by Bliss Bennet
At the top of the staircase, Benedict opened a door and swung his arm, inviting Dulcie to precede him. Ah, yes. Here were other enticing beauties to admire. The last rays of the setting sun slanted through the windows of the long gallery, glinting off the matching gilt frames which embraced each painting displayed on its walls. Not as large a collection as Beaumont’s, or Lord Leicester’s, and not as fine as Adler’s, by any means. Few family picture galleries, designed primarily to preserve family history rather than to celebrate the finest works of art, could boast as much. Yet, scattered between the ancestral portraits of often indifferent production, Dulcie spied more than a few works even he would not scorn to praise.
He stood in the middle of the room, letting the heady mixture of contentment and joy that always came to him in the midst of pictures of the first excellence rise within him. Unlike the more unruly passions, one never need hide one’s love for truly fine works of art.
“Is that a Velásquez, wedged in between those horrible portraits of your sixteenth-century forebears? And a Teniers, too? And just look at the chiaroscuro in this nativity at night—I don’t recognize the artist, but it is breathtaking. How the babe glows!”
Dulcie flitted about the room, drinking in all its pleasures with an appetite as great as Lord Saybrook’s for his after-dinner port.
“Why did you never tell me your home held such treasures?” he demanded after twice making circuit of the entire gallery. But his purported guide made no answer. No, Benedict stood silent, gaze fixed on the painting that held pride of place above the gallery’s fireplace. Lawrence’s painting of his mother.
“It is very fine,” Dulcie offered as he stepped to Benedict’s side. “I’ve always admired the flowing elegance of his female portraits.”
“Yes, the public creature of fashion and society is there, in her pose and dress. Yet I see the more private sensibilities of her heart, too, in the way he has rendered her face.”
“Lawrence captures the brilliancy of expressions in his sitters as no artist before him,” Dulcie offered. Aesthetic commentary was far safer than any more personal comment, surely.
“It helps me remember her gentleness, her deep well of composure,” Benedict replied, too caught in his own feelings to respond to Dulcie’s attempt to shift the conversation onto more impersonal grounds. “But at the same time, he’s captured her dreaminess. A propensity for reverie and contemplation that only a few ever really saw in her.”
One that Dulcie saw in Benedict. Was that what attracted him? That almost otherworldly air of abstraction he often fell into, as if he could see things, beautiful, wondrous things, far beyond the ken of ordinary man?
“The line has bred true in temperament, if not in coloring,” he said, his eyes flitting between the tight blond curls and curving brows of the canvas and the dark, tousled locks and straight slashing eyebrows of the man beside him.
Benedict smiled. “People were always surprised by that. Theo and Sibilla, and even Kit to an extent, all looked far more like her than I. Yet she and I shared something none of the others did.”
“A private, yet deep devotion to the people you value.”
Wherever had that thought come from? And how had it escaped his lips?
Benedict seemed to find the comment as surprising as Dulcie did, and far from welcome. He took a step back from the painting and frowned, his dark eyes narrowing as they turned to Dulcie.
“Although I tend to be far more direct than my gentle mother could ever bring herself to be. And so I will ask you, Lord Dulcie: why have you come here?”
Ah, a direct challenge. But if Benedict chose directness, Dulcie need not follow. “Why, just as I told your brother. I wished to admire this lovely portrait.”
Benedict crossed his arms over his chest. “No, not here to the picture gallery. Here, to Lincolnshire, to my brother’s estate.”
“Again, as I informed your brother, I am here to help my friend. Although your brother assured Sir Peregrine this election would be his for the taking, we cannot be sure that another candidate will not enter the fray.”
“Yet of all the rumors and gossip I’ve heard of you since my return from the Continent, none has hinted you’ve the least interest in politicking. You’ve never stood for Parliament yourself, nor have you ever canvassed the electorate on behalf of any of candidates your father has supported. So you’ll forgive me if I find your assertion a bit hard to believe.”
