His Grace prattled on, charming and blustering by turns, showing a side of himself Benjamin hadn’t seen previously.
Percy Windham was a duke, and he wore that role like a second skin. He’d wine and dine, bully and bluster, and otherwise pursue his machinations in the Lords with all the enthusiasm of a hound on a hot scent. Beneath the title, however, lurked a man devoted—in his own way—to family. His affection for his duchess was legendary, and while he’d pressured his sons to marry, no suitor had thus far been good enough for his daughters, save Ben’s own half brother, Wilhelm Charpentier. Ben knew his half brother well enough to be able to vouch for both his title and his considerable wealth.
A daunting thought.
“Have some more wine, my boy. Her Grace counsels me to moderation in all things, and I disregard her wisdom under my own roof at my peril.”
Ben obligingly drained his glass and let His Grace refill it. “Have you any advice for me as Lady Maggie’s prospective husband?”
The older man’s expression sobered, becoming almost wistful. “There’s a challenge—advice to a prospective husband when it’s your daughter he’s taking to wife. I had almost reconciled myself that spinsterhood was what Maggie sought, though it set a wretched example for the other girls. It seems I do not know my daughter as well as I thought I did.”
He set his glass down and narrowed ducal blue eyes on Ben. “You break her heart, and you’ll have to deal with me and her three brothers, and if you survive that, Her Grace will ensure your social ruin unto the nineteenth generation. I remind you, all of my boys are crack shots and more than competent with a sword.”
“It is not my intention to break her heart.”
“Oh, it’s never our intention.” His Grace’s brows drew down in thought, and he was once again the affable paterfamilias. “Maggie is different. I hope that’s from being the oldest daughter, but her unfortunate origins are too obvious a factor to be dismissed. She’s in want of… dreams, I think. My other girls have dreams. Sophie dreamed of her own family, Jenny loves to paint, Louisa has her literary scribbling, and Evie must racket about the property as her brothers used to, but Maggie has never been a dreamer. Not about her first pony nor her first waltz nor her first… beau.”
Nor her first lover. The words hung unspoken in the air while the fire crackled and hissed and a log fell amid a shower of sparks.
It wasn’t what Ben would have expected any papa to say of his daughter, but then, marrying into a family meant details like this would be shared—Esther Windham misplaced her everyday jewels, and Percy thought his daughters should be entitled to dream.
In a different way, it felt as if Ben were still lurking in doorways and climbing through windows, but this window was called marriage, and Maggie was trying to lock it shut with Ben on the outside.
“I’m not sure Maggie wants to marry me.” It was as close as he’d come to touching on the circumstances of the betrothal. His Grace regarded him for a long moment.
“I’m her papa, but I was a young man once, Hazelton. Maggie is only a bit younger than Devlin and a few months older than Bart would have been. When I married, I had no idea either of my two oldest progeny existed. I’d no sooner started filling my nursery when—before my heir was out of dresses—both women came forward, hurling accusations and threats. If my marriage can survive that onslaught, surely you can overcome a little stubbornness in my daughter?”
It was, again, an insight into the Windham family Ben gained only because he was engaged to marry Maggie. Such confidences prompted a rare inclination toward direct speech. “I think Maggie’s dream is to be left alone. If she jilts me, she’ll have one more excuse to retire from life, to hide and tell herself she’s content.”
“Content.” His Grace spat the word. “Bother content. Content is milk toast and pap when life is supposed to be a banquet. Make Maggie’s dreams come true, young Hazelton, and show her contentment is shoddy goods compared to happiness.”
“You make it sound simple.”
“We’re speaking of women and that particular subspecies of the genre referred to as wives. It is simple—devote yourself to her happiness, and you will be rewarded tenfold. I do not, however, say the undertaking will ever be easy. Now, shall we open just one more bottle?”
***
Dinner with His Grace had not been at all what Benjamin had expected. The man was charming, wily, and surprisingly down to earth in matters close to his heart. If nothing else was made apparent, Ben became aware that in Their Graces’ marriage, Maggie had seen an unusual example of true love in high places—an example she did not seem at all inclined to follow.
Questions of dreams, happiness versus contentment, secrets, and family expectations all swirled through Benjamin’s brain with a goodly quantity of excellent libation, until he realized he was not walking home, but rather in the direction of a quiet little corner property inhabited by his intended.
Who at this hour ought to be fast asleep.
Though she might not be. Ben made a half-hearted, unsuccessful attempt to persuade himself to leave her in peace. In a note of two whole sentences arriving before the morning post, she’d claimed to have awoken with a headache and begged him not to bother calling on her when she’d be “such poor company.”
She’d had twelve hours to get over her headache, if she’d been suffering a headache in more than the metaphorical sense. Ben let himself into her back garden, shinnied up a spreading oak, and dropped onto her balcony.
Only to find her, in her nightgown and wrapper, reclining on a chaise, regarding him with an expression unreadable in the moon shadows.
“Greetings, affianced wife.”
She crossed her arms. “Greetings, my lord. I suppose I should be grateful you didn’t stand amid the roses and serenade me.”
