“I will, Mr. Morgan,” he assured the man. “And I thank you very much for this evening’s entertainment. I’ve been told balls are rare in this neighborhood, and from what I’ve seen of the dancing tonight, everyone is very much enjoying it.”
Morgan preened. “I invited a number of people from town as well, you know. Thought I’d bring a bit of town polish to the rustics, don’t ye know?”
Since the neighborhood boasted any number of members of the ton, Ben thought that was rather stretching it a bit, but he didn’t correct the man.
“Well, I thank you, but now I’m afraid I must be on my way. I’ve a sermon to write and…”
When the industrialist stayed him with a hand, Ben fought the urge to remove it. “I hope you’ll tell me something, my lord,” Morgan said in a low, confiding voice. “What do you make of the ladies up at Beauchamp House?”
At the mention of Beauchamp House, Ben stilled.
“What of them?” he asked silkily. He might not live in the pockets of the Beauchamp House ladies, but he’d performed the marriage of the Duke and Duchess of Maitland and he counted them as friends. And there was the matter of Sophia, whom he found far more attractive than was prudent. Something about Morgan’s tone told him that the man had nothing positive to say about them.
“Well, I mean to say,” said Morgan with a shrug. “It’s not right, is it? Ladies wasting their time with pursuits that are better suited to men? I’m not one for book learning at the best of times, but I see it’s something that must be done. But it don’t seem natural for ladies to do such things. My Millie certainly would never think to read poems in English, much less in that heathen Greek. And I’ve heard from some friends in London that the painter, Miss Hastings, I think, well, she paints things that aren’t fit things for ladies to be dwelling on.”
It wasn’t the first time Ben had heard such sentiments about the inhabitants of Beauchamp House. Indeed, he most often heard the complaints from other ladies in the neighborhood who didn’t know what to make of the unconventional lady scholars, who were also better than average—and Sophia’s case, much more than average—looking. But he wasn’t in the mood for such piffle and he was within an inch of telling his host so, when Morgan continued his speech.
“I understand that Miss Hastings will have a couple of her works in the art exhibition next week,” the man said his eyes narrow with judgment. “I was hoping you’d lend your voice to mine as well as a few other concerned citizens who’d like to make sure that whatever she brings is fit to be seen by our wives and daughters.”
It was something that was better discussed in private, not in the middle of a crowded ballroom where anyone might overhear them. And Ben was already late getting Sophia down to meet the waiting carriage. But as there was no way on earth he’d ever agree with this man’s narrow minded attempt to censor Sophia’s work—work he’d seen and admired in the months since making her acquaintance—he simply said what he was thinking. “No, Mr. Morgan. I will not lend my voice to this effort. I believe Miss Hastings is a talented artist—one of the best I’ve ever seen—and I look forward to seeing her work in the exhibition.”
With a short bow, he continued, “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must be off. Thank you again for a pleasant evening.”
He felt the other man’s gaze on his back, but he didn’t much care at the moment. His desire to get Sophia out of this house had only increased with Morgan’s words. Not glancing behind him, he made his way back to the gallery.
* * *
To Sophia’s mortification, her slow progress from the gallery to the ground floor made it necessary for Benedick to lift her up into his arms and carry her most of the way down to the carriage. So, for the second time in twelve hours, she found herself being bodily carried by the vicar.
It was the stuff that village gossips dreamed of.
And it would make her an object of scorn for every unmarried young lady in the county.
“It’s only a bit farther,” she protested, when Benedick stopped and made the suggestion. She wasn’t sure why, but she knew that while allowing him to carry her would indeed spare her ankle, it would prove uncomfortable in a more personal way. “You see,” she said, biting back a gasp of pain as she limped along past her sister and the vicar down the stairs, “I can do it.”
“And you’ll damage your ankle,” Gemma chided, “perhaps irreparably. What if it’s broken, Sophia? Do you wish to become an invalid?”
Since the offending joint had swollen more in the time since they’d arrived that evening, Sophia feared her sister might be correct.
