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It probably would have been rude to point out that that was exactly how he felt, so instead he just leaned down and kissed  her on the cheek.
“Well, that’s a nice surprise,” she said, beaming up at him.
“Now come with me,” she added, motioning toward the downstairs sitting room. “I have someone I want to tell you about.”
“Mother!”
“Just hear me out. She’s a lovely girl...”
The gallows indeed.
Chapter 19
Miss Posy Retting (younger step-daughter to the late Earl of Penwood) isn’t a frequent subject of this column (nor, This Author is sad to say, a frequent subject of attention at social functions) but one could not help but notice that she was acting very strangely at her mother’s musicale on Tuesday eve. She insisted upon sitting  by the window, and she spent most of the performance staring at the streetscape, as if looking for something... or perhaps someone?
LADY WHISTLEDOWN’S SOCIETY PAPERS, 11 JUNE 1817
Forty-five minutes later, Benedict was slouching in his chair, his eyes glazed. Every now and then he had to stop and make  sure his mouth wasn’t hanging open.
His mother’s conversation was that boring.
The young lady she had wanted to discuss with him had actually turned out to be seven young ladies, each of which she assured him was better than the last.
Benedict thought he might go mad. Right there in his mother’s sitting room he was going to go stark, raving mad. He’d  suddenly pop out of his chair, fall to the floor in a frenzy, his arms and legs waving, mouth frothing—
“Benedict, are you even listening to me?”
He looked up and blinked. Damn. Now he would have to focus on his mother’s list of possible brides. The prospect of  losing his sanity had been infinitely more appealing.
“I was trying to tell you about Mary Edgeware,” Violet said, looking more amused than frustrated.
Benedict was instantly suspicious. When it came to her children dragging their feet to the altar, his mother was never amused. “Mary who?”
“Edge—Oh, never mind. I can see that I cannot compete with whatever is plaguing you just now.”
“Mother,” Benedict said abruptly.
She cocked her head slightly to the side, her eyes intrigued and perhaps a bit surprised. “Yes?”
“When you met Father—”
“It happened in an instant,” she said softly, somehow knowing what he’d meant to ask.
“So you knew that he was the one?”
She smiled, and her eyes took on a faraway, misty look. “Oh, I wouldn’t have admitted it,” she said. “At least not right away.  I fancied myself a practical sort. I’d always scoffed at the notion of love at first sight.” She paused for a moment, and Benedict knew she was no longer in the room with him, but at some long-ago ball, meeting his father for the first time. Finally, just when he thought she’d completely forgotten the conversation, she looked back up and said, “But I knew.”
“From the first moment you saw him?”
“Well, from the first time we spoke, at least.” She took his offered handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes, smiling sheepishly,  as if embarrassed by her tears.
Benedict felt a lump forming in his throat, and he looked away, not wanting her to see the moisture forming in his own eyes. Would anyone cry for him more than a decade after he died? It was a humbling thing to be in the presence of true love, and Benedict suddenly felt so damned jealous—of his own parents.
They’d found love and had the good sense to recognize and cherish it. Few people were so fortunate.
“There was something about his voice that was so soothing, so warm,” Violet continued. “When he spoke, you felt like you were the only person in the room.”
“I remember,” Benedict said with a warm, nostalgic smile. “It was quite a feat, to be able to do that with eight children.”
His mother swallowed convulsively, then said, her voice once again brisk, “Yes, well, he never knew Hyacinth, so I suppose  it was only seven.”
She nodded. “Still.”
Benedict reached out and patted her on the hand. He didn’t know why; he hadn’t planned to. But somehow it seemed the  right thing to do.
“Yes, well,” she said, giving his hand a little squeeze before returning hers to her lap. “Was there any particular reason you asked about your father?”
“No,” he lied. “At least not... Well...”
She waited patiently, with that mildly expectant expression that made it impossible to keep one’s feelings to oneself.
“What happens,” he asked, as surprised by the words tumbling forth as she undoubtedly was, “when one falls in love with someone unsuitable?”
“Someone unsuitable,” she repeated.
Benedict nodded painfully, immediately regretting his words. He should never have said anything to his mother, and yet...
He sighed. His mother had always been a remarkably good listener. And truly, for all her annoying matchmaking ways, she  was more qualified to give advice on matters of the heart than anyone he knew.
When she spoke, she appeared to be choosing her words carefully. “What do you mean by unsuitable?”
“Someone ...” He stopped, paused. “Someone someone like me probably shouldn’t marry.”
“Someone perhaps who is not of our social class?”
He glanced at a painting on the wall. “Someone like that.”
“I see. Well...” Violet’s brow scrunched a bit, then she said, “I suppose it would depend on how far out of our social class  this person is.”