“Now that’s interesting.” He took a wicker chair and tried not to notice how pretty her bare feet were by moonlight. “You don’t sound grateful. I was in the glee club for three straight years at university and always chosen for solos. Shall I demonstrate?”
As he filled his lungs with air, she put a hand over his mouth, her fingers bearing the fragrance of cinnamon and flowers. “You are daft, Benjamin Portmaine.”
He covered her hand with his own and brought it to his thigh, linking their fingers. “I’m engaged, which might qualify as daft, but my lady seems bent on avoiding me. Be warned, Maggie mine: I gave you today to rally your nerves and even suffered through dinner tête-à-tête with His Grace. Tomorrow we shop for a ring—His Grace’s orders, or Her Grace’s, carried by her most trusted emissary.”
Maggie was quiet for a moment, but she allowed him to keep possession of her hand. “When Papa and Her Grace get to scheming, there is no telling them apart. They work as a seasoned pack, as a team that’s been pulling together for years. You can’t separate their motives, because their devotion to one another becomes a motive all its own. Westhaven has a touch of the same thing with Anna already, and if his letters are any indication, Devlin with his Emmie. Valentine and Ellen are already exchanging the same fraught looks, and they’ve been married only a short while.”
“And do you suppose we’ll exchange those same looks, too, one day?” He brought her hand to his mouth, the better to kiss her fingers and the better to inhale the particular scent that was Maggie.
“Why do you want to marry me, Benjamin? The real reason.”
“Honor is a real reason.” It was not the real reason. He wasn’t quite sure he could admit the real reason, even to himself, even in the darkness, but if he said he wanted to keep her safe and make her troubles go away, she’d likely be on a packet to France by morning. “Why don’t you want to marry me?”
“I don’t want to marry anybody.”
“We’re back to your glorious independence?”
She remained silent, which was a good tactic. It made him feel petty and a trifle bullying, though no less determined.
“Is it so hard to believe a man could este
em you greatly enough to want to share his fortune, his title, and his life with you?”
She withdrew her hand and rose, shifting to stand at the railing so she looked out over the garden—and could keep her expression from Ben’s gaze, no doubt. “I believe a man could want to share his body with me.”
Oh-ho. Except her words were anything but an invitation.
“You are cranky, my love. Let me tuck you in. Finding a ring worthy of gracing your elegant hand might take us all day tomorrow, and that would be fatiguing indeed.”
“We’re not going to take an entire day wasting coin…”
He came up behind her and wrapped both arms around her middle. “Guns down, Maggie. Even the Corsican didn’t expect to make war all winter—and see what his march to Moscow cost him when he made the attempt.”
She sighed softly, her shoulders dropping. “You should not be here.”
“Now there you are wrong. There is no place I would rather be. You, however, should not be alone, night after night, year after year, when any man with eyes and a brain can see what a treasure you are.”
“Flattery ill becomes you, Benjamin. You should be blushing to speak such arrant flummery aloud. I hired you to find my reticule, and you end up with a scandal on your hands.” She shifted so they were face-to-face, slipped her arms around his waist, and tucked her cheek against his chest. Something in Ben’s vitals settled while he drew her closer and rested his chin against her hair.
“This hint of scandal truly displeases you.” It should not surprise him to find it did, but it disappointed him. “And it makes no difference that His Grace and Westhaven both were engaged under more scandalous circumstances than we are?”
“Their mothers were duchesses; their fathers were dukes.”
And dukes have no dirty linen.
The flat misery in her voice bothered him. It made him want to put out the lights of any who would insult her or whisper behind her back. It made him really, truly want to marry her and lead her out for the bridal dance for all to see—Maggie Windham bagged an earl, and one damned near besotted—
“Come along.” He bent and caught her behind the knees, hoisting her into his arms.
“Benjamin!” She looped her arms around his neck. “You’ll do yourself an injury.”
She was substantial, but in the best possible, most womanly way. “I will not—because you so religiously forgo your sweets.”
“Only when anybody is looking.” She let him carry her into the bedroom and lay her down on the bed. Someone had turned down the covers, and a half-dozen pillows were piled on a chair near the window.
Ben started throwing more pillows on the floor.
“What are you about, my lord?”
“You can have done with my lording, or I’ll start in with my ladying. I’m making room. You disguise it well, but that bed is big enough for the both of us. Where is the dog?”
“He sleeps in my office. There’s a bed for him there. Perhaps he might share it with you, because I have no interest in sharing mine.”
“Not much of a watchdog if he didn’t realize I was climbing to your balcony.” He started shucking his clothes, wondering when he’d decided not simply to patrol her perimeters, not simply to bid her good night, but to impose himself on her in her very bed.
“You can’t blame the dog if you’re a better sneak thief than he is a watchdog.”
Ben paused to put his handkerchief on the night table before he sat to tug off his boots. “Protective of him already? I bet you wouldn’t let me have the dog back now if I asked. That’s fast work for a mere aging dog. Suppose I’ll have to bribe his secrets from him.”
“Benjamin, you cannot stay with me. We’ve caused scandal enough as it is, and if I’m not carrying—”
“Hush.” He rose to step out of his breeches, leaving him as naked as the day he came into the world. This had not been in his plans either. Not until she’d forbidden him to stay with her.
