A Most Scandalous Proposal (26 page)

“I haven’t the time to stand and listen to idle gossip.” He thought of Mariah and infused his tone with the contempt only she was capable of—the sort of contempt that froze on contact.

The brunette snapped her eyes to his and immediately slid her gaze along his left cheek.

Releasing Sophia, he closed the distance between him and the interloper. She was small enough that he could loom over her. “You’ve been given an explanation for Miss Julia’s whereabouts. Further speculation is unbecoming to a young lady of your breeding.”

One hand over her heart, she retreated, the bloom dropping from her cheeks. “If you’ll forgive me, my lord, I seem to have forgotten a pressing engagement.”

Her heels beat a rapid tattoo on the floorboards as she exited the shop.

“Gracious, Highgate, you’ve no call to frighten her half to death.”

He turned to find Sophia’s eyes wide and shining. Was that admiration? The thought stunned him. Even in his unmarred youth, he could barely recall a woman ever looking on him in such a manner. And she’d called him Highgate, as if they were old acquaintances. Had she even realized?

He allowed himself a smile. “I was merely imitating my sister. I’d no idea I’d be so successful at it. Perhaps I should take to treading the boards.”

Her expression softened, but didn’t quite melt into the smile he’d hoped to conjure. “This is no time for jokes. She knows, and she’ll spread rumors.”

Rufus cast a quick glance about the shop. The proprietor was occupied with a pair of society matrons at the opposite end. Good. He placed his hands on Sophia’s shoulders and guided her to the very back of the premises, where a towering display of feathered headpieces partially blocked them from view.

Her lips parted on a gasp, and he could think of nothing but the other night when she’d responded to his kisses with such gusto. He stepped closer, breathed in her scent. Roses and sweetness and woman. How she tempted him to relive the experience, but not here in a milliner’s shop. Not when his sister and her mother might walk in at any moment. Time was of the essence.

“She knows nothing.”

“But she said—”

“She suspects, certainly. She wanted confirmation. In another moment, you would have given it to her.”

Sophia pulled her lower lip between her teeth. “I owe you thanks for intervening. She caught me by surprise. But, oh, she must know. She was practically throwing herself at Clivesden at the Posselthwaite ball. She … she must have coaxed the story out of him.”

Rufus clenched his jaw at the catch in her voice. He knew what she was thinking—that bloody bastard had let the dark-haired chit turn his head. “No, I don’t think she has.”

“But she said
he
. Her informant was a gentleman.”

“She was lying to get you to admit the truth. Clivesden would never have told her about your sister.”

“What makes you so certain?”

“Because he’s a man. Because he’s Clivesden and because he’s used to getting whatever he wants. He’d never admit a young lady got the better of him.”

She pressed her lips together and stared at the floorboards. “The story will get out.”

He reached out and caught her chin in his hand, tipping
her head up until he captured her gaze. “Yes, I daresay it will. But you and I will weather the storm.” He stopped himself just before adding
together
.

“I’m not thinking of myself,” Sophia said slowly. “I’m thinking of Julia.”

T
WINNED
red chimneys, dropping crumbs of brick onto a slate roof dotted with missing slabs, topped a massive Tudor pile at the head of the broad, sweeping drive. Diamond-paned windows glinted dully in the watery daylight. The entire place brooded beneath a sad air of neglect.

A sharp breeze bearing the salt tang of the nearby sea whipped at Julia’s bonnet. She shivered.

“I never imagined your manor was anything like this,” she said, looking at her hands. She’d passed an uneasy night, clinging to her corner of the bed. Ignoring the unfamiliar presence beside her had been difficult. After the kisses she and Benedict had shared, though, he’d been a perfect gentleman and left her untouched.

The thought was frustration and relief combined. While a part of her wanted to get past the hurdle of physical intimacy, another was quite content he hadn’t pressed the issue. With each kiss and each touch, she found it harder not to lose herself in him.

“It’s been rather forgotten of late. I find myself in want of an estate manager.” Benedict placed his hand over hers and tucked it into his elbow. “Come. Let me show you.”

