Page 16 of Bewitching Benedict (The Lovelorn Lads #1)

Miss Hurst said, "No, you would not have," with such icy precision that Benedict cast a stricken glance toward Claire, as if she might somehow provide an explanation for their companions' peculiar behavior.

She met his eyes with her own rounded by dismay.

The slightest twitch of one furrowed eyebrow conveyed a world of questions so clearly that it was as if she had spoken aloud: What, that minute motion asked, is going on?

Do they know one another? Of course they know one another; how do they know one another?

Did you know of any of this? and finally, How could you have let me invite you to sit, if you knew? !

Benedict responded in equally eloquent silence, the cords of his throat tightening and his head jerking an infinitesimal amount to the side in what amounted to violent denial. No! He said with those tiny actions. I know nothing of their previous acquaintance! I am as horrified as you are!

Miss Dalton could not quite be said to droop, but there was an unquestionable release of tension that moved her closer to Benedict's side.

She believed him, then, which gladdened Benedict's heart more than was sensible.

He found the sensation that she was perhaps sheltering from the storm by huddling closer to him to be pleasant.

And a storm there was: Miss Hurst and Mr Graham were now laying out foodstuffs as if they were weapons, each of them trying to move more swiftly and more beautifully than the other.

Benedict had lost track of their intercourse, and considered trying to insert calm into their swift exchanges, but at that moment Miss Dalton looked up at him.

Her evident and sensible horror of their companions' behavior was starting to flee: he saw a terrible urge to laugh shining in her green eyes and in the barely-controlled tremble at the corner of her mouth.

She bit her lower lip to contain it, and he was suddenly taken with the fullness of her lips, the flush of color where her teeth held back laughter, and the smile still fighting to break through.

The impulse to kiss her was nearly impossible to resist. To stop himself Benedict clapped three fingers over his own mouth, and in so doing discovered he, too, was holding back laughter.

Miss Dalton's entire lower lip was now in her teeth, and her eyes were so large he was convinced he might fall and drown in their laughing green loveliness.

She folded her knuckles at her mouth and slid a look toward Graham and Miss Hurst, then returned her gaze to Benedict's.

Whatever are we going to do about them? her eyes asked.

Benedict took his hand from his mouth and captured Miss Dalton's fingers, smiling openly now, though it was a small and intensely private smile for Miss Dalton alone.

Without taking his eyes from hers, he answered with a slow blink that let him gaze at her through his lashes.

Forget about them, that look suggested, and suddenly Miss Dalton was not smiling anymore, but rather pink-cheeked and wetting her lips with unconscious anticipation.

Benedict moved his head toward hers a fraction of an inch, no more.

Benedict Fairburn was going to kiss her. Claire, who had never been kissed, was more certain of this than she had ever been of anything in her entire twenty years. He was going to kiss her, and she could think of nothing she would rather have happen.

It was therefore with tremendous guilt that she leaped from him when Mr Graham let forth a roar that would have best suited a caged lion, and it was with no pleasure at all that she saw Benedict flinch with equal guilt and, immediately upon that emotion, horror.

Horrified at what he had nearly done, no doubt.

Claire had never blushed so hard in all her years, either, color burning her face so brilliantly that tears stood in her eyes.

Desperate not to let them fall, she stared without seeing at Graham, who was on his feet and…

dripping. Dripping with lemonade, his cravat stained with it, his collar losing its starch with its acid wetness.

He stood with breast heaving, an outraged gaze locked on Miss Priscilla Hurst, who sat placidly on the picnic blankets, examining her lemonade glass as if curious as to how it had come to be empty.

"What…?" Claire's pleasure at the prospect of being kissed and her conviction of Mr Fairburn's horror both faded into her own horror at how badly she had nearly behaved.

She had come driving with Mr Graham and had all but forgotten him by gazing into Mr Fairburn's astonishingly blue eyes.

Had he kissed her she could have been no more than a hussy, and worse, one who had acted out her passions in front of another couple.

That the other couple had been entirely involved in their own passions, that their behavior had opened the window for her momentary interest in Mr Fairburn, and that if anyone was at fault it could not with any degree of logic be considered to be Claire, were all thoughts she thrust aside with zealous determination.

She had been dreadfully weak and could certainly not afford to be again if she wished to make a good marriage.

"Forgive me," Miss Hurst said, her voice as placid as her pose, "my lemonade seems to have slipped."

" Slipped ?" Benedict asked incredulously, no longer paying any attention to Claire at all.

Graham, in a strained voice, echoed, "Slipped.

I am sure it was entirely my fault, I was…

" His imagination failed as to what he had been doing.

Claire, who had been so possessed by Fairburn's gaze she genuinely had no idea what had prompted the—slip—swallowed hard and suggested, "…

so involved in your story that a careless gesture struck Miss Hurst's glass? "

All three of the others turned their attention to her.

Claire, looking between them, felt mortified, young, and very plain.

Miss Hurst was a genuine beauty, her excellent features all the more striking for the cool hardness in her eyes.

Graham was sunlight to her ice, and Claire had thought Mr Fairburn terribly handsome all along.

They were all quite perfect, even with Graham dripping lemonade, and Claire, embarrassed, looked away to see that she had knelt in the spilled wine after all, and that a raspberry-colored stain was encroaching upon her cream-and-brown skirts.

