probably fallen out of sight, maybe behind a dresser or headboard.
If she wanted the book, she was going to have to go after it.
Her hand trailed along the balustrade as she crept up the stairs. Laughter from the ballroom echoed off the walls. The day was warm and the windows were open, curtains pulled back. She could hear the chatter from outside, the low hum of conversation.
A familiar beat of anxiety ran beneath her skin and set her hair standing on end. She loved the sensation, loved how alive and engaged she felt.
She was not unaccustomed to the tumbling in her stomach and the shortness of breath—symptoms that her sisters may have deemed undesirable. No, she sought them out. Yet she couldn’t seem to mimic the height of sensation she’d experienced while searching for the book that first day or during the night at the gambling hell.
Bridget reached the landing of the second floor of the west wing. Benjamin had once remarked that he enjoyed a view of the woods, so she concluded that his bedchamber must’ve been at the far end of the wing. The woods were not visible from any of the other rooms.
Bridget approached the far door and set her hand on the doorknob. Trepidation swept up her spine. She had never been in a man’s private rooms before, save her father’s. She had read of men’s rooms and their masculine furniture, but she had never really stopped to consider what it meant if she went in search of the book. Now she would find herself in a man’s bedchamber for the first time. With a rapidly beating heart, she let herself in and closed the door behind her with a click.
Benjamin’s room was simpler than she’d imagined. It had a large but plain bed and simple furniture, a desk by the window overlooking the woods, a wardrobe in the corner, and a chest of drawers. There was not a molding in sight, in contrast to the rest of Woodbury, which boasted gilt-framed paintings and marble statuary around every corner.
She looked around again. There was no bookshelf. In fact, his bedside table stood empty—unlike hers, which always held a pile of books and reading candle. She walked toward the bed, the air heady with the faintest scent of his cologne. She opened the drawer and found several missives inside—likely private—so she left them. The bed itself was neatly made.
Thrusting her hands beneath the headboard, she hoped to find purchase, but there was none. She smoothed her hands over the sheets.
Here he was at his most vulnerable. An image struck her—his face, in bed, and then herself, in bed. She stepped back and rested her hands against her stomach as it knotted at the thought. Then the click of the door sent her reeling back.
Benjamin did not even seem surprised to find her in his room. His dark gaze met hers as he closed the door behind him and folded his arms across his chest. “I suppose,” he said in a droll tone, “I should be happy you are suitably attired in feminine garb, at least.”
Her voice failed her. Her fingers rested at the base of her throat. She was in a private room with a man. This was not the first time, she realized, but this was his bedchamber, which was so very different from a random one, though both were likely to send her straight to damnation. Or worse, ruin.
“You are perhaps realizing the error in your judgment.” A satisfied smile crossed his face.
Perhaps it was that smug look, perhaps that sense of superiority, but confidence crept up her spine. She dropped her hands and tilted up her chin. “My only error,” she said, trying to control the tremor in her voice, “is that I did not search here sooner for the book.”
He stilled, and she saw him considering the possibility. His eyes darted to the drawers and beneath the bed, places she may have missed. “And have you found it?”
She sighed and crossed her arms over her chest. “May we speak plainly, Lord Benjamin? You know I will stop at nothing until I find that book, even if you do manage to retrieve it first. If you have any doubts about my tenacity, you may speak with my father. Let us come to a compromise: whoever finds it first will allow me a single glance inside. Then, regardless of who finds it, I will allow you to obscure the names of those you seek to protect.”
He studied her silently, and she could see warring emotions flicker across his face. His expression was a study in withheld emotions, really. Most might say he was stone-faced, that he betrayed nothing. She would have said the same a few years ago, but now she could recognize his tics for what they were.
His nostrils did not flare, his jaw did not clench, his brow did not crinkle any further, as if that were possible anyway. No, it was all subtlety and shade, the flicker of his eyelashes, the lines of his mouth. She swore she could detect his breath becoming shallow.
“I’m afraid, Miss Bridget, that I’ve been taught never to negotiate with the enemy.”
“Is that how you see me?” she asked.
“A worthy foe, at least.”
Her cheeks flushed, but before she could retort, a loud knock sounded on the door. They both spun and backed away, as if a monster might come through.
