Chapter 15 #3
“I’m shy about a good many things.”
He kept his voice cool, hoping she’d take the hint and knowing she wouldn’t.
“Smuggling must pay better than I realised.”
Ben’s hands tightened slightly on the reins and the horses tossed their beautiful heads, blowing clouds in the chill air.
“Have I offended you so badly that you wish to see me hanged, Miss Honeywell? Or do you bandy such words about so carelessly because you are too ignorant to see the danger?”
He spoke with Benedict Midwinter’s usual careless indifference, which he knew made the words strike harder. Whether he truly was that man, or Boreas, or some tangled mess of both, he truly did not know any more.
“I wish to know the truth and as we are in no danger of being overheard, I will thank you not to believe me so unutterably stupid as to not recognise you. I understand you are mixed up in something dangerous. No doubt half of this ridiculous escapade was in order to protect me from myself because you think me too stupid to understand the situation. Yet if you wished to parade in front of me and expect me to play along, you might have had the decency to warn me. A note would have done if you were too shy to speak to me face to face. You’re good at those. ”
He heard the anger and bitterness in her voice and hardly wondered at it, but regret sat heavy in his chest. She would like him no better when this jaunt was done, but there was no help for that.
Though it was still early and the weather too unpleasant for the great and the good to be out in number, the streets were becoming increasingly busy, and Ben was forced to concentrate as some young idiot in a curricle lost control of his horses and cut in front of him.
Cursing, Ben deftly slowed his pair before guiding them neatly around the fool who had almost got himself tangled with a sedan chair.
Glancing at Izzy, he noted her hand clutching the edge of the seat but showing no other outward sign of anxiety.
He turned his attention back to the road, but though he did not see her, he felt her nearness.
Her perfume reached him on the cold, crisp air, something delicate and floral, reminding him of the scent of her skin, of the place where her neck met her shoulder and he had breathed her in as if he could fill himself with the delicious perfume and carry it with him.
She shifted on the seat beside him, and the rustle of her skirts and petticoats took him back to that night too, of how hard he’d had to fight not to reach for the acres of material and drag it up and up and…
“Well?”
Ben forced his mind back to the moment. Back to her and her demands to know the truth.
“I did not know you would be there until a few moments before we met. I had no time to prepare you. How the hell was I to know you would be at such an event?”
She shrugged, though he felt the movement rather than saw it. “I have two sisters. One is a countess, the other a marchioness. I am nineteen. High time I faced society and got myself married, is it not?”
Nineteen? Christ. Had he ever been that young, that innocent?
He felt about one hundred and ten—and married?
He wrestled with a surge of angry frustration he hardly understood as he turned the carriage westward down Grosvenor Street.
Here, the wide pavements were thronged with pedestrians.
Many stared as they passed, admiring the horses, the elegant equipage—her.
“Are you in such a great hurry to get leg-shackled? Or did our little interlude make you realise you were eager for the marriage bed?”
It was a wretched and ungentlemanly thing to say, and he regretted it the moment the words left his mouth but, as ever, it was too late now. Besides, he was no gentleman, for all that he knew how to pass for one.
For what seemed an eternity, she said nothing, as shame burned in his gut.
“I should slap you for that.”
He snorted. “You would have done better to slap me that night.”
“Hindsight is a wonderful thing,” she retorted, but there was the slightest wobble to her words, giving her away. He had hurt her. As if he didn’t know it.
Ben stole a glance at her, but she had turned her face away and the wide brim of her bonnet hid her completely.
Along the street, two elegantly dressed ladies gazed unashamedly at him.
He ignored their expressions of interest. He did not doubt that all the world would be chattering about his drive with Miss Honeywell in the park.
It would do her no good to be seen overmuch in his company, that was for sure.
Society loved a wicked man if he had the looks, money, and the address to carry it off, but a young woman’s reputation would not survive too intimate an acquaintance.
Regret for the things he had said and done, and all the things he could never say or do, became a confused tangle of emotions, pulling tight in his chest. He did not know what to do with her, how to make it right.
“Izzy—” he began, his voice a degree softer than it had been.
“That’s Miss Honeywell to you.”
Ben sighed. Well, he’d asked for that. He tried again, keeping his tone firm but kindly, or as close to that as he could manage.
“Miss Honeywell. I cannot explain to you what I am doing, or why. I can only tell you that spending time with me will put you in danger. Not only will it ruin your reputation, but it might lead some very dangerous people to believe you know more than you do.”
He did not need to turn his head to know she was staring at him.
He could feel her blue gaze boring into the side of his head, as if she could force her way in and discover the truth for herself.
Keeping his gaze resolutely on the road ahead, he willed her to be sensible, to take him at his word and leave it, leave him, alone.
“Is it something to do with Lord Alveston?”
Ben did not gasp with shock and outrage, but it was a close-run thing. Instead, he turned and stared at her, unable to hide his astonishment. “What?”
“You heard me,” she replied, her gaze steady, the words bitten off.
“Please do not mistake me for a fool. I assure you I am not one, though Lord Alveston certainly believes that. He believes he can ask me endless questions about smugglers, about the Midwinter family and their abandoned castle, and not be the slightest bit curious as to what fascinates him so.”
It had occurred to him last night to wonder about the nature of the conversation she’d had with Alveston, where she had told him his family owned the castle.
For a moment he had even suspected her, but no.
Not Honeywell’s daughter. She would never condone the sort of business Lord Alveston dealt in.
Even if he’d had wit enough to give her a quick answer, the growing stream of fashionable vehicles heading towards the park took his attention.
A trio of reckless young pups on spirited horses danced in and out of the traffic, their horses shying and prancing.
Ben kept his eyes on the road even as his mind readjusted his estimation of the young woman beside him.
Park Lane, bordered by split-rail fencing, drew them along with the traffic, the tall elms on either side, thick with fat buds, proved it really was spring despite the unseasonably cold weather.
The scent of horses and wood smoke filled the air as he wondered what the devil to do with the tantalising creature who was a far too tempting distraction, not to mention a danger to him and to herself.
Yet, he had underestimated her, and not for the first time.
As an increasing flow of barouches, curricles, and phaetons joined the melee, while street sellers took their lives in their hands, weaving in and out of the traffic, offering flowers and freshly baked buns.
“You handle your horses wonderfully well, Mr Midwinter.”
Ben allowed himself to glance at her, nettled by the mocking way she said his name, though her admiration seemed genuine. “I’ve had practice.”
True enough, guiding horses more workaday than these over clifftops in the pitch dark, over rutted roads with the revenue men in pursuit, upon moonlit beaches with the tide coming in and men shouting on all sides, were all excellent preparation for the chaos that was fashionable London.
Finally, they entered Hyde Park through the grand stone pillars of Stanhope Gate and the way opened to reveal the elegant sweep of lawn.
The wind picked up as they left the city behind them, and the sky seemed suddenly larger.
Grey clouds tumbled overhead, and Ben glanced up, wondering if it would rain.
He’d had Ray put up the hood just in case, which offered a little protection from the wind too, but he did not want to return her home soaked to the skin.
Still ruminating over his pretty passenger’s surprisingly astute remarks about Lord Alveston, Ben guided the horses onto South Carriage Drive.
This ran parallel to Rotten Row, which was forbidden to all carriages except the King's.
Their hooves thudded softly on the sandy surface as they picked up speed.
He was increasingly conscious of the number of looks they got from the other riders and people out driving.
This had been a mistake. He ought never to have agreed to it, but he did not doubt she would have spilled the entire story to her sister and her husband if he denied her.
“Well, are you going to explain, or do I need to use underhand means to force you to talk?”