by Candace Camp
She breathed in the elusive scent of his masculine cologne and replied, a little shakily, “Benedict.”
He led her to the seat beside him, pulling out her chair for her.
She nodded at the other man at the table. “Good morning, Mr. Oglesby.”
“Mrs. Lassiter,” he replied, a little stiffly. “How are you this morning?”
“Quite well, sir.” She realized with a bit of surprise that this statement was the truth. She was in an absurd situation, one that would be ruinous to her reputation if she was found out, and yet she was in excellent spirits.
Benedict solicitously dished up a plate of food for her from the long breakfront, while Camilla vainly attempted again to engage Mr. Oglesby in conversation. He spoke only in answer to questions, and then largely in monosyllables, not rudely, but with an air of discomfort. Camilla could not decide whether he was very shy or very dull.
“I find the country air quite refreshing myself,” Benedict said, joining in her effort to converse. “A pleasant change from the city. Are you from the city, Mr. Oglesby?”
“Yes, yes, I am.” Mr. Oglesby shifted a little in his chair.
“London?”
“Yes.”
“Of course, there’s little of the excitement of London here,” Benedict went on.
“No. There is not.”
“We reside in Bath,” Camilla put in.
“But I have lived in London in the past,” Benedict said. “Perhaps we might have some acquaintances in common.”
“Oh…I…I wouldn’t think so.”
“What part of London do you live in?”
Oglesby looked even more uncomfortable. “Mmm, well, near St. James Place.”
“Then you must live close to Cousin Bertram. Is that how you met?”
He gaped at her for a moment, then said hurriedly, “Yes, yes, that’s right. Happened to meet walking down the street one day. Down St. James, in fact.” Oglesby stood up, giving them a stiff smile. “I beg your pardon, but I must leave now.”
Camilla looked at his plate, where half his food still remained. He followed her gaze, and color rose in his face. “I…ah…I’m afraid I must not have been as hungry as I thought. If you will excuse me…”
He sketched a bow toward them and left the room. Camilla watched him go, then turned back to Benedict. “Odd.”
“What is, my dear?”
“Mr. Oglesby. Didn’t he seem awfully nervous to you? What do you think was the matter?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps we are an imposing couple.”
Camilla grimaced. “Nonsense. We were only trying to make conversation.”
“Perhaps he felt that we were interrogating him.”
“What else can one do but ask him questions? He won’t say anything but a direct answer to a question—preferably in one word.”
“Perhaps he feels…mmm…intimidated.”
“Intimidated? But why?”
“Some people are awed by things that do not faze the granddaughter of an Earl.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean this house.” He nodded toward the end of the long table, which was centered by a huge silver epergne, then at the heavy mahogany sideboard, with its load of glittering silver dishes, and the liveried servant standing by to fill one’s glass and cup or to serve something from one of the chafing dishes. “Not everyone is used to living on a country estate, nor to conversing at breakfast with an Earl’s family.”
“You seem to have no problem,” Camilla pointed out tartly.
He grinned. “No. But I overcame my inhibitions long ago. It’s easier for scoundrels, you know, to be at ease in any company.”
There was something about the twinkle in his dark eyes that made Camilla wonder all over again if she had been wrong about his low birth. The whole time he had been here, there had been no slip in his speech, no mistake made in his attitude. His manners did not have the elegance of Mr. Sedgewick’s or her cousin Bertram’s, it was true, but there was in him the air of someone who acted as he chose, not because he did not know better. He showed none of the awkwardness that had been so apparent in Mr. Oglesby.
“Purdle tells me that he is ‘not quite a gentleman,’” she said, putting aside for the moment the question of Benedict’s own qualifications.
“What? Why?”
Camilla shrugged. “I’m not sure. That is all he said. Purdle had that look on his face that he gets when he’s talking about certain people—those who don’t fit his ideas of what is proper or genteel. He’s a terrible snob.” It occurred to her that Purdle had made no such comment about Benedict. Of course, he thought Benedict was her husband, but Purdle usually had his ways of making his opinion subtly known.
“I have generally found that a butler or a valet is much better at dividing the ‘Quality’ from the riffraff than the aristocracy are.”
“Well, it seems very odd that Bertram brought him here. Cousin Bertram is something of a snob himself. He always surrounds himself with the best—his clothes, his furnishings, his possessions.”
“Your cousin must be a wealthy man, then.”
“Actually, I don’t think so. He is his father’s heir, of course, but not Grandpapa’s. Anthony will inherit everything from Grandpapa. Uncle William is wealthy enough, I suppose, but I don’t think he gives Cousin Bertram a generous allowance. I suspect that Cousin Bertram is down here avoiding his creditors, like Mr. Thorne.”
“He is a man of some wit, your cousin.”
“Yes. You would hardly guess that he is Graeme’s or Harold’s brother, for neither of those two could be said to have a facile intellect.”
“Graeme Elliot?” Benedict asked, startled. “He is your cousin?”
“Why, yes.” Camilla looked at him oddly. “Do you know him?”
“No. No, of course not. It is just—I was astounded at the existence of yet another cousin.”
