Chapter Eleven #2
As Benedict stripped out of his confining clothes and started to wrap his hands, he felt the tension of every day drain away.
Exercise, movement, exertion did that for him.
He imagined it was Jane’s annoying suitor Mr Brosnahan there before him, and that he had to defend Jane from his persistence.
Defend his own feelings of jealousy that a man had cared for Jane long before he himself had come around!
It was ridiculous, but there it was. He was jealous of the man, of any man with a chance to win Jane in her own world.
Hitting a punching bag always brought a feeling of release that was raw, physical and deeply cleansing, like pouring everything he couldn’t say into a flurry of motion.
It was frustration and anger, every blow letting go of something too tangled.
His body took over, his shoulders burning, sweat stinging his skin, but he felt alive.
He took a step back to swipe at the sweat beading his brow, to push back a damp curl of hair. His arms trembled, his chest heaved and he felt a measure of clarity, of something finally released.
‘Not bad, not bad,’ he heard Harry say, and Benedict realised he’d been watching.
‘Just watch your stance; remember the jab begins with a smooth extension of the lead arm. Sharp but controlled, the fist rotating at the last moment so the knuckles land flush and the palm face-down. You know what I mean.’
‘I do.’ Benedict tried his movement again, adjusting his feet, tightening his fist. He soon had the movement down to a smooth symphony of sorts.
The craving for Jane was always a pulse in his blood, steady and sharp, and he didn’t know where else to put it but into his fists now.
Every jab was a word he couldn’t quite say.
Every hook was a memory of her laugh. He hit the bag until his knuckles burned, until he could lean into the silence, his hands raw.
Finished for the day, Benedict reached for a towel to swipe at his face. He couldn’t forget her. But his mind was quieter now. He had to contain his need for her one way or another. He had to conquer it.
There were two Newports, Benedict realised as he stepped through the doors of the Mrs Astor’s for the tea party.
There was the one of the boxing club, which so few saw, and this one, which admitted even fewer through its portals.
Which did he really belong to? He didn’t quite know.
He just knew he wished he was back at the club now.
Mrs Caroline Astor, his aunt said, was the ultimate arbiter of Society, both in New York and Newport, and he couldn’t turn down her invitation to ‘a little tea to welcome Your Grace to our small town’.
Like May O’Neill, he’d heard, Mrs Astor was a Knickerbocker who’d married new money and then set out to make sure everything was just as she thought proper.
She dictated the rules of etiquette, manners and who was considered socially acceptable.
Her influence was so great that gaining her approval could make or break someone’s social standing.
For a moment, Benedict wasn’t yet noticed in the Astor drawing room, and he took in the scene around him.
Hardly a ‘little tea’, it felt as if everyone in the whole town swirled around him in what his aunt had said was a recently renovated cottage.
Crystal chandeliers swayed overhead in the shadowed space, an enfilade of mirrors multiplying the gathering of ladies in pastel gowns and elaborate hats, flashing diamonds and gleaming pearls, men in pale suits and silk cravats, until they were a stained-glass kaleidoscope.
The air was heavy with the scent of lilies, carnations, roses and the heady cloud of French perfumes, not at all like the sweat and powder of the club.
It made him wonder again what was real, what a facade. What could he trust?
From the outside, the villa on Bellevue Avenue looked squat and square, clad in brown stucco, verandas looking towards the sea.
Inside, it was all classical mouldings and vaulted ceilings, fine cherry wainscoting any Elizabethan manor could have boasted.
Crimson silk-brocade walls were a perfect backdrop to the gathered crowd, the people who drifted about or sat whispering on gilt chairs.
But he couldn’t stand invisible in the arched doorway for ever.
A young lady he recognised as Mrs Astor’s daughter Emily approached him with a welcoming smile. ‘Your Grace? Welcome to our home,’ she said with a quick curtsy. ‘Would you care for some tea? My mother…’
She gestured towards the great matriarch, who sat in a velvet-cushioned arm chair on a low dais by the black marble fireplace.
A silver tea service was laid before her, as crowds went past to pay their obeisance and receive her nod and smile.
It almost made him laugh to think of how much like a drawing room at Buckingham Palace it was, though he had to admit Mrs Astor had more grace and interest than the old queen could muster.
Should he just behave as he would in a royal reception, then?
He wished Jane was there to tell him what to do.
No—he just wished Jane was there, next to him, making him laugh.
When she was there, everything changed. The chandelier would still sparkle the same, but he would feel entirely different.
With Jane there, every corner would have felt less awkward, every silence less heavy.
Her wry smiles and silent jokes could turn a ballroom into a private world, carved out just for the two of them, even in a crowd.
But Jane was nowhere to be seen, and for the moment he was on his own. As he always was.
‘Thank you, Miss Astor, that is very kind,’ he said.
He followed her across the room, aware that everyone subtly moved aside for them, a clear path to the empress.
Surely that often happened when he entered a room; he was a duke, after all, and everyone knew who he was.
Yet only now was he so sharply aware of it, of the shift in the very air around them that pushed him back from everyone.
The ceilings felt higher, the shadows deeper.
Imagining Jane had only made the chilly distance feel worse.
He felt the real Benedict he had only started to glimpse drift further away, left behind in the boxing ring, and the duke-suit tightened around him like armour that kept him separate.
But he was too well-trained to show it. He smiled and nodded, following Miss Astor’s pale-pink train across the parquet floor. None of the faces were Jane’s or her family. Would she be there today? He realised he’d been hoping she would be, that she would spread her light through the gloomy space.
He hadn’t seen her by the time Miss Astor left him at her mother’s dais.
The ladies sitting with Mrs Astor seemed nervous, their smiles strained, but Mrs Astor herself nodded at him, her plump cheeks dimpling.
She was short, hard-faced, her very black hair piled high and threaded with pearls.
Her small grey eyes seemed to see everything, taking it all in with steely determination, just as he would expect from a social queen.
But her smile seemed genuine, charming. She held out her hand, her plump fingers laden with diamonds.
‘Your Grace,’ she said. ‘Do join us, won’t you? I’m so glad you were able to join us today.’
His aunt would have had his hide if he hadn’t.
‘You are very kind, Mrs Astor,’ he said.
One of the ladies on the settee next to Mrs Astor’s chair slid over without being bidden, leaving a large space for him, and he slowly sat down.
If only he could jump up and run away! He smiled to think of how Jane would laugh at such an image.
Mrs Astor adroitly poured from a silver teapot into flowered Meissen cups. ‘Tell me, Your Grace, how are you faring in our little town?’