The Scandalous Proposal of Lord Bennett, page 4
Life was so complicated. Clarissa sighed and began to walk.
The garden was immaculate, but even so, she had the impression it wasn’t loved. No lady of the house came and picked the flowers or walked the lawns. No guests spilled out of the dining room or the ballroom to walk the terrace and enjoy the soft evening air. It was a pity, and Clarissa knew, even though there was now a mistress of the house, nothing would change. The thought depressed her in some strange way, and she retraced her steps inside, and thence to make her way to the breakfast room.
The footman looked at her strangely as she walked in alone, and at such an early hour, but he merely bowed.
‘My lady.’
Clarissa bit her lip. Although she’d been a Lady all her life there were ladies and there were ladies. As the married Lady Bennett she was of a higher echelon than the unmarried Lady Clarissa Macpherson. She’d have to find that hat and learn how to wear it. In her father’s house, once her rakish, but strangely staid, pompous and proper with regard to her, elder brother had moved out, she and her father had lived life very informally.
Tarnation, I can only be what I am. Stuffiness and pomposity didn’t sit well with Clarissa’s true nature. She smiled at the young footman. He swallowed and his Adam’s apple bobbed.
‘C … can I get you some breakfast, my lady?’ His voice squeaked and he blushed the colour of the deep red cushions on the chairs.
‘Just chocolate and a light meal, please.’ She ignored his embarrassment. He was new and no doubt scared. ‘Eggs, perhaps?’ What was his name? ‘Timothy.’ She remembered at the last minute and was glad she’d done so when his face lit up. ‘Of course, my lady.’
Nothing was said about Ben, and Clarissa chose not to mention him. Her mother had died when Clarissa was in leading reins, and she and her father always breakfasted together. Clarissa had no idea if that was the norm or not, but felt it best not to comment unless she was asked a direct question.
She waited until the man left the room, and stared at the twelve-foot-long table. If Ben did appear and they sat at either end, they would need to communicate by signs – did he know semaphore? – or a written note. For a family dining table it was ridiculous. How stupid did Ben feel when he ate alone?
As if on cue the man himself appeared. His eyes were red and bloodshot, and his normally immaculate hair appeared to have been in a fight with a hedge and lost. The cravat tied around his neck was more Belcher than Bennett, and all in all he looked, well, disreputable. She risked a quick peep downwards, but nothing hard spoiled the neat fit of his pantaloons. Clarissa wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or disappointed.
He took one swift glance at her and sighed. ‘How many apologies do I owe you?’
She shrugged. He looked like a little boy who had been caught red-handed tormenting the chickens, or trying to ride the family sow, and it was hard to keep a straight face. For the first time, Clarissa had an idea life was not going to be as straightforward as she hoped. ‘If you need to ask, then the answer is, of course, none.’
‘I was afraid of that. Several then.’ He essayed a grin. She didn’t respond and he rubbed his chin with one hand. ‘But as at this moment I have no recollections of my misdemeanours, I’ll save the specifics until I do. Until that time, please consider them given.’
‘Of course, my lord,’ Clarissa said levelly. ‘Shall I ring for the footman?’
He shook his head and winced. ‘Argh, of all the idiotic, stupid … Sorry, no need. I’ll sit and die quietly until one appears.’
It was difficult not to let her lips twitch at the air of pathos that surrounded him, but she hardened her heart. Everything he suffered was self-inflicted. If she wasn’t careful he’d run rings around her, and Clarissa was honest enough to know that could only end in heartache. ‘As you wish.’
‘You’re all heart, my dear.’
She chose not to answer as the soft swish of a door opening caught her attention. A few seconds later a plate of eggs and slices of crusty bread were set in front of her, and a chocolate pot and cup placed to one side. She thanked the footman who bowed and turned to Ben.
‘My lord?’
‘I’ll have what my wife is having,’ he said.
The footman’s eyes widened. ‘Chocolate, my lord?’
