Chapter 13
The next letter was slightly damp. Benedict had not understood why until he reached the signature.
Chamberlain.
The viscount’s handwriting had blurred into indecipherable smudges, but the surviving words were enough: indignity…
untrained hounds… never to return. He crushed the page once in his fist and set it aside, his jaw locked.
The third complaint in a week—one gentleman scalded, another scared away, the third soaked.
Anastasia was making it impossibly hard to get rid of, and he hated it.
Benedict pressed his fingers to his temples, inhaling deeply and trying to be calm.
She was a menace, a maddening menace with a sharp tongue and a gorgeous face.
And yet, he could not forget her full lips and the way they felt against his, soft and perfect.
And what was worse—what was intolerable—was that he noticed.
He should not notice.
He should not notice anything about her. He had no business noticing the set of her mouth, the quickness of her wit. His task was simple: secure a match for her, restore order. Anything else was indulgence—weakness.
If this continues, the callers will stop… and she will never marry. And then…
No, he could not let this continue, and the sooner he nipped it in the bud, the easier it would be for everyone else. He could not take another week of men fleeing the house in anger, then writing enraged letters accusing him of wasting their time. Men would steer clear of her forever.
Why does that make me feel… relieved? No, this will not do at all.
He reached for the bell and rang it short and hard. When the footman appeared, Benedict did not look up from the smeared signature on his desk.
“Send for Miss Dawson,” he said, each word clipped clean. “At once.”
He needed to put an end to this farce—before it dragged his name through yet more ridicule.
Minutes later, there was a knock on the door before Anastasia stepped in.
She looked a vision in blue, her blonde hair pinned with ruthless precision, her mouth set in that thin, stubborn line that always heralded trouble.
She looked like innocence lacquered over steel, and the sight of her only deepened his irritation.
“Mr. Straton,” she said sweetly. Far too sweetly.
“Sit.”
“I would rather stand.”
His gaze lifted to hers, cold and cutting. “Sit.”
Her eyes flickered, but she stayed near the door, her hands folded demurely in front of her. She was already refusing him before the conversation had begun. A very terrible sign that told him all he needed to know. She was guilty of everything the men had written.
Benedict leaned back in his chair, studying her with the patience of a predator. Silence stretched, deliberate, until he saw the faintest shift of her weight, the smallest tightening in her jaw. Then, finally, he spoke.
“Tell me, Miss Dawson. Are you happy now?” His voice was deceptively calm, laced with something that made the air prickle.
Her eyebrows shot up. “Happy?”
“I mean,” he continued, slower this time. “Are you pleased with yourself?”
She blinked, confusion shadowed with indignation. “I do not understand. Why would I be happy or pleased?”
He leaned back, his expression unreadable, though the hard set of his jaw betrayed the storm beneath. Her gaze flickered to the crumpled letter on his desk—the wax seal of Chamberlain’s house still glistening faintly. Recognition dawned in her eyes, and Benedict caught it at once. She knew.
“Well,” he drawled, each word deliberately slow, “since you claim not to understand, allow me the courtesy of explaining.” He let the silence stretch.
“Are you pleased, Miss Dawson? Pleased that you have managed to drive away the only men reckless enough to call on you at all—even with your… reputation?”
Her spine stiffened, color rising in her cheeks. He paused, savoring the flicker of fury in her eyes.
“I received three letters this week,” he continued, his voice sharp as a whip, “and not one of them spoke well of you.”
“Even Mr. Hayman?” she asked quickly, incredulity breaking through her composure.
Ah, there it was. This was the reaction he had been waiting for. A corner of his mouth curved, but it was no smile—it was a predator’s satisfaction.
“Yes. Even Mr. Hayman, who tried to mask his retreat with politeness, will not return after being so thoroughly humiliated. As for the viscount…” His hand tapped the letter, the sound like a gavel striking judgment.
“He speaks of indignity. Of hounds. Of humiliation beyond repair. Tell me, Miss Dawson, how does a lady contrive to have a man doused like a common stable boy in her own pond?”
“That was hardly my fault—”
Benedict’s palm struck the desk, the sharp crack silencing her. His voice cut across the space, low and dangerous.