Gravel crunched beneath her feet as they advanced. Pale ocher walls glowered at them, as if their arrival had disturbed the manor’s rest. Fine, jagged lines veined stone, eroded by salt-bearing winds off the Channel and overgrown with twining ivy.

Julia pressed her free arm against her waist. “And you’re planning on making your home here?”

“Few rooms in the main house are fit for human habitation. I leave them to what servants I’ve retained.” Yes, he’d mentioned his estate manager disappearing and others of the staff seeking employment elsewhere.

They reached the front steps. Another gust threatened to snatch the bonnet from her head. “I know it doesn’t look like much,” Benedict went on, “but the land is good. Excellent pasturage.”

When she made no reply, he tugged with his elbow. “At least let me show you the stables.”

“The stables. Of course. Where else would you begin a tour of your property but the stables?”

Their footsteps thudded along the pathway, the sound loud in a silence so complete the pounding of nearby surf reached her ears. They skirted weed-rank flower beds, once laid out in a precision years out of fashion, but now the plants trailed dolefully beyond their assigned confines. Sad, leggy bushes that hadn’t seen a proper pruning in years choked the paths of an overgrown maze. The state of dereliction was nearly comforting in its familiarity.

Julia began a mental catalog of all the work needed to make the place habitable once again, from shoring up the sagging chimneys to replacing broken panes of glass to bringing the boxwood under control. And that was just on the outside. Goodness only knew what state the interior had been allowed to attain.

By the time they rounded the corner to the stable yard, she added the repaving of the paths with proper flagstones to her list. “Is this why you came to Town?”

Benedict hesitated before taking another step. “What?”

“All this.” She swept her arm in an arc to indicate the shabby tableau of his property. “You’ve come to town to seek a wife to help you cope with all this.”

His arm went rigid beneath her hand. “I will not deny making the place habitable is more than I can take on with the staff I’ve got, but I was not in London to seek a wife. You did not catch me attending many balls, did you?”

She studied him. The raw sea breeze had reddened his cheeks. “Other than the Posselthwaites’.”

“I went to the Posselthwaites’ to find you and warn you about Ludlowe. That was all. I had no plans to marry.”

She stared at him, trying to divine the meaning beneath that last sentence. His tone suggested an “unless.”
Unless I could marry you
. She lowered her eyelids to examine the path at her feet and idly kicked a stone. It skittered among the smaller bits of gravel to become lost in a weed-ridden border.

Benedict cleared his throat. “I came to Town in search of bloodstock. I’m sure I told you.”

“Ah, yes. Tattersall’s. Why hire a gardener when you can throw your money away on cattle?”

“In the event, I did not throw away as much as a farthing.” He enunciated each syllable with military precision. Beneath her hand, his arm went rigid. “I know I’ve neglected my duty here. I do mean to make something of this place, but I cannot breed mares I do not have.”

Well, blast. She’d managed to strike at the quick with her blunder. She reached out with her free hand, but he dropped her arm and stalked toward the stables. She hurried after him but came to a halt as an excited chorus of barking shattered the eerie silence.

Several rust-colored hounds came pelting round the corner of an outbuilding. Julia shrunk back, but Benedict strode into their midst, scratching at their ears and patting their flanks, while they leapt at him and smudged his coat with muddy paw prints. His laughter rang over the dogs’ yammering. A broad smile spread over his features, and his face took on a boyish expression of mischief,
an echo of the sunlit summer days of their childhood.

Something in her heart thawed and swelled at the sight. Suddenly, the ruin and neglect of his estate mattered not at all. He was happy here, happy as she never saw him in Town.

Watching him crouch and take one of the dogs by the loose skin about its neck, rubbing until the beast’s tail shook with delight, she caught a sudden vision of him as a father. He would not be content with consigning his children to tutors and governesses. He would chase them across the pastures and through the woods, sharing every discovery. She pictured him crouched beside a dark-haired little boy, poking at the dirt with him, heedless of soiling their clothes.

In her mind, the child suddenly looked up, and his inquisitive gaze met hers. He smiled, an impish little grin that promised nothing but trouble. She returned the sentiment, certain her expression mirrored his exactly.

