My Lady's Choosing: An Interactive Romance Novel(79)
“But Lady Evangeline…” you say.
“Listen to me,” she says. “You are still young. Your life is stretched out before you, full of possibilities. I do not expect you to sacrifice yourself for my own mess.”
You have no idea what to say and stare mutely at her. She turns her head to the side ruefully.
“Well, my darling?” Evangeline asks. “Are you going to make the sensible choice and return to Cairo like I ask? Or are you going to go see that Delphine gets her just deserts with me?”
Do you venture onward to stop the dastardly Delphine once and for all? Turn to this page.
Or do you leave the adventuring to the adventurers? You know your limits, and rushing headfirst into likely death with no weapons training goes very far beyond them. Turn to this page.
Your slightly blurred vision does not lie. There, bursting through silken curtains, piercing the night as a member would a sex, Benedict breaks through the entrance of Madam Crosby’s chambers. His handsome face is fully flushed with anger and exertion that hasn’t a lick to do with the licks and exertions happening in the sumptuous, scandalous rooms that surround you.
With his fine clothes, finer features, and tousled mop of aristocratic curls, you can’t help but imagine him as a passionate patron of the Rose & the Smoke. Perhaps it is the champagne, but you can almost see him rushing into Madam Crosby’s chambers to request—no, beg—the opportunity to run spendthrift with his wild passions in her very boudoir, in front of all watching, with you. He would tear his blouson asunder and urge your elegant, trembling hands to explore his surprisingly thick pelt, before you both teach the finest whores in London a thing or two about making love.
But the flesh-and-blood Benedict before you now speaks through gritted teeth. “Damnable woman!” he seethes, displaying what you know is Benedict’s version of screaming. “Damn, damn, damn your eyes!”
“Damn me later, Benedict!” you cry. “Listen now. Your claim to the Granville name is safe. Your father’s marriage to Mrs. Caddington was the bigamous one, not his marriage to your mother. Cad is no heir but a bastard, a damnable bastard! The Granville name, estate, and fortune are all yours. What we must needs do is acquire some hard proof that the bigamous husband is alive, perhaps from a warden of Bedlam, and all will be well. Here, have a snack. You look peaked.” You toss him the watercress sandwich you were saving for later. He slaps it away as if it were a gnat rather than a valuable and tasty late-night delicacy.
“I would have eaten that!” you say. As you reach to retrieve the sandwich, he catches your wrist in a vicelike grip.
“You are a fool.” Benedict says. He stamps upon the fallen morsel. “You have told me nothing I did not already know.”
“But I do not understand—”
“Of course you do not understand! How could you understand? For ages I have known these facts that you have so expertly detected while you drink and carouse with London’s demimonde.”
“But you did not tell me!” you cry. “Why did you not tell me?”
“Tell you what? That my bastard half brother used my half sister as hostage to steal my name and fortune? That to properly maintain or stake my claim on what is rightly mine, I must subject Henrietta to her true, lowborn fate? The fate of a lovechild of a bigamous marriage, with no fortune or station to save her? To add further insult to her injuries, after having allowed her a taste of the life she will never know, her fate is ruined because a chit like you plays detective and exposes our family’s secrets in some sad attempt to feel important.” With each word he speaks, you feel more dejected. With each angry phrase, you feel the bars of the cage that surrounds your own life, as well as Henrietta’s, should this truth come out.
“Benedict,” you whisper, “I had only wanted to save you—”
“What do I need saving for? Rich or poor, I am a man. It is Henrietta I am concerned for. You know, woman?” he grinds out. Any love light that may have danced in the corners of his cruel silver-gray eyes is snuffed out with each word. “You are extraordinary,” he sneers. “I have managed to keep myself out of scandal—and the Rose & the Smoke—my entire life before meeting you. Now I have managed to become mired in both, merely because someone of low station has mistaken a bit of my kindness and momentary desire as some grand form of intimacy.”
“Benedict, I—” Anger—and tears—shine in your eyes.
“Save it,” he hisses. “Tell it to my aunt the next time you monogram her handkerchiefs.”
You feel your heart torn apart like a rejected proposal letter. There is nothing left for you and Benedict to do now but turn on your heels—in opposite directions.
At a safe distance from his angry gaze, you rest against a wall and sob. Hateful man! And yet the thought of him thinking badly of you pierces your heart in a way you didn’t think possible. How could this be? What is wrong with you?!
No, this is foolish. You shake your head and force yourself to think sensibly. Even lovers who aren’t exactly full-fledged lovers quarrel. You have come to Harlot’s Row with the intention to help, and now all you do is hurt. Perhaps you have done enough. Perhaps Benedict’s words are the harsh reprimands of a man scared of his fortune…and his feelings.