He tried to remind himself that he was a gentleman, and so should behave like a gentleman. It would be foolish to attempt to seduce someone who was injured and needed his help in her hour of need, not his lechery, but it was damned difficult given that the memory of her lush curves pressed tightly against him hovered in the recesses of his mind and refused to be ignored.
“I cannot remember seeing anything like this before either outside or in the conservatory. I am sure that I would have remembered,” she murmured.
She studied the single slender stalk that barely held on to several heavy flowers, all of which were the same cream colour, which darkened to a golden yellow the closer it got to the stalk. Its heady scent reminded her of honeysuckle mixed with chocolate, tainted by the cloying odour of Mr Tinder’s sweet shop. Individually, they were wonderful scents she usually enjoyed. Combined, they were sickening enough to make her stomach churn alarmingly.
When he placed his cup back into its saucer, and it rattled alarmingly, she studied the fine trembling in his hand. Immediately, a wave of guilt swept through her at her lack of manners.
“You must be frozen. You have been outside in the pouring rain and are soaked through.” She assessed his height. “Would you like to change into something dry so you can get warm? You are about my uncle’s build, I am sure that there is something in his wardrobe that will fit.”
Ben contemplated the wisdom of that for a moment. His first instinct was to say no, but then really wanted to know a bit more about the plant; and her. Now that he was in her house, he found that he wanted to stay with her for as long as possible.
“I think that would be a wise idea, if you don’t mind,” he replied ruefully. “Before I get your floor too wet.” He studied the water that dripped steadily from the hem of his trousers and threw her an apologetic smile.
She smiled at him, relieved that he was going to allow her to at least try to make amends for her lapse of manners. “If you go to the top of the stairs, the bedroom immediately to the left was my uncle’s. I haven’t touched any of his belongings yet, so you should find plenty there that should fit you.”
“Thank you,” he murmured gently and nodded to the tea tray. “Will you be alright to pour another cup while I go and change?”
Beatrice nodded and watched him go. With nobody to talk to, and nothing else to do, Beatrice placed her saucer onto the table beside her and picked up the packaging paper again. She studied the label but it really was completely illegible, and there was no sender address. Curiously, there were no stamps either, which pointed to the fact that it had been hand delivered and not posted. Once again, she thought of the strange thud she had heard in the hallway and wondered if someone had attempted to knock on the door. If so, why hadn’t they knocked again when there was no answer?
“What is it?”
Beatrice jumped and turned to study him, and felt a surge of awareness at the sight of him in the doorway. He had borrowed one of her uncle’s white shirts and had folded the sleeves back to reveal the corded muscles of his forearms. Her stomach fluttered and she studied the thick patch of chest hair hidden beneath the pristine cotton which lay open at the neck. The rather casual look was emphasised by dark brown trousers, which made him look more like a workman than an urbane gentleman, but even that seemed to emphasise his rugged handsomeness.
She watched him walk toward her but it was only when he took a seat beside her that she realised he still waited for her to reply.
“I was just thinking that it is rather curious that someone would travel all the way out here to deliver something like this and not even leave a note.” She looked at him. “I don’t know how to look after it,” she declared and wafted her arms around the room for emphasis. “I mean, does it like sunlight, or does it prefer to be somewhere cold? Is it a tropical plant, do you think?”
“Did your uncle work on his botany projects here?”
“Well, yes. The conservatory is stuffed full of things he worked on. Why?” Beatrice frowned at him.
“Did he work on his plants in the study?”
She shook her head. “No, he only did his paperwork in there. He had a conservatory out the back where he spent time with his plants when he wasn’t in his study.”
Ben drank his tea for a moment. He wanted to kiss her and see if her lips really were as soft as they looked, and knew that if he remained on the sofa with her much longer, that was exactly what he was going to do. He sighed and forced his attention back to the plant.
“Let me go out to the conservatory and see if there is anything like that plant in there. If there is, we know that this one you have is something that your uncle may have been working on. It may have been returned to him by someone who doesn’t realise he is dead.”
Beatrice nodded and mentally kicked herself for not having thought about that herself. She opened her mouth to speak but, to her consternation, he was already on his way to the door.
“Ben?” It felt terribly familiar to use his first name, especially given their relatively new acquaintance, but he didn’t appear to have any objection to her familiarity. “Would you mind putting this into uncle’s study, please? It is the room next door.” She put a delicate hand to her nose and tried hard not to sniff. “I can’t take any more of that odour.”
Ben nodded and happily complied. If he was honest, the stench had started to grate on his senses too. He just wished that there was something else he could waft around to smother the smell.
Holding the plant carefully away from him, he walked casually into the study and stared in horror at the sight that greeted him. He quickly put the plant onto the floor by his feet and hurried back to the sitting room.
“Beatrice?”
She eyed the cold fury on his face and felt her stomach drop to her toes. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Once again, her thoughts turned toward the strange noise she had heard earlier, and knew deep inside, that she wasn’t going to like what he was about to tell her.
“I am afraid that there appears to have been a break in.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Beatrice stared at him in horror and started to struggle to her feet. “What? Is it the study?”
