Page 4 of Bewitching Benedict (The Lovelorn Lads #1)

C laire threw her bonnet onto her bed as if the offending article's mouse-like attributes might be vanquished if dashed with sufficient force.

They were not, of course, and all pleasure in her appearance fled.

She didn't bother to change for dinner; there seemed no purpose, when she was already as well-dressed as she could be and yet still worthy of sneers from gentlemen.

Inevitably, she regretted that decision upon entering the waiting room: Charles was bedecked in a navy tailcoat and trousers, and the other two Lads were irritatingly splendid in black.

The bolder of the two wore a waterfall cravat whilst the other's jaw-tracing collar improved the line of his chin.

The truth was they were rather formidable when presented together, while Charles Edward looked small and dashing between the two dark-haired Lads, who were so alike they could be brothers.

Her parents had not yet arrived, leaving Claire to feel alone and plain as the gentlemen bowed and she curtsied briefly in return.

"Claire," Charles said with a note of apology, "I'm afraid I failed to make proper introductions earlier.

May I present my friends Benedict Fairburn and Evander Hewitt? Gentlemen, my cousin, Miss Dalton."

"Miss Dalton." Fairburn of the slightly weak chin, a minor defect that seemed vastly more pronounced and unforgivable than it had been upon first sight, stepped forward immediately, his blue eyes beseeching.

"I wish to extend an apology for my rudeness earlier.

I cannot think what came over me, save for too many hours with my gentlemen friends and not enough time with the gentler sex. "

"Mr Fairburn." Claire allowed him to take her hand, grateful for the gloves they both wore preventing their skin from touching.

"With all due respect to my cousin, if your gentlemen friends are all so poorly raised that exposure to them causes you to forget your manners, perhaps you should consider finding new friends. "

A pained line appeared between Fairburn's brows. "I shall take your suggestion under advisement, Miss Dalton. Let me again extend my apologies."

"They have been extended, Mr Fairburn. Let us not embarrass ourselves by dwelling on them.

" Feeling rather proud of herself, Claire turned her attention on Hewitt, who had all of Fairburn's looks without the fatally flawed jaw.

He was, in fact, preposterously attractive, and flashed a smile so white and disarming that, could she not vividly recall the meanness of his mouth as he advanced his horse on her, she might have been swept away immediately.

Fortunately, she thought coolly, she was a more sensible creature than that, and so rather than cowing her, the memory brought to mind the spine-stiffening rage she had felt earlier.

She could not know that her remembered anger brought a becoming flush to her cheeks, nor that her eyes were particularly green as she fixed Hewitt with a scathing and expectant gaze.

She only knew that her dress, so admirable earlier in the day, now seemed dowdy and that she would not, under any circumstances, let any of the Lads know she felt her lack of fashion keenly.

Hewitt put forth a hand; she placed hers above it, not so much as touching glove to glove.

To her surprise, he didn't take her fingers in his.

Instead, he bowed extravagantly over her extended hand, never taking his eyes from hers.

"I am a cad," he said with an air of rote duty.

"I would beg your forgiveness if I thought there was any hope of earning it.

Rather, I shall freely admit my faults and hope that you will either be kind enough to overlook them or that I shall be sufficiently unobtrusive throughout our visit as to permit you to ignore me.

All that prevents me from a lifetime of sleepless nights with guilt gnawing at my soul is the perfect conviction that the very moment I leave these halls you will never think of me again, so meaningless and irrelevant is my imposition and callow behavior in your life. "

It was delivered with such egregious insincerity that Claire, to her horror, found it necessary to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling.

Charles found it equally necessary to look elsewhere, a hand suddenly moving to cover his mouth as if a cough wished to escape.

Only Fairburn showed no signs of humor at all, which made it funnier.

Claire, employing steely control, refused to let her amusement show, saying, "I am sure you are correct about that last, Mr Hewitt, and here are my parents, so I believe we may go in to dinner now. "

It had, in truth, only been their footsteps in the hall that she had heard, but announcing them gave her the chance to not quite accept Hewitt's apology, just as she had not quite accepted Fairburn's.

