Kiss Me Sweetly

by Cecilia Gray

  Bridget choked a sip from her second glass of champagne. “Whyever would you say that?”

  “You seemed very determined to find him.”

  “Yes, well …” She fanned her face. “His whereabouts are suspect at present.”

  “And he has the item … this idea … in his possession?”

  “I believe so.”

  Dinah cocked her head the way she did whenever she was considering something. “The matter is simple. You must pursue it. In the absence of widespread acceptance of a higher ideal, the only way to achieve one’s goal is through subterfuge and, ultimately, revolution.”

  Bridget gasped. “Dinah! That is very nearly treasonous.”

  “We’re talking of an item, not taxation.” Dinah waved a hand dismissively. “You must procure the item for yourself if you want it. No other course of action will yield the desired result.”

  Bridget kissed her sister on the cheek. “I knew there was a reason you were my favorite.”

  After having read the same paragraph three times, Benjamin tossed the newssheet on the sofa cushion next to him. He stretched his arms overhead and slouched further in his seat. There was no point pretending that his mind was actually on the material.

  He rang for something from the kitchen, although he was not hungry. He stood and paced his salon restlessly. A fleeting thought that he could go to the club came and went. He would either run into a set of newly minted gentlemen eager to join his circle or older, boring lords. His actual circle of friends—Robert, Graham, Damon, and Christian—was at Woodbury celebrating the Belles’ birthdays. Where he should be. Where he wanted to be but wasn’t.

  He had recently met a lady of perfectly acceptable status and wealth, though the latter was nothing approximating the Belles’ fortune. His father approved of the match and had encouraged him to stay in Town instead of sojourning in the country during the Season, an action his father felt may signal disinterest to the young lady’s family. Which would be quite the thing, since he hadn’t exactly expressed any interest to begin with beyond two dances during the same ball, one a respectable interval after the other.

  Still, when his father had asked if there was any potential between them, Benjamin had admitted to the possibility. Because there was, or at least there should be. The young woman was proper in every way. Well behaved. Just the sort of women he’d be expected to marry. More accurately, there was no reason there shouldn’t be interest … besides the overwhelming detail that he had none.

  Why was he feeling so intractable about it?

  It’s not that he believed every marriage was a love match. His mother had seemed content in her life, and he knew his father had never declared love for her. His father had never declared love for anyone. In fact, her father had probably never uttered the word love. Would find the motion of his tongue new and novel.

  When he heard a knock on the door, he went to answer it himself, having sent his valet for food while the rest of the staff at Woodbury was away. It was not late but still past the dinner hour. With a spring in his step, he reached the front door, wrenched it open, and felt the meager contents of his gut spin into a vortex.

  “There you are,” Bridget said with a triumphant gleam in her eye.

  He yanked her inside and shut the door behind her. Casting a wild eye to see whether his valet may have returned early and had heard the sound of the front door, he dragged her back to the salon and pulled both doors shut, then whirled around.

  She was bundled in a gray cloak from head to toe, with fur trim that touched her chin. A wreath of blue flowers was nestled upon her curly brown locks. She was quite the fetching picture, a comparison she would probably enjoy given her fondness for literature. Which is why he kept it to himself.

  His mind had a fleeting moment to acknowledge an immutable fact: he had been disappointed at the notion of not seeing her, and now that he had seen her, his disappointment was much diminished.

  Fortunately, that thought was replaced with a more pressing one. “Where is your maid?”

  She leveled him with a stare that made him feel half a foot tall. “I couldn’t tell her where I’d gone. She’d inform my family.”

  He shoved his hands into his hair and tugged at the ends. “Are you mad? What are you doing here? In London? While your family is at Woodbury? And traveling alone? Unchaperoned?”

  “You know precisely why I’m here.” Bridget turned up her nose and began to unfasten her cloak. “Don’t you?”

  “Stop undressing.” He pointed to her fingers, which stilled at the topmost button at her throat. “You are getting back in the carriage that brought you. Dear God, who brought you? Do they know you? Do they know me?”

  “Of course not!” She seemed offended but continued down the row of buttons and slipped the coat off her shoulders, revealing a pale-blue dress with delicate sleeves of soft lace that slid and shimmered over her skin. “I took great care in coming here. Switched drivers four times. Read about the very thing in a novel of intrigue from—”

  “I refuse to believe you were cautious, since your very arrival speaks to an utter lack of caution. Your family is at Woodbury and yet you are here.” She must have been on the road for the past two hours in simple hired coaches. “Have a seat. Let me bring you a warm drink. But then,” he promised, “we will get to the bottom of this.”

  “Of that I’ve no doubt,” she said, taking a seat on a tufted chair.

  He dared not ring for service lest she be discovered. Instead, he intercepted his valet in the kitchen and insisted he take up his own tray. He’d done no less on previous occasions. Granted, that was whenever he had been entertaining women with some discretion. The idea that his staff might draw a similar conclusion about his guest tonight set his teeth on edge.

  To traipse alone into his home … and on this day, no less.

