Chapter 11
“WILL SHE BE well?” Benedict asked, watching the maid escort Miss Whitmore down the shadowed corridor, her hand to her head. He turned to Mrs. Whitmore, awaiting an answer.
The woman had her lips pressed together, a furrow between her brows. “The physician does not like these headaches. He says they are unsurprising, but he should like them to decrease in severity or frequency.” She adjusted her gloves, not meeting his anxious gaze.
What did she mean that they were unsurprising but also concerning? That was no answer at all. He needed to know if Miss Whitmore would be well.
Needed to.
“I wish your permission to tell her the truth, Mrs. Whitmore.”
Her head shot up, eyes wide.
“I do not like this falsehood—this pretending that we were not connected before her accident. She deserves to know the truth, but I do not wish to cause friction in your relationship.”
“No!” Mrs. Whitmore’s declaration was quiet yet fierce. “You cannot do that. These headaches… We have noticed them more often when she is told distressing information. And do you know what she and I were discussing just before your arrival?” She raised a brow and he shook his head.
“She learned that she was previously betrothed. I was obliged to tell her that her affianced husband kissed another woman, resulting in the dissolution of the betrothal. That is what prompted this megrim, I am certain.”
A hollowness formed beneath his chest. And then he’d gone on to say she’d been a statue lacking in personality, prompting a fear that no one knew who she truly was. Blast it all, he’d been the cause of this terrible head pain—both now and a year before.
But how could he go on like this? Incapable of telling her the truth, but incapable of lying any longer.
BENEDICT TAPPED HIS pen knife against the papers, mind on everything but the estate documents before him. He was useless for anything this morning.
How had Miss Whitmore taken over so much of his mind in such a short amount of time?
Throwing down the pen, he strode to the window. His father’s bookroom looked out over the front lawn, giving him a great vantage point of the sunrises. Would it be presumptuous of him to visit when he’d yet to hear back after sending round a note inquiring after Miss Whitmore’s health?
Did he care? He was certain his actions the night before had been tantamount to declaring himself. And was that what he wished?
Yes.
And no.
He’d never have believed it a fortnight ago, but he desired nothing more than to court Miss Whitmore.
Except that was not true. Even more than that, he wished to erase the events of a year before, to undo the damage he had unknowingly caused. Would she forgive him for his stupidity then?
Could she forgive him for it now?
Except he could not even tell her without the possibility of causing terrible pain. He’d seen how pale she’d become. Had felt how she’d gripped his hand, leaned against him when they stood… This was not a trifling headache. It had been far worse. Sudden and immensely painful.
A carriage appeared down the lane. He leaned his palm against the window frame, watching.
Did thoughts of a woman bring her to your doorstep? Could he be so lucky?
In moments, he was on the front step, even before the carriage had come to a halt. He would have beat the groom to the door if he’d been certain it was Miss Whitmore within.
But instead, he stood, hands tense at his sides as he watched the servant alight and release the inhabitants.
A dark-haired woman exited, and all the air left Benedict at once, leaving frustration in its wake.
“Lord Ellison,” Miss Lennox said with a curtsy, eyes watching him through lowered lashes.
“Miss Lennox. My mother is not home just now.” Benedict shuffled a foot backward, planning escape.
“I had wished for a conversation with you, actually.”
His hackles rose, wariness bleeding through him. The last time he’d agreed to a conversation alone with Miss Lennox, he’d been accosted.
She seemed to know where his mind had gone, and heedless of the servants standing at attention beside her carriage and his door, she said, “I have no designs on you, Lord Ellison, if that is what you fear.”
If only to take this conversation somewhere more private, he gestured her inside.
He had told Miss Whitmore that he owed her friend an apology, and it was true.
She might have initiated that contact the night of the harvest ball, but he had not disengaged quickly enough.
He’d held her reputation as an invaluable thing and would have let it shatter had anyone seen them and attempted to force a marriage.
He would apologize.
And then she would leave.
She followed him into the bookroom, and he left the door wide as he settled in the seat behind the desk. “Before I ask what you need of me, I need to apologize for the events of a year ago. I acted in a way unbefitting my station, and you did not deserve that.”
She waved a gloved hand. “I hardly care about that, my lord.” Her words were as airy as her gesture.
He nodded. It assuaged his conscience nonetheless. “Then what is it you need?” he asked, resting forearms against the polished wood.
“Your help.”
His brows lifted. “With?”
“I wish a benefactor in Society. To allow me to make a better match than I might on my family’s name alone.”
“And you wish me to be that person?”
She laughed. “That would hardly be appropriate. Your mother.”
He could not help the line between his brows. “Why?” It would be asking a great deal of his mother when their families had no close relationship. It was almost ludicrous of the woman to ask at all.
Miss Lennox adjusted a curl beside her forehead, twisting it around her finger. “Grace does not know about us, does she? Does she even know about you?” Her look was pointed.
Benedict stilled. “Are you threatening me, Miss Lennox?”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“And yet you imply that you would give Miss Whitmore that information?”
“Anyone might.”
“Not just anyone knows about that night.”
Her eyes met his and he read the unsaid words there. She did. She knew. And she was not above blackmail to get the leg up she desired.
“I will not do it.”
Her mouth opened, but he’d had enough. “You dare to come to my home and threaten me in such a manner? I could crush your family with the mere mention of scandal, Miss Lennox.”
Real fear flashed through her eyes, but she lifted her chin. “You might do that, yes, but I suspect you would be just as crushed should Grace’s opinion of you change.”
“That is enough, Miss Lennox,” he said, his voice steel. “Greer?” he called out the open door, intent on having his butler remove this woman from his sight.
