Chapter 12 #2
And how very different it would be with Benedict—no quiet evenings of measured comfort, but rather a life of disquieting glances, uncontrolled passion, and the dangerous pull of feelings she dared not name.
He made her furious, too, with his arrogance, his ability to unnerve her with a single careless word or half-smile, as though he knew exactly how much power he held over her and delighted in wielding it.
Stop it, she told herself fiercely. Do not give him space in your head.
So, when Lord Chamberlain called later that day, she was stunned. A viscount—a handsome one at that. Her maid quickly dabbed a fresh layer of rouge on her cheeks as she raced downstairs to meet him. This time, she made sure that her aunt was nowhere near them.
“The drawing room seems a bit too suffocating, don’t you think?” was one of the first things Lord Chamberlain said to her.
“You might be right about that, my lord.”
He smiled brightly. “Well then, why don’t we take a turn around the gardens, and we can talk there?”
Anastasia inclined her head and let him offer his arm.
A maid followed at a proper distance, as etiquette demanded.
He was tall, well put together, and carried himself with the easy assurance of a man who had never known the sting of rejection.
Handsome certainly, but to Anastasia’s eyes his face already seemed a little too polished, a little too practiced.
The late afternoon sun poured liquid gold across the hedges. A breeze carried the perfume of lavender and roses, and for a moment she let it soothe the restless knot in her chest.
“You have a remarkable estate,” Lord Chamberlain said, his eyes moving across the gardens and then back to her face. “But even with all the gorgeous flowers scattered around the gardens, none of them is quite as remarkable as you.”
“Thank you, my lord.” Anastasia gave him a small, measured smile. “But it is all the Duke of Frostmore’s estate. And I must warn you—I grow suspicious when compliments come too early.”
He chuckled. “Then I shall ration them. One every mile.”
Anastasia’s lips curved despite herself. “Do you flatter all your hostesses so shamelessly, my lord?”
“Only the ones that are quite deserving of flattery,” he said quickly, his banter even more remarkable than she had hoped.
Their steps fell into rhythm, his questions carefully chosen, his remarks agreeable in that way of men who had spent their lives being listened to.
He spoke of flowers in season, of a painter he admired, of roads to Bath and the merits of each.
He even described a dish of veal in Naples as though it were a sermon worth delivering twice.
Anastasia realized that she had kept her guard meticulously high, noticing Lord Chamberlain’s smooth cadence.
The man had a silver tongue, designed to say all the right things to flatter women.
She had already mistaken charm for genuine affection twice before, and she had paid the price dearly for that.
This time, she played the role of demure Miss Dawson quite well, if anyone asked her, even though she was weary of every word he said.
And yet, even as he spoke, her thoughts betrayed her. That garden column rose in her memory again—the loosened cravat, the smoke curling between them, the flash of something ungoverned in Benedict’s eyes. He intruded like a shadow cast across her mind, dark and unshakable.
Lord Chamberlain glanced at her sidelong, the corner of his mouth tugging upward. “I have to admit, you are not what I expected.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Is that a warning?”
“A compliment,” he said smoothly. “I expected a simpering debutante with more silk than wit. Instead, I find a lady who is more than capable of answering back.”
Her lips curved, then steadied. She would not let him, or any man, mistake her sharpness for invitation; she knew better than to trust men’s words.
Benedict would have turned that remark into a challenge, she thought with a flicker of irritation.
She fixed her gaze ahead, refusing to let the phantom of the Duke linger in her mind.
“I daresay, my lord, you have only to spend another hour in my company to realize your mistake.”
He smiled with a confidence she suspected he practiced in mirrors. “I do not think I would. I think you would challenge me, and I love a good challenge.”
Anastasia managed a polite laugh, though inside her thoughts twisted. A challenge. If only you knew half of it. But perhaps this was enough. Perhaps this—steady, handsome, respectable—man was the key out of Frostmore’s suffocating halls.
For the first time in what felt like years, the possibility of spinsterhood did not hover at her shoulder. A future opened before her, one not defined by whispers or disgrace. What if she was wrong? He could be an honest man.
The path curved beside the pond, its surface catching the orange glow of the evening.
