His shoulders dropped.“No.No, it is not.I don’t know why I am even surprised.I’ve known you all my life and this is precisely something you would do.”
As abruptly as it had started, her anger dissipated, fatigue taking its place.“I do not undertake this lightly, Benedict.”
“I know, El.”He rubbed a hand over his face, exhaled, and looked her direct.“Idoknow.You never undertake anything of this magnitude lightly.Are you truly set on this path?”
She lifted her chin.“I am.”
Setting his jaw, he considered her.“I do not fully understand why you wish this, but it is important to you and that is all that matters,” he finally said.“Should you wish my help, you have it.Unreservedly.”
Tension she hadn’t even realised she held released.“I was so afraid to tell you,” she confessed.
“Neverbe afraid, El.”His intense gaze burned into hers.“You never need to be afraid to tell me anything.”
Everything around them faded.Her breath caught in her chest, her skin tingling, as a strange awareness spread thought her, one she had felt when they were like this, when he was all she saw.
“Do you have any other shocking reveals?”he rasped.
The room returned in a rush.Good lord, what on earth had that been?How ridiculous.Benedict was her friend.Her dearest friend.“No.Only that one.”
“Good.Good.”He cleared his throat.“Did you know Lady C is planning a ball?”
She blinked at the sudden change of subject.“No.Really?For Amanda?”
He nodded.“She is determined you are to come, but you already know you are invited to anything Lady C hosts.She might write you for ideas and assistance.”
And with that, all returned to normal.Benedict told her more of Lady C’s proposed ball, she commented, and it was as it ever had been between them.
If she occasionally recalled how affected she was by the intensity of his cobalt-blue eyes, no one needed to know but her.
Chapter Two
“Areyougoingtobrood all evening, brother?”
Benedict started in his chair.“I am not brooding,” he rejected immediately.
Regarding him with a smirk, Harry raised a brow.“What would you call staring at nothing with a pensive expression?”
Before he could reply, their brother—younger than Harry but older than Benedict by some years—said, “I say, Harry, I do believe you are right.He is distinctly broody.”Charles grinned obnoxiously.
“It’s the adorably furrowed brow for me,” Harry said.“What is it for you, brother?”
“The pout.Definitely the pout.”Leaning forward, Charles flicked Benedict’s ear.
Jerking away, he pushed at his brother.“I was merely thinking.”
“Thinking?”Harry said.“Thinking requires such intense concentration?Colgrove, what say you?”
Their eldest brother, the Earl of Colgrove, flicked ash from his cigar.“Leave him be.Even if he is brooding.”
Scowling, Benedict crossed his arms over his chest and sank into his chair.Being the youngest by a fair margin meant he constantly bore the brunt of their japing.
His eldest siblings—the earl and their two sisters, the result of their father’s first marriage—were over a decade older than he, while the late earl’s second union had secured the spare in Harry and then two bonus sons in Charles and finally Benedict himself.The gap between Benedict and Charles, though, was seven years.He was very much the younger brother, and none of his siblings let him forget such.In fact, as the earl had married Lady C when Benedict was but ten years of age, he was closer in age to some of his nieces and nephews than most of his brothers and sisters.
Now he and his brothers sat in the dining room, this dinner absent their sisters.Margaret was awaiting the birth of her first grandchild at her son’s estate in the country, while Catherine was in France where her eldest daughter resided with her husband.After they had dined, his brothers’ wives and his eldest niece had removed to the drawing room to allow the men their port and cigars.Harry and Charles had immediately commenced their ribbing of him, while the earl puffed his cigar.
“So delightful you could visit us, Harry,” he said sourly.“Why are you even in London?”His brother managed one of the earldom’s larger estates and more often than not chose to stay there with his wife and children.
“Why is anyone in London?”Harry said grandly.“Family, fortune, frivolity.”