But movement outside the window caught his attention. Two horses and riders were approaching on the lane. Even before her details were clear, he knew it was Miss Whitmore. Her groom dismounted first, helping her from the horse.
Blast it all. His own body warred against him. Desire to see Miss Whitmore won out, though, and he passed Miss Lennox, entering the hall as Miss Whitmore handed off her bonnet.
Her smile was bright as noon-day sun. She crossed the room and grabbed his arms.
“I’ve remembered,” she exclaimed, chin tilted to look at him.
He froze, both from her sudden proximity but also from her words. She could not know the truth. She would not be smiling at him so.
In a heartbeat, she seemed to recollect herself and released him, stepping back. He lamented the space.
Her smile was sheepish. “I apologize. I am simply overwhelmed with the excitement of it and had to tell someone.”
And she’d chosen him? Warmth spread through his chest. “No apologies necessary. I wish to know everything.”
“It was—” She froze, eyes lighting on the door through which Miss Lennox had just appeared.
“Grace!” the dark-haired woman exclaimed with a smile that appeared entirely false.
Miss Whitmore looked between him and Miss Lennox.
“I was just leaving,” Miss Lennox said, her smile turning disappointed.
“But I am sad to miss your visit.” Her gaze swung to Benedict and lingered there for long enough to become awkward before saying, “Thank you for the hospitality, my lord. I hope to see you again soon.” Then the horrid vixen left the house.
Had she and Miss Whitmore truly been friends? How had they managed to get on with Miss Whitmore’s personality being so bright and kind and Miss Lennox’s quite the opposite?
“Ah, shall we?” he asked, gesturing not for the bookroom but the parlor now.
Her exuberance had faded, but she nodded.
How long would he have before his mother descended upon them to work her matchmaking? Or Father, requiring some assistance? Should he explain Miss Lennox’s presence or turn the conversation to Miss Whitmore’s recollections?
He saw her settled onto a cream sofa, then sat beside her, keeping more distance between them than he might have wished.
“How did it come to you?” he asked. “The memory.” His anger at Miss Lennox’s insinuations and thinly veiled threats simmered in the background, but he had no wish to let her mar this moment. Miss Whitmore had remembered something. Enough to bring her to his doorstep.
She turned a little more toward him, her hands clasped together in her lap.
“It was my sister, this morning. She was recounting a ball I’d attended in Dover and written her of, and just like that the entire week—a week, Lord Ellison—returned to me.
I recalled the gentleman who came calling the next day.
I recalled making boats at the creek with my nephew.
I recalled breakfasts and dinners and entirely unimportant facts. Everything.”
“This is incredible! Has anything else returned?”
She nodded. “Snippets—nothing so large. But when I went down to breakfast, I remembered a conversation with Clara two years ago. And I recalled celebrating my youngest brother’s seventh birthday. And—”
“And?” he prodded. His stomach was still twisted in knots. Had she remembered—
“I remembered you,” she said, meeting his eyes.
His brows rose as his heart plummeted. “You did?”
“Just a small thing. But I remembered being at a ball and seeing you there. Across the room.”
It was at just such an event that he’d unknowingly altered the courses of both their lives. Perhaps the same dance she recalled.
The parlor door opened, and Father strode in, his thin frame filling the doorway in height if not in width. “Benedict, good, you are here.”
Benedict stood with an apologetic smile to Miss Whitmore. “Father, you know Miss Whitmore.”
The man’s brows rose; he never did look much further in front of him than whatever problem he faced. “Oh, yes, yes, hello, Miss Whitmore. How do you do?”
“Well, thank you.”
“Yes, very good,” Father said, then turned his attention back to Benedict, whose gaze stayed on Miss Whitmore.
“I should like to finish our conversation,” he said to her. “If you’ll give me but a moment?” She had just arrived, and he was not about to let her leave without asking after her head. The details of that week she’d recalled. Everything she’d remembered of the past.
Even if all he wished was to tell her the truth about their past.
She smiled and nodded, sitting back primly in her seat. Who would have thought that her little smile and downcast eyes held such fire of spirit and entertaining conversation?
“What is wrong, Father?”
Father paced into the room, seemingly already forgetting Miss Whitmore’s presence.
“One of the tenant farmers has an issue—a tree fell into the river or some such thing. Water is backing onto the property with the rains we had last night, and we must assess it before it causes lasting damage. How might we go about solving the problem?”
It may be a surprise to some to see how quickly his father deferred to Benedict in such a situation, but it had been this way for years.
Ever since his grandfather had passed, Father had struggled to take on the role of master of the estate and titleholder of the earldom.
Benedict had grown up quickly, and by his early teens, he’d been handling most of the estate’s needs, though Father was adamant that they adhere to Grandfather’s traditions and keep things the same as they’d always been.
Even when those things were no longer turning a profit.
“We will need to take several horses and likely ropes as well. I imagine we can relocate the tree without much effort,” Benedict said.
“Yes,” Father agreed, nodding. “Of course. Will you—”
Benedict nodded. “I will see to it.”
“Good. Good. Now, I think?”
Benedict swallowed, torn between duty to his estate and father and his desire to remain with Miss Whitmore.
“Might I join you?” the very woman said from the settee. “I will not be a great deal of help, but I should enjoy the outing.” She met his eyes, and he saw that same reluctance to part.
“Yes,” Benedict said. He’d not needed any time to think it over. Her company was more than welcome. “Greer,” he called, “see that Miss Whitmore’s horse is readied, and my stallion and three or four grooms.”
He turned back to her. “It will be rather wet. You are certain?”
She nodded. “I dressed for the weather.”
His feet were taking him across the room toward her without consulting his mind. He stopped, turning back. “Would you like to join us, Father?”
“No, I think I shall leave it to you.”
Benedict nodded. “I will report back to you how we fare.”