Lord Perfect (The Dressmakers 3)

He was desperately bored, all the same.

So bored that he had twice this afternoon caught himself starting to pace, a practice he considered suitable only for hysterical women and other high-strung persons.

Caged animals pace. Children fidget. A gentleman stands or sits quietly.

Benedict sat quietly in his study, in the chair behind his desk. His secretary, Gregson, sat opposite. They were reviewing the last ten days’ correspondence.

His lordship had been too bored to attend to it until now. He didn’t want to do it now, either. If he continued to ignore it, however, the small piles of letters and cards would grow into great untidy heaps. That was the sort of thing irresponsible persons like his brothers Rupert and Darius allowed to happen.

The responsible gentleman keeps his affairs in order.

“This one is from Lord Atherton, sir,” said Gregson, taking up a thick one. “Perhaps you prefer to open it.”

“Certainly not,” said Benedict. “Then I should see what is inside, and you know he always puts in thrice as many words as any subject needs, along with a surfeit of dashes and exclamation points. Please be so good as to pare it down to the essentials.”

“Certainly, sir.” Gregson perused the thick epistle. “ ‘I had a most distressing encounter,’ ” he read.

“No distressing encounters,” Benedict said.

Gregson returned to the letter. “ ‘I was outraged to learn—’ ”

“No outrages,” said his lordship.

“ ‘Priscilla’s mother—’ ”

“Nothing to do with Lady Atherton’s mama, I beg you, Gregson. Perhaps you had better summarize.”

Gregson rapidly scanned the next few pages. “He has found a place for Lord Lisle.”

Benedict stiffened. “What place?”

Gregson read: “ ‘You will be as relieved as we were, I am sure, to learn that arrangements have at last been made for my errant son. Heriot’s School in Edinburgh has agreed to take him.’ ”

“Heriot’s School,” Benedict said. “In Edinburgh.”

“In a fortnight’s time, his lordship will send servants to collect Lord Lisle and take him to his new school,” said Gregson.

Benedict got up from the desk and walked to the window. He stood quietly. By gazing steadily into the garden below and watching the chrysanthemums bob in the September breeze, he was able to maintain his composure. Nothing of the inner storm could be seen on the outer man.

Certainly he did not say what he was thinking. He rarely did. Despite years of discipline, his thoughts regarding his fellow creatures and their doings sometimes had a rampaging quality. In his mind, in fact, he sometimes sounded like Atherton on one of his rants.

Unlike Atherton, however, Benedict had taught himself to keep the rampage inside. What little he expressed he restricted to dry observations, sarcasm, and a raised eyebrow.

Life is not an opera. Scenes belong on the stage.

Benedict did not storm about the study, berating his muddleheaded brother-in-law. He merely said, “Send Lord Atherton a note, Gregson. Tell him that he may spare his servants a journey. I shall take the boy to Scotland in a fortnight.”

Half an hour later, Lord Rathbourne was on his way to Holborn.

THANKS TO THE crush of traffic, Benedict did not reach the print shop until well after Peregrine’s lesson was over and the boy was on his way home. Mrs. Wingate had departed as well, Mr. Popham told Benedict.

Benedict tried to tell himself to communicate with her by letter. He rejected the idea—as he’d done a dozen or more times on the way here.

A letter simply wouldn’t do. She had taken offense at the last one, declining her services.

Benedict remembered the scornful way she’d referred to it, the haughty lift of her chin, the disdain in her blue eyes. He had wanted to laugh. He had wanted to bring his face close to that beautiful, angry one and . . .

And do something he shouldn’t.

To Popham he said, “I must speak to her. It is urgent. Regarding one of her pupils. Perhaps you would be so good as to give me her direction.”

Mr. Popham turned red. “I pray your lordship will n-not take offense, b-but I am not at liberty to give the lady’s direction.”

“Not at liberty,” Benedict repeated evenly.

“N-no, y-your lordship. I beg pardon, your l-lordship. I trust your lordship will understand. The—er—difficulties. For a widow, that is, especially a young one, living on her own. Men can make such n-nuisances of themselves. Not your lordship, certainly—that is to say, but . . . er. The difficulty is, I did faithfully promise the lady to make no exceptions. Sir.”

What Benedict wanted to do was reach across the counter, grab the little man by the neck, and strike his head against the counter until he became more cooperative.