Tears filled her eyes a second time and she dared not look up again for fear they would fall.

"Yes," Miss Hurst said slowly, "I believe you have the right of it, Miss Dalton.

A careless gesture is all. And oh, no, my dear girl, your skirt!

" Her iciness fled and she surged forward to push Claire aside so that she no longer sat in the spilled wine.

"Hot water and salt," Miss Hurst said fiercely.

"If we're quick enough we'll get that out before it sets.

Come, Graham, snap to it. Have you got anything useful in that basket of yours? "

"Em, a well-packed pot of water for tea if the weather turned inclement?—"

"Well, get it! Now, on your feet, Miss Dalton, over to the grass.

Mr Fairburn, this is an extraordinary request, but you will have to be polite about it and look away.

Hold Miss Dalton's skirt out straight from her body so that the hot water doesn't splash on her as I pour it through.

Move, man!" Delivering orders like a seasoned general, Miss Hurst bustled Claire to the grass and arranged her skirt so that Fairburn could hold it without risking her modesty.

"Fortunately," Miss Hurst said to Claire, "it is only at your knee.

If it had been your hip Mr Fairburn would have to marry you as soon as we got the stain out. "

"Oh," Claire said faintly, and held still as Miss Hurst took Graham's teapot—made of thick clay and warm to the touch—to carefully pour still-steaming water through the stain.

In seconds it had faded to a faint splotch that Miss Hurst examined critically. "Have we a salt shaker?"

"Yes," Fairburn said, "but I fear that if I release Miss Dalton's dress she will end up burned by the heat or chilled from the damp."

Miss Hurst snapped, "Well, look for it, Graham," and for the second time he leaped to her command, finding the salt in Benedict's picnic basket.

He brought it to Miss Hurst, who stripped her gloves away, removed the shaker's stopper, took a handful of salt in her soft white hands, and proceeded to scrub it into Claire's skirt with an impressive ruthlessness.

After a rinse, another scrub and a final rinse, she declared herself satisfied, and Claire, who had watched the entire process with a growing sense of disbelief, embraced the other woman.

Forgotten was the ill behavior of before; gratitude took its place.

"Thank you. Thank you so much, Miss Hurst. Priscilla. I may call you Priscilla, mayn't I? And you must call me Claire. You have gone far beyond the call of duty on such little acquaintance. I hope I may also call you my friend."

"Oh." Miss Hurst stiffened in surprise, then gingerly returned Claire's embrace.

They parted and Claire saw uncertainty in the taller woman's pale eyes.

Uncertainty and tentative, uncomfortable hope.

"Yes, you may call me Priscilla, and friend.

Thank you, Miss Da—Claire. I—forgive me, I am awkward.

I do not consider myself one to make friends easily, and your generosity overwhelms me. "

"Well, we shall be friends," Claire said stoutly. "Surely friendships have been built on less than an expensive dress saved from ruin."

Startled, Miss Hurst smiled openly, an expression which transcended cool beauty and somehow made her more ordinary and approachable.

"Surely they have," she agreed. "Now, Miss—Claire—I think we should get you home and in front of a fire before the chill creeps through wet fabric and makes you ill.

I should like to see you home myself. Graham, I assume that cabriolet is hired.

I will take it and Miss Dalton home, then return the cab and settle the bill.

You will make your own way home. Mr Fairburn, I apologize for having to leave you in so unorthodox a fashion. I hope we will see each other again."

With this, she tucked her arm through Claire's and led her to Graham's cab, only slowing as they reached it. She helped Claire up, then accepted Claire's hand in return, admitting, "I have not thought this through," quietly as they settled into the seats. "I am not a good driver, Miss—Claire."

Claire smiled in sudden, pleased conspiracy. "Fortunately, I am. I'll drive it home, have one of my aunt's servants drive you home, and then have the cab returned to its hiring place. The Daltons will settle the bill, in thanks for your services to me. I insist."

"You are the soul of generosity, Claire." Priscilla Hurst pressed her hand against Claire's arm, and, together in sisterly camaraderie, they drove away.

Jack Graham, watching the young ladies drive away, looked as though he didn't know what had hit him.

Benedict dearly wanted to disdain him for that, but feared his own expression was far too similar.

He had come to the park with one woman, been entirely transfixed by another, and was now left alone as the both of them departed together in evident solidarity.

It had in no way been the afternoon he had expected, and he could not help but feel he had been somehow routed.

The women could not conceivably have planned the events that had transpired, but they seemed to have come out to the female advantage.

As he mused over this, Graham began packing up the remains of his picnic.

Benedict had questions for the sandy-haired man, but the crisis over Miss Dalton's dress had put the lemonade incident so thoroughly behind them that it seemed callous to bring it up again.

Worse, just as he decided to be callous and ask anyway, Graham said, "I would like to apologize for my earlier behavior, Mr Fairburn.

You must think very poorly of me. All I can hope is that you will not allow that ill perception to reflect upon Miss Hurst, who I am certain is a lady of flawless qualities," which made it impossible for Benedict to say anything except, "Of course I accept your apology, and assure you that I think no less of Miss Hurst."

"I am relieved. Thank you, Mr Fairburn." Graham collected the last of his picnic materials and, with a short bow, abandoned Benedict to the park.