Page 21 of Bewitching Benedict (The Lovelorn Lads #1)

"Thank you." Miss Fairburn accepted the compliment not as if it was her due, but with a real smile and downward glance, as if she was unaccustomed to being flattered.

Or to being told the truth, Claire thought, which was odd, given how readily she had dispensed truth to Claire.

"My mother has sheltered me," she answered after a moment.

"Deliberately, I believe, because she herself was so sought after by those desiring to claim a beauty—and my mother is, even still, considerably more beautiful than I, Miss Dalton.

Please do not think me as one who claims false modesty when I say this, but Mother truly is exquisite.

So I have had very few suitors, in truth, and I am only not quite twenty.

Mother has made some reluctant overtures toward bringing me out—I have the wardrobe, and we are generally invited to all the right sorts of balls and parties—but I have been spared the full press of it all so far, and now Benedict has become the priority.

I am primarily there to observe, not be observed.

Mother was very young when she was brought out," Miss Fairburn added even more softly.

"I believe she is tolerably satisfied with her lot, but she has made some effort to protect me, and if that means not coming out until I'm twenty-one-or-two, then…

" She sighed suddenly. "Then I shall have had what freedom I am to be allotted, and will expect to be married shortly thereafter.

This is a very complicated game we play, is it not, Miss Dalton?

This game of Seasons and marriages, all the plotting and hoping, and my, I do go on, don't I?

And I am sure I've said things I ought not have.

But they were said in the strictest confidence, Miss Dalton! You would not betray me?"

"Never!" cried Claire, agog at the depth of confidence offered on a mere few minutes' acquaintance. "I shall take your most private thoughts to my grave, Miss Fairburn! I must say that I feel now that I know you quite well, and hope that you will soon be able to say the same about me."

"I will," Miss Fairburn proclaimed, "as soon as you have told me everything about this Mr Graham!"

Mr Jack Graham, Benedict thought, looked irritatingly well in a dashingly dark blue coat and trousers that fit perfectly to below the knee, where stockinged calves were shown off to excellent accord.

Miss Dalton, at his side, wore pale pink silk trimmed with forget-me-not blue, though the flowers were no doubt an artifice, rather than plucked from the autumnal garden.

Still, the blooms in her hair were lively and cunningly wound about her head.

She and Graham made an altogether fine-looking couple.

Not that Benedict looked poorly in well-fitted black, and it was nigh unto impossible for the divine Miss Hurst to look anything other than striking.

Even so, Graham had had to hire a carriage yesterday.

By those lights he ought not be at the Thornbury House at all, much less there and daring to look so dashing.

Of course, if Benedict were to cast those same lights nearer to home, he would be obliged to admit that neither Ronald Vincent nor Gareth O'Brien should be at this party and looking well, either.

But they , by gum, were at least of the Lads!

They knew well enough that it was Cringlewood's station that had gotten them in!

They, like Benedict, were dressed much more soberly and appropriately than Graham.

Graham, the peacock, who attended the party on Cringlewood's invitation as well, through a kindness offered to Miss Dalton!

It was somehow intolerable, and Benedict could not quite put his finger on why.

It should not eat at him as it was doing.

The party was of an entirely more rarefied air than he and most of the Lads were accustomed to, and the decor of the house so fashionable as to be uncomfortable to Benedict's eye.

Motifs of Egypt and China should not, perhaps, mix.

The Thornburys were clearly comfortable with the dramatic lines and clashing colors, and the other first ton attending the party looked on approvingly, their own houses no doubt reflecting these latest extravagances of architecture and color.

But the less extravagant and expensive pieces that would follow had not yet reached the parlors and dining halls of Benedict's set.

And his family was not unfashionable by any means. They were just not… this… fashionable.

"I find myself a trifle overwhelmed," Miss Hurst breathed beside him.

Benedict's heart suddenly warmed toward the lady.

