Chapter 7 #2
“You needn’t call me that,” he said more gruffly than he intended.
He didn’t know why her words unsettled him the way they did.
She’d always addressed him as such. It was the proper title to use.
Yet given their newfound status as husband and wife, wasn’t it also a touch formal?
He inhaled, taking care to gentle his tone. “It’s Benedict.”
“Very well. Benedict.” She said his name with a hint of breath, and a lick of warmth snaked through his gut. “In that case, I must ask you to call me Violet. Assuming you’re comfortable dispensing with the formality of Mrs. Prescott.”
“I prefer Violet.” He let himself answer honestly, to utter the name by which he always referred to her in his head. As he suspected, it had an agreeable ring on his tongue. “Mr. and Mrs. Prescott are my parents. At least, they were at one point …”
His momentary pleasure faded and his throat seized, the tightness radiating down his chest and deep into his abdomen.
Why had his mind wandered in such a direction?
Furthermore, why had he alluded to it out loud?
While he’d spent little time out in high society, he was well aware that the rise and fall of his parents’ scandalous marriage had been a talking point amongst the ton for years.
After all, there were few things more shocking than a marquess’s second son forsaking his family so he could marry a lowborn woman and become a poet.
Few things, perhaps, except the aristocrat-turned-poet dropping dead a decade later, leaving behind such copious debts that his widow was forced back to his estranged family for help.
Violet had said her mother enjoyed the gossip rags; therefore, the viscountess had likely recounted the sordid tale. He’d accomplish nothing by speaking of it, nothing but letting her into a place within him that was raw and vulnerable, and that was something he couldn’t abide.
But if his veiled reference to the scandal had piqued Violet’s curiosity or made her eager to glean additional fodder for gossip, nothing in her countenance suggested as much. In fact, she simply looked … thoughtful.
“I understand that your mother is Mrs. Clare now,” she said after a pause, the firelight making her features bright and illuminating a few drops of brandy upon her lips. “She’s made quite a name for herself in London.”
So, Violet was familiar with that part of the saga, too.
The way his mother, after another falling out with the Prescott family matriarch—the fearsome dowager marchioness—had found success and independence as a book illustrator and portrait artist. How she’d remarried a novelist—and Ben and Alex’s former tutor, of all people—and they’d proceeded to establish a thriving printshop.
The situation suited them well, even though it kept them far removed from being considered equals amidst the ton.
Ben bristled, his gaze turning from her firelit face to the flames themselves.
He’d received no small amount of taunting on the subject during his first months at Eton, and he was used to people with pure blue blood thinking him inferior.
However, he detected no judgment or condescension in Violet’s tone. On the contrary, she sounded awed.
“Yes,” he said, knowing he should offer more.
He could tell her he was proud of his mother’s strength and determination, and that he considered himself fortunate beyond measure for the devoted stepfather—and later, two half-brothers—he’d acquired.
Their terrace house on Buckingham Street wasn’t luxurious, but he’d never wished for anything different, for they’d all been happy there.
Happy until the time came when they could no longer ignore the truth. When life had tugged him in another direction, into a world of peerages and estates. In other words, the exact things his father had sworn to avoid and wanted his children to stay clear of.
Perhaps Violet deserved more of a conversation, but how was Ben to speak of all this to his new wife without one thing leading to another?
How was he to explain that he was part of the ton yet not part of it?
That he didn’t truly belong on Buckingham Street or behind a marquess’s desk.
That he could either accept his responsibilities as his uncle’s heir or honor his father’s memory and wishes, but it was impossible to do both.
The topic wound him in knots, a problem without a solution that kept him awake late into the night. Presently, it made his throat turn dry—and for a flash of a moment, he wished he, too, had a glass of brandy in hand.
And so, while Violet’s comment may warrant more than a one-word answer, that was all he gave. All he could give, for everything else was his alone, locked deep inside.
“Might we visit London?” Her question broke the silence between them, floating above the quiet pop of flames and Achilles’s soft snore.