Anastasia thought fleetingly that perhaps this was the sort of place where respectable courtships were meant to unfold.
But before she could even allow herself to exhale into that fragile vision, a pair of high-pitched barks shattered the moment.
Pepita and Lupita.
They came barreling across the lawn like cannon fire, ears flapping, tongues lolling, their stubby legs carrying them at speeds that defied nature. Anastasia’s heart plummeted.
The viscount stumbled back a step, blinking at the charging balls of fur.
“Good Lord!” he exclaimed, laughter bursting from him as they circled his legs. He tried to step aside, but they only redoubled their efforts, leaping at his polished boots as though he were a gamekeeper carrying sausages in his pockets.
Anastasia was absolutely mortified. She looked around, hoping to see a maid who would scoop them up and take them back into the house.
“Down! Down, you naughty girls!” Anastasia scolded, clapping her hands, her voice pitched in desperation. The dogs ignored her entirely, their tails wagging furiously as they bounded higher, nipping at Lord Chamberlain’s trousers with gleeful abandon.
Normally, a sharp command and a stern look would rein them in. Today, of course, they chose rebellion. And then she saw it—what had so thoroughly ensnared their canine devotion.
The viscount’s walking stick.
A gleaming, polished piece of wood, topped with a silver head that glinted in the sun like an irresistible treasure. To Pepita and Lupita, it might as well have been carved from marrow and roasted over a fire.
“Oh no,” Anastasia breathed, too late. “They want your walking stick.”
With a triumphant bark, Lupita lunged, her teeth clamping onto the gleaming stick as though it were a delicious bone. Pepita, not to be outdone, hurled herself at the other end with a joyful growl. In seconds, the polished walking stick became the rope in a vicious tug-of-war.
“Release it at once!” Anastasia cried, lunging for Pepita’s collar. “Bad girls! Let go, it is not yours!”
“I would rather like to keep my cane intact, Miss Dawson!” the viscount snapped, his polished composure cracking as he tried to wrench it back. He was half bent, half hopping, his boots sliding on the damp grass while the dogs dug in like seasoned wrestlers.
Anastasia pulled at Pepita, her gloves slipping on the dog’s collar. “You little beasts, I said, drop it!” she hissed under her breath, mortification crawling up her neck.
The viscount gave a sharp yank. The dogs gave an even sharper one.
And then, like some farcical tableau unfolding in slow motion, Pepita let go, Lupita leaped sideways, and Lord Chamberlain stumbled backward, his arms pinwheeling once—twice—before he plopped straight into the pond with a magnificent splash.
Benedict will have my head.
Anastasia gasped, clapping both hands over her mouth. Pepita and Lupita, delighted by their victory, barked a chorus of triumph and scampered back toward the house, tails wagging like banners.
“Lord Chamberlain! Are you all right?” Her voice cracked somewhere between horror and disbelief.
The viscount erupted from the water, sodden and sputtering, hair plastered to his brow, his coat a ruin of dripping wool. He looked less like a polished aristocrat now and more like a sea monster dragged from the deep. His eyes burned at her.
“Miss Dawson,” he said icily, water streaming from his jaw. “I had not expected my afternoon to end in such humiliation. Is this how you make sport of your callers? By setting hounds upon them and sending them headlong into ponds? How utterly undignified!”
His voice cut through the air, every word heavy with accusation.
Anastasia opened her mouth to protest, to explain that her aunt’s dogs were not trained assassins, but the sharpness in his tone silenced her.
The pleasant man from moments before was gone, stripped away to reveal someone quick to anger and quicker still to wound with his words.
Anastasia should not have been happy to hear the viscount speak to her in that manner, but she felt a cold satisfaction.
It was the satisfaction of being right. She knew that somewhere under his honeyed tongue lay an entitled anger.
Such men were not interested in her affections.
They only wanted her compliance. The thought made her shudder.
In that moment, she knew she wanted nothing to do with him. Viscount or not.
But the realization gave her no relief—because she could already see Benedict’s expression in her mind’s eye. That slow, devastating arch of his brow. The measured silence before the cutting remark. The smug gleam in his eyes as he informed her how very unsuitable she was.
Will he laugh? Or will he scold me until my ears burn? Heaven help me, I do not know which would be worse.