Chapter Three
Fine.
Ben huffed out a breath as he left the guest bedchamber and entered the small sitting parlor.
He looked back at the door as he closed it.
When his parents were alive, these rooms had been reserved for visiting guests.
But Colchester House no longer received guests.
Not until last night.
Strange how she could breathe life into that stuffy old bedchamber.
Her presence seemed to brighten every corner.
When he’d heard how ill she had become and what had caused her malady, he went to her.
Instead of her wide heaven-colored eyes staring back at him, she was barely awake, weak from expelling the contents of her belly, which, according to Edith, was much.
He still didn’t know what had come over him when he bent to her small cot and lifted her limp body in his arms.
All he could think about on the way up the stairs to the room she now occupied, had been that she was obviously a street urchin who probably begged or stole for money, and he didn’t care.
She piqued his interest.
Who was she running from, and why? He intended to find out.
She amused him. What made her a fierce enemy to have when a heavy gust could sweep her away? She was quick witted and had honestly told him how much she’d eaten.
And what had she meant by him trying to push her buttons? Edith had changed her odd clothes to a gown. There were no threaded buttons attached. She spoke in an odd manner–like the rest of her. Her hot temper made him want to dominate her, but it was an instinct. Nothing more.
Because he was alone, he let himself give out a short, quiet laugh as he fell onto a quilted crimson settee.
He opened his book and held it up.
She didn’t want to be his servant but she hadn’t asked what her duties entailed.
“What shall I have you do for me first, Miss Ramsey?”
he mused into the book.
Suddenly, the book was yanked from his fingers, the ship on the cover turned upright, then shoved back into his hands.
“You can start by asking me to have mercy on you.”
He looked up into those fathomless ocean-colored eyes he couldn’t seem to shake from his thoughts.
“Or what?”
She snatched the book from him again and slapped his recovering arm with it, then dropped it on him and turned away.
For at least ten breaths, Ben couldn’t do anything but stare at her in quiet shock that she dared to strike him.
It hurt his pride more than his arm, though he clutched the latter as if the opposite were true.
This was a first.
What should he do?
“Miss Ramsey.”
She stopped and turned to him.
“Do you want to be thrown into prison?” he asked.
“Oh, yes, Your Majesty , who doesn’t want to be thrown into prison?”
He gave her an admonishing look laced with humor.
She had a saucy spirit and a viperous tongue.
She–his gaze dipped to her stockinged feet.
“You shouldn’t be walking.”
Before he had time to think about what he was doing, he leaped out of the settee and scooped her up off the floor.
He made the mistake of looking down, so close to her face, her eyes.
She was staring up at him with a dreamy look.
“Did you… Did you carry me to your bedroom yesterday?”
“It’s not my bedchamber,”
he answered.
“But yes.”
She began to smile and he was glad when she caught herself and pushed against him.
“I’m fine.
Put me down.”
“No walking, Miss Ramsey,”
he said sternly, carrying her back to bed.
“I walked all the way here on these same feet, Your Grace.”
“I know.”
He hadn’t set her down but stared steadily into her eyes.
“What in the world was so bad that you had to run so far from it? Were you running from him ?”
The man you were praying about in the garden?”
Her eyes seemed to grow rounder, more fearful.
Ben found himself hating the man who frightened her so.”Why is he after you?”
“It’s better if you don’t get involved.”
“I involved myself when I took you in,”
he told her, then asked his question again.
“I have something of his,”
she answered.
“Did you steal it from him?”
And what if she did? Would his rigid code demand that he toss her on the street?
She shook her head against his chest.
“He wasn’t there and then…and then he was.
He had a pocket watch in his hand.
I called the police and when they came he grabbed me from behind and held a sword to my throat, threatening to kill me.
He did something with the watch.
I don’t know how, but one minute I was near my alley on 46th Street and 9th, and the next, I was here in 1718.
I think he followed me. In fact, I’m pretty sure he did.”
What was she saying, Ben wondered as he bent with her to the bed.