What Benedict said was, “Your scruples do you credit, sir. I quite understand. Kindly send a note to Mrs. Wingate, seeking her permission for me to call. I shall wait.”

Then he disposed himself upon a chair at a table and began perusing a portfolio of lithographs.

“I sh-should be h-happy to, your lordship,” Popham stammered. “But there is a d-difficulty. My assistant is making a delivery, and I cannot leave the shop unattended.”

“Then send a ticket porter,” said Benedict without looking up from the prints.

“Yes, your lordship.” Popham stepped out of the shop. He looked up the street. He looked down the street. No ticket porter appeared. He returned to the shop. At intervals, he went out again, and looked up and down the street.

It was a small shop. Though Benedict was not a small man, he did not take up a great deal of space physically. However, being an aristocrat—a species virtually unknown in this part of Holborn—he seemed to take up a good deal more space than ordinary people did.

Not only did he seem to occupy every square inch of the shop, but he made customers stare and forget what they’d come in for. Several walked out, too awed and intimidated to buy anything. That wasn’t the worst of it.

He had taken a hackney in lieu of one of his own carriages, in order to travel without calling attention to himself. But he’d paid the driver to wait, and the vehicle dawdling in front of the shop was slowing traffic. Idlers gathered about to gossip with the driver and among themselves. Passing drivers expressed their ire loudly enough to be heard inside the shop. Popham grew redder and more agitated.

Finally, when half an hour had passed and the assistant had not yet returned, he gave Lord Rathbourne the address.

FROM HOLBORN THE hackney driver turned left into Hatton Garden then right into Charles Street. Here, at a public house named the Bleeding Heart, Benedict disembarked. He asked the driver to wait farther down the street, where the vehicle would not impede traffic so much.

He crossed the street, then paused at the narrow way leading down into the yard.

The neighborhood was an exceedingly poor one. Contrary to Mrs. Wingate’s beliefs, however, Lord Rathbourne was no stranger to London’s more downtrodden areas. He had been involved in several parliamentary inquiries into the condition of the lower classes. He had not obtained his information solely by reading.

He did not hesitate, either, because he feared contagion, though his wife had died of a fever caught during one of her evangelical missions into a neighborhood like this.

He paused because reason returned.

What on earth could he say in person that he could not say in a letter? What did it matter to him whether Mrs. Wingate took it ill or not? Had he simply leapt at the excuse to see her? Had he let the rampage in his mind rule his actions?

This last question made him reverse direction.

He made his way back down Charles Street. He walked briskly, keeping his eyes on the way ahead and his mind firmly where it ought to be. This was business. He would write Mrs. Wingate a note informing her that Peregrine was returning to school and could not continue his lessons with her. She would be paid for the full schedule of l

essons they’d agreed upon, naturally. Benedict would thank her for all she’d accomplished with the boy so far. He would allow himself a word of regret, perhaps, about the abruptness—

Curse Atherton! Why could he not go on in an orderly fashion, instead of one minute throwing up his hands and proclaiming the cause hopeless and the next—

A jarring sensation, then a jumble of sensations: Benedict heard the short shriek, saw the parcels tumbling about him, felt a bonnet strike his chin and a hand grab his coat sleeve, all at the same time.

He caught her—it was definitely a she, and he knew which she it was in the next instant, even before he saw her face.

IF SHE’D BEEN paying attention to where she was putting her feet instead of gawking at him, Bathsheba would not have missed the step. He was not looking her way, but straight ahead, his mind clearly elsewhere. If only she’d kept her wits about her, he would have passed, and she would not have made a spectacle of herself.

Again.

She saw his eyes widen when he recognized her, and the unguarded expression she saw in those dark depths sent a jolt of heat through her.

The look vanished in an instant, but the heat remained, tingling in her veins and softening her muscles.

He swiftly set her on her feet. He was a good deal slower to let go. She was aware of bands of heat where the long, gloved hands clasped her upper arms. She was aware of warmth radiating from the large, hard body inches from hers. She saw the textures of wool and linen and took in the strong contrast of color: brilliant white against deep green. She inhaled the clean scents of soap and starch, the more exotic fragrance mingling with them, of a discreet and costly masculine cologne . . . and far more insidious, the scent of him.