Page 1 of Bewitching Benedict (The Lovelorn Lads #1)

T he Season had, in Miss Claire Dalton's estimation, come early, and come directly to her.

It had arrived—or was soon to arrive—in the form of her cousin Charles, whom she had not seen since childhood.

More interestingly, it was to arrive in the form of two of Charles's friends, young men he had seen only a few times since leaving for the Coalition Wars more than seven years ago.

Claire's mother had warned the Lads would be much taken with one another, but had not stopped Claire from dressing in the finest gown appropriate for home.

She was consequently adorned in a white gown embellished with a rather high collar that nearly brushed her jaw but left the hollow of her throat exposed.

The day was warm, and she had foregone a wrap, satisfied instead with the splash of pink allowed her by the ribbon of a deep straw bonnet that protected her skin from the weakening September sun.

She felt quite pretty, with dark ringlets brushing her cheekbones as they fell free from the bonnet, and if her steps minced due to the slight gather at the gown's hem, then at least she was ladylike and not striding about like a man.

It would be more suitable, she supposed, to await Charles's arrival in a sitting room, pursuing her needlepoint or reading…

or singing, or painting, or Italian, or any one of the myriad applications well-bred young women attended to.

She had spent the morning engaged in similarly appropriate activities: calling upon the widow down the road with her mother before stopping in to visit friends and discussing, in breathless anticipation, the arrival of Charles and his Lads.

The only pall that lay over these enjoyable duties was the absence of Claire's elder brother, recently commissioned and off to the Peninsula, but in their way, the morning engagements distracted her from that as well.

And if she wished to spend the afternoon pacing—not that she was pacing; she was merely taking a refreshing stroll up and down the precise length of the garden walk from which she could still see the drive—then that was her business and hers alone.

Her mother's mouth had not, Claire was sure, twitched with amusement when Claire had announced her intention to take some air.

Nor, surely, was her mother now watching from an upstairs window with poorly-concealed laughter on her features.

No, she was merely smiling at her only daughter, and nothing more.

Claire was determined, if not actually certain, of this, and carefully didn't look toward her mother's well-cut figure in the window for fear of dislodging her own determination.

Some little while ago dust had risen on the road, lifting Claire's spirits with it.

In due time, though, that dust had ejected not a trio of young men, but a wagon filled with victuals intended to sustain three strapping youths over the course of four days.

Claire's spirits had been hopelessly dashed.

Now she presented an expression of complete indifference to a new cloud rising from the end of the drive, though her heart beat at an unnatural pace and her fingers were white about the knuckles where she strangled a trembling sapling with her grip.

Charles had, in her memory, been quite handsome: tall and with the promise of shoulders that any maiden would swoon for.

He looked a great deal like their grandfather, or at least like the paintings of that gentleman (in, of course, his youth) which now adorned the halls of the Dalton residence in Town.

It stood to reason, then, that Charles's friends would also be handsome, as they were all gentlemen and surely like called to like.

Claire's first glimpse would tell all, and that was well worth skulking about in the garden.

Not that she was skulking. She lacked the opportunity to re-form that thought into a more pleasant interpretation before the carriage—no, the riders!

—appeared. All three of the young men rode ahead of the carriage, so far ahead of it that its dust cloud had become a distant lie about their approach.

They were so far ahead of it, in fact, that although she had been watching for them for three hours, their arrival came as a surprising thunder of hooves and laughter.

All of them sat beautifully upon their horses, with buckskins and Hessians, round-fronted tailcoats and light, capeless great coats all of such fine quality that in the rush of their appearance, not one man could be said to stand out from the others.

Two of them had dark hair and the third, light, but beyond that, there were no immediately distinguishing characteristics.

Hardly worth peering through the hedges for, Claire thought with a sniff of irritation.

She took a single step back, and in doing so, attracted the attention of one of the riders.

He had been in the lead, but without warning he spun his horse—a fine bay gelding—so that he circled the other two and came up behind them.

He was not, though, attuned to his companions, but rather to the gardens beside the drive.

Appealingly, he was framed, as if deliberately, by a slender archway in the hedge that allowed egress and exit from the garden to the drive.

Claire saw at once that he fell short of devastatingly handsome—a slight weakness of chin in profile stole that from him, though as his gaze came around to her, it became evident that his jaw had all the necessary breadth from the front to disguise its minor lack in profile.

His nose, though, was perfect, and his cheekbones so sharp as to have been carved by a razor.

Black hair was worn full of height and swept forward so that the fringe softened the width of his forehead; sideburns accentuated both his cheekbones and the length of his jaw.

Their gazes locked and a jolt of excitement stopped Claire's heart, only to have it start again at a racing pace as a wickedly sly half-smile slid over full and sensual lips.

His eyes were as blue as a lightning flash, and Claire stood as though struck by them, unable to retreat or advance.

It made no matter: he had seen her, his smile was for her alone, and he would sweep her into his arms, unguarded against passion, and within hours he would ask to speak to Claire's father privately, neither of them able to wait a moment longer than necessary for consummation of the fire that even now burned in both their breasts?—

"What ho!" this vision of manliness cried, "Charles, there is a mouse in the garden!"

#

The girl herself, truth be told, was barely visible within the long confines of a poke bonnet.

Her bonnet, though, glimpsed through the tangle of branches and changing leaves that lined the drive to the Daltons' country home, made so strong an impression of a mouse's quivering nose extending from a hole that Benedict Fairburn spoke before he thought.

The words had barely left his lips when he saw the girl more clearly through the green archway that separated drive from garden.

Dismay clawed his voice, and any amelioration he might have made, away.

Beyond the bonnet, a prim and old-fashioned dress did so little for the girl's attributes that it could only have been chosen to disguise them, or by a servant grateful to wear the outdated cast-offs of a wealthy mistress.

He had shown poor enough manners by calling attention to her.

It was worse yet to tease someone of such obviously lower rank than himself.

His companions wheeled about, already laughing.

Flushed with embarrassment, Benedict did his best to wave them off.

"Never mind, it was a mean jape, let us ride on?—"

Charles, a man of more genial nature than his wartime reputation suggested, chuckled agreeably and clicked to his horse, bringing it around again.

Evander Hewitt, though, somewhat meaner than Benedict remembered from school, urged his forward a few steps, ducking to peer through the arch at the young woman.

"Looks like a mouse to me, Benny. Shall I be the cat?

" He pressed the horse forward, moving implacably toward the girl.

Just beyond Hewitt's shoulder, Benedict saw the girl's expression clear to such forthright astonishment that the vividness of her green eyes became visible despite the bonnet's depths.

She did not, he thought with surprised admiration, look afraid.

But then, she could withdraw easily enough: they were in a garden, not an alleyway, where Hewitt's horse would block any avenue of escape.

Still, it had already gone far enough. Benedict said, "Hewitt," at the same time Dalton, more firmly, said, "Evander," but neither man's voice stopped their third. He advanced, smirking with anticipation of the girl's oncoming fearful break.

Instead, she held her ground, small jaw set within the confines of her bonnet.

There was hardly anything to her, Benedict thought.

She was a slight and delicate creature, not much larger than a mouse after all, though there had never been a mouse with such a forthright gaze.

The set of his shoulders said even Hewitt lost confidence in the face of her calm.

Pride kept him urging the horse onward, though, until the girl, who had not moved a step, put her hand up with slow and gentle certainty to take the animal's bridle at the cheek piece.

The horse blew a lippy breath full of commentary as it lowered its head.

Hewitt's spine, already stiff with his riding posture, went positively rigid.