Cassian rolled his eyes. “Let me guess, you built her one the following week.”
Sebastian beamed. “Week? The very next day, actually. I am surprised you thought I would hold out that long.”
Benedict cleared his throat sharply. “Can we return to the matter at hand?”
“What about Sir Milton Hartelle?” Cassian quipped. “He is pretty sharp-witted, too. He might love the banter she would offer.”
Benedict nearly snorted. “Sir Milton Hartelle is simply a chatterbox. Describing him as sharp-witted is a disservice to everyone who is. Anastasia would tire of his yap by supper.”
Sebastian tapped his chin. “There is also Sanford Reede. Polite, respectable, entirely without scandal.”
“Entirely without a spine, you mean. He would not last an hour.” Benedict set down his glass with deliberate precision. “Which is precisely why I must be careful. Her reputation is already… fragile. I cannot compound the damage by throwing her to unsuitable men.”
“Fragile?” Cassian arched a brow. “Benedict, I frequent half the card rooms and gaming hells in London. I know scandalwhen it walks in the door, and your Miss Dawson has supplied gossip enough to fill every corner. The gentlemen will not touch her, and the matrons will not permit it. That leaves only the desperate, the reckless… or the dangerously foolish.”
Sebastian chuckled, swirling the brandy in his glass. “Which explains why you are glowering more fiercely than usual. It seems finding her a husband will prove harder than managing Frostmore itself.”
Cassian’s grin widened, wolfish. “And so far, my dear Benedict, every candidate we suggest you dismiss with all the zeal of a jealous guardian. One might almost think you mean to keep her to yourself.”
Benedict’s jaw tightened. She was not his to keep. God help him, half the time he could hardly endure being in the same room with her—her laughter too bright, her defiance too sharp, her presence too consuming. And yet, when Cassian called herhis Miss Dawson,something hot and proprietary twisted low in his gut.
“Do not be absurd, Cassian. I want her gone from Frostmore, nothing more, nothing less. She is not the sort of woman I would wed. You know very well that my wife would need to be of impeccable reputation and manners.”
“Of course,” Sebastian said smoothly, his eyes far too knowing.
“As I said, there is nothing more than me fulfilling my uncle’s wish,” Benedict repeated, though the words rang hollow even to his own ears. He exhaled and added, quieter, “I realize that whispers about her abound, but someone has to be willing to meet her.”
Cassian gave a low whistle. “Whispers? Benedict, they are not whispers—they are practically wild tales. I have heard half a dozen versions, each worse than the last. In one, she eloped with a captain. In another, she ran off with a married man. My personal favorite claims she has been in the countryside hiding an illegitimate child.”
Sebastian smirked over the rim of his glass. “Colorful, at least. Do any of them happen to be true?”
Benedict stilled, his grip tightening on the glass. He had never asked Anastasia herself—not directly. Pride, or perhaps self-preservation, had kept him from it. But hearing the rumors from Cassian’s lips made his stomach turn unpleasantly. “What do you know of it?” he asked, his voice clipped.
Cassian shrugged, too pleased with himself. “Bits and pieces. Enough to know thetondelights in painting her as ruined. She spurned a duke, eloped with a nobody, or slapped her own suitor. No matter the details, the ending’s always the same.”
“No matter what people say, I need to find someone for her. Do you think there would be anyone willing?”
Sebastian shook his head with mock solemnity. “If only it were so easy. From what you said, most men blanch at the mere mention of her. As though the scandal itself might be catching.”
Benedict’s jaw tightened. He hated that Sebastian was right. She deserved better than to be treated as though she were some broken thing, yet society had already branded her beyond redemption. “And that is precisely my concern,” he said at last. “She deserves better than to be discarded, yet thetonwould rather pretend she does not exist.”
“Ah,” Cassian said, eyes alight with mischief. “You defend her now. How noble. Or… how telling.”
“She is still under my protection,” Benedict answered, his tone iron, though he felt that iron bending under the strain of her image in his mind—green eyes flashing, laughter spilling so freely it unsettled him. “I will not have her name dragged through every gaming hell in London.”
Sebastian chuckled. “You see, Cassian? Our friend protests too much. One time, he wishes he could find just anyone to court her, but no one is good enough. He does not merely want her married. He wants her safeguarded. There is a difference.”
“There is no difference,” Benedict snapped, though he knew even as he said it that his tone betrayed him. “She is a responsibility I never asked for, and the sooner I see her settled, the sooner I can restore order to Frostmore and keep up with my own life.”
Cassian raised his glass in a mock toast. “To order, then. And to Miss Dawson, the insufferable. May she find a husband reckless enough to claim her before our Benedict discovers he would rather no one else did.”
Sebastian clinked his glass against Benedict’s with a grin. “God help the man who tries to tame her. Unless, of course, that man is already sitting at this table.”
Benedict did not rise to the bait. He drained his glass in silence, though Anastasia’s green eyes followed him into the burn of the whiskey.
Chapter 8
“Oh, bugger,” Anastasia cursed after the needle pricked her finger for what felt like the millionth time this afternoon. A bright bead of blood welled against her skin, mocking her efforts. Compulsory embroidery at Frostmore was less a pastime than a punishment.
