Page 39 of Bewitching Benedict (The Lovelorn Lads #1)

T hat one of the Lads might come upon Benedict drinking himself to a stupor was always a possibility, but he would not have laid money on Samuel Ackerman being the Lad who did.

Benedict had deliberately chosen a pub that lay along the questionable border of Cheapside, far from the fine publican houses and halls the Lads—especially the wealthier Lads—usually haunted.

But before Benedict was drunk enough to forget why he was drinking, Ackerman arrived, and in such fine feathers—no inexpressibles this time, but tall, rather soft-looking leather boots, scarlet trousers and a jay-blue coat of immaculate cut—that Benedict was surprised he had made it into the establishment without losing at least his clothes, and possibly his life.

Attired thusly, Ackerman was a bright and shining spot within the dank pub.

All eyes were drawn to him, but it seemed to Benedict that there was no palpable air of surprise amongst the men gathered within the pub's dark walls.

Instead, it was Ackerman who expressed surprise, pausing at the far end of the bar to take in Benedict's presence as if he were a crayfish crawling unexpectedly along the floor.

Benedict waved the most recent of several beers at him in greeting.

Ackerman's eyebrows lifted in acceptance and he came to sit beside Benedict, ordering an entire bottle of the pub's best whiskey on the way.

They each had two companionable drinks before Ackerman ventured, "Well?

" and a roar of frustration erupted from Benedict's throat.

"Ah." Ackerman circled a finger at the barkeep, gathered up whiskey, glasses, and Benedict alike, and maneuvered them all to a grimy table in a corner.

There was considerable strength in Ackerman's slim form, more than Benedict expected; Samuel's beauty hardly meant he was as fragile as a women, even if he was as lovely as one.

Once situated at the table, one on either side, more drink was poured and two heads, light and dark, bent toward each other while Benedict mumbled his confessions.

Not engaged to Miss Hurst. Kissed Miss Dalton.

Was an unconscionable beast, according to the latter.

"For kissing her?" Ackerman enquired with real curiosity.

"No," Benedict said gloomily to the pungent golden alcohol in his glass. "I rather thought she liked that, until she ran away."

"Never a good sign, mate," Ackerman said sympathetically. "Go on, then."

"How'd you find me here, anyway? Where're the rest of 'em? Don't tell me you've spared me all their mockery."

"They'll be along. Hewitt's the only one likely to mock you."

"Hewitt's the only one likely to mock me and mean it," Benedict corrected.

"He used to be such a sport. Don't know what happened, except of course he can't abide the soldiers.

Jealous as a girl, that one. He was dreadful to Miss Dalton.

Worse than me by far. Tried scaring her half to death.

I should've knocked him about a bit, that would've taught him.

Bit of a duel would've been good for him. "

Ackerman, with unexpected authority, said, "A duel's no good for anyone. At best someone ends up hurt, at worst, dead, and it seems that despite the stories, women don't care much for men fighting over them."

Benedict reared his head and fixed Ackerman with as gimlet an eye as he could manage.

It would have, he reflected, been easier had there been only one Ackerman, but the angelic face seemed to have doubled, and both swam idly in Benedict's vision.

"That sounds like the voice of experience," Benedict accused the middle-most eye of the two faces, trusting that Ackerman was in that area somewhere.

"What's this, Sam, have you got shtories— stories !

—you're hiding from ush Ladsh? Us. Ladsh. Ush?"

Ackerman lifted the whiskey bottle and considered its contents. "I'll tell you after we find the bottom of this bottle. Do you like her?"

"The bottle? It's fair enough. 'Coursh, whiskey burns your taste away with the firsht shot, so the rest of it could be bilgeswipe."

"Miss Dalton, Benny. Do you like Miss Dalton?" Ackerman's rare and brilliant smile was so appealing that although Benedict rooted around in his soul for some degree of embarrassment at the misunderstanding, there was none to be found. Still, he waggled a severe finger at Ackerman.

"I don't go around kisshing girls I don't like, and neither should you, Sham. Do you?"

"I admire Miss Dalton extensively," Ackerman said solemnly, and Benedict placed a poorly-aimed kick at the other Lad's shin, under the table.

His toes caught a chair leg instead and he lacked the sensitivity to yowl, though the connecting toes cracked loudly enough to be heard.