“Come, Miss Hastings,” Benedick said with a kind smile. “I won’t bite. And you must admit that at the rate we’re traveling now it will be next week before we get downstairs.”
“Oh I do wish you would dispense with Miss Hastings and call me Sophia,” she said crossly. “It seems nonsensical given the frequency with which you’re compelled to carry me about like a sack of potatoes.”
She felt as well as heard his laughter. “I suppose that’s acceptable,” he said, “Sophia.” He said her name a few seconds after, as if savoring the taste of it on his tongue. “And you must call me Ben.”
“Very well, Ben,” she said, with a brisk nod, almost hurrying over the syllable, as if to prove to him that she wasn’t feeling a little thrill at the small bit of impropriety.
Then, before she could continue, the vicar had lifted her into his arms with an ease that was surprising to her despite the evidence of his strength when he’d carried her from the shore. He was much stronger than his lean build had led her to believe. Especially when one considered that she was not the sort of fashionable waif favored in the fashion plates these days. Despite her pain, she couldn’t help but feel the hard muscles of his arms and chest where she cradled against him. And her relief at having her weight off the ankle almost had her sagging against him. Still she managed to keep some modicum of decorum.
They were almost to the second landing when they were met by their hostess, who gasped when she saw them. “My dear Miss Hastings, whatever has happened?”
“Only a sprained ankle, Mrs. Morgan,” Sophia assured her, wishing the woman away. Though he’d not shown any signs of flagging, she didn’t wish to test Lord Benedick’s—Ben’s, she mentally corrected herself—strength farther than necessary.
“Oh dear, I am sorry to see you in such pain, Miss Hastings,” said Mrs. Morgan, a lovely, if not terribly intelligent woman, whose sweet nature seemed at odds with her brash husband. “I’ve suffered from sprains myself and they do get worse before they get better.”
Then her face turning serious, she asked, “Have you passed my husband on your way down? I thought he was having a little chat with Mr. Penn in the library, but no one seems to have seen them.”
Mr. Barnaby Penn was a local art dealer whose shop was the sponsor of the upcoming Little Seaford Exhibition. Could it have been Penn she and Ben had overheard in the gallery? It was impossible to get a good look at the vicar’s face in her current position, but she felt him stiffen at their hostess’s words.
“I’m afraid we haven’t seen him, Mrs. Morgan.” Sophia could feel his deep voice reverberate through his chest. “Now, I’m afraid I must get Miss Hastings to her carriage.”
At the reminder of his burden, the matron flushed. “Of course, of course. I hope you’ll feel better soon, Miss Hastings.”
There was no opportunity for conversation about what their hostess had revealed since Gemma was with them, and it was minutes later when he was lifting her into the spacious Kerr carriage that Ben told Sophia in a low voice, “I’ll call on you tomorrow and we’ll talk.”
She felt the tickle of his breath against her ear, and breathed in the clean hint of bayberry and warm male as he pulled away and gave her a nod. “I hope you’ll be feeling more the thing tomorrow, Miss Hastings,” he said in a more normal tone that might be overhead by the others. “Do take care of yourself.”
Alone in the
carriage, she listened as he exchanged a few pleasantries with the marquess and Ivy. While they were still speaking, Gemma was handed in by a footman. Settling into the seat across from Sophia’s she said wryly, “I’ll wager that was more adventure than you were expecting from this evening.”
Now that she was out of view of Ben and the rest of the ball-goers, Sophia felt a mantle of exhaustion fall over her. “You have no idea,” she told her sister, leaning her head back against the plush squabs of the carriage. “It was foolish of me to go to the ball. I’ll admit it now. But only to you.”
“Stubborn to the end, I see,” her sister said with a snort. “But don’t try to change the subject. You know very well I was talking about your rescue at the hand of the most handsome vicar in three counties.”