He turned to her, and for a few seconds, he imagined it. Strolling in Hyde Park, visiting the family printshop on Fleet Street, getting ices at Gunter’s, all with Violet on his arm.
Yet he doubted she had the same things in mind while posing the question.
If he returned to London, he would no longer be the boy who rambled through parks and stained his fingers with printer’s ink.
He would be there as the husband of a viscount’s daughter.
As a future marquess. His whole purpose would be to immerse himself in society events as if he belonged there.
Thus, bringing him back to his primary dilemma.
“Someday, perhaps.” He didn’t quite look her in the eye while giving the vague answer. “The estate business will take at least until the end of the London Season, if not longer. And given your desire to rid your name of scandal, I think it would be unwise for you to travel there alone.”
“Of course.” She raised her glass again with a jerky motion, swallowing the remainder of the brandy. “How silly of me to have brought it up.”
Had he disappointed her? She clenched her fingers around the edge of the glass, quietly tapping the crystal with her nails. She peered at the amber droplets that remained on the bottom rather than at him.
“Are you certain there’s not something you need?
” He changed the subject abruptly, straightening his already rigid spine against the chair back, forcing himself to look at her and not shy away.
He couldn’t talk about the past or future, his family or his fears.
He could, however, gift her updated furniture for her bedchamber.
A new mare. Trinkets for her sister. Whatever she desired.
She bit down on her lip. “No. Yes.” Her hand went back to her dressing gown, looping the belt around her fingers, and her face took on the same hesitant cast as the first time he’d posed the question. “I wanted to ask you … That is, I wanted to say …”
She trailed off, but he didn’t prod her. He sat and waited, wanting her to understand she had nothing to fear by asking for something that would add to her comfort.
“I plan to go to sleep soon,” she burst out, “but I wondered if I should wait up for you.”
The wheels in his head turned like cogs in a poorly oiled machine. Violet hadn’t requested he buy her anything. Rather, she was going to bed, and she wondered … oh.
“I mean, to perform my wifely duty,” she mumbled when his silence lasted too long.
Yes, he’d arrived at that conclusion. Albeit a beat later than what was ideal.
Of all the things she could have asked, he hadn’t expected that.
Although perhaps he should have. They hadn’t discussed the nature of their union, but given the circumstances, he’d just assumed it would remain a marriage in name only.
However, it was natural for her to conclude that a marquess’s heir would want heirs of his own.
He tried to picture it. Violet sprawled atop crisp sheets in the darkness. The belt of her dressing gown in his fingers instead of hers so he could pull it open, leaving her bare. The warmth of her beneath him, flesh against flesh. Cries of pleasure, a yearning within him that heated and swelled—
But he didn’t even know her. Didn’t know how to summon that sense of yearning with a stranger.
Besides, she didn’t want him. She wanted George.
“No, that’s unnecessary.” God, his voice sounded thick. Almost as if it were about to crack. He clamped his lips together before he did anything embarrassing.
As for Violet, he could just make out the sharp intake of her breath.
The slight tremble of her chin. Had he been a betting man, he would have wagered a large sum that his declaration would give her relief.
However, the glint in her eyes suggested something different, something he couldn’t name. Surprise? Anger? Hurt? Surely not.
Whatever it was, it lasted only an instant before she shuttered her features, her lips becoming a tight line. “Good. I needn’t be inconvenienced, then.”
The words hit him like an ice shard between the ribs. But there was no time to analyze them, no time to form a reply, before she sprang to her feet, giving him a curt nod. “I’m going to bed. Goodnight, Mr. Prescott.”
He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He could do naught but observe as Violet pivoted away from him and marched across the study, stopping just long enough to deposit her empty glass atop his desk.
Wait. I didn’t mean … I don’t want … So many half-formed thoughts raced through his head, but none would materialize into a coherent sentence. And so, not for the first time, he watched her disappear, the hem of her gauzy dressing gown trailing behind her.
Only when her footsteps faded into nothingness and he allowed himself to slump forward, pressing his fingers into Achilles’s fur, did his voice return.
“Call me Benedict,” he muttered to her vacant chair.