Page 28 of Bewitching Benedict (The Lovelorn Lads #1)

No woman on earth could possibly accept such a poorly offered proposal.

Only pride kept Benedict's entire posture from collapsing into embarrassed defeat, and pride became a thin rope to hang on as Miss Hurst considered him with visibly increasing humor.

When she spoke, though, it was with caution.

"I am surprised. I had feared my…outburst…

at the party might have caused you to reconsider your affections. "

This was ground upon which Benedict felt he could firmly stand, and he responded boldly.

"Not at all, Miss Hurst. I would never press you for the details of your exchange with Mr Graham, but I cannot believe a woman of such gentle mind and spirit as yourself," a phrase he reconsidered even as he spoke it, thinking of how she had also dashed lemonade into Graham's face.

But that way lay shakier ground, so Benedict reconsidered his reconsiderations and barreled on, "could be moved to strike any man did he not deserve it in the fullest part.

I have every confidence that you were in the right, and he the wrong.

More, although startling, I must confess that such actions place a new light on your notoriously cool demeanor?—"

For the second time in a single speech Benedict became convinced he ought not to be saying what he was, but the words tripped on, unstoppable as the ocean current, "—and tell me that as fiery a passion as any man could desire in a wife burns beneath.

Miss Hurst, I beg of you, say yes! Tell me I might stir those passions, and we will be happy together! "

Miss Hurst's light blue eyes had widened considerably during his plea, as well they might have: a more indelicate proposal could never have passed the lips of any gentleman.

Benedict might as well have asked her to act out carnal desires on the drawing room sofa, so crass had he become.

He braced himself for the inevitable and entirely deserved slap, and thus was entirely startled when Miss Hurst drew a deep breath and said, "I would be very pleased to accept your proposal, Mr Fairburn. Yes. I will marry you."

"Really? I mean, that's wonderful. You will?" Benedict narrowly stopped himself from actually cursing in front of his intended, instead biting his tongue and wondering why astonishment instead of unfettered delight spilled from his lips. "Are you sure?"

A twitch bothered the corner of Miss Hurst's mouth. "Yes, Mr Fairburn, I am sure. If you are."

"Of course I am! Yes. Yes, excellent." Benedict gazed at his bride-to-be with a knot of worry churning his stomach.

He had not heard in several days how his great-aunt's health was, and now that the proposal was made, a certain urgency was upon him.

No one knew how long the old lady might last, but it was important she should at least know of his engagement as soon as possible.

"Will we tell our parents and have the banns called from this coming Sunday? "

"I believe the very best of families might regard the banns as common," Miss Hurst replied slowly. "Perhaps we might be coy and wait a short while before purchasing a license instead?"

"Ah. Yes, of course. And enjoy our engagement without public scrutiny for a time.

A fine idea, my dear. I can see why your family did so well in trade.

Always thinking ahead." Dear God, Benedict thought, someone should stopper his mouth with a cork.

Miss Hurst's finely rounded eyebrows pushed together, making an almost indiscernible wrinkle between them, and he smiled weakly, lifting a hand to smooth that wrinkle away.

"Forgive me. I am…appalling. Nervous," he offered, though it hardly seemed excuse enough for his unbearable manners.

Miss Dalton, he thought incongruously, had been right to forgive him only reluctantly.

Miss Hurst smiled. "No need to be nervous now, Mr Fairburn. We have come through the negotiations and the deal is made. All that remains is the signing of the contract."

"…indeed. Well then." Benedict put a smile on, uncertain as to why it felt like a mask, and bowed over Miss Hurst's hand. "Shall we tell our parents, then, and begin our private festivities?"

For the second time, Amelia Fairburn burst into the relative order of Claire Dalton's life with the demand of, "Oh, do tell me what has happened, Claire!

Benedict has only just arrived home with news of his engagement and a positive state of agitation over his visit here!

I flew, I absolutely flew here as soon as I could escape, because I simply must know! "

Claire, who had spent something of a pensive afternoon gazing out the window at the busy London street below, thinking on Jack Graham's predicament with sorrow and sympathy, was in no way prepared for this enthusiastic outburst, and sat gazing at Amelia in genuine astonishment for a long while indeed.

