In the Arms of a Marquess(40)

But she was another man’s. It didn’t need Crispin’s proprietary gestures and words to bear that home. She was the portrait of a composed society lady, just as she had been in Ben’s house in town, so different from that girl who for a moment had resurfaced in the ballroom. And she was loyal. When Crispin beckoned, she answered. When he touched her, she modestly allowed it. When he praised her amidst the company, she lowered her gaze.

She did not speak to Ben. But she looked at him. Often.

And it was unraveling him.

She could not deny the pull between them any more than he could. But given her betrothal, her purpose was clear to him now. Like Lady Nathans and all the other females Ben preferred to ignore, she wanted to misbehave with him, a man on the edge of society, within it but forever foreign.

The trouble with Octavia Pierce was that he wanted to misbehave with her too.

“In a brown study again, darling?” Constance settled herself upon the garden bench beside him, twirling a listless rose between her fingers. Ben looked up from the book in his hands.

“Seeking a moment’s privacy, which you have now effectively ended.” He closed the volume and set it on the wrought-iron seat. “Your posy is wilted. Or hadn’t you noticed?”

She looked uncustomarily blowsy, the brilliant blue of the sky reflected in her overbright eyes, her cheeks stained with pink.

“They are all inside playing cards.”

“While you are out picking dead flowers.”

She rolled her eyes. “I abhor cards.”

“Then don’t play.” Ben reached for his book again. She stalled his hand.

“How can you be here when your guests are all within? Almost all of them. Several went to the lake for a stroll.”

“Why didn’t you, then, if you are so displeased with indoor activities?”

“You are wasting time.” Impatience tinted her voice. “Isn’t this supposed to be a business gathering? Can you not complete your business and let us all go back to town?”

“Constance, you may return to town any time you like. Nothing holds you here.”

She leapt up and spun away from the bench. “I enjoy some of the company. Especially Miss Pierce. Quite a bit. She is forthright and kind and quietly clever, and I think she and I could become great friends if it weren’t for that bothersome Lord Crispin constantly demanding her attention.”

“Hm. Bored and jealous. An ill-favored combination.”

“Don’t be silly. I am not jealous.” She darted him a sharp look. “Are you?”

Ben stood and pocketed his book.

“You know, Connie, you make an excellent point about the purpose of this gathering. As I still have work to do along those lines, I beg you to excuse me now.” He moved along the garden path toward the house.

“I don’t know why you will not talk to me,” she called after him, flouncing onto the bench anew. “And now you are irritated with me.”

He strode along the slate walk toward the formal garden, another of Jack’s renovations in anticipation of the estate someday becoming his. Even as a young man, Ben’s eldest brother had a fondness for English order.

He entered beneath the long, low trellised walkway and paused. In the shade of the vine-covered path stood a woman. The woman he wanted.

At the sound of his footfalls on gravel she turned. The contemplative smile on her lips faded.

“Good day, my lord.”

“Is it?” he replied without thought, without wisdom.

“The sky is clear and the sun bright. But now I hardly know whether the day is good after all.”

She remained still as he moved toward her. She had never run away, and she would not now. Of this, he was certain.

“Does it require more than fine weather to render a day acceptable to you, Miss Pierce?”

“Why do you do that—speak to me as though we are strangers even when no one else is present?” She paused. “Except perhaps briefly at Lady Ashford’s party.”

He scanned her face. He had been wrong to relegate her girlhood entirely to the past. The slight sharpness of her chin was still there, the faintest dusting of freckles on the bridge of her nose, the single red-gold lock that escaped her chignon to dangle over her temple. Spellbinding details of a woman he once thought he knew but never did.

“I was under the impression that we are, in fact, strangers,” he replied.

Her gaze retreated, twisting something uncertain inside Ben.

Mistaken uncertainty. She was like all the others. He must believe that.

“Strangers, you see,” he added, “do not bother telling each other pertinent personal information.”

“What do you mean?”

He lifted a brow.

“I did not—” She took a tight breath. “It was not my information to share at that time.”

“If not yours, then whose, I wonder? Or does he like to be the showman, drawing the attention to himself as he did when he made the announcement in such grand style?”

“You were the one to call for champagne. What was that, gracious hosting or mockery?” The corners of her lips grew taut. Ben could soften them with barely a touch, he knew. Her mouth had always mesmerized him, mobile when she spoke her mind, exquisite when she smiled, and sweet as honey when he kissed her. Until it turned hot. Then it was beyond him to describe the things he imagined that mouth doing to him.