Dulcie leaned against the mantle, a self-satisfied smile creeping over his face. “Been listening to rumors and gossip about me, have you? And here I thought you completely without interest in my humble self.”
“You know all too well I’ve an interest in you,” Benedict growled, his hands fisting by his sides. “Damn it, Clair, I left London to get away from you!”
“To get away from me? Or to hide from your own desires? Do you find it distasteful, or,” Dulcie whispered, “sinful, what your body wants from mine?”
“I’ve never hidden from my own desires, Dulcie. Did I not spell them out clearly enough when we were schoolboys?”
“But we are no longer boys. I had assumed you as experienced as myself in these matters, but perhaps I was mistaken. Did you not wish me to give chase, when you ran?”
“No!” Benedict turned his back, hands fisting in his hair. He paced the length of the room once, then again. Then, in a voice so quiet Dulcie could barely hear: “Yes.”
“Yet now that I’ve run you to ground, you still hesitate.” He placed a hand on Benedict’s shoulder, surprised to feel him shudder. “Is it a game, Benedict? Do you wish to increase my fascination by suspense, according to the usual practice of elegant females?”
Benedict shrugged free of his touch. “I am not interested in games, Clair! What I want— What I don’t want is some furtive jerking of cocks behind a tavern, or a quick swive in the back room, then off again on our separate ways.”
Dulcie’s forehead furrowed. What, precisely, was Benedict after? “My dear boy, I told you I would take my time with you. Although I would be lying if I told you the other holds no appeal.”
Benedict began to pace, completely ignoring the winning smile with which Dulcie had charmed many another reluctant lover in the past. “No! You misunderstand me. What I want is someone with whom I can be honest, and who will be honest with me in turn. Someone who will share not just his body, but his thoughts and dreams, as I share mine with him.”
The muscles in Dulcie’s legs tightened, as if readying to dash from the room. “Ah, I see. You want me not only to commit myself solely to you, but to bare my very soul while I do it.” As if he’d ever act the impetuous, lovelorn fool again.
But Benedict did not laugh at the sarcasm in his voice. “Yes,” he said, the softness of the word belying the conviction that lay beneath it.
“You ask too much, Mr. Pennington.”
“I ask only for what I need.”
“You ask for what I cannot give.”
Benedict’s eyes lowered for a moment, before rising once again to meet his. “Then I can’t, Clair, no matter how much my body wishes it. Not if you’re unwilling to share yourself with me. Share all of you, not just the superficial, insubstantial parts you show the rest of the world. I’ve had the other, and it won’t do for me. It just won’t.”
The last glint of sunlight slid from the room, shrouding Benedict’s face in shadow. Praise the heavens for small favors. The intensity of the yearning in those dark brown eyes nearly brought Dulcie to his knees.
Instead, he took a step back. “And what you need will not suit me.”
“Then I fear there is nothing further to be said on the matter.”
“Indeed.” Dulcie nodded, then turned towards the stairway.
But his own composure broke for an instant, sending him whirling back to stare at Benedict’s bowed head. “Achieving the ideal may be possible in painting, but I fear you will doom yourself to disappointment if you expect to find perfection in the mundane world about
you. But no matter. Your decision is made, and I will importune you no longer.”
Small consolation, that, getting in the last word.
Shrugging off an unfamiliar tightness in his chest, Dulcie left the room.
CHAPTER NINE
“And will you be joining us in the canvassing today, Mr. Pennington?”
For more than a month now, Dulcie had posed the very same question to Benedict Pennington, each morning as breakfast came to a close. The bulk of the Saybrook House party—Dulcie, Sir Peregrine and his wife, Lord Saybrook, and even occasionally Miss Atherton, when she was not otherwise occupied with planning for a forthcoming village fete—would set off soon after the meal, intent on wooing the electorate of Lincolnshire. Dulcie had taken to electioneering like a duck to the water, even though he’d shaken more hands, cajoled more snotty-nosed children, and drunk more cups of watery tea and ale than any friend, even one as deserving as Per, had any right to expect. Whether through rational discourse, ribald jokes and winsome charm, or promises of Saybrook’s future patronage, Dulcie knew just what each man needed to hear to convince him that in the upcoming special election, Sir Peregrine should be his candidate of choice.
