Page 6 of Bewitching Benedict (The Lovelorn Lads #1)

"You will not in my hearing," Dalton said, "nor, if you are wise, will you do so in hers.

Particularly, I think, if you are inclined to call her your little mouse.

No, I should not do that, if I were you.

Now, Fairburn is right. It's well past time you aired more than a brag, and brought a few quail to the table yourself. "

"I haven't noticed you bagging anything," Hewitt said with a sniff.

Beside him, Fairburn, who had bristled amusingly at Hewitt's threat to call Claire his little mouse, now shifted in such a way as to speak of wary stillness, as if he saw Hewitt's latest comment as treading increasingly dangerous waters.

Interesting, Charles thought, with a softening of his heart.

In school, he would have called Evan the more sensitive of his two friends, but since Charles's return from the war, Benny seemed the more able to recognize topics he didn't want to discuss.

More to the point, Benedict appeared to recognize when conversation began to turn too closely to those topics.

He would not have commented on Charles's failure to take aim, and indeed, now he spoke, voice light.

"It's a shooting holiday meant for us , Evan.

Be embarrassing, wouldn't it, if he had to make up the numbers himself?

Come on, now. Miss Dalton managed three.

You can at least match that, can't you?" With a sigh so dramatic it mocked, Fairburn hefted Dalton's gun again.

"I suppose I can bring down another brace myself, if you're unreliable. "

"How dare you call me unreliable! I might call a man out for saying such a thing, Fairburn!"

"That seems unnecessary, doesn't it?" Fairburn leaned over a few inches, as if to confide in the other man.

"Go on, then. I'll flush them out. All you have to do is shoot.

" He rode forward, startling more quail into the air.

Charles, smiling, followed along behind the two men, listening to them bicker between the echoes of gunfire.

Miss Claire Dalton sat at her writing desk in the library, a pose she had taken up the evening after the shooting and retained throughout the following day, particularly when there was any chance of the Lads seeing her.

There was a ferocious precision to her attitude and a constant gentle scrape of pen against paper, but it did not escape Worthington's notice that the inkwell rarely needed refilling, nor did the stack of papers upon which she wrote much diminish.

It was not, of course, his place to comment, or indeed to even behave as though he had observed, and so he did not.

Instead, the evening after the hunt, he merely made himself…

available , by way of stopping a polite distance from where she sat prettily framed by a large window that reflected her slender image in its darkness.

Several minutes passed before she lifted her head, though Worthington had no doubt that she was aware of his presence since his arrival.

Still, he was not her servant, and as a gentlewoman she was not expected to attend to the needs of the serving class before her own.

When she did look at him, though, it was with her full attention, which grace was offered to very few of those who served.

She was not a beauty—pretty, yes, but not one who would stop men in the street to gape at her—but the fullness of her regard made her attractive despite the perfectly dreadful high-necked gown she wore.

Even if the pale puce had suited her (and it did not; a woman of Miss Dalton's complexion should wear jewel tones at all times, if only convention would allow it), the dress would make a sow's ear out of silk.

Yet Worthington nearly forgot the horror of a dress as Miss Dalton examined him with a forthright green gaze, and he concluded if that was the case, properly attired she could have London at her feet, merely pretty or no.

"I remember you," she said unexpectedly. "From when we were young. From when Charles last visited. He was twenty or twenty-one, and you could not have been more than a year or two older. Worthington, isn't it?"

"Miss." Worthington nodded as much to indicate her correctness as to hide his own surprise. "I'm honored to be remembered."

"You were exceedingly proper," Miss Dalton said with a smile, "and exceedingly patient, and you rode better than Charles, but were careful to hide that when he was with us. You were kind," she concluded with a note of curiosity.

"Miss?" An absolute world of inflection could be put into a single repeated word, and with this one, Worthington invited her to satisfy that curiosity.

"Well, you didn't have to be, and I wonder why you were.

Kind, that is. Proper and patient are to be expected from a valet, and I remember that your father was—is?

" She smiled swiftly at Worthington's nod, clearly relieved to have not tread on a sorrow as she continued.

"Is Uncle Charles's valet, and so I might have expected pride.

Lots of servants, especially ones with a long history of serving a single family, are proud.

But you were kind. To Charles, to George, even to me.

I fell once and the boys laughed and left me, but you stopped to help.

I remember." She blushed suddenly, as if realizing she had been speaking for some time, and fell silent with a glance at the blank pages beside her.

"Please," she added awkwardly. "You want to speak with me. Won't you sit?"

"I think not, Miss, but thank you. Kindness costs me nothing," Worthington said after a moment.

"My father told me that when I was very young: that kindness costs me nothing, but can be worth a great deal to those it is offered to.

I remember that you fell, that I offered you assistance. I did not imagine you would."

"It was worth a great deal to me." Claire offered a shy smile and an upward glance through her eyelashes so devoid of guile and to such effect that Worthington cleared his throat.

She was entirely wasted in the country, he decided.

Something would have to be done. "What," she asked then, "did you want to say to me? "

"Ah. It is impetuous, Miss, and perhaps not in keeping with the kindness you remember me with. Perhaps I should not have come."

Miss Dalton's smile flashed. "You can hardly retreat now, Worthington. My interest is piqued. What, pray tell, do you have to say?"

Worthington made an economical gesture toward her papers.

"Only that while I am certain your brother is delighted at your dedication in writing to him, that I would…

implore you, Miss Dalton, to spend no more time pursuing an attitude of such propriety on behalf of the young gentlemen staying here.

I believe even young Master Hewitt has been put in his place, which I assure you is not an easy task, and Master Fairburn has spent an inordinate amount of time speaking of his concern regarding your opinion of him.

They are all in dread of what you have already said to your brother, and I might suggest that to present yourself so piously for any longer could, ah, undermine your salubrious efforts. "

A thoughtful smile curled the corners of Miss Dalton's full lips. "Is that so, Worthington? How convenient that I have just now finished my letter to George, then. I wonder, my good man, if you might be troubled to post it for me in the morning."

Worthington all but clicked his heels together in swift agreement. "It would be no trouble at all, Miss Dalton. Indeed, it would be my pleasure."

"Thank you." Claire Dalton had, it seemed, written a letter after all, and a lengthy one at that. She took a stack of pages that had been set aside and shuffled them together into tidiness, then folded them neatly before addressing them with an elegant hand, and offering the packet to Worthington.

He accepted with the solemn neutrality that suited his class, and took a step backward. "Your servant, Miss."

"Wait!" Miss Dalton pressed a hand to her throat as if to modulate the cry that had burst forth. "I wonder if I might trouble you for a little more advice, Worthington."

"Your servant, Miss."

Claire's voice dropped precipitously, and she leaned forward. Worthington took one step forward to make up the distance he had retreated, then a second to assume a pose of confidentiality. "What," Miss Dalton whispered, "should I do now? About the Lads?"

"Ah." Worthington straightened and allowed the briefest smile to crack his mien. "Ignore them, Miss Dalton. Ignore them entirely."

"Oh." Surprise, then understanding slipped across Miss Dalton's features.

"Oh. Yes, of course." Her eyes sparkled, and Worthington thought again she was wasted in the country, with slim pickings for young men to marry.

Her smile this time was slower and much fuller, and she rose gracefully to find a book with which to engage herself.

Book in hand, she assumed an attitude of carelessness and waved him away.

"Thank you, Worthington. You may go now. "

"Miss," Worthington said a final time, and departed with a sense of satisfaction.

Something would have to be done.