The evening’s festivities have finally started in earnest, though the room still throbs from the delicious gossip that has just come to pass. You bear the whispers no mind. You and Lady Evangeline take another swig of brandy and have a giggle at the expense of poor Nigel Frickley, who is asking a sobbing Henrietta to dance and only getting fiercely wept upon for his trouble.
And yet, despite your triumphant mood, you find yourself pausing for a moment when you spot a familiar dark head of hair—and handsomely brooding face underneath it—over at the card table. Remembering Benedict’s harsh words earlier when you tried to offer comfort, you chide yourself for your overly tender heart. He deserves neither your comfort nor your pity.
You excuse yourself from Lady Evangeline, for the devil is in you tonight and you cannot resist strutting over to tell Benedict of your clever plan. Not that you care a jot what he thinks.
“What’s trump, boys?” With all the confidence of a fellow fellow, you saunter up to the fellows playing whist in the game room. The handsome, stylish-to-the-hilt men form a rather pretty collection of well-born, possibly quite unmotivated knights errant. Benedict, their fallen King Arthur, slouches at his card table. His immoveable expression fades the moment you address the room.
“Pardon my aunt’s maid, gentlemen,” he says. Then he huffs in your direction before hissing in your ear, “What the devil do you think you are playing at?”
You ignore him pointedly.
“Pardon her lady’s companion, gentlemen.” You smirk. “As well as your host’s fine manners. I come only to entreat you, Sir Benedict, to entertain your female guests. In fact, all of you charming gentlemen are sorely needed to fill a dance card or two. Morale is falling abysmally low among the womenfolk, I’m afraid.”
A few among the crowd chuckle good-naturedly. Some men, in their cups, eye you up and down. But Benedict shifts his weight in his chair from one long, lean, well-muscled leg to the other. “These women,” he drawls, “do not count you among their number, dare I say?”
“Dare as you wish, sir.” You feel bold enough to seat yourself in an empty chair near the table, a bit of impudence that causes Benedict’s eyes to flash with shock. “I have no desire to dance this evening. Not when there is detective work to do.”
You anticipate more deliciously slow back-and-forth with old Benny, but instead he throws his hand of cards on the table, flies to his feet, and grips you firmly by the elbow. “Excuse me, gentlemen,” he says with forced jollity, “but I shall help the lady find her way to the dance floor.”
The jollity ceases the moment you are out of earshot.
“What do you think you’re about, woman?” Benedict seethes when you have reached the chamber outside the game room. “Prattling on endlessly in your absolutely vulgar way, pretending to be one of the gentlemen when you are so clearly not.” His eyes flicker down briefly before he rights himself. “You are barely one of the gentlewomen.”
Gratified that he is so flustered (for Benedict, anyway) that he cannot even stop from drinking in a quick sight of you in your evening dress, you decide to press on.
“Well,” you say sweetly, “do you wish to hear my news or not?”
“No!” he cries, disgust and exasperation coloring his strong features. “I do not wish to hear your news, nor do I wish you to discover any more that pertains to me and my family.”
“But what if the information I find saves you from ruin?” You smile, all icy calm. The nerve of this man.
Benedict stares incredulously and in frustration runs a hand through his now very disheveled hair. To your annoyance, it only improves his appearance.
“Saves me from—? Listen, the only ruin that matters to me is the ruin that shall rain down if I am found strangling an impudent, gold-digging busybody of a lady’s companion. Halt your line of inquiry. Let me be so-called ruined. Above all, let me be! Do you understand?” His grip is so tight, and his body so close, that you see tiny drops of perspiration appearing at his temples, sliding down the cut-crystal angles of his face, and coming to rest at the top of your cleavage.
With a quick, deep look into his eyes, you see that he has taken in the droplet’s trajectory as well.
“Do I make. Myself. Clear?” he says through gritted teeth.
You stare back, aware that your breath is short and your bosom is heaving. You are not quite sure, but somehow the two of you have managed to find yourselves at the entrance of a small curtained-off alcove in a darkened corner. It is tempting. Oh, so tempting.
Do you give him what for? There’s intrigue afoot and a mystery to be solved! Turn to .
Or do you give in to your basest desires? Turn to .