Amelia, seeing that she had perhaps overstepped the bounds of propriety, struggled with it, then flung herself into the window seat with Claire and seized Claire's hands.

"I'm sorry, I have struck you dumb. Forgive me, Miss Dalton.

What on earth was I thinking? Let me—let me begin again!

" She leaped up and hurried to the door, where this time Claire's maid Lucy, trying not to laugh, was allowed to announce Miss Fairburn and then retire to a chair in a socially permissible fashion.

At the door, Miss Fairburn performed an excruciatingly correct curtsy that Claire stood and returned with less precision, still stunned by the news that Miss Fairburn had swept in with.

"Claire," Amelia said warmly. "You're looking well. I hope you don't mind me calling unannounced, but I felt such a kinship with you after our visit the other day?—"

"Mr Fairburn is engaged?" Claire interrupted faintly.

Such information was of no particular importance to her, of course, although given that it was unimportant, she couldn't fully understand why the whole world had narrowed to a single spot of distant brightness, leaving Claire herself bereft in a cold and dark place.

"He did not visit here this afternoon. How can he therefore be engaged? "

No sooner than the words escaped her than did she hear their implication, and forced a light laugh.

"Oh dear, that came out entirely wrong. Of course he—" She swallowed.

Explanations were beyond her. "My dear Amelia, you had better come here and tell me everything.

Lucy, we will need tea. Immediately, please. "

Amelia swept down upon her again, seizing her hands a second time, though this time she looked down at their joined fingers in surprise.

"Claire, your fingers are numbing to the touch.

Come, we mustn't sit in the window, you'll catch your death of the cold.

Now, it's simply impossible that Benny wasn't here this afternoon, he came home fuming about it, so angry he forgot to tell us for an entire half hour that he had become engaged to Miss Hurst."

"To Miss Hurst ?" Claire's voice rose like a fishwife's and she turned scarlet, pulling her hands from Amelia's to clap them to her cheeks.

Her fingers were icy and felt wonderful against the heat of her face, but Amelia took her hands a third time and this time drew her to a cozy sofa hardly large enough for two.

They settled there together, foreheads nearly touching in the way of confidantes, and Claire whispered, "Perhaps you had better start at the beginning. "

"Benny was in a perfectly splendid mood this morning," Amelia said promptly, "and he's never in any mood in the morning, he always sleeps until noon. About one o'clock he said he was going to visit Mr Dalton and by half two he had returned engaged to Miss Hurst."

Claire shook her head. "At one I was returning from a most enlightening excursion with Mr Graham. I never saw Mr Fairburn, nor heard his voice. I could ask Worthington, but I don't believe he ever came in."

"An encounter with Mr Graham? After what happened at the Thornbury House?"

"He came to apologize and did, but offered no explanation, then departed on business.

I had a sudden conviction that his business had to do with the dreadful encounter at the party and—" Claire faltered, realizing what a light she might be painted in by confessing the next truth.

"—and followed him. Worthington came with me!

" she added defensively, as if Amelia might know that Worthington had come of his own accord, and not Claire's command.

Amelia, enthralled, said, "And? Did his business relate?"

"Oh, Amelia!" Claire cried. "It did!" The entire story of Graham's ruin-by-proxy spilled from her lips as quickly as tears spilled from her eyes.

Amelia never released her hands, listening in dread fascination up until the moment Claire whispered, "and so we drove him back here, where he helped me from the carriage and then himself departed. "

A certain confidence suddenly infused Amelia's voice. "Tell me, Claire. Might you and he have appeared intimate as he helped you from the carriage?"

Claire wiped her tears away and sniffled. "I suppose we might have seemed to be so, yes. I feel such a bond to him now, Amelia! Knowing his tragic story and all! The poor children!"

"I suppose it was then that Benny arrived," Amelia announced. "And upon seeing you, concluded he was unwanted here. What a dreadful shame, Claire, especially—what did you say the name of that institution was?"

"The—what?" Claire frowned, not following the other girl's thoughts regarding Benedict at all, then sighed and pulled the institute's name to mind. "St Sophia's Institute for Wayward Children, I think."

"The very same one that Great-Aunt Nancy's fortune will be going to if Benny doesn't marry soon," Amelia reported with a kind of grim satisfaction. "How awful."