Some ridiculous part of him longed for Benedict to witness each small triumph.
But each and every morning, the infuriating man only gave the same answer to his query: “No, not today. I’ve other business to attend to.”
If that other business had included continuing to paint Dulcie, he might have been content. But Benedict had steadfastly refused any and all attempts to persuade him to take up the portrait again. Instead, he spent hours and days and weeks penning letters about his damned museum plan to the denizens of the ton, scattered for the summer to their sundry country estates.
At least Benedict hadn’t chosen to leave Lincolnshire altogether and visit them in person. A lack of action which on most days gave Dulcie heart.
But this morning, Dulcie’s tone had shifted from pleasant inquiry to mocking taunt. He’d smiled to see clenching hands and flattened lips accompany Benedict’s refusal. Damn him if he was the only one to feel out of sorts at their impasse.
Pennington’s eyes flicked to him for the merest instant before he offered his sister the brittlest of bows and then stalked from the room.
Dulcie stared at Benedict’s fast-disappearing form. Even in a rumpled, poorly cut coat, the man’s shoulders appeared to frustrating advantage. And why should Dulcie feel a tug of tenderness at the sight of his dark hair curling against his neckcloth, locks far too long for any man with a claim to fashion?
Dulcie gave a small tug on the cuff of his shirt. “Lord, he must have got up backside first, as your charming countrymen are wont to say.”
“I don’t know why you keep asking him,” Sir Peregrine said mildly. “You know by now what his answer will be.”
“And there’s no cause to call attention to his shyness,” Lord Saybrook added, setting his teacup down on its saucer with a distinct clink. “Not everyone need be as gregarious as you.”
“Or as overprotecting as you,” Dulcie drawled, wiping his fingers with fastidious care on his napkin before folding it neatly and placing it on the table. “From your reaction, one would think I’d insulted your brother, rather than made a simple civil inquiry.”
Saybrook pushed back his chair and threw his own napkin down by his plate. “With you, the two are often one in the same, are they not?”
“Dulcie.” Per shot him a cautioning glare. “Might I have a word before we leave for Carringham?”
Damnation. Someone was calling undue attention, but not to Benedict. No, with his own behavior, he pointed all too clearly to himself, to his own continuing fascination with Saybrook’s middle brother. Who would have imagined it, Lord Dulcie moldering away in dull Lincolnshire for all this time, on the mere chance that Benedict would repent of his foolish refusal to engage in a casual liaison! Why could the man not see the perfect opportunity in which they found themselves, one combining daily proximity with the distraction of so many of the household’s other occupants? When else would they find such a situation, with inhabitants and staff alike too caught up in electioneering and preparing for the village fair, to pay the least notice to a discreet dalliance taking place right under their noses?
But Benedict had proven even more stubborn as an adult as he had been as a boy. Damn a man with principles! Tossing himself off at night while dreaming of Benedict’s full lips or rough hand engulfing his cock was all well and good, but after he spent, Dulcie found himself still unsatisfied, inexplicably longing for the warmth of another body in the bed beside him, the unpredictability and comfort of another’s touch.
And not just any touch, either, damn it all to hell and back. He’d been on the receiving end of more than one suggestive look since coming to Lincolnshire, yet he’d not been the least tempted to send any of his own in return. Surely Benedict must have noticed his self-restraint. How much longer could he expect Dulcie to wait?
“Only a word?” Dulcie asked as he nodded his acquiescence to Sir Peregrine. “For you, my friend, a dozen at the very least.”
Dulcie offered Saybrook a smile before he followed Per down the passageway and into the library.
“What troubles you, Per?” he asked, throwing himself into a chair by the hearth. He’d take better care now, turn the conversation to his friend and thus avoid any embarrassing discussion of his own overly revealing behavior. “Do you grow weary of smiling and cajoling the voters of Lincolnshire, along with all their kith and kin?”