“Come on,” Ben murmured gently as he swept her off her feet.
“All you seem to have done this afternoon is carry me,” she grumbled quietly but didn’t ask him to put her down. She rather enjoyed the way he seemed inclined to want to carry her everywhere.
Ben merely threw her a regretful look. Seconds later he placed her on her feet just inside the doorway of the study and stood back to allow her to see the chaos. A part of him didn’t want her to look at the mess that had been made of the room, but she needed to witness the destruction for herself before he went to fetch the constable.
“If you want to take a look around and try to identify if anything might be missing, I will take a look at this window. I cannot remember seeing any sign of damage on the back door, but whoever did this may have gotten in through one of the other downstairs windows,” Ben muttered as he carefully picked his way across the room to study the window frame.
Beatrice glanced around the room in confusion. “Ben, what makes you think this place has been broken into?”
Ben turned to stare at her in consternation and waved toward the papers and books strewn practically everywhere.
“I am afraid that it usually looks like this,” she murmured ruefully when she realised the misunderstanding. “To the untrained eye, this is nothing more than a wild mass of confusion that should be swept up and thrown away.” She studied the things her uncle had spent a lifetime collecting and sighed. “To my uncle, everything had a place and he knew exactly where that place was. Everything here meant something to him.”
It just doesn’t mean anything to me, she thought regretfully, although didn’t say as much to Ben.
When a bolt of lightning lit the sky, she looked out of the window and shivered at the sight of the darkness of the sky. The storm seem
ed to be an omen for troubled times ahead, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that the near-miss with the carriage was just the start of a whole host of troubles that were only just beginning. She quickly turned her thoughts away from her incident in the lane and looked back at Ben. For some reason, just looking at him seemed to reassure her that everything would be alright. She was so very glad he was there.
“God, I see now why you rarely ventured in here when your uncle was alive. With as many papers as this, it is inevitable that you will dislodge something.” He took a moment to reposition a pile of books that teetered warningly on the edge of the desk, and shook his head in disbelief.
“I know that at some point I need to go through it all. Unfortunately, these piles don’t just contain the papers my uncle needed for his botany work. The house paperwork is in here somewhere too.” She glanced at him. “You know, bills, details of the people we have accounts with, that kind of thing. I have no idea if there are any outstanding bills I need to settle, or other papers that I need to deal with. I must go through everything at some point but I just haven’t known where to start.”
Ben studied the vast array of books, pamphlets and paraphernalia that lay practically everywhere and didn’t envy her the task that lay ahead. He now knew just how much of an arduous task she had before her just trying to find the books that were relevant to the mysterious plant. The thought that the smooth running of the house depended on contents that were hidden in this chaos made him shudder.
Although he tried hard not to take a deep breath, the desperate need to breathe was just too much to ignore, and he sucked in a deep breath which unfortunately included a lungful of the awful aroma of the plant. His nose immediately began to twitch as the pungent smell invaded his senses and he had to struggle not to nudge the wretched thing a bit further under the desk.
“We can leave it here for the time being,” he growled when he heard Beatrice sniff. “Meantime, let’s choose a few of these books to look through to see if we can find what this plant is?”
“Pardon?”
Ben studied her. She looked vague, as though her mind was miles way. However, he rather suspected that she wasn’t thinking about the past, or her dearly departed uncle. She had started to wonder how she was going to tackle the mess before them. He couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for her, and instinctively placed a comforting hand on her arm in an attempt to ease her worries.
“I am sorry, Beatrice. I didn’t realise that this was the way your uncle worked. I didn’t mean to upset you in any way.” He felt a cad now for having scared her into thinking the house had been broken into.
“You haven’t upset me,” she assured him. “I just think that I need to leave tidying this place up for a while, that’s all,” she sighed. “Look on the bright side, if anyone does break in they are likely to give this room a miss because it looks like it has already been rifled through.”
“I quite agree,” he conceded. “Fair enough. There is no rush to sorting it, is there? I mean, if there are any outstanding bills, or paperwork that requires your attention, people will contact you. You can quite legitimately explain about your uncle’s death. I am sure they will understand.”
She nodded and was, for a moment, too choked to say anything else. It wasn’t that she had been particularly close to her uncle, it was just that he was her last surviving relative – well, who she knew about at any rate. To think that she was now all alone in the world was a little daunting.
“Now, about those books?” Ben prompted when she didn’t seem inclined to focus on the task at hand.
“What about them?” She looked blankly around the room at the heavily laden shelves.
“Which ones do you want me to pick out to take into the sitting room?”
She opened her mouth to speak only for movement by the window to snare her attention. Her eyes widened and a scream escaped her before she had even finished lifting her hand to point at the dark silhouette that had been briefly outlined by a jagged flash of lightning.
“What the hell?” Ben demanded.
“A m-man,” she stammered. “There was a man staring into the house. From over there,” she pointed again. “Did you see him? Ben, did you see him?”