Ackerman winced and glanced below the table.

"I hope you'll be able to walk on that later. "

"What should I do, Sham?"

"Limp," Ackerman suggested. Benedict had just enough wit to not try kicking him again, and Ackerman relented by pouring Benedict another drink. "Decide what you want the most, I suppose, Fairburn, and then try to get it. If you fail, accept that, but by God, try."

A vigorous nod began somewhere around Benedict's waist and worked its way up until his head bounced with it a few times. "Capital idea, Ackerman, shplendid. What do I want?"

"That's for you to determine, not me. Drink up."

Benedict did, squinting at Ackerman's glass. It was still full, though he couldn't remember Ackerman refilling it. A suspicion began to trickle in around the whiskey, but the bottle was more than half empty now, and a trickle was not enough to stand against the tide of alcohol. "What do you want?"

Ackerman's more usual shadow of a smile curved his mouth.

Just as well, Benedict thought; the full smile affected even men, as was proven by the fact that Ackerman had used it only minutes ago to distract Benedict's pique from…

whatever it had been. But he listened attentively anyway.

Ackerman, for all his foppish clothes and distinctly visible presence, was a rather private man, and Benedict was unsure they had ever spoken alone and so extensively before.

"I want to be admired for my wisdom and insight rather than my face, of course," Ackerman said lightly.

"Just as any beautiful woman might wish to be. "

Benedict's eyes widened and he leaned in, dropping his voice to what he imagined was a conspiratorial whisper. "Ackerman," he said in these near-stentorian tones, "are you a woman ?"

Unexpectedly, Ackerman burst into laughter and stood. "Come along, Fairburn. Time to go home. You're drunk. Go home, sleep it off, and decide what you want to do with your life when you wake up."

"I'm leaving Town for a while," Benedict announced to this recommendation. Ackerman, eyebrows elevated in interest, slid himself beneath Benedict's arm and steered him out the door before replying, "Oh? Right now?"

" Yesh, " Benedict said with a decisive roll of his head that nearly toppled them both. "Shtraightaway. I musht get my head clear. Maybe do shome hunting."

"Fairburn," Ackerman said, suddenly no-nonsense, "I forbid you to hunt in this condition. If you have any thought of it at all, I will take you home myself and stand at your bedside until unconsciousness claims you."

"N-n-no," Benedict promised, not so much stuttering as emphasizing. "I have the carriage. I shall drive it out and hunt when I am shober."

"You are not driving anywhere," Ackerman informed him, but now armed with the knowledge of Benedict's carriage, sought it out and poured Benedict in before taking the driver's seat himself.

It was not an especially long drive to the Fairburns' in distance, though in class and architecture it might have been a different world.

Benedict was, despite this, utterly insensible by the time Ackerman arrived at their gates.

With a distinct sense of self-preservation, he opted to hand both reins and heir over to the first available footman, and to himself slip away into the evening without further ado.

"What do you mean, Fairburn has left Town?" Charles demanded petulantly. "Why? Where has he gone?"

Samuel Ackerman, who had arrived at an unusually early hour already smelling of whiskey, although his faculties did not seem to be impaired, sprawled casually across the smoking room's finest couch as if it was his own, with one scarlet-clad leg hitched over its arm and the other foot stretching along the floor.

He lay with one arm folded behind his head, the whole of him propped up on pillows (half of which he had stolen from other seating), and waved a lazy, graceful hand in the air.

"Hunting, he said, although I cannot imagine what for. "

"Sam," Charles said, trying now to sound severe, "sit up. You look like a Cyprian."

"Shall I paint my lips and offer kisses?

" Ackerman pursed his lips in offering and shifted a few inches, enough to suggest the impression of sitting rather than lounging.

"It doesn't matter where he's gone, Charles.

He's gone off to clear his head, and I thought you'd want to know. You like to keep track of us."

"Someone's got to." It wasn't true, of course.

They were all grown men, quite able to keep track of their own lives.

But it soothed Charles to imagine they were an unchanging lot whose occasional deviations from the usual meant nothing.

Except Fairburn, in becoming engaged, had already deviated terribly from the typical.

A small knot of concern worried at Dalton's belly when Fairburn's sudden departure was added to this mix.