“I know you won’t bite her, but she has to believe it, as well. You look fairly fierce.” The butler actually looked as though he was about to wet himself, but he was the only possibility. Fennington had already threatened to shoot and stuff the vervet, and the rest of the Howard House servants were even more unsettled by Kero than Hayling was. “You only have to manage her for an hour; perhaps two.”
“Put her in a cage, then, where she can’t injure anyone.”
“No.” Bennett cleared his throat, offering Kero the apple slice Hayling had declined. “She does not go in a cage. Ever.”
“Then my apologies, Sir Bennett, but all the tea in China couldn’t make me let that beastie on my shoulder.”
“I’ll watch her for you.”
Bennett turned around as the diminutive figure of his cousin Geoffrey appeared from down the hallway. His chin lifted high and his gait stiff, the ten-year-old was clearly uneasy, but he nevertheless continued forward.
“If you’re certain she won’t bite, that is,” the lad added.
Well, this was unexpected. “Do you think you could keep an eye on her for an hour or more?”
“No, he will not.” Fennington stepped up behind his son. “For all I know, the animal is rabid.”
“But Father, it’s Kero. You read Captain Langley’s book. She saved the expedition once.”
And the fact that Langley had included that incident continued to surprise Bennett, considering the animosity between man and monkey. Hiding a frown, he reached out and tousled the boy’s dark hair. “Thank you for the offer, Geoffrey, but on second thought Kero might enjoy a bit of fresh air after all. Perhaps when I return you might join us for a walk.”
“Oh, yes.”
Bennett took his hat from Hayling and lifted the satchel he’d had sent to him from Tesling. So he would bring Kero along with him. Phillipa seemed to like her, and Kero had clearly found no fault with Lady Phillipa. “Good morning, then.”
Even though he’d requested assistance with the morning’s outing, he was still somewhat surprised to find a high-perch phaeton emblazoned with the red and white crest of the Duke of Sommerset waiting for him just beyond the front steps. He only hoped he remembered how to drive. He’d ridden camels more recently than he’d tooled about in a phaeton.
As soon as he climbed onto the high perch and settled the satchel beneath the seat, Kero left his shoulder to scamper about the small vehicle until she settled for perching on the folded-up canopy directly behind him. Nodding at the groom holding the head of the pretty bay gelding at the front, he gathered the reins and flicked the ends forward. With a jolt and a roll, they were off.
Last night he’d gritted his teeth and gone along with Phillipa’s story that the roses had been a jest. The most bloody frustrating part of that had been that everyone believed it. Apparently Phillipa Eddison was not expected to make a match, much less have anyone pursuing her. That information, however, made him even more determined to do so.
If calmer heads prevailed at Eddison House and he wasn’t met at the front door with a pistol for daring to declare his liking for the chit, he would do as Phillipa wished and take her driving. If calmer heads didn’t prevail, he would see her anyway, but her parents would be less happy about it.
At this moment the only thing that troubled him was the notion that Phillipa herself didn’t seem to take his declaration seriously. It wasn’t as though he told a woman every day that he wanted her, and he supposed that he felt a bit insulted by her response. He could manage that, though, if she could manage to understand that he’d meant what he said.
Both the marquis and Phillipa stood on the front portico as he reached Eddison House. She wore yellow again, and looked like sunshine and warm summer. He smiled at her as he pulled up the phaeton; he couldn’t help himself.
“Oh, look, he’s brought the monkey,” Lord Leeds grumbled.
“I would have left her behind,” Bennett returned, “but she’s still not well-enough acquainted with anyone to trust them to carry the requisite number of peanuts.”
“She’s hardly a chaperone, either,” Leeds stated. “And I do notice you’ve driven a vehicle that won’t allow a third party aboard.”
“Papa,” Phillipa broke in, putting a hand on her father’s arm, “considering that I ordered Bennett to take me driving today, I think he’s done quite well.”
“Even without considering coercion,” Bennett muttered. For Lucifer’s sake, he was driving a carriage owned by a duke.
“He can’t even let loose the reins or the horse will bolt. I believe my virtue and reputation are both safe.”
“They would be safer if you stayed inside.”
She lifted up on her toes and kissed her father on the cheek. “Yes, but then my sanity would come into question.”
Bennett leaned down, offering her a hand as she clambered onto the seat. Only when he had her fingers in his did he relax a little. This was insane; she made him insane, and had nearly from the first moment he’d heard her voice. And the only time he truly felt free of the mess that had both accompanied and followed him from Africa was when he was in her company.
“Where are we off to?” she asked, primly folding her hands in her lap.
He urged the bay into the street. “This was your idea. You tell me.”
“Well, I’ve never really been taken driving before. Livi seems to like Hyde Park, but it’s so crowded there.” She sent him a sideways glance. “What about Hampstead Heath?”
Bennett turned them up the next north-heading road. “The heath it is.” The heath was known for highwaymen, but he doubted anyone would care to go up against him and Kero in broad daylight. Phillipa had requested a more private location, and he would give it to her.
Reaching into her little green reticule, Phillipa produced a peanut. “May I?”
