Page 8 of Much Ado About Hating You (Second Chance Season #2)

Seven

M uch could happen in two days, even when nothing much happened at all.

Games, conversation, excellent food, Spanish wine provided by her father for the entire party, a gift for the couple he’d sent with Beatrice. After she’d asked him to. And after taking the price of it out of her allowance. The daily diversions blurred together without much incident. Perhaps the missing Richard Clark leant an air of lazy peace to the affair.

Missing why, though? Had their interaction in the cottage run him off? He’d not seemed particularly deterred that day. I’m yours for the taking.

Beatrice left her writing implements and opened the library window, hoping some fresh air would sweep through and cool her off. But it remained as absent as Mr. Clark. He’d disappeared, showing his face only to eat, toss some of the wine down his throat, then run off once more. She expected nothing less. He was a man, after all. Eternal disappointments, the lot of them.

Even Peterson, who could never be found when she wanted him and always showed up when she didn’t. Alone in the garden—he was nowhere to be found. In a crowded room—he’d disappeared. While she was busy puzzling through a translation—right at her side. Breathing much too loudly.

Still, his continued attention was quite encouraging. He’d offered tiny touches, too. His fingers at her waist, pale compared to Richard’s. His shoulder brushing hers, shorter, narrower than Richard’s. His hand escorting her, not a single tingle penetrated the layers of glove between them.

No matter. Beatrice would kiss the man. What better way to banish other kisses after all. Now, more than ever, she must take a lover, a man to show her Richard was not the only one who could make her shatter.

After this afternoon’s work, though. The legal terms were particularly difficult to perfect at times. And they were the most important.

“Miss Bell?” The library door creaked open, and Peterson stepped inside. “Ah, there you are. Your cousin told me I’d find you here.”

“Good morning. I’m busy at the moment. But after I finish this, perhaps we can walk in the garden?”

“Ah.” His gaze dove toward the open window. “Yes, lovely. Do you mind if I remain with you until you are done?”

She tried to keep her eyebrows from collapsing toward one another. “That is…” Not fine. “Yes, you may.”

If it had been Richard, she would have told him to jump out the window. She couldn’t be as fierce with other men. As truthful.

Peterson sat nearby, sitting poker straight in a hard-back chair. He crossed one leg over the other. And began to shake his bottom leg up and down. Vibrating the entire bloody library.

She bit her tongue and turned back to her work, dipped her quill in ink and?—

“Miss Bell, what is it you are working on?”

“A contract.”

“Are you translating to or out of… What language?”

“Spanish. My father’s ships carry wine.”

“Ah.” He settled into the back of the chair.

And in the blessed silence that followed, Beatrice completed several sentences.

“Doesn’t your father have a man to do this for him?” Peterson asked just as she was chewing on the most accurate way of expressing a particularly difficult sentence.

Her quill hovered over the paper, frustration bunching her muscles. “Yes.” Hateful question. How many times had she been asked that? Never by Richard. But by other men? Constantly.

She must stop these useless comparisons. Despite their differences, only their one similarity mattered—they were men not worth trusting. “But I am better than them all.”

Peterson made a sound. Half grunt, stuck in his throat. She faced him, one brow raised high.

“Yes?” she asked.

“It is only…” He shifted, uncrossing his legs, then recrossing them in the other direction. “You have not had the same formal training in languages a man has. Have you?”

“I am mostly self-taught.” Not that it mattered. She was excellent at what she did. Otherwise, her father would not trust her with his contracts. Her self-education was thorough, consisting of the linguistic and legal knowledge necessary for her task. Yet… She rolled her shoulders, trying to roll her doubt away. Her father did not pay her. Did not think it seemly to pay a woman, his daughter, for her services. So perhaps he trusted the funds she saved him more than he trusted her talent. A long-held fear.

Damn Peterson for pulling it out into the light.

If Peterson proved equally chatty in bed, taking him for a lover would be cause for mourning not celebration.

“Why not learn a more suitable language?” he asked.

“Such as?”

“French?”

“No, thank you.” She turned back to the table, snapping up her quill. “Spanish is my mother’s tongue.”

He seemed to recognize her response for what it was—a dismissal of the subject. He lapsed into silence, his leg shaking at such a speed, her chair might vibrate across the room. Paper. Ink. She focused on it, tried to narrow her world to it alone. Tried to write smoothly despite his shaking.

She’d been here before. In this very library, alone with a man. This time so different from that one. Years ago. Another man so different from this one…

Richard lay on the chaise lounge near the writing desk she’d commandeered in the library, one leg stretched out, the other bent, the sole of his boot flat on the rug. At the end of his stretched-out leg, his foot swung back and forth lazily, like a lion’s tail, as he stared at the ceiling. He was silent as the grave in his contemplation.

All the noise came from Beatrice, from her quill scratching across paper. Happy silence, happy scritch scratch. She found herself humming, too, the words of two languages pouring together more smoothly than they usually did. Happy companionship, perhaps, gave her confidence. Two pages of Don Quixote had transformed beneath her hand with ease. She was improving. Soon her father would not be able to deny her expertise, would agree to let her translate his agreements with his Spanish trade partners.

Yes, he’d missed the last three meetings she’d scheduled with his man of business, but… he could not put her off forever. She’d thought this week would provide ample opportunity to prove her value to him. He’d promised to escort her to Slopevale, to remain there for the length of the party.

He’d never showed, and she’d arrived in the country a day late from waiting.

A knot in her chest tightened, and she gently placed her quill on the table to press the heels of her hands into her stinging eyes. Shaking off the shadows, she faced Richard. Stretched out, lean and lazy, the softest grin beneath closed eyes, his dark hair sweeping back from his sun-bronzed face. That grin, so satisfied it turned a handsome man into a demigod. Her father might not be here, but Mr. Clark was, and his long, muscled form gave her an odd, electric sort of comfort.

