“Melancholy,” Sudbury told him. “I found it difficult to leave her. Honestly, Colchester,” he argued when Ben glared at him. “She pulls at the heartstrings.”
“See that she doesn’t pull too hard on yours, Sudbury,” Ben warned him, then muttered under his breath when his friend laughed.
“Brother,” Sudbury grinned at him. “Your father is gone. I believe the war will be over soon. Live how you wish to live.”
Chapter Nine
Ben was dressed by two servants Enis and Alger with Stephen overseeing the choices of attire, and finally tying the knot in his cravat.
“By the way,” his old war-time friend said in a low voice. “I saw Miss Ramsey sitting in a chair in the hall.”
Ben’s heart began to involuntarily thump against his bones. “Which hall?”
“The one outside your door and to the right, just beyond the painting of your father's prized hound.”
“What is she doing there?” Ben steadied his voice and slowed his breath. Why did the need to hurry and go see her suddenly overwhelm him? “Is she waiting for someone?”
The steward picked up the barely contained anticipation in the duke’s voice and gave him a surprised look. “I asked her that very question and she replied that she was waiting for you.”
Ben was sure the steward could hear his heartbeat. How should he feel about this? She was bold without a hint of arrogance, beautifully ethereal, beguiling his senses and clouding his good sense.
“I told her she was waiting at the wrong door and showed her where she should go.”
“So she’s outside my door?”
When Stephen nodded Ben didn’t know if he wanted to thank him or wring his hands around the steward’s neck.
“All done,” Stephen stepped back to examine him and nodded with a smile.
Ben didn’t reply or say a word to him as he left his rooms.
When he pulled open the doors, he was ready to tell her that there was not, nor would there ever be anything between them. But when he saw her waiting for him, every other thought was held captive by the fleeting, reckless desire to kill anyone who tried to take her from his presence. He was doomed.
He hated himself and the day that brought him here. He wanted to be someone else, someone free of the chains that bound him, free to offer his heart to her. But she wasn’t his destiny. Feeding the warrior was, ridding the land of Jacobites was.
“What are you doing here?”
“I thought you might want to take a stroll with me, maybe through the garden.” A hint of a smile hovered around her lips. “It’s a beautiful day.”
Did she think he had nothing better to do than stroll around aimlessly? He stared at her. Did she have no one else to ask? He realized when he tried to swallow that he would have been miserable if she went strolling with someone else.
He nodded and swept his hand before him indicating that she should join him.
“I haven’t forgotten that you promised to teach me to read,” she reminded him, leaning in with a playful smile.
“I will if you can cease fainting for days on end.”
She set her hand on her hip and quirked her brow. “I’m not the fainting type,” she let him know. “I really don’t know what’s come over me.”
“Starvation? Exhaustion?” he supplied.
“I’ve been hungry before,” she said, “but never on the verge of starvation. I’ll admit I was pretty exhausted.”
“You should be resting, not strolling,” he admonished with his gaze to the ground and a tender thread in his voice. He wasn’t angry with her and he didn’t want to hurt her by speaking roughly to her.
He wanted to call Sudbury to the yard and have a go at fighting him just to prove to himself that the warrior still lived within him and he hadn’t turned into a bucket of sun-warmed honey over this woman.
“Is that why you didn’t stop by my rooms last night?”