He put his hand over hers at his elbow and dipped his head toward hers, murmuring, " You are overwhelmed, Miss Hurst?

You at least were invited of your own accord.

But let us keep our chins up and let no one see that we quake in our shoes, shall we? "

Miss Hurst favored him with a smile. "We shall." Bolstered by one another, they swept through the halls, occasionally greeting an acquaintance known to Benedict by way of Cringlewood.

Benedict was quite proud of the looks they garnered, for they made a handsome couple, until he remembered the purpled bruise around his left eye.

It had faded since the night before, but it was not yet of a hue that only the rude could comment upon.

Only the rude would comment on it—Miss Hurst's own pale eyes had widened, but she had spoken not a word—but none-the-less, it was of sufficient color as to gain attention, and Benedict wondered, not for the first time, if he perhaps should not have come.

That, however, would have forced him to spend the evening with his mother and her scathing comments, which was worse than the curiosity and murmured commentary of the ton.

He ought to have put a few rumors about, he realized: stories delineating how he had acquired the bruise.

Perhaps rushing into traffic to save a child from carriage wheels, or, more prosaically, perhaps a fencing bout with button-tipped weapons.

"—gust of wind caught the carriage door," one passer-by murmured to another as Benedict escorted Miss Hurst toward the dance floor.

"Footman didn't catch it and it caught the gent square in the eye.

Footman's been sacked, I hear, though Cringlewood's such a soft-hearted fool he'll likely find the boy work in the kitchens.

I hear Cringlewood invited him here as an apology. "

"No, they're thick as thieves," the other replied. "That's one of the beneath-my-touch lads that Cringlewood runs with to irritate the Earl."

Benedict couldn't allow himself to respond, or even to look as though he'd heard, though he equally brindled on Cringlewood's behalf.

The nobility did, it was true, keep to their own, but Samuel's friendship with Dalton went back too far to be merely pretense.

Hearing the accusation spoken aloud and in earshot, though, Benedict was ever-more grateful to Cringlewood, who had no doubt put about the footman story in order to explain Benedict's blackened eye.

And perhaps to explain his own swollen lip, though Benedict hadn't seen him yet this evening and supposed his bruising might not be as visible as Benny's own.

As soon as they were far enough out of earshot to dare it, Miss Hurst whispered, "Is that really what happened?"

"It is precisely what happened," Benedict whispered back, "if you change the word 'door' to 'fist' and 'footman' to 'ill-tempered stage player'." No sooner than the admission left his lips did he consider it intemperate, but Miss Hurst let go a startled, bell-like laugh and squeezed his arm.

"We must find some time alone this evening so you might tell me the whole story. I believe that Thornbury has very fine gardens, excellent for uninterrupted…conversations." She cleared her throat lightly as a hint of color flushed her cheeks.

Benedict was obliged to breathe rather deeply himself as his thoughts followed hers, and saved himself from blushing only by observing—silently, of course—that she was entirely correct, and heightened color did her complexion no favors.

A subtle blush along the cheeks was one thing; a blotch of high color centered on the cheekbone was something else, especially when it left patches of deathly whiteness in the surrounding skin.

"A walk would be lovely," he said swiftly.

"And—if I may be so bold, Miss Hurst—two dances?

The first, perhaps, and the second entirely at your discretion?

And I shall be at your call should you at any moment require an excuse to rest for a set. "

"A walk, two dances, and a set for conversation? People will talk, Mr Fairburn." Miss Hurst did not sound displeased at the prospect.

Benedict turned to her, uncaring that they might interrupt the flow of bodies moving through the halls, and lifted her hand to his lips. "Is that not the purpose of the evening, Miss Hurst? I look forward to being the cause of much speculation."

"As do I. And I believe the music is beginning, Mr Fairburn, so if we're to dance the first set, we had best make haste."

"They'll wait on your beauty," Benedict replied, feeling rather pleased with himself, and Miss Hurst laughed again as they did, in fact, hasten to the dance floor.