His mouth curved. “If she’s seen it, then you’d best give it to her. Otherwise I won’t take responsibility for the consequences.”
With a swift smile she handed the peanut over her shoulder, and Kero snatched it out of her fingers. “She doesn’t hang from her tail.”
“No, that’s only monkeys from the Americas.” For a moment he concentrated on navigating through the heavy midmorning traffic. “How much driving about is expected in a courtship before we do more than chat about parks and the weather?”
“I haven’t even mentioned the weather.” She glanced up. “It is nice, though.”
“Mm hm.”
She looked about them for several minutes, the nervous twitch of her fingers telling him that she had something else on her mind. He stayed quiet, waiting. Finally she shifted a little in the seat, turning to face him. “Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what? Riding about in a carriage? Because you made me.”
“Don’t insult me, Bennett. You know very well what I’m talking about.”
Ill-equipped as he felt to confront feelings he didn’t quite understand himself, he did admire her directness. “I told you last night. I’m set on wooing you.”
“Stop saying that. It sounds silly.”
Bennett scowled. “Wooing is not silly. Not unless I’m doing it very, very poorly.” He looked sideways at her. “Am I?”
“How the devil would I know?” Phillipa clenched her fists, then relaxed her fingers again. “I don’t want to sound foolish or like I’m fishing about for compliments, but honestly, Bennett, why me? My sister is the one every man notices, and you’ve been surrounded by ladies who would welcome your courtship. All I’ve done is tell you that I read your books.”
“This is why I didn’t want to go on a damned drive with you,” he growled, yanking on the reins to halt the bay. Drivers behind him began yelling, but he favored them with a two-fingered salute and otherwise ignored them. “I knew you would sit there and ask a thousand questions, and if I didn’t have the answer you wanted, you would…run. What, then, is so deficient about you that I shouldn’t be interested?”
“Drive
on,” she said.
“No.”
Phillipa looked over her shoulder at the growing line of vehicles behind them. “Bennett, drive on.”
“Answer my question.”
Her cheeks paled. “I already told you. Go. Please.”
Irritated, Bennett snapped the reins, and the bay took off at a brisk canter. “You told me that your sister is pretty, that you’re not tall, and that you speak more directly than tactfully. I don’t find any of those things to be a black mark against you, Phillipa.”
“But—”
“Hold a moment.” Another thought abruptly occurred to him, and he frowned. “Are you protesting because you think there’s something wrong with you, or because something is wrong with me?”
“You? Nothing is wrong with you. You’re…perfect, Bennett.”
He snorted. “Aside from quite possibly being a buffoon lucky to have survived walking out my own front door.” Bennett slanted another glance at her. “Is that it, then? You believe Langley’s tripe?”
Her expression eased a little; no doubt she was happier to be discussing a book rather than her own life. That seemed significant, but he would consider it later. “Captain Langley’s book is exceedingly well-written, for the most part.”
That snagged his attention. “‘For the most part’?” he repeated.
She grimaced. “I’ve read your books, you know. Several times. And there were several occasions as I read Captain Langley’s book that I could swear you had written it—except for the passages when everything changed. The setting became very dramatic, and Captain Langley became exceedingly heroic, and you became…less so.”
“What does that mean to you?”
Instead of answering, Phillipa reached into her reticule for another peanut and handed it to Kero. Then she sat forward again, folding her hands in her lap.
“What does it say to you?” she finally asked. “Because I don’t think Bennett Wolfe would return to London for no reason. You don’t like it here. You haven’t mentioned anything about writing a book concerning your own experiences in the Congo, you’ve gone out of your way to not discuss Captain Langley, and you’re driving a phaeton owned by the Duke of Sommerset, who happens to be the head of the Africa Association—which would seem to have every reason to want nothing to do with you, con sidering that you were the one meant to return with information to bring them fame and glory.”
For one of the few times in his life, Bennett found himself speechless. He’d thought it had been his alleged reputation that was giving her pause; it had certainly affected her parents’ opinion of him. But she’d figured it out, without his prompting or protestations of innocence, without hints or kisses to persuade her.
“Langley stole my journals,” he said quietly. “I was wounded, unable to get out of my cot, and he walked in and said he would see that my writings and sketches went where they would do the most good, and he sailed off down the river without me. I came to London to get them back. I had no idea he’d claimed them for himself and turned them into that damned book.”
“My goodness,” she whispered. “What will you do now?”
“He’ll be back in London next week. I’ll settle it then.”
“You make that sound very deadly.”
“Do I? I’m not very civilized.” He turned them onto the road winding through Hampstead Heath. “And I would truly appreciate an explanation of what I’m doing wrong here. With you.”
“Where do I begin?” she muttered under her breath.
“I heard that.”
She faced him again. “Very well. To begin with the most obvious, whatever your reputation at the moment, you are one of the two most famous men in England. If you haven’t heard it, the general con sensus is that for the most part your wealth and previous fame outweigh your…less than sterling performance in the Congo. You should be wooing a princess, or a duke’s daughter, or at the least, the most celebrated beauty of the Season. Not me.”
“Ballocks.”
“It is not. And stop cursing in my presence. It’s not gentlemanly.”