“Where did he take you from?”
“The twenty-first century.”
A man wasn’t there and then he was? A pocket watch with the power to send her back in time? It was madness.
“You almost make me believe you can protect me from this,”
her voice was low against his ear while he set her down on the mattress.
He’d be a fool to involve himself with her further.
She obviously wasn’t right in the head.
He stared into her eyes, calming the turbulent seas within her.
“What makes you think I can’t?”
The faintest hint of a smile played around her coral lips but then she looked away.
“Your confidence can be dangerous for you.”
“Let me worry about myself.”
He stepped away, already feeling the emptiness of not having her in his arms.
“Why don’t you sit?”
she invited like a fiery temptress too irresistible to ignore.
“Share a word with me.
I’m lonely.”
He backed up and fell into the chair close to the bed as if he had no power to stop himself.
He didn't.
She laughed and tossed back her head.
“You believe my story just like that.
Do you like me or something, Your Grace?”
She stopped to cast him a curious smile, and then rattled him senseless when she winked.
“Would you try to protect me from something you don’t even understand?”
Would he? He blinked.Why was he hesitating? He wanted to tell her of course not.
He wasn’t a mad fool, putting his life in danger for someone he didn’t know, but when he opened his mouth to tell her, his tongue deceived him.
“What does my understanding of it or not have to do with anything? If you’re in danger, I can protect you.”
“I’m not helpless.”
“I disagree.”
She frowned at him with suspicion narrowing her eyes.
“Who made you my protector?”
“You did when you fainted in my arms in my garden and when you made yourself ill by eating my food.”
And the first time I looked at you and every time after that.
He clenched his jaw.
Was this his voice he was hearing in his head? This odd little prickling feeling he felt when he wasn’t around her was both curious and alarming.
His feet brought him to her even while his head was commanding him not to go.
Even now, commanding his eyes to shift away to something other than her did him no good.
He took in every nuance of her myriad of facial expressions.
Her hair, with its waist-length coppery curls lent to her enchanting appearance.
Her peach-colored lips tempted him to lean forward and steal a kiss.
But he was no thief.
He told his traitorous feet and legs to move, leave the chair, the room, and her.
But he remained where he sat.
“You’re a nice guy in a cold, aloof sort of way.”
He tilted his head at her, wondering if she just complimented him.
The door to the bedroom burst open and Prudence strode inside.
She stopped when she saw him sitting by the bed.
Her face turned red and Ben was reminded of a bull about to attack.
His facial expression didn’t change as he pulled his gaze from Miss Ramsey and set it on her.
“What are you doing here, Benjamin?”
she asked in a trembling voice.
Her scornful gaze flicked to Miss Ramsey.
“With this…this creature from the streets?”
Did he even want to argue with her? Wasn’t it better to shout for Stephen and have her removed?
“What are you trying to prove by spending time with her?”
her venomous tongue continued.
“Are you doing this to spite me because I want you to fulfill Father’s wishes to marry into a family that will expand your lands and your power? You constantly rebel against me by not attending any marriage balls and by refusing the dowries of the most elite nobles.
You don’t give a whit about the interest the king’s own niece has in you! Why? Do you mean to tell me you’ve been waiting all this time for a pauper?”
He could have replied with a hundred different things, but he looked to Miss Ramsey and found her smiling with her chin to her chest.
She glanced at him, her amusement clear in her eyes.
When he smiled back, she giggled silently and looked away.
“What’s this?”
Prudence stared at him in horror watching him smile at his guest.
“Oh! Oh, I think I’m going to faint!”
“Prudence,”
he said calmly.
“Gather your wits and see yourself out, since you came here to do nothing but insult her.”
“Benjamin–”
“When you can behave like the gentry you represent, you may return.”
When she opened her mouth to refute him, he rose from his chair as if to escort her out.
She snapped her mouth shut and hurried out.
Alone with her again, Ben turned to Miss Ramsey, who was staring at him as if he just dissolved all the worries in her world.He had the insane urge to smile back.
