Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
“That went well, I think,” Bella opined as their companions retreated from view. “She looked positively smitten.”
Benedict felt unequal to conversation. He felt unequal to almost everything, in truth. What was Eliza Wayland doing to him? What power did her wild curls and bemused smile have over him?
He hadn’t meant to say… almost all of that. But every single word had been the absolute truth.
“Benedict?”
“Yes, it went well,” he forced out.
“What on earth did you say to her to leave her so flushed?”
“I don’t recall,” he lied. Those words were for Eliza only. Bella would twist them into something ugly.
“Well, whatever it is you’ve said to her, do not stop. She’ll drag you to Gretna if your romance continues to progress at this pace.”
He swallowed the knot in his throat before grunting in reply.
“Her mother assured me they will attend the Clark ball Wednesday night. You should ask for the first two sets with your bouquet tomorrow,” she suggested, then grabbed his arm and tucked her own inside it. “I’ll write to Father this evening, tell him of your progress.”
“It’s too fast. We’ve met only three times.”
“And you’ve secured permission to court her. Her mother is supportive, as long as you continue to be respectful—or as respectful as you can manage. He’ll be pleased.”
“Just… please do not write him yet.” Benedict could not have explained his reluctance to update his father. His sister was assuredly correct; his father would be pleased. But the thought of his father knowing the details of his pursuit of Eliza left his skin crawling.
“Alright,” Bella said, lingering on the word. She was content to fill the rest of their walk with intelligence she’d gleaned from Eliza’s mother. Benedict could not focus on her words; nor could he ignore her penetrating gaze where it bored into the side of his head.
“I’ll leave you here,” he said when they finally arrived at the house. “I need to see West before the match, and it seems I’ll be otherwise occupied on Saturday.”
“Very well,” she replied, a hint of suspicion in her gaze.
The revolting scent of sweat, tobacco, and blood filled Benedict’s nostrils as soon as he entered the saloon. The stench stood in sharp contrast to the soft florals of his morning with Eliza—violets.
Fist met flesh inside the ring centered in the room. Two men Benedict didn’t recognize sparred. Off in a quiet corner, West’s tawny head bobbed, a heavy bag swinging in front of him in time with the movements of his shoulders.
As Benedict approached, Miles Weston caught the bag, sensing his presence.
“Ben!” he called as he turned. “It’s good to see you.”
“West.” Benedict caught the other man’s wrapped hand in his own.
“I heard the strangest rumor only this morning,” the shorter man supplied.
Benedict raised a brow.
“You near knocked a man clean out—but the strangest part is where you hit him.”
“Yes, I was at Wayland’s,” Benedict supplied.
“Now why the devil would you be there?”
“I’ve a… project for Father,” he said.
West’s eyebrows found his hairline. “And you figure that’s a good idea?”
“No,” Benedict muttered with a weak chuckle. “But it’s the only idea I have.”
“And it has to do with the Wayland girls?”
“You seem to know everything.”
“Wretched gossipmongers,” West said, tossing a thumb over his shoulder at the other men occupying the saloon. “Every last one of them.”
“The less you know, the better. Did you hear anything else?”
“Are you courting the girl?”
“Christ, did they tell you how long my cock is too?”
“No, I already know it’s minuscule.”
“Funny,” Benedict retorted, refusing to rise to the bait. “No one has been here… asking about me?”
“Should they be?”
“It’s… possible. I didn’t share this particular income source with Wayland. But I can’t imagine it will remain a secret forever.”
“Certainly not. And how will I be answering their questions?”
“Truthfully, and with as little information as possible.”
“Ben…”
Benedict hinged his head back to stare briefly at the ceiling. “At present, I am courting Miss Eliza Wayland.”
“And in the future?”
“You do not know where I am. You have no way of guessing where I might go.”
West’s clear, blue eyes narrowed. “Are you in trouble?”
“Not yet.”
He sighed, then caught Benedict around the elbow and hauled him deeper into a corner. West peered behind Benedict to confirm no one was near enough to listen.
“You had best not tell me you mean to seduce that girl and hurt her.”
Bile rose up Benedict’s throat, and he swallowed it. “Alright, I won’t.”
West’s expression softened, something like pity crossing his angular face as a divot formed between his brows. “Don’t do this. Don’t let your father turn you into this.”
“I’m in no need of a lecture.”
“Well, someone has to talk some sense into you, and we both know it won’t be Bella.”
“I did not ask for your opinion, nor do I want it.”
Weston rolled his eyes before pushing past Benedict.
Half a step away, he paused and turned back.
“You’re better than this—better than him.
You know it’s wrong. Deep down, you know Wayland didn’t cheat your father.
Ambrose lost a fair wager. He staked your whole future and lost because he cares for nothing but himself and his own pride.
Ruining Wayland won’t bring back the childhood you ought to’ve had.
It won’t stop your father from selling Bella off to one of those leering old goats.