Ben blanched and Clarissa hid her face with her napkin as he then turned green and got up so abruptly his chair crashed down behind him. He left the room in a hurry.
Clarissa turned to the footman. ‘I think he means the eggs, Timothy.’
Chapter Three
After parting company with all of the previous day’s food and drink, and probably that of the week before as well, Ben dunked his head under the pump in the tiny backyard and spluttered as his nose and ears filled with the liquid.
He pulled his head up much too sharply for someone suffering the afflictions he did, and groped for the towel he’d plucked from the washing line on his mad dash to get rid of the contents of his stomach.
‘Here.’ The towel was placed in his hands, and he lifted the coarse material to his cheeks.
Damnation and hellfire, I know that voice.
He scrubbed his face, dropped the cloth, narrowly missed the water trough and looked up into the eyes of his wife.
‘Thank you,’ he said stiffly. Her amused expression helped not one iota to reduce his embarrassment. ‘My apologies you have to see me like this.’
‘Really?’ One elegant eyebrow lifted almost to her hairline. The wind flirted with her curls, and the hem of her skirt drifted back and forth over the dusty ground. As ever her fringe was all over the place. She looked young, and now, sadly, disgusted.
How on earth can she do that and invest it with all the scorn and disbelief she obviously has? Which, he acknowledged, he deserved.
‘I had thought it was due to your having to rest your eyes on me; you decided that to drink yourself into oblivion was a better option.’ Clarissa surveyed him steadily, and Ben was sure his face was the colour of the roses she’d carried in her bouquet the day before. How on earth could she make him feel like a scrubby schoolboy so easily?
‘I’m sorry I gave you that impression.’ Try as he might he couldn’t lift his voice. It was hard not to scuff his boots in the dirt and kick a stone. However, in the state he was in he’d probably break a window or hit his wife on the head if he did.
‘Are you? If you say so.’
His hackles rose as she dismissed his apology so cavalierly. Really his wife needed lessons in manners. And I don’t? He dismissed the thought. It was too close to the truth to be contemplated at a silly hour.
‘I’ve instructed Timothy to take your eggs away and bring you a jug of ale, and barbaric though it sounds to me, red meat. According to Renwick, your major-domo, it’s the best cure for an …’ She chuckled and he caught a glimpse of a person he’d never met before. Bright eyes, young and amused. No adoration, no disgust, just an openness he loved. ‘An affliction such as yours.’
‘Thank you,’ he said gratefully. ‘Believe me, it works.’
‘Then perhaps you should return to your breakfast.’
Somehow he was sure it was not a suggestion. Had his wife got hitherto unrevealed depths? After all, what did he know of her? A fresh-faced schoolgirl who went red whenever he saw her, a young deb who held no interest for him, and now an unwilling bride, even if he had long held a desire to get to know her better. Who does she remind me of? That question had popped in and out of his mind over several years. He never discovered the answer.
Ben held his arm out to her.
She shook her head. ‘Unlike you, I have no desire to greet a red and rare steak over the breakfast table. I thought I might check your library to see if it negates a visit to Hookham’s.’
Hookham’s? The circulating library. Why on earth does a bride on her honeymoon need to visit there? His bewilderment must have been obvious, because his bride smiled, and elaborated.
‘To choose some reading matter. I have to have something to pass the time, and embroidery and tapestry don’t hold my attention for as long as a good book.’
‘We have a library next door if you wish to labour under the misapprehension you will need something other than your husband to occupy your time.’ Lord, he sounded pompous.
She curtseyed and, without bothering to give him a reply, turned on her heels, gave him a tantalising glimpse of her ankles once more – and disappeared through the door and in the direction of the library.
Ben made his way slowly into the breakfast room. He and the lady were long overdue a talk about what was required of a new wife, a honeymoon, and a marriage. The need to find a pastime, other than pandering to his every whim, wasn’t high on the agenda.
