The butler opened the door, raising only a judgmental brow at their visitor.
“Thank you, Norton,” Bella chirped.
“Would you see about getting a hack?” Benedict asked.
The man’s expression was one of displeasure, but he said nothing. Instead, he stepped out into the night.
“Well, I’ll be readying for bed.” Bella faked a yawn in the entry.
“Absolutely not. You’re acting as chaperone.”
Eliza’s lips curled in amusement, eyes twinkling in the candlelit hall. She looked as pretty as a picture in her purple and grey frock, with flushed cheeks and bright eyes. Benedict chafed at the necessity of bringing her here, to this place he was ashamed to call home—even temporarily. No matter that it was in better repair than Blackwood, neither was good enough for Eliza. She looked out of place against the cracked plaster walls and atop the warped floorboards.
Bella sighed and strode into the drawing room, leaving them alone in the hall.
“That was precisely what you were not supposed to do, Bell,” he called after her.
“I’m sorry, Benedict, you’ll have to speak louder. I cannot hear you from all the way in here,” she called back, the clink of a bottle against glass punctuating the speech.
Benedict bit back a smile at the sight of Eliza failing to hide her own. When her eyes trailed down the length of his chest, his answering groan was impossible to restrain.
She had no right to be that lovely, all soft and bemused, with lust in her eyes. How was a man to resist? Eliza Wayland was a temptation straight from the devil himself—a preemptive torment for future sins.
“You’re hurt,” she said as she brushed her thumb across his lip—her touch petal soft. “We need to clean you up.”
“Weneedto get you home,” he insisted.
She shot him a look. No one had ever communicatedNo, and you’re a fool if you think I’ll let this go, quite so effectively without words.
He acquiesced with a sigh.
“Where do you store the bandages?”
“In my room—no, absolutely not.” The thought of Eliza there, in that room, on thatbed, where he’d stroked himself to thoughts of her…
“Benedict…” Instead of waiting for his very reasonable objections, she caught his hand and tugged him up the stairs. “Is it this way?”
He tripped after her. “Eliza, I cannot begin to enumerate the ways in which this is wrong.”
“I’m not leaving until I clean a few of these cuts. Your complaints are noted and overruled. Now, which one is yours?”
The fight left him at the sight of her determined expression. He pointed with two fingers to the room he’d claimed even as his skin crawled with the wrongness of it. She deserved so much better than this crumbling slum.
Her expression shifted as she took in his room. Something unreadable but certainly disappointed or disgusted crossed her face. She stepped inside and made a slow circuit of the bare walls.
“Hmm.”
“What?” he asked, weary.
“I suppose I imagined more personal touches. I can’t find… you in here.”
“It’s rented. For the season.”
“Oh, that makes sense then.” Her easy acceptance of the answer surprised him. Everyone in her orbit surely owned property—for several generations at least.
She forged ahead though, leaving him off balance. “Sit. Take your shirt off.” She gestured to the bed. “Where are the bandages?”
“Under the basin, but, Eliza, I can?—”