  Her birthday.

  He slumped against the sink.

  Her birthday!

  When he returned, she was still perched upon her seat, her gloved hands folded in her lap as if she had called on Sunday afternoon. He set down the tea tray and poured her a cup, then presented a small plate of fruit.

  “Happy birthday,” he said. “I’m sure it is not the fare you would have enjoyed at Woodbury, but given the unexpectedness of your visit—”

  “Thank you,” she said. “It’s perfect.” Her delighted smile widened as she considered the plate and selected a plum. “Won’t you join me?”

  A small part of him was glad she’d come. She’d relieved the tedium of his stay, of his evening. A smaller part of him wondered if he could enjoy her company a little longer. What would be the harm?

  That is, until she asked, “Where is the book?”

  He rubbed at the bridge of his nose, his eyes narrowed. Could that be why she was here? She believed him in possession of the book? “I’m sorry to disappoint you, given you’ve come all this way, but I do not have the book.”

  “Of course you do.” She scanned the salon, her gaze alighting on the few stacks of treaties. “Why else did you miss our birthday party?”

  “You can’t believe the only reason I would miss your fete is because I wouldn’t be able to face you had I come into possession of the journal?” He threw back his head and laughed. “Rest assured, if I had found it, I would have shown up to gloat.”

  She gasped but was already laughing along with him. “That would be very poorly done of you.”

  “You would have deserved no less.”

  “Or no more, you mean.” She grinned sweetly, but then her face fell. “You genuinely missed our birthday? There must have been some other reason, then? Pray tell, who could be more important than I am?”

  Her tone was teasing, but he could no longer remember the reason. His mind cleared of everything but what a pretty picture she made sitting in his salon, on his chair, eating his fruit. A room in which everything belonged to him.

  He sat up, his back snapping against that of the chair. Thoughts like this were p
recisely why young ladies should not be entertained alone in a man’s salon. He needed Bridget out of his house.

  “I am entertaining a match,” he said. “And thus, I had to remain in London.”

  “Oh.” She swallowed her tea loudly and set down the cup, which rattled against its saucer. “Do I know the lady?”

  “You can hardly expect me to name her until after the arrangements are made.”

  “No, I hardly expect anything from you,” she said under her breath, so quietly he wondered if he’d heard correctly. Before he could retort, she hurried on, “I suppose I have bothered you for nothing. Thank you for the fruit and the birthday wishes. I’ll be on my way.”

  A dull sense of disappointment returned. Of course she had to leave. But things would be less amusing when she did, less interesting, just … less.

  “Normally my valet arranges transportation. He arranges my entire life, if you must know. But I want to exercise discretion so will find you a hackney myself. If you’ll give me a moment to do so, I’ll return shortly.” He hurried away, mostly because a part of him wanted her to stay.

  Bridget had never felt more idiotic in her entire life, even if it was a short twenty-one years. Benjamin had not forgone her birthday celebration because he had the book and did not want her to know. He had been pursuing a bride.

  She slammed the palm of her hand against her head three times. Stupid girl, stupid girl, stupid girl.

  Why didn’t she feel relief at the idea that the journal could still be found? Instead, she felt shame and censure. Had she really slipped away from a birthday party—in her name, no less—to return to London and accuse a man she barely knew, a man who was the younger brother of her sister’s husband, of lies and deceit?

  She had spent the entire carriage ride imaging this moment as if it was written out like words on a page. Picturing his confession and contrition. Imagining how he would tell her that yes, indeed, she had seen right through him, clever girl that she was. How he might be a little bit in awe of her bravery in coming all the way to London to challenge him.

  Bridget had wanted him to respect her for it.

  She could not recall the heroine of any novel making such a silly mistake … or such a fool of herself. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at her own stupidity. And now, poor Lord Benjamin had been reduced to attending on her with tea and hackneys. She wondered what his valet must think of him skulking around at all hours of the night. Her father’s valets—there was a long parade of them—always insisted on tending to his needs, and the very thought of being circumvented would send them into apoplectic shock.

  Bridget sprang up, her mind having seized a brilliant notion.

  His valet, who took care of all the details of his life. Just like any good valet would.

  Of course. Of course! How had she not seen it sooner? The reason she had not found the journal at Woodbury—the reason Lord Benjamin had not discovered the journal despite both of them ripping the house apart over the past couple of years—was because it was not at Woodbury at all.

  She had never been more certain of anything. Perhaps Lord Benjamin had dragged the book to his room the night he misplaced it. Perhaps he’d left it on the library floor and a maid had found it. But regardless, its eventual return would have been managed by the valet. And he would have placed it with his employer’s other reading material.

  Bridget rushed to the wall of books and searched their spines. As she had suspected, he was a reader of fiction, novels mostly, rather than poetry and plays. She splayed her hands against the cloth spines, their softness or stiffness giving away how beloved they were. The nine volumes of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman nearly gave way beneath her fingers. Ah, so Benjamin enjoyed comedies. She wouldn’t have thought it.