Why on earth had he thought that once they were wed all would be fine and straightforward? With Clarissa of all people. He might have admired her since she emerged from her schooling and took her place in the ton, but he suffered no illusions about her and her feistiness. When he saw Ferdy Pendragon attack her he’d seen red and all his chivalrous qualities had come to the fore. She deserved better. Yes, things had got somewhat out of hand, and his declaration had been as much of a surprise to him as it was to her. However, he hadn’t been displeased. It was time he wed, and Clarissa was someone he liked. He ignored the tiny voice in his battered head that scoffed and niggled … only like? He should have known it wasn’t going to be plain sailing.
He began to plot. Hookham’s indeed. If she needed to read, then she could read him.
****
Clarissa wandered around the library like a child in William Hamley’s Noah’s Ark toy shop. When she was a little girl, her godmother had taken her to the shop in High Holborn and allowed her to pick two toys. She’d chosen a whip and top, and an elegant rag doll, which her half-French godmother had christened Marguerite. The whip and top were buried deep in one of the outbuildings at her father’s country home, but Marguerite was in her portmanteau and would eventually sit on her bed.
When he chooses to tell me where it is. The night before she’d been ushered into a bedchamber, and left to await his arrival. Some arrival that had been. She had ached from the number of times her hand had been shaken or she’d curtseyed, and was tired and more than a little apprehensive about the coming hours. And she knew fine well only the upper servants had greeted them. The rest of the household would be made known to her on the return from their honeymoon. She had no idea if that was the norm or not but she was pleased it had been so. There had been enough new things and people to assimilate as it was.
Clarissa cast her mind over the previous night’s activities and remembered her first sight of a naked man. Now, she admitted, it was a sight well worth seeing even if previously she hadn’t been so sure.
Her less than amorous bridegroom had fallen onto the mattress and stayed where he landed for the rest of the night. So much for being introduced to the pleasure of the marital bed. She shook her head. If that was the delight awaiting her, he could keep it. It was best not to think of it. Instead she delved into the delights of a well-stocked library, with a plethora of books to choose from. If, as it seemed, reading did not feature on His Lordship’s list of pastimes, someone had thought it worthwhile creating such a perfect room. She decided there and then that during any visit to the capital she would use the library as her own private retreat. Ben could find somewhere else to drink his brandy and bemoan his fate.
Clarissa was so engrossed in deciding whether to reread Miss Austen’s Northanger Abbey or discover the delights of Mrs Davenport’s The Hypocrite that when a strong hand descended onto her shoulder and gripped it she screamed as if a banshee had approached. She spun around and dropped both books. Straight onto a pair of bare feet.
The epithet that scorched her ears made Clarissa certain the hands belonged to a human, and hadn’t acted independently. No banshee would have such a wide and varied cuss word vocabulary, surely?
‘Woman, do you want to unman me?’ She looked into the anguished face of her husband, who actually hopped from one foot to another. What a play actor.
‘Highly unlikely unless your manhood is in your feet?’ She couldn’t help it, she let her glance slide over his crotch – did it always twitch when someone glanced at it? – before she looked at his allegedly abused digits.
‘What a performance over a little book on your toes. Mr Kean would be proud of it. The library today, Drury Lane tomorrow?’ Clarissa bent down and picked the volumes up. His soft whistle made her realise the actions stretched her gown tight over her rear. She itched to drop the books once more, with force and intention this time. And make them graze the stiffly outlined part of his body that stretched his pantaloons to the limit of their knit. Why on earth was he barefoot anyway? He’d had boots on earlier. What was wrong with house shoes like any sensible person?
She bit her lip to stop the ready retort that sprang to mind. Really, this bite-your-tongue stuff was a load of nonsense. He didn’t hold back, so why should she?
‘I thought you wished to talk, not insult me,’ Clarissa said as she put the books on the table and dusted her hands. It wouldn’t augur well to have a shouting match with her husband on the first full day of married life. ‘Your carpet needs a good clean.’