“That, I can manage.” He wanted to touch her, and wrapped his hands hard into the reins to stop himself. “But I would appreciate if you wouldn’t tell me in whom I should be interested. If your complaint is that I don’t know you well enough to like you, or if you don’t know me well enough to let me kiss you again, well, here we are.”
“So today you’ll answer my questions?”
He drew a heavy breath. At least she remained curious enough about him to ask questions, even though she had to realize that the prospect of ridicule still hung about his neck. “Yes.”
With every molecule of his body attuned to her, he knew precisely when she scooted an inch closer to him. That was so much better than when she flung up every excuse she could think of to keep her distance. And well worth answering a few of her questions.
“What was your childhood like? Were you always adventurous?”
“Going back that far, are we?”
“Bennett, you gave your word.”
He hadn’t, not precisely, but it was close enough, he supposed. “My mother died when I was nine years old. My father was an army major who went to India without bothering to take his family with him. He died…well, I’m not certain when he died. I hadn’t seen him since I was six. So if you’re asking whether I went hunting for toads and beetles, no, I don’t recall that I did.”
“I’m so sorry,” she breathed, laying a hand on his arm. “Do you have any siblings?”
Bennett shook his head, doing his best not to drive the phaeton into a ditch at her soft, concerned touch. “Just me.”
“What about your uncle? Lord Fennington wrote very warmly about you in that book’s foreword. Did you live with him?”
With a snort, Bennett detoured them around a barouche full of bonnets and parasols. “No. His sister married a career soldier. I believe he told her that she received precisely what she deserved.”
“Who raised you, then? Badgers?”
“You’ve guessed it.”
“Very amusing. You’re educated. I’ve read your books, remember?”
“I’d rather talk about you, Phillipa.”
She lifted her palm to lightly slap his arm. “This is my turn. And I’m going to be ruthless.”
“I’ll remember that when it’s my turn.”
Color touched her cheeks. “Come now. Who raised you?”
“I did.” He shrugged. “I had a small stipend thanks to my grandfather, the former Lord Fennington, and went from boarding school to boarding school to university, which is where I met Jack Clancy. Then I joined the army, and used my…agility with language to see most of Europe and then India, Istanbul, Egypt, and eastern Africa. I wrote the books to further fund my expeditions, found myself knighted and given a gift of a country estate by Prinny, applied to the Africa Association to sponsor an expedition to the Congo, and here I am.”
“I think you left out some things.”
He grinned briefly. “You’ve read my books. That’s where the rest of it is.”
“What about ladies?” she asked, looking down at her feet. “You’ve never married?”
“No.”
“Have you been in love?”
“That’s a work in progress.”
The blush of her cheeks deepened. “You shouldn’t say such things.”
The number of vehicles around them had shrunk considerably, and as Bennett spied a small stream to one side of the road he turned the phaeton onto the grass. Pulling up behind a large, low-limbed oak tree out of easy sight of the road, he held the reins out to Phillipa. “Hold these a moment, will you?”
She started to reach out, then pulled her hands back again. “I don’t know how to drive a carriage.”
“You don’t have to. Just pull on the ribbons until I tie the horse off to a tree.”
“But I don’t have a chaperone.”
A muscle beneath his left eye began to twitch. “I would
like to chat with you, as you instructed, and I don’t want to drive into the shrubbery while doing it.”
Sighing, she took the reins from his hands and kept them taut. For a heartbeat Bennett watched, waiting to see what the bay would do with a different driver holding him. When the phaeton didn’t lurch into motion again, he jumped to the ground and secured the animal. Kero leapt onto a low-hanging branch and practically flew up into the top of the oak tree, where she promptly set a quartet of sparrows into flight.
“You can let go now,” Bennett said, moving up to her side of the phaeton.
Phillipa looked at him as he raised his hands to help her down from the high seat. Oh, goodness. How had all this happened? One of the men she most admired in the world, he wasn’t at all what she’d expected. He was forward, direct, disdained most of the niceties of polite society, and seemed to be infatuated with her. She scowled for a brief moment. No, not infatuated, because he was quite aware of all her faults. She’d told him about them. Absorbed was perhaps a better word. But the why of that continued to elude her.
With exaggerated care she draped the reins over the seat and stood. Perhaps if she kept talking she wouldn’t be able to consider how very nervous she was at being in his company, especially after his announcement of yesterday. Especially when he still seemed perfectly serious today about wooing her.
She held her breath when he settled his hands around her waist and lowered her to the ground. Bennett gazed into her eyes, then leaned down. “No,” she said, pushing out of his grip. “Rules, remember?”
“And steps,” he added, looking equal parts annoyed and amused.
“Yes. Precisely. So whatever we may wish to do, we have to proceed properly.”
“‘We’?” he repeated, taking her hand in his. “We wish a kiss then, do we?”
“Yes. But while you might not care about propriety or convention, I wish to know more about your goals and motivations before I allow you to lead me down the garden path, Captain Wolfe.”
“We’re not all the way back to that, are we?” He reached beneath the phaeton’s seat and lifted a small satchel. “Because I brought you a gift.”
The Care and Taming of a Rogue Page 13
