Chapter 9
Benedict had never known a week to crawl by so tediously.
London, which usually offered distraction enough, had provided nothing but dull routine: appointments with his late uncle’s bookkeepers, dinners laced with endless estate talk, and evenings at White’s where Sebastian glowed with marital bliss, and Cassian drowned himself in every vice available.
Typically, such diversions would have been welcome. Not this time.
He had declined every advance, no matter how artful or blatant, from the ladies who crowded the balls and soirees. He told himself it was on principle that he had no patience for coyness or simpering. The truth was harsher: none of them stirred him. Not one.
And yet…
Even the thought of Anastasia did.
The thought alone made his jaw clench as he shifted in the carriage seat.
Of all women, she was the one who should least tempt him.
Stubborn, sharp-tongued, infuriating Anastasia Dawson, with her disheveled hair and laughing green eyes.
She was a complication he neither wanted nor could ignore, a woman whose presence under his roof unsettled every carefully laid plan.
He told himself it was irritation—that she provoked him. After all, she refused to be docile, contradicting him at every turn because she dared to look at him with that defiant spark that set his blood alight.
But deep down, in the silent hours of night, he knew Cassian had been right. He was intrigued. Hopelessly, dangerously intrigued.
And that was precisely why he needed distance.
He wondered what it would be like to tame her. Benedict could not stop himself from imagining her lips moving with that ceaseless wit of hers, and how it would feel to silence them with his own. The thought of her lithe body pressing against his made all his senses go up in disarray.
How would she react to that?
It was even stupid to think about, but he had lost count of the times he spent thinking about her in his bed. Lying naked on her back, with her hair splayed all over his sheets, looking ready for him to take her. His breeches tightened once again.
What a ridiculous notion! I must be losing my mind.
The carriage rolled to a halt before Frostmore, and Benedict stepped down with relief at the thought of order restored—his kind of order, unshaken by London’s noise or his friends’ pestering about Miss Dawson.
That must be it. I have let their silly jabs get under my skin.
But the moment the great doors swung open, the sight that greeted him nearly drove him back outside.
The grand staircase—his grand staircase—was blanketed in a storm of feathers. Shredded linen trailed like banners of surrender across the corridor, fluttering with every draft. Servants darted this way and that, red-faced and harried, armed with brooms and dustpans as though preparing for battle.
Benedict’s jaw tightened, a headache already forming. He did not need to imagine what his uncle would have called this. Laxity. Incompetence. Failure.
“What in the devil is going on here?” he bellowed, his voice carrying across the chaos, hoping that one of the confused and guilty-looking servants would have an answer for him.
The head housekeeper rushed to him, bowing clumsily. She looked around as though praying for another volunteer to face his icy glare, but when no one was forthcoming, she stepped forward.
The head housekeeper shifted nervously in her place, wringing her hands. “Your Grace, please forgive the disarray—”
“What happened?” he cut in, his tone like a blade.
The housekeeper faltered, twisting her apron, and Benedict felt his patience slip a notch. He drew a steady breath through his nose.
“What happened, Mrs. Feldman?” he repeated, each word precise.
“A pigeon, Your Grace. It flew in through Her Grace’s window and… and the dogs gave chase, hence the disruption and mess.”
“The dogs,” Benedict repeated flatly.
“Yes, Your Grace. They… attempted to catch the bird. It flew through the corridors. In the pursuit, beddings were destroyed, pillows gutted—”
A maid scurried past carrying what looked like the corpse of a pillow, its innards trailing after her.
“And what are you going to do about the mess?” Benedict asked.
“It shall be cleaned at once, Your Grace. Pardon the state of things.”
Benedict let out a long, silent breath. He was a man of iron control, of composure, and of organized order, but on his very first day back to Frostmore, he encountered havoc.
Of course. Feathers, chaos, and dogs—it could only mean one thing.
He did not know how, but somewhere at the heart of this storm would be Anastasia Dawson.
“See that this is all back in order,” he said curtly. Then, muttering to himself, “I will have to speak to the dowager duchess about those hounds.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” the housekeeper said, bowing slightly as she went back to ordering the servants about.
Benedict wondered how his uncle had even let his wife have dogs in the house. The man had despised animals. In any case, he had some very firm words for her regarding her dogs, and so he headed toward the east wing, where her drawing room was.
He strode up the staircase, feathers clinging treacherously to his boots, his mood darkening with every step. He was halfway to the east wing when he rounded the corner—only to collide with something soft, warm, and far too familiar.
Someone.
Benedict’s hands shot out unconsciously, steadying the figure before it could topple. The faintest trace of vanilla filled his senses, and when he looked down, Anastasia stared up at him.
Heaven above.
For one damning heartbeat, he did not move, time suspended in the air as he inhaled her scent, and he cursed himself, silently, savagely, because the first thought that shot through his mind was not annoyance at her clumsiness, but how perfectly her body fit against his.
He released her at once, stepping back a pace. “Miss Dawson,” he said, his voice colder than he intended.
“Mr. Straton!” she exclaimed, her eyes wide, looking completely shocked to see him in his own home. “I… we did not expect you back so soon.”
Benedict’s jaw tightened. Of course, she would look surprised, standing here in the very center of disaster. “Tell me,” he said icily, “how it is that you are always present at the precise moment havoc descends upon this house?”
Her eyes flashed, her chin lifting with that insufferable defiance that both maddened and—God help him—intrigued him.
“That would be your first thought, would it not? For your information, I was trying to catch Lupita and Pepita. Aunt Hyacinth is far too old to chase after them, and someone had to try.”