He bowed. ‘Tell your servants, my dear.’
My servants? Oh lord, I’m the lady of the house now.
She curtseyed in the same mocking way he had saluted her. ‘As you say. Did you want me for anything, my lord?’
He chuckled.
Clarissa clenched her fists as the ready colour she was cursed with heated her skin. ‘In your dreams, my lord. If … when,’ she corrected herself quickly, ‘I give myself to a man it will be one who has proved himself to be worthy.’
He whistled long and loud. ‘Now did I say anything about giving yourself, my dear?’ His tone was all innocence. ‘I trust you’ve found a tome to amuse you during those few moments I cannot? For we leave for my hunting lodge within the hour.’
‘Why?’ Not that she was averse to leaving for the countryside. Clarissa was never at ease in the metropolis, and much preferred the slower pace of life in the shires. But with Ben? Alone? When he could … well, whatever. She turned her thoughts into a cough.
‘Why? Honestly?’ Gone was the hungover bridegroom, to be replaced by the man she had secretly admired from afar. ‘Clarissa, whatever the circumstances, we’re married, and need to gain a modicum of knowledge and understanding of each other. We need to learn to at least be in each other’s vicinity without sniping. For that, I rather think we need privacy. Here we are too likely to be interrupted, by all and sundry.’
Clarissa understood the truth in that. Even in the short time she’d spent in the library, the silence of the house had been disturbed by the loud peal of the doorbell several times. More than once there had been strident voices, one of which she was convinced was female, and then a definite slam of a door. It was all well and good knowing she’d upset several ladies upon her engagement; not so good to believe more than one didn’t see a wife as an impediment to anything. Clarissa might not want to be married, or a wife, but neither was she prepared to step back and let any other woman monopolise her husband. The operative words were, she thought, her husband. Hers. Perhaps he was right.
‘Then I’ll make sure I have everything I need. Does my maid know?’
‘She knows. She has packed. She will not accompany us.’
Clarissa blinked. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘No maid, no valet,’ Ben said. ‘I will play ladies maid.’
She laughed. ‘And I valet?’
‘Oh, my dear, I do hope so.’ He almost purred the words.
I asked for that. She really was going to have to think before she opened her mouth and put her foot in it.
This was Lord Theodore Bennett at his predatory best. She didn’t know whether to be amused, fascinated, or run a mile. His words and the hot look he directed at her set off those new, exciting tingles in her body once more. The man was a danger to her equilibrium. She picked the two books up from the desk and held them in front of her bosom like a shield. Why, when she was aroused, were her nipples so hard and itchy and wanting to poke through her chemise? Sadly it wasn’t something she could ask Ben. It was at times like this she missed her mama, or having someone around to ask. Oh, her godmama would tell her all she needed to know, but that, now she was wed, somehow seemed a betrayal of her marriage vows. Because surely it was one of those secrets between a man and wife? Clarissa swallowed.
‘Then I will collect my cloak and meet you in the hallway at the appropriate time.’
It was the best exit line she could manage. His chuckle followed her up the stairs to her room.
****
It was strange how someone you’d seen from afar – or that was how it seemed – never passed more than five minutes with, and never thought would look at you in any way other than through you, could be such an interesting companion. If only it was more. More what, Clarissa wasn’t prepared to imagine.
Whether Ben had given himself a stern talking to, or was simply out of his self-induced hangover and prepared to make the best of a bad job, Clarissa had no idea. However, during the long drive north to his hunting lodge in Rutlandshire, he set himself out to be the perfect host. He chatted about the countryside, the gossip circulating the ton, which didn’t involve them, and the hats worn by the tabbies at their wedding. He hid his ever-increasing yawns behind his hands, and never once crossed the line into impropriety. Eventually Clarissa held her hand up.
‘My lord, enough. I don’t need entertaining. You look as if a sleep would be beneficial. How long until we change horses?’
He glanced out of the window. Evidently he knew the route well. ‘About an hour, why?’