“Do not insult me with excuses. If it were not your fault, then who, precisely, shoved the man into the water?”
“Lupita and Pepita,” she said without hesitation.
He stared at her.
She stared right back.
A muscle ticked in his jaw as he leaned back in his chair, dragging a hand over his temples as though she were the worst kind of torment.
He stared at her. The audacity of her. The utter, unshakable insolence.
And yet… God help him, he almost admired it.
She stared right back, her chin tipped high, those eyes glittering with defiance. No shrinking, no simpering, no attempt to placate him. Just open challenge.
He dragged a hand down his face, fighting the urge to laugh in disbelief. His temples throbbed.
She is going to drive me mad.
“I do not know why you had assumed I shoved the viscount into the pond when—”
“Enough.” His own voice cut across hers before he could stop it, low and sharp, a lash through the still air, and she froze. For the first time in the entire exchange, she looked momentarily unsure. His blood heated at the sight. Hell, why did victory taste so much like sin when it came to her?
Benedict rose, slowly, deliberately, until the scrape of the chair legs was the only sound in the room. He came around the desk and stood before her, deliberately invading her space. He knew he should step back, keep the proper distance, but the temptation was too strong.
“I warned you,” he said softly, though the promise in his tone was edged with steel. “I told you what would happen if you kept behaving like a hoyden instead of a lady. I told you I would have to teach you a lesson.”
She swallowed, her lashes fluttering with the slightest tremor, and he caught it—of course, he caught it.
He noticed everything about her. The quiver of her throat, the defiant tilt of her chin, the faint hitch in her breath.
God help him, he wanted to lean down and kiss that stubborn mouth until it yielded.
Instead, he stood his ground.
I cannot let her undo me again.
Anastasia lifted her chin defiantly at him in the way that she always did when she was ready to counter his words.
Her lips parted. “I never asked for any of this,” she threw back at him, sharp as a blade.
And still, he felt a twitch at the corner of his mouth, the dangerous urge to smile because only Anastasia Dawson would have the audacity to defy him when he stood towering over her, when every inch of him radiated warning.
She was upset; Benedict could tell. He could also tell that she was definitely hurt about what had happened with the viscount.
Yet, even as she spoke, he could not tear his eyes away from her for one moment.
The way she was standing there, her nose in the air, pretending like she did not care about all the disrupted matches.
Or pretending like she did not know what that mouth did to him, how badly he wanted to pin her to the wall and kiss her.
He forced his voice cool, level, when every part of him urged otherwise. He could not afford to lose his composure. Not with her.
“You should know that people do not always choose their duty, Miss Dawson. It is simply what happens. That is precisely what makes it a duty.”
Her lips parted in disbelief before hardening into a line of resistance.
“How convenient for you, Mr. Straton, to have all of life arranged into neat little obligations. To never crave a breath of air for yourself, and to impose your ledgers and commands on everyone else. Well, I, for one, do not intend to be managed like a column of figures.”
Benedict’s jaw flexed. Reckless woman. She wore scandal like a second skin and yet stood here spitting fire at him, as though the world were hers to scorn. And the worst of it—the part that twisted inside him like a blade—was that he found it intoxicating.
He stepped closer, deliberate, savoring the way she stiffened at his nearness. She did not retreat. Of course, she did not. Stubborn to the marrow, she would rather break than bend.
“So,” he asked softly, letting the menace lace each syllable. “You think me unfair?”
Her eyes gleamed. “Strange, is it not, how rules always seem to bend in your favor, Your Grace?”
The title dripping with mockery slid between them like poison. He despised the way she said it—despised it because it reminded him she could cut him down with nothing more than her tongue. And despised it more because, damn her, it made him want her all the same.
“Are you trying to say that you have not done this on purpose?” he asked, stepping closer until her back met the door.
“How dare you! I have done everything you asked of me. I have embroidered until my fingers ached. I smiled and drank tea in silence while listening to boring conversations with men I would not even spare a glance at. I have even considered—” she stopped, breathless, a flush creeping up her throat.
“I have even considered men I could scarcely tolerate, and yet you are never satisfied. What do you need me to do? Bleed myself dry for your satisfaction?”