“I’d like to remain for the season,” she said simply.
“Without a chaperone?”
“I’m quite on the shelf. And I’ve my hired companion for appearances. I should prefer to be… elsewhere when you return to Blackwood without the girl.”
Benedict could hardly fault her for that desire. He, too, had no wish to be present when Father learned of his failure.
“Rent and other expenses are paid up for the season after your fight,” she added.
“You are to stay away from Eliza. And not the way you did last night, but truly.”
“As you say.”
“Iamsorry, Bella. However little that might mean.”
She dipped her head in half-hearted acknowledgment. “Perhaps his fury in you will be so great that he will actually expire.”
An unexpected. involuntary snort escaped Benedict. “God willing,” he muttered, then toasted her with the dregs of his bottle before tipping it back to catch the remaining amber dribbles.
Silently, she moved to sit beside him on the wrinkled coverings of his bed. “Do you ever wonder who you could have been if he hadn’t made you what you are?”
“I cannot say that I have. It seems too beautiful a dream to consider. I’d never wish to wake.”
“I would be insipid,” she declared. “Frivolous and insipid. The sort of girl I love to mock.”
He could imagine that version of Bella. Every so often he caught glimpses of her—with her exacting travel frock and fastidiously turned-out bonnets. Apparently, there was still room left in his heart to mourn for the girl who never was.
“I would’ve been a wastrel.”
Her smile was soft, false. “No, I rather think you would’ve been a poet. Perhaps an artist. Something romantic.”
“Hardly,” he scoffed.
“I’m sorry it has to be this way, Benedict. I wish it could be different—wecould be different. I should have liked to know the other version of my brother, wastrel or romantic.” Bella nudged his shoulder with her own.
“I wish you could have had the opportunity to be frivolous.”
She shook her head, banishing the wistful, fruitless dreams. “When will you depart?”
“With the morning post.”
“Do try to eat something before you leave. And wash. You smell like a distillery.”
“Yes, Bella,” he said with an indulgent note.
Benedict’s pacecould be described only as a trudge. The weight of his remorse far exceeded that of his scuffed and scraped trunk as he dragged it along to the nearest coaching inn. His head throbbed and swirled in that state between drunk and stale. Sour perspiration clung to his temples.
He took comfort in the knowledge that his outward state could never hope to mirror his inner turmoil as he half-collapsed on the bench outside the inn. Bella’s remaining gin had proved too tempting in the face of impending sobriety, but he lamented that choice now when presented with the prospect of traveling for days beside strangers on the rocking stagecoach.
Across the narrow street, he glimpsed a familiar face. In his present pathetic state, it took a moment to place the short, dark-skinned gentleman. The dunner from Wayland’s.
The man—Benedict couldn’t recall the name—dipped his head in acknowledgment from his mirroring bench.
Benedict had never entertained the notion that Wayland’s threat was a bluff. But seeing the evidence in the disapproving set of the man’s brow sent shame rising up his throat along with the damned gin.
Moments later, to his astonishment, Benedict felt better for having cast up his accounts—despite the disgusted expression on a passerby’s face.
Wayland’s enforcer waited, motionless, for more than an hour until Benedict had paid his fare and poured himself into the coach.
