And a return to the intimacy of the previous night would do as well. He despised calling her Miss Hilgrove. Hated this forced distance between them, both physical and emotional. But he could not linger upon that now.
Instead, he focused his mind upon the questions that had been eating away at him, along with the desire for her.
“Of course, if that is what you wish.”
Her voice was hesitant, with a questioning air now that had been absent before. He was behaving erratically and he knew it, but damnation, she did things to him. Things no woman before her had ever done.
He stalked to the window, pretending to peer into the London traffic beyond the gate surrounding Westmorland House. “Perhaps we might indulge in a little chat. What do you think, Miss Hilgrove? I confess, I cannot help but to wonder how it is you came to know Lambert.”
“We were both guests at the same house party one summer, many years ago now,” she said. “We spent a great deal of time together. I thought him charming and witty and so very sophisticated. We share a love of poetry, and later, he was kind enough to send me the book you discovered.”
Indeed.
Her ready response did not please him.
He turned back to find her standing where he had left her, beside the typewriter, her hand gracing the back of the chair she had so recently vacated.
“How did you come to be a guest at the same house party?” he asked, genuinely curious, trying to stamp the rest of her words from his mind.
“My mother was the youngest daughter of Sir Richard Bowdon. When she married my father, who was a tradesman, she was cut off from much of her family, including my grandfather.” Isabella’s gaze was unwavering, searing his. “Not all the Bowdons were willing to turn their backs upon her. Some invitations would arrive, usually for country house parties where our additions were hardly noticed. Father never accompanied us, wanting nothing to do with the quality.”
This news was surprising, though he supposed it explained rather a great deal about the enigma that was Miss Isabella Hilgrove. Her aristocratic connections were thin and limited, but she carried herself with the air of a gentlewoman, and her intelligence spoke for her. So, too, did her work ethic and stubborn insistence upon adhering to class differences make sense. Her father was a tradesman and her mother gentry. Their alliance could not have been easy, particularly if Isabella’s mother’s own father had cut her off.
“And yet he married your mother,” he could not resist pointing out.
A small smile flitted with her lips. “Theirs was a love match. He met my mother when she visited his London shop. He lost his heart to her the moment he set eyes upon her, or so he claimed. I tend to believe him, because Papa was not terribly softhearted. Mama and business were his two great loves.”
“What of you?” he asked. “Surely your father loved you as well.”
Her smile turned wistful. “He did in his way, I believe. But my mother’s constitution was quite frail. After she had me, they did not dare risk her having another child, lest she not survive. I do think Papa would have preferred me to have been a son, someone to carry on his shop. As it was, I had no heart in keeping it alive. When he died, I sold the shop and invested most of the funds in my typewriting school and my home.”
Now he understood her devotion to her typewriting school. Her association with Lambert made sense as well. However, he still did not know what Lambert had meant to her or what had occurred between them. He did not like to think of himself as a jealous man, but everything about his emotions when it came to Isabella was foreign and unpredictable. He had never known this intensity, this depth of feeling.
He moved toward her slowly, drawn in spite of himself. “You have created something of tremendous value, Isabella. I am certain your father would have been incredibly proud of what you have accomplished.”
Her composure cracked, just for an instant. Her full lower lip trembled. “Thank you.”
NoYour Grace, but still not aBenedict, either.
“I am not offering you inflated praise or false flattery,” he told her, lest she doubt his sincerity. “When I said I admire you, I meant all of you. The part of you that is so devoted to creating something of your own, to helping other ladies find the training to obtain situations that will support them and their families. I admire that as well. Not just your beauty.”
And her fragile, wild beauty was intrinsic to who she was. She was thorny as a rose, mysterious as fog, elusive as a bird, more magnificent than any woman he had ever known. A lady like her would never again cross his path. He understood that instinctively. Every part of her was unique. She was a true original.
Pink flared to life in her cheeks. “I am not beautiful at all.”
How wrong she was about herself.
“You underestimate your allure,” he said simply, wondering if that no-account fop Lambert was responsible for the manner in which she buried herself in somber, colorless sacks and hid the glory of her hair in joyless chignons. “Why?”
“I have no allure.” Her fingers twisted nervously in the folds of her skirts, the dainty knuckles white-boned and rising in stark relief. “I believe our break has gone on long enough. If you do not mind, I should return to typewriting this report for you, else I shall never complete it by lunch.”
“Hang the report,” he declared on an impulse. “I want to speak with you.”
“You have just spoken with me, Your Grace. A great deal.” Her full mouth tightened into a prim line.
Was it disapproval, or was it an act of repression? Either way, the formality had returned, and he did not like it. She clung to it, rather like a shield, for her own protection.
“You called me Benedict last night,” he reminded her, stopping just short of her.