He stepped behind her privacy screen long enough to appropriate her tooth powder while he heard her rustling around in the bed. Building a barricade of pillows, no doubt.
When he emerged, her robe was lying across the foot of the bed, leaving Maggie clad only in a summer nightgown. She sat to one side on the mattress, her knees drawn up, her arms linked around them. “You should not do this, Benjamin.”
No, he should not, but she sounded forlorn rather than truly upset. He climbed on the bed and scooted under the covers to sit beside her. Lovely cool sheets she had—probably cotton—and her scent was all around him. “Not do what?”
“You will start kissing me, and I’ll get all muddled, and if I haven’t conceived already, you’ll see that I do by morning. I can’t think…” She huffed out a breath. “No woman could think when you exert yourself to be seductive.”
“My dear, you are quite overwrought, though under the circumstances, one can expect no less.” He arranged himself on his back amid her pillows. “Come here.” He drew her gently down against him and wrapped an arm around her. “It isn’t my intention to muddle you.”
Though it was gratifying in the extreme to think he could.
“Then what are you doing here?”
She shifted a little, restlessly, as if she’d never cuddled with anybody in a bed before—another gratifying thought.
“Get comfy, my love.” He hiked one of her legs against his thighs, taking care that she did not touch his half-aroused cock in the process. “I am going to make an admission which will cause me to blush.”
“As long as you don’t burst out in song.” She moved again, bringing her arm up to curl against his chest. “Should I light a candle to better appreciate your blush?”
“You must please yourself, though I am naked. One would hope you’d appreciate more than just my blush.”
She might have chuckled a little at that, and she might have stirred around just a little more to hide it, the minx. She did not light a candle.
“This muddling business, Maggie. It goes both ways.” He brought his hand to her nape and started to gently knead the tension there. “I don’t want you trapped into marrying me, any more than you think I’m trapped into marrying you. I’d already proposed before Lady Dandridge intruded, if you’ll recall.”
She went still but said nothing.
“Lost sight of that detail, hadn’t you? It has been a very trying two days.” He paused to kiss her crown. “My apologies for that. I haven’t had a chance to say that—that I’m sorry for the situation we’re in. I’m happy to marry you but sorry the circumstances are trying for you.”
“When did you take to chattering, Benjamin Portmaine?”
He liked hearing her say his real, true name, particularly in the dark. And she’d accepted his apology. That meant something, too.
“It’s your turn to chatter. Whatever made you consider becoming a swine nabob, Maggie Windham? It’s clever of you in the extreme.”
“A swine nabob?” She… giggled. He was almost certain she giggled. “If you ever let my brothers hear that term, you are doomed, sir.”
“Very well, I’m doomed, but how did you think to invest in pork?”
“Pork wasn’t my first profitable venture.” She said it quietly, shyly. “When I was twelve, I started reading the financial pages because His Grace always read them, except I realized he wasn’t reading them. He was holding them in front of his face while the rest of us piled around the breakfast table, and he was eavesdropping without having to enter into the conversation.”
“So you stole his disguise.”
“I did. My brothers got away with a deal less teasing thereafter, and I found something I truly enjoyed.”
She babbled about this and that project, about some losses she’d taken early on, and about her brother Gayle’s collusion in her investment schemes. She kept some investments with no less than Worth Kettering, generally regarded to be a wizard of the funds, for all the man was a scamp with the ladies.
When she d
ozed off an hour later, Ben felt he’d made progress getting to know his intended and perhaps in winning her trust, as well.
And while he still had not the first clue regarding her dreams, he’d gained considerable insight into his own.
***
Maggie rose to awareness on the strength of two physical sensations. The first was one of pure animal comfort, which was made up of equal parts warmth from Benjamin’s body spooned so closely around hers, and relaxation. The relaxation she attributed to a sense of safety. With Benjamin Hazlit on the premises, Cecily’s skulking sneak thieves would regret any further attempts at larceny.
The second sensation was harder to identify and slightly at variance with the first: sexual arousal. Maggie lay on her side, mentally investigating her own impressions.
Benjamin gave off a nice toasty heat, the warmth of his chest along her back a novel sensory pleasure. His legs tangled with hers, his arm around her waist, and his hand…
“Benjamin, what are you doing?” She didn’t dare breathe, lest he move his fingers again on her breast.
“I’m going to leave you with something pleasant to dream of.” His voice had taken on some of the darkness, insinuating itself into Maggie’s ear like a tactile caress. “I’ll leave soon, long before it’s light enough for anybody to see me climbing down from your balcony.”
She hadn’t been worried—not about that. If she believed one thing about her temporary fiancé, it was that her welfare was important to him.
“Unhand me, Benjamin.”
He applied the slightest, most glorious pressure to her nipple. “Is that what you truly want?” The question was casual, not quite mocking, and after another slight, pulsing caress, Maggie felt his lips on her shoulder.
How was she supposed to think—?
When he slid his hand slowly, slowly over her naked hip, Maggie understood that thinking was the last activity he was trying to inspire.
“Benjamin, I will not—”
Lady Maggie's Secret Scandal Page 21
