Ben had spoken scarcely a word. At this rate he was going to feel worse when he left than he had before he arrived. For if he did not apologize now, he never would, and he would forever feel in the wrong—as he was, dash it all.
Mrs. McKay might be a considerable beauty, but he really could not like her, perhaps because she had held up a mirror in which he had seen the ugliest side of himself. He caught Beatrice’s eye and raised his eyebrows. Good manners probably dictated that they leave very soon.
“Lady Matilda,” she said, “I fear I have eaten too many of those excellent biscuits and would welcome some exercise before the drive back to Robland Park. Would you be willing to take a turn on the terrace with me?”
Lady Matilda looked anything but willing. However, she was a lady and her social manners prevailed.
“I shall fetch my bonnet and cloak,” she said and left the room.
Beatrice drifted after her, having asked Mrs. McKay apologetically and rhetorically if she minded. That lady looked as if shedidmind, though she answered politely enough to the contrary. She looked down at the hands clasped in her lap when she and Ben were alone together, and silence descended, apart from one contented sigh from the dog, who had looked interested in the stroll on the terrace but had decided against making himself one of the party, perhaps because its number was to include Lady Matilda.
Clearly Mrs. McKay had no intention of breaking the silence.
Ben cleared his throat. “Mrs. McKay,” he said, “I believe I owe you an apology.”
“Yes.” She raised her eyes and looked so directly into his own that he felt himself move his head back an inch or so even though she was some distance away from him. “You believe correctly, sir.”
Well. Had he expected her to simper and assure him that he had done nothing to offend her?
“What happened the other day was entirely my fault,” he said. “I ought not to have jumped that hedge without knowing what was on the other side. And when Ididjump it and almost killed you, I certainly ought not to have thrown the blame upon you and ripped up at you as I did.”
“We are in perfect accord uponthat,” she assured him, her chin up, her eyes steady, her whole manner disdainful. She continued. “I suppose it would be a bit absurd if every rider felt obliged to dismount and push through a hedge before he jumped it just to make sure that some stray pedestrian was not strolling along on the other side. He could, perhaps, cry out atallyho!as he came, but that might sound rather peculiar. What happened was an accident. No one was to blame forthat, at least.”
The fairness of her response only cast him more abjectly in the wrong.
“But someone was certainly to blame for what followed,” he said. “I was, in fact. My immediate reaction to throw all the blame upon you and your dog when you were both clearly innocent of any offense was unjust and unpardonable. I hope youwillpardon me, nevertheless, ma’am, when I assure you that I am thoroughly ashamed of myself. And I beg forgiveness for the appalling language I am sure I must have used in your hearing, though I hope none of it was directed at you personally.”
She was still looking unwaveringly at him, and it struck him that those dark eyes of hers were a quite lethal weapon. He had to resist the urge to move his head back another inch and lower his own eyes.
“Except for onedamn it,” she said, “which was added after you had called someonewoman. Since I was the only female present, I was led to understand that you meant me.”
He grimaced. Dash it all, he did not remember that.
“What caused me most indignation, however,” she added, “was the fact that you did not get down from your horse when you saw that I had been knocked over—even though the knocking was done by my own hysterical dog rather than by your horse. Unfortunately, I was forced to relinquish much of my wrath when I saw you on Sunday and understood why you had not dismounted.”
“I ought to have explained at the time,” he said. “I ought to have shown far more concern for the fright you had taken and the harm I may have done you. I ought to have—” He sighed with frustration and ran his fingers through his hair. “Well, the long and the short of it is that I behaved atrociously in every imaginable way. I understand that you are offended I even had the effrontery to present myself here. I will, in fact, remove myself without further ado.”
He reached for his canes.
“I spent a year with my husband in proximity to his regiment,” she told him. “I heard a thing or two that ladies are not supposed to hear. Officers have voices that must carry on a battlefield. Unfortunately, they also carry when they arenoton a battlefield. I am not a green girl, Sir Benedict, and I must admit, with some reluctance, that I admire your courage in coming here to speak to me face-to-face. I did not expect it. I take it Lady Gramley did not really feel any burning need to stroll on the terrace with poor Matilda? I believe she ate only one biscuit.”
“I was afraid,” he said, “that if I blurted out my apology in your sister-in-law’s hearing, I might compound my offense by informing her of something she does not know about.”
“Good gracious, you are absolutely right,” she said. “Matilda would have an apoplexy if she discovered I had been beyond the walls of the park without an escort—or even with one.”
“You will forgive me?” he asked her.
“I swore I never would.” Her eyes moved to his canes. “Is it hard for you to ride?”
“Yes,” he said. “But that very fact makes the lure of doing so irresistible. That hedge was the first obstacle I had jumped since…Well, since my great fall more than six years ago. I was inclined to think afterward, in light of what happened and whatalmosthappened, that it would also be my last. But I have decided it will not be. The next time I shall choose a higher obstacle, but I will be sure to approach it with atallyho!on my lips.”
“You were not born this way, then?” she asked him. “There was an accident?”
“It was called war,” he told her.
Her eyes came back to his, and a frown creased her brow for a moment.
“Well, at least,” she said, “your injuries, though severe, were confined to your legs. Unlike my husband’s.”