“Since I know very well you’ve not met all the vicars in three counties, I will have to respectfully disagree.” Sophia raised a brow but didn’t raise her head. “I will admit he’s good looking though. But there’s no need to weave some romantic tale about it. He was simply being a gentleman.”
“A gentleman who saw to your every comfort and looked as if he wished to ride home with us to see you safely tucked up in bed.” She knew without looking her sister was wearing her I-know-I’m-right expression.
At that moment, Lord Kerr handed Ivy into the compartment, and Sophia was saved from replying to her sister’s absurdity. It took a minute for them to get situated, what with Sophia’s foot propped on the cushion where Ivy would have gone. They ended up riding the short distance with the marchioness seated rather improperly on the marquess’s lap.
Sophia might have hoped this would mean they’d not wish to converse, but in that she was sorely mistaken.
“I believe you’ve got a champion in our vicar, Sophia,” said Ivy with a grin once Kerr had given the coachman the signal and the carriage began to move. “He seemed quite attentive, did he not, Kerr?”
“Far be it from me to cast any man’s behavior in a certain light,” the marquess said with a hint of amusement in his voice. “But I do agree that Lord Benedick seemed to be more concerned for our Sophie’s injury that he might have done with, say old Mrs. Mason.”
“You’re all, as Maitland would say,” Sophia said from where she’d settled into her corner of the coach, “dicked in the nob.”
“We’ll see,” Gemma said sweetly.
Not wanting to hear more, Sophia closed her eyes and feigned sleep the rest of the way home.
Chapter 5
Ben only had a couple of servants at the vicarage, which was a tidy red brick house with a pretty walled garden at the back and, as he’d learned not long after his arrival, a secret passageway leading from the cellars into a series of smugglers tunnels that opened out onto the beach just below Beauchamp House. His predecessor had been severely injured thanks to a miscreant’s misuse of the passageway, and Ben had been happy enough to see that door sealed to prevent mischief.
Since he didn’t keep a carriage of his own, he’d accepted a ride home from the Morgans in the coach of the local magistrate, Squire Northman, and his wife. It had been a brief drive, but he was grateful to step down and bid them goodbye thanks to Mrs. Northman’s incessant chatter. He was also fairly suspicious that she’d felt his thigh for one moment when the conveyance hit a rock, but perhaps he was simply imagining it. It had been a strange evening. And there was no denying his senses were on high alert thanks to the moments spent cradling the luscious Miss Hastings against him.
The lantern at the door to the vicarage was flickering merrily when he shut the gate behind him. Though he’d instructed his manservant Jeffries not to wait up, that fellow was still conscious of the harm done to his previous master on his watch, and kept his own conscience on such matters that related to caring for the new vicar. And sure enough, the door opened wide when he stepped up to it.
“My lord,” Jeffries said bowing. “I hope you had a pleasant evening.”
Ben peeled off his gloves and handed the man his coat and hat. “It was well attended, and though I suspect Morgan wished for a crush it was hardly that.”
“My lord, I must inform you that while you were gone you received a visitor.”
Ben stopped just as he reached the stairs leading to his rooms. “Who—”
Before Jeffries could respond, an all too familiar voice spoke up. “I hope you’ll excuse the late hour, Ben, but it couldn’t be helped.”
Arrested, he turned to see his younger brother, Lord Frederick Lisle, lounging against the door jamb of the front parlor.
With a cry of surprise, Ben pulled the other man into a hug, which quickly devolved into their childhood habit of wrestling for the upper hand.
“Hah,” the vicar taunted when he’d managed to get his elbow around Freddie’s neck, “I still have it!” He knocked his knuckles on his brother’s head before turning him loose.
When he’d been set free, his younger brother shook his head, straightening his cuffs and cravat. “One would have thought that your years in the church would have taught you a sense of decorum.”
“Oh, I have plenty of decorum in the right company,” Ben said with a grin. “But you’re my little brother. I had to greet you properly.”