He won’t suddenly respect you for it. But it’ll destroy your soul. ”
“When did you become a bleeding poet?” Benedict snapped.
Weston sighed and crossed his arms. “I won’t tell your secrets. But you ought to think on what I’ve said. The match is at eleven on the thirteenth. I’ll see you there—unless you want to talk before.” He spun on his heels and stalked to the door.
“Goodbye,” Benedict grunted.
Benedict’s arms ached when he returned home. He was grateful to find Bella abed. The rhythm of fist against hide was usually enough to quiet his raging thoughts. Tonight had been a notable exception.
The disappointment on West’s countenance refused to leave his mind, his friend’s words echoing in his ears.
But West was wrong. Wayland was a cheat.
His father wouldn’t lie about that. Other things certainly, but not that.
Benedict was not forging ahead assuming this plan would right his childhood.
His childhood had been fine—only dampened by their lack of fortune and the devastation of his mother’s death.
So why could he not silence West’s accusations? And why was his stomach churning, anxious and gnawing?
The call of his half-empty bottle of scotch was too much to ignore. The familiar rattling clink of neck against glass snapped through him. Astonished, he glanced down to find his hand shaking at precisely the same tempo his mother’s had that night.
It was his earliest memory, that night his father returned from town. Benedict had been three years old and abed when he awoke to the tromp of horses coming up the drive. Silently, he crept from his bed to the landing at the top of the stairs to peer over the railing.
Sometimes his mother’s startled cry—the one she made when the doors opened and two men dragged his father into the house—still haunted his dreams. For a brief moment, he’d thought his father dead.
But then the man had slurred, “Get outa my house, ya filthy cogs!” as he stumbled to a knee.
“I really think we ought to help you to your bed,” the taller man said—a man Benedict now knew as Augie Ainsley. Benedict never knew the other; it wasn’t Wayland.
“Get out! Or’ll send th’ dogs after ya!”
Ainsley had looked to his mother for guidance. “Go,” she’d said, with heartache in the tight reply.
Ainsley had nodded, offering her an expression Benedict had been too young to name. “Is there anyone else I might call on to assist you?”
“Weston—in the stables,” she’d hissed, referring to West’s father.
“Come,” he’d said, hauling the other man away.
Benedict’s father groaned as he slumped to one side. His mother knelt beside him and struggled against his weight in her effort to act as ballast.
His mother was a beautiful woman, with delicate golden features dotted with the same freckles Bella now complained of each morning. And her heart was just as delicate, guarded. That was the night Benedict watched his father crush it.
“Get’ff!” he commanded.
“I cannot leave you on the floor,” she responded with more force than usual.
“Th’ floor is all I ’ave left,” he groaned.
Benedict’s mother half shoved his father off as she shot to her feet, fingers pressed against her mouth. “What have you done?”
He retched pathetically in response.
“What have you done, Ambrose?”
“’Ve been cheated, ya daft cow.”
“How much?”
“Go to th’ devil!” He stumbled back up to his knee. She stepped back, and he slumped forward once more.
“How much have you lost?”
Benedict couldn’t remember his mother ever questioning his father before. He recalled the astonishment filling his slight frame.
“Stolen!”
“No one need steal from you! You hand it away in your greed and your arrogance!”
His father clambered to his feet once more, clutching at his mother’s violet skirts. “How dare yo—” he slipped on his own sick, pulling her down with him. Benedict’s mother collapsed on the floor with a sickening crack when her head met marble.
Benedict’s heart had stopped. He lived an eternity in the seconds between when his mother’s head smacked the floor and when her quiet groan jolted it back to life.
No sooner had she groaned than the door clanged against the wall.
The elder Weston stood silhouetted against the moonlight.
In the space between one breath and the next, he assessed the scene.
Then he was yanking his father back, away from his mother’s prone form, and shoving him to the ground where he slumped.
Without a word, Weston was at his mother’s side, supporting her in her effort to sit up.
“I am well,” she insisted as she pressed a hand to her curls.
“My lady—”
“I am well, only shaken. I slipped, and…” she shook away the half-hearted explanation as she rose. “Would you take his lordship to the study? That is for the best tonight.”
Weston agreed with a grunt, then half yanked Benedict’s father down the hall. The sound of flesh against wall, followed by, “Oh dear, I am ever so sorry, my lord,” caused neither Benedict nor his mother any particular concern.
Instead, his mother made a weary trek to the drawing room. There, he heard the distinctive clink of bottle against glass. Instead of a single clack, there was a jittery rhythm. Benedict eventually realized it was the shaking of her hands.
His mother hadn’t believed his father that night. And Benedict, still so young, didn’t understand the events, let alone such nuances. No, he believed the explanation he’d received the following afternoon from his father, his mother nodding along at his side—though paler than usual.
Had his mother been right all those years ago?
Or had his father provided evidence to support his story?
Did it truly matter in the end? The result was the same whether Wayland had cheated his father or not—Blackwood was left destitute, and Benedict was left to inherit the crumbling rubble left behind.