Chapter Four #3
He clambered out of the fountain, and to her horror she saw he was as utterly dripping wet as she was. But he just laughed with her…laughed. For an instant, she truly glimpsed her Benedict again.
His impeccable composure was utterly disrupted, the water outlining the lean strength of his frame moulded to his chest, his hair damp and dishevelled, a wave sliding over his forehead. He appeared unarmoured, stripped of formality and startlingly human.
‘It seems things always take a fall when we meet,’ he said. ‘Books, people…’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry!’ Jane took a lace-edged handkerchief from her reticule and tried to dry him off. She was acutely aware of the heat of his skin, the softness of his breath so close. ‘I didn’t mean…’
‘Jane.’ He gently touched her hand. Even that light touch sent a warmth that spread instantly, not just across her chilled skin, but deeper into her throat, her very breath.
It felt so meaningful, that connection. Her hand tingled, her pulse quickened, and something small but powerful shifted within her: he’s here.
‘It is good to see you again,’ he said, his voice rough.
‘Jane!’ She spun round to see May and Lady Louisa rushing down the lawn, their hostess behind them. All the heat of only an instant before chilled, and she felt every inch a fool. Benedict also froze, his face impassive as he gave her back her sodden handkerchief.
‘It—it was an accident,’ Jane stammered.
‘Not at all. Entirely my fault,’ Benedict said in a clipped tone. ‘Miss O’Neill came to my assistance.’
Mrs Beresford stared at Jane in wide-eyed horror, and Jane became aware others were watching too. Others would whisper about this moment, about how the O’Neill girl had disgraced herself in front of a duke. He didn’t look at her.
She turned and fled. She couldn’t think what else to do at all.
Benedict stared after Jane as she dashed away in a flash of sodden spring-green, lace-frothed silk, and he longed to run after her, to look at her, touch her and know she was real. But Aunt Louisa took his hand, holding him still, fussing over him.
‘Aunt Louisa, I am quite well, I promise,’ he said. ‘I was just terribly clumsy.’
At first, he’d thought it couldn’t possibly be her.
Couldn’t be Jane, the girl whose sweet, open smile had haunted him for so long.
He hadn’t believed it when he’d seen her again.
His heart had stumbled, just for a second.
There’d been sudden sharpness where things had been dull, a light in shadows; that was how it had felt to see her again; hear the sound of her laugh; feel the way her hand had fitted in his.
She looked little different, more serious maybe, definitely more fashionably dressed. He was the one who had changed.
Had she felt it too? Did she remember him?
He’d been sure she must have a family now, a life beyond the moment they’d spent together.
Yet they’d said she was Miss O’Neill… The rich Irish heiress he’d heard so much about—she was his Jane.
But she didn’t seem to remember him the same way he remembered her. They were different people now.
Yet when he’d heard her voice, the low, soft music of it, and touched her hand, he’d hoped maybe she wasn’t quite so different now after all.
Her clothes were different, silk and lace, her pearl necklace and diamond earrings gleaming, but her smile, that brief flash of it, had been the same.
It had been slow and bright, like a secret she’d chosen to share only with him.
Then he’d seen dawn in her eyes the confusion, the realisation of who he really was!
How he’d hated that. Hated that the joy had been so quickly eclipsed.
Did she know why he was there, what his aunt had said about her and her fortune?
Did she know how he needed money? He couldn’t bear the thought she might think so ill of him because of that.
‘Oh, Your Grace, I am so sorry!’ Mrs Beresford gasped as she hurried toward him, her expression etched with horror, as if he’d been stabbed instead of just having fallen into some water! ‘That such a thing could happen at my own soiree! I do assure you that not all of us Americans are so…so…’
Rude. The unsaid word hovered in the air.
Benedict felt a cold flash of anger that anyone would think that of Jane.
He turned to smile at May O’Neill. ‘I am sure most Americans are not as charming as your sister-in-law, Mrs O’Neill,’ he said.
‘She was very kind to come to my aid when I fell. I am most indebted to her.’ A ripple of whispers went through the onlookers.
He knew they would take their social cues from him, and no one would snub Jane for this ridiculous moment.
At least being a duke was good for something.
‘I hope I may call on you tomorrow to see how she fares?’
Astonishment was written all over May O’Neill’s pretty face. ‘Of course, Your Grace. And you are right; Jane is always kind. I’m glad she was here to be of some assistance to you.’
‘And now, Mrs Beresford,’ he said casually, as if he wandered through parties soaking wet all the time. ‘I wonder if I might beg a towel?’