Chapter 19 #2
Naturally, he kissed her. Pressing his lips to hers was as seamless a progression as taking his next breath. She sank into him as if she belonged in the shelter of his chest. As if their lips were meant to be joined.
He ran his hands through her wild curls as their tongues twined, relishing the sensation of her arms wrapping around his back. Of her fingers stroking up and down his spine, lingering near the waist of his trousers.
His cock inevitably stirred to attention, mild pulses of need sparking in his veins. He’d been so afraid. Afraid of his own desires, afraid of what she wanted or didn’t want, afraid of his inability to please her. Yet here in the moonlight, fear became less.
Instead, his mind seized on possibilities. What would happen if he let himself be free with her? If instead of analyzing, he simply let himself trust?
He broke the kiss, reaching for her hand and posing a silent question with his eyes.
She answered by squeezing his fingers, and they started toward the front door in unspoken agreement.
They would go inside. Go upstairs together. No connecting door would separate them.
His heart hammered as visions flashed of her lying across his bed.
Of pulling off garments until he could gaze upon her rosy nipples, the curls between her legs, the intimate flesh he’d caressed with his fingertips.
Of removing his trousers and letting that flesh envelop him, if that’s what she desired.
Their footfalls became more urgent as they ascended the front steps.
Except then, he abruptly stilled.
A pamphlet of some sort was wedged against the bottom of the door. Another two tucked behind the pillar. A fourth, fifth, and sixth placed on the edge of the landing, held in position by small rocks.
He bent down to grab one, an odd feeling settling in his stomach. Straightening, he shifted so he stood directly beneath the lantern above the door, wrenching his spectacles from his pocket. Violet’s muttered words reached him just as he perched the spectacles on his nose: “Not again.”
However, her voice faded into nothingness. Everything disappeared but the pounding of blood through his ears and the words, suddenly clear, on the pamphlet he held.
The Salacious Solicitor.
By an author of the initials A.P.
The air fled from his lungs as if he’d been kicked. Initials A.P. It made no sense. Initials A.P. …
Violet moved in a flurry around him, paper rustling as she swept the remainder of the pamphlets into her arms. Meanwhile, the door swung open, a bleary-eyed footman granting them entry.
Ben, though, was frozen. Numb.
The pamphlet in front of his face couldn’t be real. There was some other explanation; Alex would never …
But the pamphlet was real, printed in the same style as all the others. And Alex had.
Alex had.
As if a bonfire flared under his feet, he bolted into the house and toward his study, not even stopping to acknowledge the waiting Achilles.
He marched all the way to his desk, his wobbly legs collapsing into the leather chair but then popping up again, for he could never sit still at a time like this.
He paced across the carpet with the pamphlet clenched in his fist, the cover illuminated by the stark slashes of moonlight pouring through the windows. The Salacious Solicitor. Initials A.P.
“Benedict?” Violet’s soft call was accompanied by a subtle glow, and he turned to find her approaching his desk, lamp in one hand and pile of pamphlets in the other.
He wished he could think only of the glimmer the lamp cast across her features. How she was lush, radiant, and unequivocally his.
Yet the thought was merely a flicker, quickly doused as he hurried to meet her, throwing out his hand to claim the pamphlets she held.
She passed them over without resistance, although her face appeared strained, and he flipped through the atrocious things, each one the same as the last. The Salacious Solicitor.
The Salacious Solicitor. The anonymous benefactor had taken no chances that Ben would fail to notice the gift they’d left.
Except suddenly, the gift remained anonymous no longer, for a calling card slipped from between the thin pages, its lettering so bold that Ben would be confronted with the name even if he ripped off his spectacles. Lord Frederick Denham.
Where in hell had the lordling summoned the gall to litter Aldercombe’s doorstep with erotic literature?
With this erotic literature, specifically, because he wished to flaunt its connection to the master of the house.
Did he think it only fitting that after his embarrassing failure with the broken dam, Ben suffer humiliation, too?
Ben should feel irate at the blackguard for the prank he’d played. No doubt he would feel irate once the truth had an opportunity to permeate. However, his present fury shifted to only one target: Alexander.
What in God’s name had his brother been thinking? Ben had given up so much to protect him. He’d bought him another chance. And Alex had wasted it. He’d bloody well thrown it away.
Ben crumpled the pages, his fingers like a vise, and pitched them onto his desk. Despite the warmth of the night, he would have to start a fire so he could reduce the entire works to ash. He couldn’t bear looking at the damn things any longer, each one screaming danger. Betrayal.