“What are you thinking of?” she asked quietly.

“Nothing.”

“Surely something.”

“Hm. Perhaps, if I’m thinking of anything, it’s to wonder what you’re writing, to wish I could read it.”

“Why haven’t you asked?”

He shrugged. “We might argue. And I’m rather enjoying this feeling.”

“Which is?”

“I think… belonging.”

She pressed a hand to her cheek—hot, surely red.

He sat upright, leg still outstretched, boot still swinging at the end of it. “Cannot say for certain, though, never having felt it before.”

She laughed. This man not knowing how belonging feels? Yes, he was a bastard, but he’d been accepted by his father, loved by his brothers. He must mean, perhaps, belonging with a woman. With her. Cheeks hotter now, her heart thumping. She felt it, too, the belonging. Rightness rang in the silence. She’d never been able to work with anyone in the room with her before. But with Richard…

Dangerous, Bea. Beware.

She turned back to her work, trying to ignore the shuffles and squeaks behind her. Trying to ignore the warm weight settling at her shoulder. Dipping her quill in the ink pot, she said, “Yes?”

“Can you teach me?”

“I could. But could you learn?” Sharp. Like a needle, it popped the sweet silence they’d been belonging in.

He chuckled, unbothered, building back up the sweetness if not the silence. “I would try, hellcat.”

“Miss Bell.”

Were those—she swallowed the rising lump in her throat—his bare knuckles on the back of her neck? Do not moan, do not lean into them, and do not sigh wistfully! She scooted her chair away from him, closer to the table’s edge.

“Read it to me, then? The Spanish version first, then your translation.”

“You do not want that. It will bore you.”

“I’ve never found anything you’ve said the least bit boring.” That was his hand settling on her shoulder. “Please, Beatrice?”

She melted right into the pages of Quixote , reading them aloud as if in a dream. A dangerous dream. Men were not to be trusted. Smooth, charming men should be avoided. But without knowing, he was giving her everything she’d ever ached for. A man who cared for her opinion, who admired her talents, whose very presence offered solace—an impossibility. Experience had taught her such men were rare. Nearly extinct. Yet Richard…

Finished reading the original and her translation, she peeked up at him, stopped breathing.

His hand still curled warmly on her shoulder, his eyes were pools of fired whisky, golden brown and burning. For her?

No man had ever wanted her. Not even the ones who were supposed to.

She should not trust this. Must be a trick.

Yet…

His hand skimmed up her neck and settled beneath her jaw, warm and welcome. “You’re a wonder, Beatrice Bell. How do you do it?”

“I-I… it is important to understand the entire meaning of a paragraph, a page, a chapter. The symbolic, the literal, the metaphorical. You cannot merely plod along one word at a time. Seeing the whole first… it’s necessary to create a proper— Apologies.” She turned from him, pulling away from his touch. “Now I am boring you.”

He eased around her, sat on the edge of the table, his large hand finding her chin again, lifting it. “Not bored a bit. Intrigued beyond measure. Will you teach me? I’ll do my best to understand the words as you do. I cannot promise proficiency, but ? —”

“Yes. I’ll teach you.” Mad decision, dangerous idea. But no other possible reaction, to his admiration, to his touch. Maybe she could trust this man. Maybe she could, with him, sink into soft silence without worry. She closed her eyes and leaned her cheek into his palm.

Beatrice cuffed her hand around her neck. Sobs were rising there, and she was not alone, in no place to reveal her weaknesses to the world.

She wanted Peterson in her bed, not her heart. No man had entrance there. Not since…

She squeezed a bit harder, closing her eyes. Then she dropped her hand and shook off the sadness, returned once more to her translations.

“Miss Bell.” Peterson stood behind her, but not close enough to feel his heat.

She spoke without looking up from her work, only dipping her quill into the ink pot. “Yes, my lord?”

“Most everyone is gone.”

She rolled her eyes, set the nib to the paper. “I’m aware.” What was the correct translation for bore ?

He cleared his throat. “Two people, alone, may do as they please. With only the servants to see. And Prescott’s are a silent lot.”

“Mmm.”

“There’s an excellent view from my bedchamber. Of the lake.”

“Lovely for you.”

“Perhaps you might like to view it? Now. Seems as good a time as any.”

“I’m quite busy, my lord. Thank you, though.”

“Ah. Well?—”

She faced him with a slight sigh. “I do beg your pardon, but I find it difficult to concentrate, and I must finish this. You do understand, yes?” Leave.

If it were Richard, he would pull up a chair, sit next to her. That his only answer. Other than a cocky, challenging grin. Then he’d sew his lips shut and rebel in silence. And either she’d be able to concentrate more than before—his irritating presence somehow, contradictorily, soothing—or he’d tease her into what she really wanted.

A kiss.

That’s what she’d wanted that day in this room with him seven years ago. She’d received only heartache instead. He’d prove her right. Men only wanted women for a while. They’d all eventually abandon her, disappoint her, break her. Just as her father had.

Just as Richard had when he’d hurt Selena.

Better to remember his betrayal than how beautifully they’d once fit together.

“Yes, ah. I do understand.” Peterson bowed. “Good day, Miss Bell. Perhaps we’ll speak at dinner.”

She waved and he left, and finally alone, she could no better focus than before. She folded her hands in her lap with a scowl.

The view. From his bedchamber.

“Curses.”

He’d been offering what she’d been angling for since they’d been introduced. And she’d rejected it. Rejected him.

And she did not seem to regret it.