Page 38 of Bewitching Benedict (The Lovelorn Lads #1)

"Any person with a conscience ought to feel so strongly about these matters," Miss Dalton snapped.

"It is not a feminine concern, Mr Fairburn, even if the care of unfortunates is often left to women.

It should be a concern of all of Society, and yet I hear little discussion of it in politics, and in popular writing none so much as Mr Bentham approaching the matter at all.

Oh," she said in sudden evident disgust, "wipe that look away.

Women trouble themselves with politics and philosophy too; our lives are affected by them as much as yours are.

Allow yourself to forget I said that, if you must. Continue in your belief that females are too delicate to consider matters of state.

But if you can bear the difficulty of the thought, consider that our greatest monarch, who ruled longer than any other, was a woman, and see how that settles in your mind. "

Her contempt was palpable. It flushed her cheeks and curled her lip until she nearly sneered.

Benedict, looking at that unconstrained derision, thought suddenly that it was the most delightful, powerful expression he had ever encountered on a woman's face, and had the overpowering impulse to kiss her.

With deliberate consideration, he did so.

His hands captured Miss Dalton's heart-shaped face, turning it up to him with the lightest touch.

She could escape, he was certain, if she wanted to.

Her eyes rounded, emerald darkening with anticipation, and he brought his face close to hers, waiting an impossibly long, aching moment to see if she intended to retreat.

She did not. Her eyes closed and, with a glad gasp, Benedict's mouth met hers with sweet and determined pleasure.

Her lips were soft, compliant, and then, even more deliciously, demanding.

His hands cupped her face, her fingers slid into his hair, and for the most enticing moment Benedict had ever known, they were as one.

Then she broke away with an appalled cry, stared wildly at Benedict and, blushing with shame, ran from him.

No sooner had she run than Claire knew she had made a mistake.

Another mistake: allowing Benedict Fairburn to kiss her had been the first. But he had looked at her so strangely, his blue eyes darker than the sea and a confusion playing about his mouth, that she had forgotten all except him.

She had wanted nothing more than the touch of his lips against hers, and as their mouths had met she had felt, wonderfully, as if she was both completing and beginning a journey she could hardly imagine.

It had seemed, in that moment, that she had been traveling toward Benedict since the first time she had laid eyes on him, and that the path had suddenly smoothed, all troubles left behind.

And then she remembered that she was engaged, however secretly, to Jack Graham, and a terrible shame had seized her. How could she, who had just lectured Fairburn on morality and conscience, turn her back on those very things so swiftly and with such conviction?

It was not his fault she had been so weak, and so she only ran, rather than slapping him, but in running, she left herself with no way home save her own two feet.

She ought to have simply withdrawn, apologized coldly—as Miss Hurst would have done!

Oh, Miss Hurst! Claire had betrayed her too, by allowing Benedict to kiss her.

There was no chance for her at all, save to hope no one had seen the act of—she would not call it passion.

It had been foolishness, nothing more, or curiosity at worst, the curiosity of a young woman who had never been kissed.

But only her husband ought to have kissed her, and Graham might cast her away if he heard of her wanton nature.

Somehow Claire made her feet stop running.

A woman alone on a walk in the park was perhaps remarkable enough.

A woman running pell-mell across the greens was something else, and would be commented upon, as would walking home, although there was no help for that.

She drew her shoulders back, lifted her chin, and breathed deeply, putting on a performance of propriety that her hammering heart and knotted belly didn't feel.

Benedict's kiss had awakened such warmth in her.

More than warmth: heat unlike anything she had ever known.

Had it been Graham's embrace to waken such desire she might have thought it suitable, but it had been a man to whom she was not, and could not ever be, engaged.

Struggling to look careless, Claire left the park without glancing back.

Benedict could do nothing but watch her run; he could not make himself call out, or follow, not when he had disgraced himself and Miss Dalton so thoroughly.

He only stood, cold with indecision, until in a sudden heartening action, Miss Dalton drew up, no longer running.

In unproven hope, Benedict sprinted forward himself.

But Claire's hesitation lasted only the space of a breath or two.

Then she walked on, never once looking back.

She had clearly not thought better of escaping him, only of drawing attention to herself with her speed.

His run faltered into steps, and then stillness as her figure grew ever-more distant.

The bells of a nearby tower rang, informing him that it was the three o'clock hour. That, Benedict thought viciously, was late enough to begin drinking.