“I told you about him yesterday. He is a lieutenant in the Hussars.”
“Ah, yes, the Army man.”
“Those are only my Elliot cousins, though. I have another whole batch on my father’s side. Those are the ones that you know.”
“What? The ones I—oh!” He remembered the presence of the liveried servant at the sideboard. “Oh, yes. The ones you were traveling with when we first met.” He smiled, his eyes glinting with amusement, and he reached across the table to take her hand. “Tell me, my love, do you think of those days with fondness, as I do?”
“I am sure that I remember them with fully as much joy as you.”
His smile broadened. “I cherish the knowledge that our esteem is mutual.”
Camilla rolled her eyes and pulled her hand away. “I had thought we might go riding today,” she said. “I could show you around Chevington Park. Would you like that?”
“Indeed I would,” he answered honestly. It would provide a perfect opportunity for him to investigate the area. He had explored the house and grounds on foot yesterday, but he wanted to move farther afield. “I had thought to ask your cousin Anthony to take me on a tour this morning, but I understand that he left bright and early this morning and has not returned.”
“I am sure Anthony would love to ride out with you another time, especially if you have an urge to see the limestone caves along the shore.”
“Caves? You have some here on this estate?”
Camilla nodded. “They are everywhere here, some big, some small. Of course, Lydia and Grandpapa absolutely forbade Anthony and me from going inside them.”
“Which no doubt guaranteed that you explored them.”
Camilla chuckled. “Yes. Unfortunately, there is nothing very exciting in any of them. Anthony and I were always hopeful of treasure, but we never found any. He says that there are interesting for
mations farther back in one of them, but I have never gone that far.”
“That sounds like a sight not to be missed.”
They finished their meal, and Benedict went up to change into riding clothes. Then they set out to explore the estate. The head groom, after a look at Benedict, put him up on a gray gelding, her grandfather’s last acquisition for the stables, one that he had never had an opportunity to ride before he was laid low by his illness. Camilla almost protested, unsure how well Benedict could ride. But when she saw him mount the horse, she clamped her mouth shut on the words. He rode like one born to the saddle, controlling the animal easily with his muscled thighs and the most delicate of touches on the reins.
They rode to the cliffs at the edge of the ocean, where they reined in their horses and sat looking out.
“What is that?” Benedict asked, surprised, pointing across the water at a small hump of land rising out of the sea.
Most of the small island was covered by the ruins of an old building. Some walls still stood, as well as the remains of a turret, but much of the stone lay in tumbled heaps.
“That is Keep Island. The ruins are what is left of the original keep. It was the home of the Earls of Chevington for many, many years and quite a stronghold at one time, I believe. The water protected it, of course, and then there were stout, high walls with six towers, and inside them, the keep itself. It was abandoned long ago, though. It proved not to be very sociable or convenient in later times. They used nearly all the stones from the walls to build Chevington Park. What was left was scorched some years later by a fire—started, I understand, by my grandfather’s father when he was a lad. As you see, we have always been a little prone to getting into trouble.”
He smiled at her sally but turned his attention back to the ruins. “It looks very secure, but somewhat impractical. How did they get to it? I mean, it’s too small for there to have been a village or for them to have raised crops or livestock.”
“Ah, that’s the beauty of it,” Camilla replied, grinning. “It is an island only when the tide is high. When the tide is low, there is a strip of land that runs from the beach across to the island. So it is really an oddly shaped peninsula. When the tide rises, the causeway is covered up.”
“How convenient.”
“Yes. You can reach it by boat at any time. Anthony and I have often rowed across. But boats were much easier to defend against. Even when the tide was low, you had only that one narrow bridge of land on which enemies could ride across. It was never taken.”
“When did they abandon it?”
“They started Chevington Park during the reign of Elizabeth and finished when James I was king. The keep’s advantages were no longer very necessary, and they grew tired of the inconvenience. Besides, I imagine it would have been a damp and windy place to live. And the Chevingtons prospered greatly under the Tudors. They could afford to build a more luxurious, grander residence.”
“I would like to visit it.” It occurred to him that the ruins of the keep might be an excellent place for smugglers to store their loot. “It looks interesting.”
“It is,” Camilla replied cheerfully. “Sometime, when the tide is low, we can walk over. It isn’t far, really, and walking is the easiest way. Would you like to see one of the caves?”
“Certainly.”
“We are rather close to one of them. Anthony would be a better guide, but I shall do my humble best.”
“I am sure that will be quite enough.”
“Flatterer.”
Camilla swung down off her horse, saying, “We have to lead them down to the beach. The path is narrow.”
Benedict dismounted, too, and they walked down the steep trail to the beach. At the bottom they stopped, looking out across the narrow strip of sand to the pounding ocean. Camilla glanced up at her companion. He was staring moodily at the water.
“Who was she?” Camilla asked, surprising even herself with her boldness.
“Who?” Benedict looked at her blankly, for his treacherous first love had been the farthest thing from his mind at that moment.
“The girl who hurt you so. The one who has given you such a dark view of females.”
“Oh.” Benedict shrugged. “Her name was Annabeth.” He tried to summon up her face, but he could not quite remember it clearly. Camilla’s dusky curls and mischievous blue eyes kept imposing themselves over any picture of Annabeth’s pale beauty.
