Chapter Four
El stared at him as if he had grown another head. “Now? You want to do this now?”
Benedict glanced about. A few people milled around them, far enough away none would overhear them but close enough so as to not threaten her reputation. “What better time?” he said with a nonchalance he didn’t feel. “We are at a ball. The mood is set. You can pretend I am your prospective lover.”
“You?” A violent blush climbed her chest, painting her neck and staining her cheeks. How far down did that blush extend?
Bloody hell, what was he thinking? Keeping his eyes firmly on her face, he said, “There’s nothing wrong with me.”
The laugh she gave was a little wild. “No, of course not, but it is absurd to think of you as my lover.”
It wasn’t absurd. Not in the slightest. That was what troubled him. “Putting that aside, show me how you would use your fan to charm.”
“I have no idea.”
“What do you mean, you have no idea? I’ve seen you charm.”
She tilted her head. “Have you, though?”
He had, because he recalled the leaden feeling in his gut each time he’d observed her doing so.
“I think we can both agree I am not charming in the slightest,” she continued.
“I do not agree. Not at all. I find you endlessly charming.”
She scowled. “You do not count.”
Ignoring the sting that she so discounted him, he said, “Charm is nothing more than being yourself, you know.”
“I do not think the Earl of Malvern would be interested in my ‘self’, Benedict.”
“Rubbish,” he said. “Of course he would.”
She rolled her eyes. “If you say it, then it must be true.” Her expression turned thoughtful.
“I do not believe I require the earl to know me. Is it necessary to pleasure that the participants do more than the act? I suppose a bit of conversation is unavoidable, but I do not want to share my deepest secrets with him.” Something flickered over her face.
“Have you shared of yourself with your lovers?” she said, almost too brightly.
“I have liked most of them.” Not that there was a grand number of them. Apart from that intoxicating time after his first, he’d been discerning in who he took to his bed. “It is better if there is at least friendship, El.”
She crossed her arms. “I seek pleasure only, Benedict. I do not require anything further from the earl.”
He opened his mouth only to close it again.
Why was he trying to convince her to a relationship with the Earl of bloody Malvern?
“You are more than capable of attracting the attention of any gentlemen. Indeed, the earl is lucky he has gained your regard.” That it made his gut clench was of no consequence. “You need only have confidence.”
Her eyes dimmed. “Confidence. Yes.”
Christ, she was going to kill him, one crack at a time. “You have only to signal your interest, El. Men are not complicated. You made me like you.”
“That was different. We were children.”
“So? How is it any different?”
“Because I am now thirty and you soon will be.” Eyes glittering, she squared her shoulders. “Very well. How does one signal one’s intentions?”
That was his El. “If you wished a gentleman to come to you, what would you do?”
Setting her head high, she tipped her chin.
He frowned. “What was that?”
She mirrored his frown. “That is what I do when I wish your attention.”
“That is not going to work, El.”
“But you always come when I do so.”
Heat rose on his cheeks. Bloody hell, he did, didn’t he? She looked at him in that way, jerked her head, and he immediately made his way to her side. “Be that as it may, it will not work on others. What would you do if you wished to attract a suitor?”
“I have never wanted to attract a suitor. If a suitor made his way to me, he came of his own volition. You are the only man I’ve wanted at my side.”
Again, another crack in his chest. She was the woman he most wanted at his.
Clearing his throat, he said “Well, let us discuss how your fan can signal your interest, your desire to have him at your side, an invitation for an assignation. A whole conversation can be had.” At least, that was what Amanda had told him when she’d bullied him into practicing with her.
“I do not see how a fan can do all that,” she said doubtfully.
“Did Lady C not show you this? I thought it was something every debutante to know.”
“If I ever learned it, I have forgotten it entirely.”
“In any event, it is not only the fan. May I have yours?”
Clearly dubious, she handed him her fan.
And another crack. The fan was one he had given her, for her twenty-sixth birthday. He had spent ages choosing it, wishing her to have the very best he could find. “You still have this?”
“Of course. It is my favourite.”
He blinked at the fan. Focussing on the task at hand, he said, “Right. Well. This is what you do.” Holding the fan before his face, he fluttered it back and forth.
A laugh bubbled from her. “What are you about?”
Damnation, he knew there was a trick to his, but he could not get his wrist to cooperate. “I know what I am doing.”
Eyes alight, she watched him flutter the fan. “Oh, I’ve no doubt.”
Taking the fan in his other hand, he shook out his wrist and then attempted it again.
This time, his wrist cooperated. With a sharp snap, he opened the fan and held it in his left hand.
“If you hold it thus, you are signalling you wish him to come and talk with you.” The fan still opened wide, he shifted it before his chest. “This is wait for me.” Closing it, he carried it in his right hand in front of his face. “And this, follow me.”
El crossed her arms. “This is quite ridiculous, Benedict. Surely the earl does not know this language. It seems an amusement for debutantes.”
Maybe it was ridiculous, but he was doing this for her. “Take this seriously, El.”
“Oh, do not fear. I am.”
A smile played about her pink lips, her colour high, her eyes sparkling. It baffled him she believed she could not attract whomever she desired. The question that had been nagging him since she’d first told him of this danced on the tip of his tongue. “Are you truly set on Malvern?”