Ben stared at the window but couldn’t see anything other than the shadowy outline of the garden and his own reflection. It was too dark outside to see much of anything except shadows. To protect them from prying eyes, he drew the shutters closed and slid the curtains across them, which did little to help light the room. However, at least it drew her attention back to him.
Given that everything was now pitch-black, it was a miracle that he made it to the door without falling flat on his face but he eventually managed to stand before her. When she turned her gaze up to his, the terror that lingered in the depths of those beautiful blue orbs haunted him.
“Let me go and see if someone is out there,” he murmured. “Stay here and, if you can, find a candle or two to light. Try to stay off that foot as much as you can though.”
He didn’t wait to see if she was going to follow instructions but, if she didn’t, she would just remain in the dark.
He only went outside to take a look around to appease her, and wasn’t altogether surprised when he found nothing untoward. The outhouse, conservatory and stable were locked up tight and undisturbed. There was no sign of anyone in the gardens at either the front, or the back of the house. He wondered if she was just a little spooked by her ordeal this afternoon and had in fact seen nothing more than her reflection, but had no intention of suggesting it to her.
When a cold gust of wind blew around him and made him shiver, he realised that he was now, for the second time that afternoon, soaked to the skin. With one last look around, he quickly made his way into the house and locked the door behind him.
While he had been gone Beatrice had indeed lit several candles, and bathed the sitting room in a warm glow that welcomed him in. Although it was still mid-afternoon and the middle of summer, the ferocity of the storm had obliterated all trace of sunshine to the point that it was nearly dark outside. He suddenly didn’t relish anyone being caught in such weather, and considered that anyone who was stupid enough to lurk outside deserved to get wet, or struck by lightning. One thing was for certain; it wasn’t going to be him.
“Anything?” She asked hopefully as he hurried into the sitting room and stood before the fire to get warm, and dry off again.
He knew from the hint of a quiver in her voice that her fear still lingered. One look into her wide, frightened eyes was enough to clinch it for him, and he held his arms out to her.
“Come here,” he murmured as he walked toward her.
To his relief, she didn’t hesitate to stand up, and he wasted no time in drawing her into his arms. Thankfully she settled against him with a deep sigh. He then did something he had really wanted to do from the first moment he had seen her earlier that morning, and placed a tender, non-threatening kiss on the top of her head.
“It’s alright. Everything is fine. Whoever it was you saw, they are outside and we are in here where it is warm and dry. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t hear anyone knock on either the front or the back door. Whoever it was cannot be all that bothered about getting wet, or have too much of a need to see you.”
“Do you think it was the person who delivered the plant?” She whispered but didn’t even want to lift her head off his chest to look up at him. Beneath the wonderfully warm material of his shirt, she could feel the rhythmic thud of his heart and the sound had started to soothe her fears.
“I don’t know, darling. Whoever delivered it, when and why, certainly didn’t seem all that bothered whether you received it or not, or else why didn’t they speak to you directly, and hand it over to you personally? Why just leave it on the doorstep? Right now, everywhere is locked tight and the house is secure. As long as I haven’t just locked Mrs Partridge out of the house -” He leaned back to smile down at her. “I am sure that I would be i
n her bad books if I did.”
Beatrice shook her head and smiled at him as the last of her fears started to fade. “She would be hammering on the door by now. Besides, she has a key to the front door and can let herself in. It is only bolted at night before everyone goes off to bed.”
“Maud lives here now, I take it?”
“She has her own quarters at the back of the house, yes.”
He was relieved that Beatrice didn’t live in Brantley Manor all by herself. At least Matthew had done something decent to look after his young charge, even if he hadn’t included her in his life much from the sound of it.
“Right, now, about those books.” He hated to release her, but his body had already started to respond to her nearness. If he didn’t put some distance between them, she would soon be left in no doubt as to just how attracted to her he really was. “I will go and pick a random selection of books and we can start with those while we have a fresh pot of tea.” He leaned back to look at her and lifted his brows. “I hope you don’t mind if I stay until the storm passes?”
“I hope you do stay until the storm passes,” she replied with a smile. “It is silly for you to head out there if you don’t need to. You are more than welcome here.”
“Thank you. Now, you wait here. I will put some more water on to boil; then pick out some books at random. If we start with the ones on Matthew’s desk, they may have something in them that relates to his recent projects and the plant may be in one of them.”
He didn’t wait for her to reply and only stopped long enough to pick up one of the candles before he hurried out of the room.
When he had gone, Beatrice sat on the sofa and realised that the curtains to the window behind her were open. However, she daren’t turn around and look to see if anyone was there.
She was positive that it was a man she had seen through the window in the study. While everything within her screamed at her to forget it and think about something more mundane, she forced herself to recall as much detail as possible about what she had seen. What she could remember quite clearly was that the figure had been about average height, and of a relatively slim build. It couldn’t possibly have been Maud because she would have let herself in through the front door if the back was locked. Nor was it likely to be any of their neighbours given that Mr Portland was a farmer and rather rotund, and Mrs Dexter rarely left the house. There was really nobody of her acquaintance who would be likely to linger around the gardens of her house, especially in the middle of a thunderstorm.
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