“I fear that I am more similar to Mr. Benedict Pennington than to you, Dulcie,” his friend said with a wry smile. “But I understand the necessity of canvassing, especially in this county where I am hardly known. And why should I complain, when I have you and Sibilla, as well as Lord Saybrook, to engage even the most disinterested of voters?”
“I am rather good at it, aren’t I? A pity I have not the least interest in standing for elected office myself.” He crossed a booted ankle over his knee and settled back into his chair. “Marital difficulties, then? Problems satisfying your lady in the bedchamber?”
Per jerked up straighter in his seat. “As if I would consult you about such a thing.”
“I may not enjoy bedding them myself, but I am well-versed in what the ladies wish for from their lovers. You’d be surprised by what even a gentlewoman will confide to a sympathetic ear. ”
“No!” A blush spread over his reticent friend’s cheeks. “It’s not that, not precisely.”
Dulcie sat forward in his seat and clasped his hands between his knees. “But some problem between you and Lady Sayre? Are you and she at odds over the election? Disagreeing about the best methods for canvassing, or the amount of time it is taking away from your personal concerns?”
“Not methods, no . . .” Per gaze’s flitted over everything in the room but Dulcie.
“Come, come, spit it out, man. How can I help if I’ve no idea what the problem is?”
“It’s the expense, damn it!” Per jerked from his chair and paced before the library windows. “I didn’t realize how much all this electioneering would cost. And every day, Sibilla urges me to spend even more.”
“But is not Saybrook paying for such things?”
His friend still couldn’t meet his eyes. “I’ve not had the heart to ask him. Since he has not yet paid me the remainder of Sib’s dowry.”
Dulcie rose from his own seat, annoyance warring with amusement. “Can I believe my ears? Did noble Sir Peregrine actually tell me a falsehood? For I distinctly remember you saying, soon after we arrived in Lincolnshire, was it not, that it had all been taken care of.”
“Not a falsehood. Just a little white lie.” When Dulcie raised a doubting eyebrow, Per burst out, “Because I knew you’d only just harass poor Saybrook about it if I told you the truth! I wanted to give him time to get his finances into order, to consult with his steward and retrench, before I pressed him further.”
&nbs
p; “Consult with his steward? You refer to Mr. Atherton, who has been confined to his bed for the past month?”
Per rubbed the back of his neck. “Yes. I had no idea the fellow’s illness would last so long. Theo’s at his wit’s end, trying to run the estate without Atherton to consult, and I’m loathe to add to his burden. But Sib doesn’t understand why I’m reluctant to lay out any further funds for the election. How can I, though, without knowing whether I’ll need to make up her missing dowry from my own accounts or no?”
“You never told her?” Dulcie’s voice rose in incredulity.
“No.” Per hung his head. “You know how unhappy she was with Theo after their father’s death, because of his carousing and not taking up his proper role in the House of Lords. I did not wish to give her a new reason to find her brother lacking.”
“You’ve kept such a secret from your wife, all this time? No wonder the hair at your temples is turning gray.”
At Per’s weak smile, Dulcie slapped his hands against his knees. “So, what do you wish me to do? Take Saybrook aside and tell him how little I appreciate his taking advantage of my friends? Spread gossip about his finances so far and wide he’ll never be able to catch an heiress to repair them? Challenge him to a duel? I am entirely at your disposal, my friend.”
“Dulcie, don’t be so melodramatic. I only wish you to ask about a bit, see if you can find out the cause of Saybrook’s financial difficulties.”
“Ah, you wish me to be your spy, do you?” Few gentlemen would be honored by such a request, but he had never been one to stick to the letter of anyone else’s laws.
Per shrugged. “You are much better at ferreting out information than I am.”
“Indeed I am.” Dulcie rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “It will be my pleasure.”
“Your pleasure to do what, Dulcie?
Per’s blush rose again at the interruption of his lady wife. Sibilla Sayre, a handful of papers clutched to her chest, strode into the room, purpose in every step.