Chapter Seven #3
She turned away with a careless laugh. ‘Of course. Eligible bachelors like you don’t appear every day.’
‘But would they be happy once they actually got to England? Would that life be enough for them?’ He glanced around at the sparkling crowd, the grand house beyond the lawn, the champagne fountain in the tent.
‘England does have its charms, but nothing like this. Our houses are chilly and damp, and the servants don’t like it when we dare to rearrange furniture and art that has been in place for generations!
Everything here is so—so bright, new, comfortable. ’
‘Not every place in America.’ Jane thought of the room where she’d lived as a child: the mouldering walls, the smell of boiled cabbage. ‘But England surely has advantages that can’t be found here?’
Benedict took two glasses of champagne and handed one to Jane. ‘Such as what?’
‘Living in the same place as your ancestors, I suppose. Knowing who you are, where you belong. Imagining other people with different lives where you walk now!’
He smiled down at her. It was a look filled with amusement, sparkling with warmth and a quiet delight, a secret shared between just them. ‘Have you been reading poetry again?’
Jane laughed. ‘Indeed I have, along with Walter Scott. How could anyone help but feel a bit dreamy about such places? But I have also heard that being a duchess can hold much opportunity, such as the chance to help others. That must be very desirable.’
‘It’s one of the first tasks of the Haywards. Aunt Louisa used to visit the sick on the estate before she married, and my grandmother founded a school for the girls of our tenants and servants. It would be a marvellous thing to revive it. Rollston has been without a mistress for too long.’
‘Surely life truly is meant to help others, if we can? Education for girls is so vital. I see it in my own work. For girls, education means more than learning to read, write or do arithmetic; it can give them skills that improve their chances in life beyond mere social survival. It shows them they are no less capable than boys.’ She paused and glanced around the sunlit crowd.
‘What of your mother, when she was duchess? Did she have a particular charitable interest?’
His expression seemed to snap shut all over again, and he glanced away to take a long sip of champagne. ‘I can’t remember,’ he said, all chilly distance again.
Jane suddenly wondered if there was some scandal in his past, something about his mother, and she felt her face turn hot at her misstep. She’d never want to make him uncomfortable.
‘I am sure she did,’ he said shortly. ‘Just like you, Jane.’
She nodded. ‘It’s a wonderful opportunity to do fulfilling work, one which a woman isn’t often given.
Especially here in New York, where a lady is just meant to be ornamental.
You must be sure to find a lady who wants all that, as well as tiara-wearing at royal courts and dancing with the Prince of Wales! ’
The corner of his lip quirked. ‘I’m afraid most ladies would be rather disappointed after dancing with Bertie.’
‘Really? Why?’ Jane had to admit, she was as susceptible to a bit of royal gossip as much as anyone else in Newport.
Benedict leaned closer and whispered, ‘He smells of cigar smoke and kippers, I have heard.’
Jane burst into giggles. ‘Dreadful!’
‘It is. The Queen is seldom seen, and when she is she’s bad-tempered and vanishes as fast as she can. But Princess Alexandra is lovely, very kind and charming, and you would like Princess Louise very much—she’s an artist in her own right.’
‘So a new duchess would have to remember all of that as well, all those people, so she won’t put a foot wrong in front of royalty.’
He sighed. ‘It is a large task. I’m rather looking for the needle in the haystack.’
‘Surely not? There are lots of young ladies here in Newport this summer, more than Miss Livingston. We will find you the right one.’
They walked on through the crowd, out of the tent and into the sunshine again, and she felt that quiet comfort between them slowly returning. They were alone in a hidden niche for just a moment.
‘How is Miss Kate faring, then?’ he said.
Jane laughed as she thought of Kate’s antics, her running around in frantic, fast circles, barking and leaping.
‘Very well indeed! She quite rules the house already. Eddie adores her. I fear she has a great deal of energy now that she’s recovered from her ordeal.
She’d walk and run all day if she could. You were so kind to rescue her.’
He shook his head as if embarrassed. ‘Anyone would have done the same.’
Jane thought of the people she’d met in New York society, their narrow views, their self-centred ways.
Despite his grand title, Benedict was not like that.
She thought of the way he listened without interrupting, even with women who were so often ignored; the small acts of courtesy he offered without ever being asked.
‘I assure you they would not. People can be so cruel,’ Jane said, and she thought of the girls she’d met at her school, what they had been through in their lives at the hands of cruel men.
She stared out over the sea below them, blue-green and lacy with foaming waves.
‘It’s sometimes hard to remember that, though, when there’s such beauty to be seen. ’
‘Yes. Very beautiful.’
His voice was quiet, rough. She glanced up to find him watching her intently, as if she was the only thing in all the world.
She stared into his eyes, captured, and at last did what she’d longed to do ever since she’d seen him again.
She pressed her lips to his. Their breath and sighs mingled, binding them together.
Being in that quiet spot, there was only Benedict, the essence of him and how he made her feel.
It was as if she could soar free, as if she could be only herself and no one would care.
There, with his touch on her arm, all the illusions of that Newport world dropped away.
But that was surely the greatest illusion of them all? Benedict’s whole life was his duty, his family, his name and the traditions that it carried with it. She could only part that curtain an inch and glimpse it for one tiny, shining moment.
She thought of Paul, of how he’d told her she belonged with ‘her own kind’. How could she hope to be a duchess—to fit into Benedict’s world, even as she adored being with him? This was her one moment, and she would hold onto it with all her might before she had to let it go.