She frowned at him with suspicion narrowing her eyes. “Who made you my protector?”
“You did when you fainted in my arms in my garden and when you made yourself ill by eating my food.”And the first time I looked at you and every time after that.He clenched his jaw. Was this his voice he was hearing in his head? This odd little prickling feeling he felt when he wasn’t around her was both curious and alarming. His feet brought him to her even while his head was commanding him not to go.
Even now, commanding his eyes to shift away to something other than her did him no good. He took in every nuance of her myriad of facial expressions. Her hair, with its waist-length coppery curls lent to her enchanting appearance. Her peach-colored lips tempted him to lean forward and steal a kiss. But he was no thief. He told his traitorous feet and legs to move, leave the chair, the room, and her. But he remained where he sat.
“You’re a nice guy in a cold, aloof sort of way.”
He tilted his head at her, wondering if she just complimented him.
The door to the bedroom burst open and Prudence strode inside. She stopped when she saw him sitting by the bed. Her face turned red and Ben was reminded of a bull about to attack. His facial expression didn’t change as he pulled his gaze from Miss Ramsey and set it on her.
“What are you doing here, Benjamin?” she asked in a trembling voice. Her scornful gaze flicked to Miss Ramsey. “With this…this creature from the streets?”
Did he even want to argue with her? Wasn’t it better to shout for Stephen and have her removed?
“What are you trying to prove by spending time with her?” her venomous tongue continued. “Are you doing this to spite me because I want you to fulfill Father’s wishes to marry into a family that will expand your lands and your power? You constantly rebel against me by not attending any marriage balls and by refusing the dowries of the most elite nobles. You don’t give a whit about the interest the king’s own niece has in you! Why? Do you mean to tell me you’ve been waiting all this time for a pauper?”
He could have replied with a hundred different things, but he looked to Miss Ramsey and found her smiling with her chin to her chest. She glanced at him, her amusement clear in her eyes. When he smiled back, she giggled silently and looked away.
“What’s this?” Prudence stared at him in horror watching him smile at his guest. “Oh! Oh, I think I’m going to faint!”
“Prudence,” he said calmly. “Gather your wits and see yourself out, since you came here to do nothing but insult her.”
“Benjamin–”
“When you can behave like the gentry you represent, you may return.”
When she opened her mouth to refute him, he rose from his chair as if to escort her out. She snapped her mouth shut and hurried out.
Alone with her again, Ben turned to Miss Ramsey, who was staring at him as if he just dissolved all the worries in her world.He had the insane urge to smile back. This time, he didn’t.
“Have you eaten?”
Still smiling, she shook her head.
“I won’t have you starve under my roof,” he said gruffly and strode to the door without looking back. He wanted to look back. But he didn’t.
#
“Prudence told me that you and Miss Ramsey were laughing at her,” the earl of Sudbury said over a cup of wine in Ben’s private parlor. “You know how she exaggerates. I don’t believe it. You don’t laugh often, and especially not with women you hardly know.”
“We mostly just smiled,” Ben let him know. He’d left Miss Ramsey’s food to Edith when Sudbury requested a word with him.
“You…smiled? With Miss Ramsey?” Sudbury asked, sounding as stunned as he looked.
Ben nodded. Memories invaded his thoughts of her covert amusement and silent giggles at a time when a dozen other women would have wept or snapped back at his sister. She giggled, vanquishing the sting of Prudence’s words, and by doing so, she made him smile too.
“Don’t make more of it than what it was, Sudbury,” Ben told him with a scowl that had little to do with what he said, and more with how he felt saying it. “She found humor in my sister’s barbs, and that pleased me.”
“Where are you going?” Sudbury asked, looking up from his chair when Ben rose to his feet.
“I told Edith to feed her. I want to make certain she followed my orders.”
Sudbury rose and eyed him with a knowing smirk. “You rush to see to a servant?”
Ben clenched his jaw instead of answering. What was he to say? That even while he was denying her, he couldn’t keep his feet from hurrying to her? He didn’t want any women to getattached to him since his goal was to return to the battlefield. He might not live beyond his thirtieth year. He didn’t want to leave behind a widow and possible children. But even feeling the pull of his dream of fighting, he couldn’t help his desire to see her again.
“What about your rule?” his friend asked.