Her smile faded. “I wish someone who I will not encounter in a social sense once our liaison is done,” she finally said.
“The earl does not often attend society gatherings, and he rarely engages with any in our set outside of such. I do believe he simply does not care enough to discuss anything with anyone. Tell me, apart from Mrs Morcom, can you name a single one of his lovers?”
He…could not. Damn. Who could have conceived of the Earl of Malvern being of all things discreet? “So you are set upon him?”
She lifted a shoulder. “He seems altogether perfect.”
He managed to hold to his smile even as a strange pain pierced his chest. “Let us abandon such girlish tricks, then,” he said briskly. Opening the fan, he held it before him, concealing the lower part of his face.
The laughter faded from her expression. “What are you saying now?”
He did not reply. Instead, he allowed his gaze to drift from her eyes to her mouth back again and, just this once, he allowed himself to consider what her lush mouth would taste like. She favoured mints and usually had a few in her reticule. Would she taste of that and a flavour that was wholly El?
Eyes huge, she licked her lips. “Benedict?”
He snapped the fan shut, ignoring the heat coursing through his blood. “Now you try. You be the lady and I will be the gentleman.”
She blinked, the haze leaving her eyes as she grinned. “It will be difficult, but I shall endeavour to imagine such.”
Shoving the fan into her hand, he said, “Come, El. Beguile me.”
“Very well.” She flicked out the fan and, mimicking his earlier move, covered the bottom of her face. “Is this right?”
From over the top of the fan, dark eyes arrested his.
If someone had asked previous to now, he would have told them El’s eyes were brown and thought upon it nothing more.
However, that was too common a word to describe their colour, umber flecked with amber and gold.
With the fan covering the bottom half of her face, her eyes took on a mysterious slant, as if she held a thousand unknowable secrets.
Beneath the slash of thick, well-shaped brows and surrounded by long lashes, they were innocent and alluring both, inviting him to discover her secrets.
Bloody hell, he was supposed to be instructing her, wasn’t he? Clearing his throat, he said, “Very good, El. Now, look over me.”
Those thick brows drew. “Look over you? Do you mean…over your shoulder?”
“No, I mean—” He gestured at himself, from his head to his waist. “Over me. Like I did you.”
Her brows rose in comprehension. Lazily, her gaze trailed over him, from his eyes to his mouth and back.
With each breath, her breasts rose and fell, pushing against her gown.
She’d compared them to Lady Fyfe’s—whose really was magnificent—but El’s were round and full, and they would more than fill a man’s palm, the soft flesh overflowing as he shaped it to his touch.
Her gaze drifted further, down his throat, over his chest, his abdomen, his groin, his thighs.
He felt it like a caress, like her fingers dragged against bare skin, and he couldn’t stop his own gaze from travelling over her.
Bloody hell, he’d always tried really hard to not look, to disregard her breasts, or the curve of her hips, or the shape of her thighs, and yet each was burned into his memory, such that he knew each dip and curve. Bloody hell.
“Good,” he rasped. Clearing his throat, he said, “Good, El.”
She lowered the fan. “That is what you wanted?’
He was discovering he wanted many things, none of which he should. “Yes, precisely.”
A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, and then it spilled over her and she beamed. No matter the strange feelings overtaking him, he had done that. He had given her what she desired, and he had made El smile. He only ever wanted to make her smile.
A peel of laughter split the air and, abruptly, the world returned.
They were not alone, were they? Indeed, those about them had increased, the heat of the ballroom sending the crowd to seek cooler air.
Not more than ten minutes had passed, but they had already been out here too long.
“I think that a good first lesson, El. It bodes well, I feel.”
“Yes, I think so too.” Her fingers curled around his forearm, her smile happy as she squeezed.
He inhaled sharply, her touch like fire on his skin. Taking a step back, he offered his own smile to disguise his unease. “How would you like to proceed?”
“Well, the fan lesson seemed a good place to start.” Her brow creased.
“Truly, though, I do not know how to attract a suitor. I only know how to repel them. And I should not know how to act with a lover. This fan business is all well and good, but perhaps I need to learn how to attract a lover and then how to behave.”
His fists tightened before he very deliberately unclenched them. The whole point of this was so El could take the earl as her lover. He had no call to be jealous. “Then we shall have to ensure you do know how to act,” he said with a lightness he did not feel.
She nodded. “We should return to the ballroom,” she said. “Victoria no doubt awaits me.”
“Yes. I should to. As well. To the ballroom.”
“Lady C is most likely desirous of your presence,” she said slyly.
“I suppose I am again to dance with Amanda,” he replied with a long-suffering sigh, returning to the banter they did so well. Returning to something that he very much hoped approached normal.
“Do not frown so, Benedict,” she teased. “It may very well be her dance card is full.”
“We can but hope.”
She gave him a quick smile. “I shall see you tomorrow at Penhurst House?”
“Yes. After lunch. Perhaps around three?”
“Ah. So I shall ask Mrs Johnson to prepare afternoon tea?”
“Her coconut cake is delicious,” he defended.
With a laugh, she shook her head. “Until tomorrow.”
“Until tomorrow.”
She gave him another smile and departed, disappearing into the crowded ballroom.
He stared after her and wondered if, by offering to tutor her, he’d gotten in over his head.