Always the heroine, always so certain she was right. He should have admired such a spirit. Instead, it scraped against every nerve he possessed, made him want to discipline it—or kiss it into silence.
“And in the attempt, you found it wise to barrel into me?” he pressed, his tone clipped. “You nearly sent us both flying.”
“I did not barrel,” she retorted, straightening her shoulders, though her cheeks betrayed her heat. “I collided. There is a difference.”
She thrives on contradicting me. She could not simply yield, not for a moment. Though in all fairness, she was pretty right to hold her ground, and he did not want to fault her for it.
A flash of white caught his eye. A feather, tangled in the fair waves of her hair that bobbed insolently with every breath she took.
Benedict’s restraint frayed another inch.
He reached forward before he could stop himself, plucking it free.
His fingers brushed dangerously close to her cheek, and the urge to let them linger was a torment he barely mastered.
“There,” he said, his tone rougher than he intended. He held the feather up as evidence. “Proof that chaos clings to you. You cannot fault me for assuming this mess was of your own making.”
Her lips parted in indignation. Or was it surprise? He could not tell, but the sight of it dragged his thoughts toward sin.
That mouth. That blasted mouth. I have denied a dozen women in London, and yet one insolent tilt of her lips makes me forget why.
Her lips parted slightly, whether to argue or to gasp, he could not tell.
But the effect on him was disastrous. He felt the full, excruciating weight of a week’s restraint pressing down upon him, the gnawing awareness that he had denied himself every other woman in London only to find himself undone in his own corridor, with the one he ought not to want.
Her lips curved, not in embarrassment but in insolence. “Chaos clings to me? No, Your Grace. I was chasing Lupita and Pepita to help the servants, nothing more. Do you think I would waste my time shredding pillows for sport?”
Benedict closed the last inches between them until she had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes. The air between them went thin, hot, as though the corridor itself had shrunk to hold only the two of them.
“No,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “But you are undisciplined. Wild hair, flushed cheeks, running about barefoot like a common hoyden. What sort of lady behaves in such a manner?”
Anastasia glared at him, her eyes burning into his skin. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Straton?”
He leaned a fraction closer, his gaze fixed on her mouth. “Would you like me to repeat myself?”
“I do not think I heard what you said,” she shot back, though he could see her pulse hammering in her throat.
His mouth curved in a treacherous smile. “You heard me well enough.”
“I am not a dog,” she snapped, her voice trembling with fury. “You cannot train me as if I were one of my aunt’s hounds.”
Benedict’s eyes darkened. “No,” he murmured, lifting a hand to brush her cheek, his fingers grazing her skin in a touch far too intimate.
“I would have better luck training one of your aunt’s hounds than you.
Still…” His thumb lingered near her jaw.
“I do not think training you would be impossible. It would take time. But it can be done.”
“You are a cad!” she hissed, though the shiver that ran down her spine betrayed her.
“Such foul words from the mouth of a lady,” he said silkily. “I take it you never want to be married at all, then, if this is how you speak.”
“If my choice were to get married to a man like you, then I would rather die,” she spat out, which annoyed Benedict more than he thought possible.
She was choosing death over ever being married to a man like him? On any other day, he would have laughed it off. But not today. Not with her eyes blazing like that and his blood already running hot.
“You like to provoke me,” he said, his voice dropping into a growl. He bent his head until his lips hovered at her ear, his breath warm and maddening. “In fact, I would wager you have been doing it since the moment we met.”
The traitorous hitch in her breath gave her away, but Anastasia held his gaze. Her lips curved into the smallest, most insolent smile. “Perhaps I have.”
That insolence snapped the last thread of his restraint. His hand slid to the back of her neck, his grip firm but not cruel.
“Then consider this your warning,” he growled.
Before Anastasia could draw another breath, Benedict’s hand closed at the back of her neck. Not rough, but inescapable. He pushed her back against the nearest wall, the paneling cool against her spine as his body covered hers.
His mouth crashed down on hers in a kiss he had imagined a hundred times but never allowed himself. It was nothing like the polite, practiced affairs of the ballroom; it was hard, hungry, a kiss made of all the restraint he had been carrying like a weight.
She gasped into him, her hands flying up to his chest. Her fingers clutched at the lapels of his coat, but she did not push him away. Instead, she clutched at him as his hands slid down, skimming the hem of her skirt, tracing over the silk of her stockings before cupping her buttocks.
He felt the sharp nip of her teeth against his lower lip, and in answer, he pressed her harder into the wall, his thumb stroking along her jaw in a touch that was both possessive and perilously gentle. His other hand was squeezing her body, which felt like soft bread in his hands.
The taste of her undid him. Sweet and defiant, she kissed him back with a reckless fervor that stripped the last thread of his composure.
He felt her body arch into his, felt the hard ache straining against his breeches, and for a wild instant, he pictured taking her here, now; her skirts hitched, her stockings down, losing himself entirely.
The image hit him like a slap of cold water. This was Anastasia—unmarried, under his protection, utterly inappropriate, and already too dangerous to his self-control. He tore himself away as though from fire, both of them breathing hard, their lips swollen.
What am I doing?
“Get out of my sight,” Benedict said, his voice roughened by a desire he could no longer mask. “Before I decide that you need a lesson in obedience.”
Anastasia stared at him, her cheeks flushed, her chest rising and falling in rapid bursts. For a moment, he thought she might slap him. Or kiss him again. The fact that he did not know which possibility thrilled him more was enough to damn him entirely.
Her hands were still trembling, but she lifted her chin high, and with a glare, she swept past him, turned the corridor, and was out of sight. Benedict pressed the back of his hand to his mouth, as if to erase the taste of her. It was useless, of course.
That kiss was branded on him.