“Benjamin!” Graham yelled from the hall. “What happened to the decency of a soldier in war? You left me to the Belles in the midst of Keep the Crown while seeking refuge for yourself!” Graham laughed from the other side of the door and banged again. “Deserter! Traitor! I will give you one more moment to arm yourself, and then I am coming in and exacting my retribution.”
Benjamin crossed the room with lighting speed. His eyes locked on hers. Her heart hitched. What was he doing? He reached for her, and her knees buckled. Seemingly without a care for propriety, his palms slid over her hips and he ushered her to the bed. Lightning bolts shot through her body. He couldn’t mean to…not with Graham… Then with a not-so-gentle shove, he pushed her down. Finally grasping his meaning despite the fog of desire blouding her judgment, she rolled beneath the frame, facedown, and held her breath as the door was flung open.
She glanced around quickly and found the space utterly devoid of reading material. The journal remained undiscovered.
The floor had not yet been swept, and dust clung to her hair and tickled her nose. She held her breath lest she sneeze. Then she realized she would need to gasp if she did not take in oxygen.
If she were caught … The ruination! If Graham could not be discreet, or if a passing maid were also to see them … How stupid she was! The heroines in her novels had been likewise embroiled, but while their lives only existed within the pages of a book, this was her real life, set to unravel. She closed her eyes, as if it might make her more invisible, and with no other choice, simply listened.
“Clever thinking, Benjamin,” Graham said as his boots echoed across the floor. “The only way to win Keep the Crown with the Belles is to play from the privacy of your bedchamber.”
“Did you want something?”
“Besides your good-humored company?”
“Out, then.”
“Father has bade me to bring you with me,” Graham said. “Up here you are of no mercenary use, you realize. He insists especially since you have failed to procure a bride this Season as you promised.”
“That’s enough.”
“Damn, what’s got in your tea?”
Procure a bride? Bridget bristled at the thought of Benjamin being married. There wasn’t a romantic bone in his body. He’d probably propose by post or proxy. She imagined a messenger delivering a note: Shall we marry? The poor girl would be forced to a life in which she’d never understand his feelings, for how could she read his face? It had taken Bridget considerable study. But of course his wife would likely know the firm and confident way he was able to seize a woman, to drag her
to bed, to….. She blushed at the images slipping through her imagination. The floor, previously cool, seemed to heat with her thoughts.
The bed creaked and bounced—Graham must have sat upon it! His weight pushed the mattress against her back. Bridget put her face to the floor, trying not to consider the filth caking her cheeks, to say nothing of her festive dress.
“Get off the bed,” Benjamin growled.
“Then shall we return to the game in progress?”
“You may go wherever you please. I intend to stay here.”
Another creak and the pressure decreased. “Haven’t you heard? This is a birthday celebration for our dear sisters. Not that your thoughts are all that brotherly, are they? Damn, there’s no need to push! Benjamin, what’s got into—”
The door slammed shut.
Bridget heard the click of a lock and Graham pounding against the door from the corridor. She peeked out from beneath the bed and eased her way out, dusting off her skirts. She coughed and wiped at her face.
Benjamin gave her a threatening look as he leaned against the door, keeping it closed with his weight as if the lock might give way.
“Oh, very well,” Graham grumbled from the other side. “Be humorless. But don’t blame me when Tom yells at you for not joining the festivities. Father, too. Those bloody Belles make them near human, you know.”
“Go away,” Benjamin said through the door.
Bridget remained quiet until Graham’s footsteps had faded. Benjamin slumped down, as though the last few moments had worn him out.
“So you are looking for a bride,” she said. “I suppose I did read of your making the rounds during the Season.”
He eyed her warily from the door. “Why look for a bride when you seem to be conspiring to see us married through mutual ruin?”
She smiled. “That would be an unfortunate byproduct.”
“More than unfortunate,” he said.
She felt a twinge at his ready agreement, though she was not sure why. Perhaps it was her vanity at wanting to be wanted for something she had no intention of giving. “Never fear, I have no desire to marry you,” she said, although he had not asked for the clarification. She spied a flicker of something in those otherwise carefully guarded eyes. She rushed on, feeling a need to explain herself. “I do not wish to see myself married in any manner that does not deserve its own book.”