With a sense of satisfaction—of self-reliance—she curtsied to each of the men and accepted her cousin's arm to follow her parents into the dining room.

It was intolerable that Hewitt had been forgiven and he had not.

Any fool could see that Miss Dalton had been unable to retain her fury in the face of Hewitt's outrageous performance of an apology.

Benedict's forehead settled into a furrow every time he forgot to school his features into pleasantry.

A headache built behind that furrow, and to stave it off he drank a little more wine than was wise, followed, in the study with the other gentlemen, by a great deal more port than was wise.

By the end of the evening—which came on tremendously late indeed, with the foyer clock ringing so few chimes he lacked the wit to start counting their number before they ended—by that time he could no longer remember precisely what had angered him.

All he knew was that he liked Hewitt even less than usual, and that Miss Claire Dalton had become, through the haze of drink, a positively bewitching creature.

Morning came with violent brightness, autumnal sun somehow borrowing its mid-summer strength to pierce Benedict's eyelids when an unforgivable servant whipped the curtains and shutters aside.

An entirely too familiar voice with no hint of sympathy for his delicate state proclaimed, "You will be late for the luncheon, Master Fairburn, and as your compatriots intend a vigorous afternoon of shooting, Master Dalton feels strongly that you should be roused and fed at all costs. "

Even the least sensible of men could call the sound Benedict made no less than a moan.

He rolled, searching for a pillow with which to block the light, and felt it plucked from his hands by Worthington's ruthless grip.

"They cannot be well enough to hunt," Benedict protested, but if Worthington had been sent there was no hope for it: he would be dressed, fed and sat upon a horse whether he felt able or not.

A resigned groan followed the moan, and within appallingly little time, each of those terrible things had come to pass.

Astride his bay, Benedict didn't dare look back for fear of seeing the valet—Charles's own valet, as though the gentleman's gentleman of the house was insufficiently trusted for this duty!

—dusting his hands as if satisfied with a job adequately done.

Dalton and Hewitt were aggravatingly well, leaving Benedict to wonder how much of the port had gone down his own gullet the night before, when he'd thought they were partaking equally.

But Hewitt's smile said otherwise, and Dalton rode forth to shoot without a care in the world for Benedict's sensitive skull.

Benedict gave grim attention to gold-and-green trees on the near horizon rather than the painfully brilliant blue sky, and so it was Benedict who saw another rider coming toward them with a seat and skill so confident that it was enviable even in the distance.

A cloak fluttered around the rider's shoulders, warding off what little chill might be imagined in the golden autumn afternoon, and a hat of dramatic proportion shadowed his face.

"Your uncle's joining us, Dalton." Benedict strove for good nature and cheer in his tone, and to his own ear barely escaped despair.

Surely Mr Dalton had drunk as much as Benny had, and would be as sensitive to the fowling pieces' reports as Benedict was.

Perhaps they could retreat to the house, there to…

begin drinking again, Benedict concluded, unable to think of a cure more appealing than the hair of the dog.

So intent was he upon this fantasy that he half-missed Dalton's response, and then, unable to fully believe what he had heard, was obliged to say, "Beg your pardon? "

"I said that's not Uncle George; it's Claire.

Uncle rides like a sack of potatoes, but Claire has always had a flair for it.

Showed her brother up by the time she was eight.

Shot?" He hefted the gun, offering it to Benedict, who took it absently and peered over its gleaming barrel at the oncoming rider.

Deuced if it wasn't Miss Dalton, at that.

Unforgivable. The cloak had disguised her figure and the foppish hat was, in fact, her hair, half-undone by the wind's greedy fingers as she rode.

Benedict flushed, suddenly taken with envy for the wind and a curiosity as to how soft those dark curls might be.

At his ear, Hewitt bellowed, "Quail!" and despite the too-bright day, despite the distraction Miss Dalton provided, despite no intention what-so-ever to pull a trigger when his head already swam with the residue of last night's drinking, Benedict straightened in his saddle, swung the fowling piece around, squinted against the blue sky, and fired.

A brace of birds fell even as Benedict twisted his mouth against the redoubled ringing in his ears.