  And there, on the bottom shelf at the very far end, next to a copy of Candide, was an unmarked book.

  Bridget drew back her trembling hand.

  Why was she hesitating? The journal was here! She could slip it beneath her cloak with no one the wiser. And yet, she knew he would be angry with her, and that left her strangely unsettled. She couldn’t quit now, though, couldn’t stop. She was on the precipice of any heroine’s journey. With a deep, fortifying breath, she took the book from the shelf.

  Guilt struck her then. She should turn it over to him. They could share the discovery as planned. Perhaps he would honor the agreement she had suggested and let her review it after taking an opportunity to censure her. But then Dinah’s words slipped through her mind.

  In the absence of widespread acceptance of a higher ideal, the only way to achieve one’s goal is through subterfuge and, ultimately, revolution.

  Was there a more clever person alive—man or woman—than Dinah?

  Bridget heard footsteps in the hall, signaling Benjamin’s imminent return. She bundled herself back into her cloak and tucked the journal beneath it, between her arm and her side. She fumbled with the fastenings.

  Would he notice her shaking hands, her flushed cheeks, the awkward way she was anchoring the journal to her side? What if the book slipped and clattered onto the ground? Her blood roared in her ears so that she didn’t even hear what he’d said upon entering the parlor again.

  “I beg your pardon?” Mentally, she shook herself. She was a fool, and if she did not affect an air of calm he would know her crime, and he would … Well, she wasn’t sure.

  Demand the journal?

  She would have thought so in the past, but the Lord Benjamin she’d grown to know was actually more patient with her than she would have imagined. He’d encountered her in all manner of illicit situations. She kept expecting to fall low in his esteem, but despite his disapproval, she had the sense that he thought of her, if not with fondness, then at least with regard.

  How that might change with this … and how dreadful it seemed.

  “I said, the carriage is waiting outside,” he repeated. He looked at her, concern etched across his face. “Are you quite all right?”

  “Yes,” she said breathlessly. “Just anxious to be on my way.”

  He gave a solemn nod. “The street is now empty. Your hood? Yes, like that.”

  She had pulled the hood far over her head and looked down at the floor, which was far easier than looking at him.

  He led her to the door. “Miss Bridget,” he said, holding up a hand. His brows drew closer, and he seemed to be weighing his words.

  “Yes?” she prompted.

  “I hope you understand that once … that if the young lady and I reach an understanding—”

  “Oh, of course.” She was nodding in agreement before he finished speaking.

  “Not that there is anything untoward in—” He gestured between them.

  “Definitely not.” She nodded more fervently, if that were possible.

  “However, I would be hard-pressed to explain—”

  “Nor should you have to!”

  “Good.” He cocked his head, then said, more loudly, “Good. Yes. Well then …”

  “Well then.” She felt a strange, surreal sense of being outside her body. It was as though they were saying good-bye, which was not the case. She would see him at family events; they were in-laws after all. But she understood that the very nature of their dynamic had grown above and beyond the polite, even without either of them deliberately causing the change.

  And yet if she had the book … If he discovered she had it … Well, he couldn’t ignore that, could he? Betrothed or not?

  She looked away and walked out the door before he could sense the direction of her thoughts. It was indecent to pursue him simply so that she might experience some adventure. She walked down the steps into the street and fought the urge to turn around and look at him as she climbed into the carriage. By the time the wheels rattled down the road she was close to having a fit of the vapors and had to force her breath in and out of her mouth. She couldn’t wait to reach the Belles’ Bayswater home, where she would need to stay the night since
it was too late to return to Woodbury.

  Once safely inside her own room, she pulled the journal out from under her cloak. Her hands shook as she flipped through the book. She recognized at first that the front was typeset, with drawings that she would peruse later. The pages at the back were filled with script—several different handwriting styles with varying degrees of legibility. This must be the journal he’d spoken of. She looked closer, tried to read.

  She let out a laugh—of relief, of chagrin.

  The beginning of the book was in French, but the latter pages were not. The letters and symbols were a disarray of nonsense.

  The book was written in code.

  He’d known the whole time and he had not told her.

  The cad.

  Miss B.,

  I was disappointed to learn that you and your sister Sera had quit Woodbury shortly after your birthday for the Continent, where you intend to stay for the year. I am sorry I was unable to offer my felicitations. Please extend them to your sister at your earliest convenience.

  B.A.

  Lord B.,

  I apologize for the hasty nature of this scrawl. Yes, we left at once upon Sera’s arrival in London. She insisted, and she is so rarely impetuous that I did not have the heart to refuse her. I believe she did not have her fill of the Continent during the honeymoon.

  I have been waiting for news of a similar kind so that I might offer felicitations, but I have not heard of any. I worry that we may have missed some correspondence, but in my desire to keep your confidence, I have not asked.

  B.B.

  Miss B.,

  There has been no news. Circumstances changed, as they tend to.

  B.A.

  Chapter Five

  Third annual Belle birthday crush

  July 2, 1819