This time, he didn’t.
“Have you eaten?”
Still smiling, she shook her head.
“I won’t have you starve under my roof,”
he said gruffly and strode to the door without looking back.
He wanted to look back.
But he didn’t.
#
“Prudence told me that you and Miss Ramsey were laughing at her,”
the earl of Sudbury said over a cup of wine in Ben’s private parlor.
“You know how she exaggerates.
I don’t believe it.
You don’t laugh often, and especially not with women you hardly know.”
“We mostly just smiled,”
Ben let him know.
He’d left Miss Ramsey’s food to Edith when Sudbury requested a word with him.
“You…smiled? With Miss Ramsey?”
Sudbury asked, sounding as stunned as he looked.
Ben nodded.
Memories invaded his thoughts of her covert amusement and silent giggles at a time when a dozen other women would have wept or snapped back at his sister.
She giggled, vanquishing the sting of Prudence’s words, and by doing so, she made him smile too.
“Don’t make more of it than what it was, Sudbury,”
Ben told him with a scowl that had little to do with what he said, and more with how he felt saying it.
“She found humor in my sister’s barbs, and that pleased me.”
“Where are you going?”
Sudbury asked, looking up from his chair when Ben rose to his feet.
“I told Edith to feed her.
I want to make certain she followed my orders.”
Sudbury rose and eyed him with a knowing smirk.
“You rush to see to a servant?”
Ben clenched his jaw instead of answering.
What was he to say? That even while he was denying her, he couldn’t keep his feet from hurrying to her? He didn’t want any women to get attached to him since his goal was to return to the battlefield.
He might not live beyond his thirtieth year.
He didn’t want to leave behind a widow and possible children.
But even feeling the pull of his dream of fighting, he couldn’t help his desire to see her again.
“What about your rule?”
his friend asked.
Sudbury was the only one who knew the true reason Ben refused to take a wife.
He never breathed a word to Prudence.
If she knew her brother planned on returning to the battlefield she’d never get over it and she’d make his life a living hell trying to stop him.
“What about it?”
Ben raised his brow at him.
“I don’t plan on taking Miss Ramsey as my wife.”
“Your bed then.”
Ben glared at him.
They had known each other since they were boys of eight, when their fathers were friends.
He’d been visiting Sudbury when he learned of his parents’ murder by the Jacobites.
They’d remained friends and even fought side by side on the battlefield.
Sudbury was his closest friend, but Ben didn’t want to discuss Miss Ramsey with him anymore.
“That’s not your concern, brother.”
Sudbury smiled and held up his palms.
He walked off without another word, and for a moment, Ben spared him another thought–one of appreciation for always knowing when to quit.
Then he turned and went the other way.
“Your Grace, there you are!”
his steward called out and hurried down the stairs to reach him.
“Lady Prudence is turning my hair white, and not just me but the cooks, and all the servants on the estate with her extravagant plans for a ball here.
Sir, have you allowed it?”
Ben nodded.
“Well then, thanks to you, I’m about to pack up and leave for Scotland to escape her.”
“Where is she now?”
“In the kitchen, ordering the cooks to prepare an array of dishes and delicacies that will surely use up half of Your Grace’s wealth.”
Changing course, Ben led the way to the kitchen.
He found his sister where Stephen said she’d be, ordering the cooks to gather her list of needed ingredients.
“Prudence?”
he interrupted her, straightening his spine and squaring his shoulders.
“I’ll look over and approve everything you’re planning from now on.”
“Your Grace,”
she said with a pleasant smile in the presence of servants, “I wouldn’t dream of burdening you with such trivial matters.
I know how busy you are in your charity work for the less fortunate.”
He knew she was trying to engage him in one of her little battles.
Perhaps they were battles that, like his own, she needed.
Today though, he wasn’t willing to engage.
He set his hard gaze on the head cook.
“Not a thing will be purchased, hunted, or traded on her list unless it bears my seal.
Understood?”
“What do you mean?”
she practically screeched.