Dismissing Jeffries for the evening, he led Freddie upstairs to his study, and once they were settled in front of the fire with glasses of brandy, he waited for an explanation. While it wasn’t unheard of for one of the Lisle brothers to visit another unexpectedly, Freddie had only recently celebrated the birth of his second child and it wasn’t like him to leave his wife, Leonora, on her own at such a time.
They chatted a little about news from their parents, and their brother Archer, whose wife was expecting. “And I suppose you’ve heard that Cam is giving a paper at the royal society this week. One of his bits about bones or fossils or whatnot.” Freddie, nor indeed any of the other Lisles, had never been able to understand where Cameron, the second to last of the brothers, had got his love of all things ancient. It wasn’t as if the family were Philistines. They appreciated history and knowledge, but Cameron needed to touch everything he learned about. And spent his days digging into the earth in search of artifacts from the past.
“I’m glad for him,” Ben said, taking a sip of his drink, “but better him than me.”
“Amen to that,” Freddie agreed. “I’m quite sure I’d nod off before the first presenter finished a paragraph.”
“What of Rhys?”
Their eldest brother, Rhys, Viscount Lisle, heir to their father, the Duke of Pemberton, had, the last time Ben had spoken to him, been considering an extended stay on the continent. Since their father was in his prime, and needed little assistance in the running of the various Pemberton estates, he was a bit restless with life in the country. And London was far too full of matchmaking mamas for his comfort.
“On an extended stay at the hunting box in Scotland,” Freddie said with a frown. “I had given him any number of contacts in Paris when he was making plans, but at the last minute he changed his mind. If you ask me, there’s some trouble with a woman, though you know how tight-lipped he is about such things.”
Rhys had never been one to discuss his affairs with his younger brothers. Perhaps since their father had instilled his position as the eldest, and therefore the role model, from the time he was small. Ben remembered quite well how in awe of his brother he’d been when they were children. It was as if he could do no wrong. No high spirits. No misbehavior. He was the perfect child. And as they’d grown, he’s continued to be the one who pleased most everyone. There were lapses, of course—he was human. But Ben had often thought it must be very difficult to show so little weakness all the time.
Freddie’s theory that a woman might be involved was not without merit. The few times they’d seen their eldest brother act out, it had been over some affair of the heart. Or some other, less romantic organ.
“I’d say we’ll find out soon enough,” Ben said wryly, “but it’s Rhys. He might blurt it out in
his cups at Christmas, or we’ll never know.”
“True.” Freddie raised his glass. “To the brothers Lisle. Wherever they may be.”
They drank deep, and sat in companionable silence for a moment.
Then, no longer able to hold back his curiosity, Ben said, “Speaking of locales, I don’t suppose you wish to tell me that brings you here with no advance warning so soon after little Libby’s birth?”
At the mention of his new daughter, Freddie’s face softened, and Ben was reminded once again of how much his brother had changed since his marriage to Leonora. Once the most eligible bachelor on two continents, Freddie had settled into life as a husband and father as if he’d been born to it. And in a way, if their father was anything to go by, he had been.
“You know I wouldn’t have left them without good reason, Ben,” he said, his expression turning serious. “It’s important, and I thought worth a quick trip down here to speak to you in person.”
Setting his glass aside, Ben leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. A listening posture.
“You remember Mainwaring does a bit of work for the Home Office from time to time?”
“I do,” Ben replied. The Earl of Mainwaring was one of Freddie’s oldest school friends and was well known to all the Lisles.
“Well, his man in the Home Office has some concerns about some dealings in this area, and Mainwaring immediately thought of you when he heard of the locale.”
It wasn’t exactly routine for a minister with the Church of England to become involved with the affairs of the Home Office, but nor was it entirely out of the ordinary, Ben knew. He’d never been asked to do so before, however, and was a little surprised that the earl had thought of him so readily. It wasn’t as if they were as close as he and Freddie.
As if hearing his questions, Freddie explained, “I’d just given him a rundown of family news and mentioned that you’d accepted a position in Little Seaford. So, it must have been in his mind when the fellow from the government spoke to him.”
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