“Benedict?” Violet tried his name again just as he was about to pivot toward the hearth. However, he stopped abruptly, a thought seizing him. The flash of a memory. Not again: her words while they stood on the doorstep and he pulled the pamphlets into the light.
“What did you mean?” With a single sharp motion, he abandoned the hearth in favor of whirling toward his wife, knots tightening between his ribs as he peered at her. “When we were outside, you said not again.”
It was impossible to miss the way her eyes shifted so they didn’t quite meet his.
The way her lip slid between her teeth and her fingers curled into the gauzy fabric of her skirts.
He recognized her expression. Knew it meant she was contemplating, calculating, searching for the right answer to give him.
In the end, though, her joyless gaze went back to his, and she settled on the truth. “I found a single copy of the same pamphlet lying on the step when I returned home this afternoon.”
Hell and damnation. So, this incident was a repeat occurrence? And Violet had known? His jaw clenched painfully. “And you didn’t think I should be informed?”
“I did. I planned to tell you.” She blew out a weary sigh. “I just …”
“You should have come to me at once,” he snapped. “You had no right to keep this a secret.”
Her spine stiffened as if she’d received an electrical shock, her eyes flashing with a sudden burst of wrath. “Is it so wrong that I wanted to enjoy one blasted evening with you before, once again, something came along to interfere?”
His head swirled, no longer with merriment but with foreboding. Everything from the day came rushing back: the ring of her laughter, the clinking of mugs, the tang of spiced apple. Did he wish it all away?
No. Of course he didn’t. However, this wasn’t the time for it. He shouldn’t be in Wiltshire dancing—lovemaking—when Alex was off God knows where doing God knows what. No longer protected by the safety Cambridge offered, for he’d certainly been expelled when the pamphlet came to light.
“You should have told me,” he reasserted thickly, the rapid pitch and sway of his thoughts making him so dizzy that he neared the point of casting up his accounts. He needed to fix this. Needed to find Alex.
“I’m sorry.” Her hand fell upon his sleeve, the touch scalding enough that he snatched his arm away. He couldn’t endure her caresses right now. He couldn’t.
Her eyes—hard turned gentle—developed the unmistakable sheen of hurt.
It lasted only an instant, though, before she blinked it away, not retreating from him but keeping her hands firmly at her sides.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated, so soft and compassionate that it hurt.
“I know this is distressing news for you, but everything’s going to be all right.
I’m not afraid of any scandal that ensues, and if your brother needs our support, I can help to—”
“No.” His voice sounded stringent, hollow. He was being dragged inward, forced into a spiraling abyss that contained all his worst fears come true. “I don’t want your help.”
The pain in her eyes flared back to life, and this time, it didn’t retreat. “I’m your wife, Benedict. Why must you always keep shutting me out?”
Because it’s all too much. Because I cannot share this with you. Because this is my burden, my vulnerability, my family affliction of which I cannot speak.
Even in his anger, he hated himself for hurting her. He’d no doubt do so even more once the shock of what happened wore off and all that remained was his self-loathing.
Be that as it may, he wrenched himself back from her, glowering so severely that his brow felt in danger of splintering. “For the love of Christ, just leave me alone.”
Violet’s lips—those plump, perfect lips—formed an o. A choked sound emerged. And then, without another word, she spun away, giving him merely the briefest glimpse of her granite-like face before she made for the door.
The retreat of her skirts—the silver threads glinting in the lamplight, just as they’d done outdoors when she traipsed about the village green—caused a fresh stab of pain in his chest.
He pushed it aside, pressing his hands to his temples so he could focus on the issue at hand. He needed to be alone and without distractions. Needed to think about the situation rationally so he could invent a solution.
Infuriatingly, no obvious answer came to him, no matter how hard he drove his fingers into his skull.
How long ago had the pamphlet first been distributed?
Had Alex been discovered, and consequently sent down from Cambridge, right away?
Was he now back home in London? Or had he taken himself somewhere else entirely to dream up his next stories, changeable clodpate that he was?
There were too many unknowns, and Ben could choose how he proceeded based only on his best guess—along with the influence of the urgency, outrage, and terror that crashed through his blood.
Despite his near-lifelong vow to let logic guide him, he’d already allowed emotions to steer his actions several times today. It would seem he needed to keep with the pattern and do so again.
And so, Benedict Prescott—rational thinker, unskilled rider, heeder of caution—rushed to the stables, fetched a horse, and started toward London by moonlight.