And then, as realization sank in, her heart turned over. The little boy’s eyes, glinting with mischief, matched her own—hazel flecked with gold. Heavens, this was her son. Hers and Benedict’s. Upperton’s words echoed through her memory.
Any children you produced would be the absolute terrors of their schoolmasters. It’d be perfect revenge. Put their names down for Eton the moment they’re born
.

A bittersweet longing for this future rose in her belly, not as insistent as the desire that arose when she and Benedict kissed, but more compelling, somehow. Poignant and aching, nonetheless. She could have this future if only she possessed the courage to risk her heart.

A high-pitched whine caught her attention. One of the hounds had wandered over to stare at her with soulful dark eyes. Its tail, stained white at the tip, gave a
hopeful thump against the hard-packed earth of the stable yard.

She crouched to pat its head and scratch behind its ears. “And aren’t you a well-behaved fellow? Look at you, patiently waiting for your due, rather than jumping about like the rest of the pack.”

The tail pounded a joyous cadence at her praise. She smiled. How long had it been since she’d patted a dog? Years and years, certainly. Not since her childhood at Clareton House. She might have been ten years old when her mother decided she couldn’t abide the creatures, not the smell and certainly not the stains and rents the hunting hounds tore in her daughters’ skirts.

Julia extended her hand to stroke the animal’s flanks and let herself dream. Her children would be allowed to play and explore without sparing a thought to the state of their clothes.
Her children
.

She stole a glance at Benedict. He’d left off romping with the pack of dogs and straightened. He watched her closely, expression serious, his gaze hard and piercing enough to make the hairs on her nape stand on end. The breeze ruffled his hair, causing locks of it to ripple like tattered black banners.

Slowly, she uncurled her fingers from the hound’s coat and unfolded herself. Still he watched, gaze intense, leaving her with the impression that he, too, had been imagining their future.

The wind harshened, lashing his hair and tearing at her cloak. An icy drop of rain struck her face. More pattered to the ground about her feet, leaving shallow depressions to mark their passing.

He approached and held out a hand to her. “Best we get inside.”

He took her hand and tore off. Julia stumbled after him, one palm pressed into a stitch in her side. The air
tore from her lungs in ragged bursts by the time they reached the cottage.

H
E
watched her through supper, watched her pick at cubes of stewed mutton with shaky fingers, while sipping steadily at a glass of claret. As she drained her goblet for the third time, he laid his fork on the scarred wood. Here they sat in the most rustic of settings, eating simple food, stiffly, one at each end of the table, as if they were separated by twenty feet of polished mahogany, overhung by a crystal chandelier and served by liveried footmen.

Julia blinked at him over the rim of her wineglass, her hazel eyes round and soulful and reflecting the firelight. The claret stained her mouth a becoming cherry red. Her lips parted slightly in an unconscious invitation to taste the lingering remains of wine on her tongue.

Blood pooled in his groin at the thought of the bed that awaited them, the mattress cold, certainly, but they’d warm it soon enough. Not yet, though. He wished to savor the anticipation a little longer. And if he touched her tonight, above all, he wanted her to be sure. While he required her to be his wife in truth after their marriage, she was not his wife yet. If she wanted more time to adjust to the idea of their physical intimacy, he was willing to allow her that much.

“You’ve hardly touched your supper.” He confined his comment to the banal, to the safe, in hopes of curbing his own eagerness.

If, in the end, she refused him, he would pass another night of pure hell. No, best not think about that, either. Whatever depths of passion lurked beneath Julia’s surface, she was still a virgin, still sheltered as any young lady of her class. The raw reality of a carnal relationship, even with him, still carried the power to shock her.

With her fork, she poked at a chunk of carrot. “I do
not suppose I’ve ever been much on mutton. The wine is rather nice.”

The words were a hint if he ever heard one. “You might want to take things easy. No one’s watered it.”

“Oh.” Roses bloomed in her cheeks, and then she giggled, a bubbling, joyous sound he didn’t think he’d ever heard her emit.

In all their past, he’d heard her laugh, certainly, a deep, throaty gush more suited to the bedroom than the ballroom. He greatly enjoyed coaxing it from her with pointed comments. But such a girlish sound as a giggle? He’d never heard that, even during her childhood.