Chapter Four #2
‘So that’s him,’ May observed. ‘My word, he is an Adonis. One just expects reports of a duke to be exaggerated, but I see not this time. Thank heavens for that.’ She smoothed Jane’s sleeve, making sure her pearl necklace lay straight. Jane wondered if she was really that untidy.
May tugged her forward, and they emerged at the edge of crowd just in time to see the duke bowing over Mrs Beresford’s hand. He straightened to his full height, smiling politely as their hostess chattered, and Jane froze at the sight.
Was it…? No, it couldn’t be. Was it Benedict? The young man from the bookshop, so long ago? Was he the—the duke?
She crumpled a silk fold of her skirt in one shaking hand, feeling shocked into place, pushed back in time.
Her heart pounded, plummeted in surprise.
She knew she really shouldn’t be quite so shocked.
How many young Englishmen had English aunts who lived in New York?
But her Benedict hadn’t seemed at all duke-like. He’d seemed kind, sweet and funny.
But she studied him closer, and saw it was definitely him.
There was no mistaking it, even though he was older, a man now instead of a beautiful boy.
He was tall and lean, with a posture that would never shrink in front of anyone, his brown, waving hair swept back from a chiselled face.
Those high, sharp cheekbones and square jaw were perfectly modelled for an ancestral portrait on a wall.
Piercingly blue eyes swept over the crowd, though he still seemed distant, apart.
A signet ring on his smallest finger glinted as he bowed over their hostess’s hand.
Everyone seemed to lean in closer to hear him as he spoke, but Jane could only hear the deep, smooth flow of that accent. He was Benedict, yet not. He wore centuries of power like a second skin.
She couldn’t move, as if her kid shoes were glued to the marble floor, yet she felt as if she could run a mile.
How was this happening? How had he come back?
Should she try to run away? Sink down into the floor?
She had to vanish before he saw her, before the memory of their meeting she had so cherished was dashed to pieces by reality.
She decided she would run, but May’s hand was firm on her arm. What would everyone think to see that odd O’Neill girl fleeing? No, she knew she had to stay, to face the next few moments, no matter what.
She braced herself as if she faced a battle, pasting a smile on her face and hoping it looked better than it felt. The crowd parted before them as if the duke himself had waved them away.
‘And this Mrs May Van Der Berg O’Neill, Your Grace, and her sister-in-law, Miss Jane O’Neill,’ Mrs Beresford said. Her lips tightened a bit; she accepted the O’Neills now, as everyone did thanks to May’s family, but not everyone always liked it.
May dropped a graceful little curtsy, pulling Jane with her. ‘Your Grace,’ Jane managed to whisper.
‘It’s you,’ he said softly.
Jane dared to peek at him as she rose from her wobbling curtsy. He did know her, remembered her, yet she couldn’t read his expression at all. He really did look just like a classical statue, perfect but distant. His blue eyes glowed. They just stared at each other in that endless, frozen moment.
The years had changed him. The boy she’d met, so beautiful, was assuredly now a man. He was taller, harder, leaner, his face sharply carved and unreadable. But the sky-blue eyes were just the same.
She suddenly longed to run to him, to hug him, to ask if he remembered when they’d walked and talked about their hopes.
But something about him held her back. This man seemed to wear his title like armour, revealing nothing.
He was composed and perfectly polite, but seemed to hold something back, as if feeling too much would be unbecoming of his station—not like her Benedict at all.
‘Benedict,’ she managed to say, because it seemed silly to pretend she’d never seen him before. ‘Hello.’ She felt May watching her closely, felt the astonishment of Mrs Beresford and Lady Louisa, but she couldn’t look at them. She was hardly aware anyone else was near at all.
‘You know Miss O’Neill, Your Grace?’ Mrs Beresford asked.
‘We have met. Long ago,’ he said coolly, in that cut-glass accent. ‘How do you do, Miss O’Neill? You look well.’
She wanted to say, I’ve missed you, I’ve thought of you all the time, but all she really said was, ‘I am well, thank you. It’s nice to meet you again.
’ She used to imagine seeing him again, how it might go; the rush of delight she’d feel.
This was nothing like that. This man was beyond words, beyond touch.
A chilly wave of sadness washed over her.
Why had he come back into her life at all, to ruin that one little golden memory?
‘Was this the little youthful indiscretion you told me about, Jane?’ May whispered.
The ice around Jane holding her numb started to crack, and she knew she had to get away from there.
She bobbed another quick curtsy and fled, trying not to notice May’s surprise, the giggles of the other young ladies.
Benedict—no, not Benedict, the duke—had lots of other females eager to meet him. He wouldn’t miss her.
She couldn’t bear it any longer. She turned and ran down the stone steps of the veranda onto the green lawn that rippled down toward the seashore.
She hurried past the refreshment tent, past people gathered on benches and in deck chairs.
Not at all sure where she should go, she veered towards a little teahouse in the distance, past the impassive stares of stone statues, stopping next to an elaborate carved fountain.
They couldn’t be any more unreadable than Benedict.
‘Jane, wait!’ she heard someone call. She glanced back, and saw to her horror that it was him. He had followed her! What would everyone say? What could it mean?
She couldn’t read him. He was the very embodiment of elegance and quiet power, beautiful and distant.
He didn’t need to chase attention; it was naturally drawn to him.
She understood very well why he was so sought-after, and not just for his lofty title.
He was so very handsome, like a fairy-king in a dark realm, a god of ancient times.
His hair gleamed dark gold in the sunlight.
Yet he was distant, so impossible to read.
A Viking, then, a warrior, hard and reserved. Not at all like the old Benedict.
Yet he had followed her. He was there before her once more.
He came closer, moving warily, and she backed up a step. She didn’t want him to see how she really felt. She felt as if she were holding something fragile and burning inside her chest, something that wanted so much to be let out, but which she couldn’t risk slipping free.
‘Your Grace,’ she said carefully.
‘You don’t remember me, then?’ he said, taking another step and another. He didn’t even seem to see the splashing fountain beside them.
Remember him? She remembered him every day—the way he’d laughed, the feeling of his kiss. But that boy was gone. ‘Of course I do. It’s just—been so long. I sometimes wondered what happened to you. I—I didn’t have many friends then and…’
‘Me neither.’ A flash of sadness passed over his beautiful face, something that reached into her and squeezed her heart all over again. She softened and he seemed to see it on her face. He took a step closer, then another, and then…
Then he toppled into the fountain.
‘Benedict!’ she called, and her hand shot out instinctively to catch his.
Her shoes slid along the grass, throwing her off-balance.
Her stomach lurched as gravity caught her.
She tumbled towards the ground and—horrors!
—tipped and tumbled into the splashing fountain with him, water pluming up around them.
For an instant she could hardly believe what had happened or where they were; there was such a strange mix of shock and absurdity about it all, everything around her blurring into splashing water and embarrassment.
The cold crawled through her clothes and down her spine. She was tangled up with Benedict…
She was utterly mortified, and yet she couldn’t stop the laughter that bubbled up in her. It was all so ridiculous! Her clothes were heavy, her hair falling down. She wanted to vanish, but still she laughed.
Jane scrambled up to her feet and grabbed his arm to try and tug him up from the water.
At the touch of his fingers—long, elegant and slightly callused, as if from riding over his vast estate—she remembered too well what it had once felt like when he’d held her hand.
When he’d kissed her, left her shaky and weak, unable to enjoy kissing anyone else again.
She was shot back in time to that Jane, that Benedict.
That Benedict would have thought a tumble into a fountain hilarious.