“You have no idea what it costs to host a ball, Benjamin!”
“Prudence,”
he said in a low voice.
“If you insist on spending every pence I have, you’ll add Sudbury to the list of eligible bachelors.
Since he is one.
She went pale.
He knew she had her own eyes on his unfortunate best friend.
After shooting him a murderous glare, she stormed off.
“Thank you, Sir,”
Stephen said reverently.
Ben held his wrists behind his back and stared at his steward.
“Next time, do as she says and don’t involve me.”
Stephen nodded obediently but looked as if he wanted to say more.
“You take each of her demands and decide which are feasible and which are not.”
At the last, he motioned casting things away over his shoulder.
This time when Stephen nodded, he smiled.
Ben was led away next by Lieutenant Frenton of his private army.
Frenton fought alongside Ben at the Battle of Blenheim in Germany.
“I’ve returned from scouting the surrounding towns and burghs.
No one recalls a woman running or hiding from any man, but…”
He quirked his mouth and shook his head.
“But? Tell me.”
“I went as far as Ipswich,”
the lieutenant continued.
“A few folks in Belstead claimed to have witnessed a woman appearing before their eyes.”
He wasn’t there…and then he was.
Ben remembered Miss Ramsey’s story.
“She asked them where she was, and…”
Frenton paused to laugh.
“...what year they were in.”
“What year?”
Ben asked, trying not to sound as if he was more familiar with this matter.
“They didn’t have a chance to question her further because she became hysterical and ran off.
An instant later they claim a man appeared out of nowhere and demanded to know which way she went.
They gave him the wrong direction, and then they too ran off.”
The lieutenant gave him a sheepish smile.
“I didn’t think it credible, and didn’t know if I should waste your time telling you.”
“Yes,”
Ben agreed.
So then, he thought, her outlandish tale had witnesses.
And the man chasing her is here .
“It’s ridiculous for certain.
Good work, Lieutenant.
Keep it up.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“Frenton,”
he called, stopping him as another question came to him.
“Did you get a description of them: the woman and the man?”
Frenton gave him a surprised look.
“I didn’t believe the story, so I didn’t–”
“You’re quite right,”
Ben told him.
“There’s one thing,”
the lieutenant said after he thought about it.
“She had red hair.
They said the woman had hair like flames flickering around her face in the wavy air.”
The lieutenant laughed.
“It’s quite a tale.”
Yes, Ben thought, it was.
“I wonder why tell it if it wasn’t true?”
Frenton sobered, then shrugged.
They parted and Ben set his course toward the guest room.
He had to re-route twice more to settle a dispute between two landowners.
He’d had the fleeting thought of strangling them both when they stubbornly refused to settle their disagreement.
But he left them both alive when he departed his receiving room a short while later-the dispute settled.
Nathan, one of the stable hands, caught up with him next.
“Your Grace! The black mare has delivered! The foal is well and resembles its mother!”
The black mare was one of Ben's favorite horses.
All the stablehands knew he favored her and they all looked after her well.
He was happy the mare and her foal were alright.
“Kevin and Peter are waiting for you now to come greet the newest foal, Sir.”
Ben turned to give the stairs a solemn look over his shoulder then followed Nathan out of the house.
By the time he set his feet to his course again, supper was approaching.
Had Edith served Miss Ramsey yet? How could her story could be real? She’d said a man appeared out of nowhere and with the aid of a pocket watch, brought her back to 1718 to escape the police.It was mad and Ben was mad for considering it.
Hair like flames flickering around her face.
It was her.
It was her.
He shook his head.
It was too fantastical.
People traveling through time? No.
But… the woman in Ipswich matched her description.
He reached the door to her room and stared at it.
What was this enchantment with her that he’d fallen under? Was his life so pitiful that he would find such amusement with a woman who was out of her mind?
Or was she?
The sound of male laughter seeped through the door and pricked Ben’s ears.
He knew that laughter.
He pushed open the door and gave his best friend, sitting on the chair across from her, a dark scowl.