“What happened?”
He started to dismiss her question with an icy retort; that was what he had done any other time anyone was impertinent enough to ask. He had never told anyone the full story, not even his sister or Sedgewick, though he suspected they had pieced together most of it. But, strangely, the walls did not come up inside him as they usually did, and he realized with a start that he did not mind telling Camilla.
“My uncle—the one I really do have—was an old man. He and his wife were childless, and, though she was younger than he, she was considered too old to bear a child. I was my uncle’s heir. Then, amazingly, his wife became pregnant. Of course, given her age, no one expected her to give birth without complications. I met Annabeth shortly after I heard of my aunt’s pregnancy, and we became engaged a few months later. Annabeth insisted that we keep it a secret. I didn’t understand why, but I was too happy and foolish to care. To everyone’s astonishment, my aunt carried the child to full term, and the child was born healthy. Then Annabeth told me that she could not marry me. When I pressed for a reason, she said that it was because I would no longer inherit from my uncle, since he now had a child of his own.”
Camilla drew in her breath sharply. “She threw you over because you wouldn’t get the money?”
He nodded. “Precisely. Of course, I understood then why she had wanted to keep the engagement secret. I think she had not known when we first met that my aunt was pregnant. Then, when she found out, she had put too much time into the project to just drop me, and she was hopeful that my aunt would lose the child. So she hedged her bets. She waited to see what the outcome of the pregnancy was. If my aunt had miscarried, or the baby had been born dead, Annabeth would have made the engagement public. But when my aunt bore the heir, Annabeth was able to break the engagement with no entanglements, since no one had known about it.”
Impulsively Camilla curled her arm around his and squeezed it, leaning her head against his arm tenderly. “I’m sorry.”
An odd quiver ran through Benedict at her affectionate gesture. He half turned, and she went naturally into his arms, wrapping her arms around him and hugging him. He held her tightly for a moment, struck by how good it felt and how little the memory of Annabeth hurt now. When she pulled back a moment later, he was reluctant to open his arms and let her go.
“I mean,” Camilla said, stepping back and looking up at him, “that I am sorry for how bad you must have felt. But not sorry that she broke off the engagement. You know, you were lucky there. You should feel glad.”
“I should?” He raised his eyebrows.
“Why, yes. What if you had remained your uncle’s heir, and she had made the engagement public? Then you would have had to marry her—and you would not have found out what she was really like until you were tied to her for life. That would be much worse than having your heart broken, don’t you think? To live with a woman so cold and deceptive?”
Benedict had to chuckle. He had hated the memory of Annabeth for years, had relived their time together and cursed her for the heartbreak he had felt. But he had never, in all this time, considered the matter from this angle. Trust Camilla to turn everything on its head.
“You’re right,” he told her. “You are absolutely right. I am a lucky man.”
Camilla watched his face lighten with amusement, and she liked the way it looked. It pleased her to have made him smile. “You should laugh more often.”
“I shall endeavor to work on it.”
They rode their horses down the beach until they reached the mouth of the cave. Tying the horses to a low, weather-beaten gorse bush, they ventured inside. Benedict had to duck to go through the entrance, but inside, the ceiling rose several feet above his head. Lit only by the sunlight coming through the entrance, the cave was dim, and they could not see to the back wall.
“It’s too dark inside to go any farther,” Camilla commented. “If you come back with Anthony, you will have to bring lanterns. It extends some distance.”
She turned toward him and saw that he was looking at her, not their surroundings. “What? Why are you looking at me in that way?”
“What way?” His voice came out low and husky. Ever since her impulsive hug on the beach, he had not been able to stop thinking about taking her in his arms again. He wanted to feel her soft body against his again. He wanted to taste her mouth as he had the other day. He took a step forward.
Camilla’s breath caught in her throat. There was something about the tone of his voice, the look in his eyes, that made her knees feel suddenly weak. “I’m not sure. As if you were…” Hungry. “…ah, thinking about…”
“About what?” He took another step closer, his eyes still intent on her face. He looked down at her, so close to her that she could feel the heat of his body, yet not touching her.
“I—I’m not sure.” Camilla could hardly speak or even think. She felt caught, trapped by the heat in his eyes.
“I was thinking about you.” His hand came up, and he brushed his knuckles slowly down her cheek. “About how beautiful you are.”
“Indeed, sir,” she said with a breathless little giggle, trying vainly to reestablish the former tone of their conversation, “’Tis too dark in here, I would think, for you to see anything.”
He smiled slowly. “I can see that you are beautiful in sunlight or in shadow. You make it difficult to concentrate, Camilla.”
She could have retorted that he had the same effect on her, but she could not summon the wit or the energy to speak. She could only look up at him as he reached out and curled his hands around her arms. He pulled her closer to him. Camilla went, unresisting. Benedict’s gaze dropped to her mouth, then lower still, to the soft swell of her breasts beneath the riding habit. He remembered the feel of the soft mounds beneath his fingers the other day in the garden, the taste of her lips, and he wanted to experience it again.
