Lord Perfect Page 6

  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.

  “Mrs. Wingate,” he said. “I was hoping our paths would cross.”

  “You would have done better to look rather than simply hope,” she said. “Had I not had the presence of mind to throw myself in your way, you might have missed me altogether.”

  His grip tightened. She realized then that she was still holding on, her hand still clutching his forearm. It was like grasping warm marble.

  She let go, dragged her gaze from his, and focused on her parcels, strewn about the pavement. A passing vehicle had crushed her basket under its wheels.

  “You may release me,” she said. “I should like to collect my purchases before an enterprising street urchin makes off with them.”

  He released her and gathered her parcels.

  She watched him perform the lowly task with his usual perfect grace. Even his coat did not appear to stretch at the seams when he bent, though it fit him like skin. Weston’s work, very likely. And what his lordship had paid for it would probably keep her and Olivia comfortably for a year, perhaps two or three.

  The crowd forming about them watched him, too, with undisguised curiosity. Bathsheba belatedly collected her wits.

  “A footman, out of work,” she explained. “One of my late husband’s relatives turned him off, poor fellow.”

  “He’s come to the wrong neighborhood, Mrs. W,” said an onlooker. “There ain’t hardly work enough for ordinary folk hereabouts.”

  “Pity, ain’t it?” said another. “Big, strong fellow like that. The Quality likes them tall, strapping fellows, I heard. Is it true, ma’am?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Tall footmen are de rigeur.”

  When he’d retrieved all her parcels, she started away at a brisk pace, leaving the audience to argue about what de rigeur meant.

  When they’d turned a corner and the crowd was out of earshot, he said, “I’m a footman?”

  “You should not have come to this neighborhood dressed so fine,” she said. “Clearly you have no idea how to travel incognito.”

  “I had not thought about it.”

  “Obviously not,” she said. “Luckily, one of us comes of a long line of accomplished liars. Your being a footman accounts for both your elegant dress and your air of superiority.”

  “My air of—” He broke off. “You are walking in the wrong direction. Is not Bleeding Heart Yard the other way?”

  She stopped. “You found out where I live.”

  He nodded over the bundles stacked under his jaw. “It is not Popham’s fault. I bullied him. I wish I had not. I despise bullying. But I was . . . exceedingly annoyed.”

  “With Popham?”

  “With my brother-in-law. Atherton.”

  “Then why did you not bully your brother-in-law?”

  “He is in Scotland. Did I not tell you that?”

  “My lord,” she said.

  “Ah, here is a quiet churchyard,” he said, indicating the place with his chin. “Why do we not go in? We shall be private without giving an appearance of impropriety.”

  She was not so sanguine about what appeared improper and what didn’t. Still, if he had his hands full of bundles . . .

  She went in, and paused at a spot close by the gateway.

  He set her purchases down on a gravestone. “I am obliged to take Peregrine to Scotland in a fortnight,” he said. “His father makes anarchy of our neat arrangements. He has had a fit of responsibility and decided to foist his offspring upon Heriot’s School in Edinburgh.”

  She suppressed a sigh. Good-bye, shiny coins, she thought. “Is that not a good school?” she said.

  “Peregrine will never fit in any of our great British schools,” he said, his voice clipped. “But one cannot explain this to Atherton by letter. One can scarcely explain anything to him at all. He is too impatient, impulsive, and dramatic to reason matters out.”

  To Bathsheba’s surprise, Lord Rathbourne began to pace the pathway. He did it gracefully, of course, being perfect, but with a contained energy that seemed to make the air churn about him.

  “If he would only view the matter in a rational way,” he went on, “he would see that the methods of the British public school are antithetical to Peregrine’s character. One learns everything by rote. One is expected to do as one is told without question, to memorize without making sense of what one memorizes. When Peregrine insists upon knowing why and wherefore, he is deemed disrespectful at best, blasphemous at worst. Then he is punished. Most boys require only a few beatings to learn to hold their tongues. Peregrine is not most boys. Beatings mean nothing to him. Why can his father not see this, when it is obvious to a mere uncle?” the uncle concluded, shaking his fist.

  “Perhaps the father lacks the uncle’s ability to imagine himself in the boy’s place,” she said.

  Rathbourne halted abruptly. He looked down at his clenched hand and blinked once. He unclenched it. “Really. Well. I should have thought Atherton had imagination enough for half a dozen men. More than I, certainly.”

  “Parents have a peculiar sort of vision,” she said. “They can be blind in some ways. Does your father understand you?”

  For a moment he looked shocked, and she was as well, to discern so strong a sign of emotion. She’d seen at the start that his was a tell-nothing countenance.

  “I sincerely hope not,” he said.

  She laughed. She couldn’t help it. It had lasted but a moment—he was back to looking inscrutable—but for that brief time he had seemed a chagrined schoolboy, and she thought she would have liked to know that boy.

  Dangerous thought.

  He stood for a time, looking at her and smiling the almost-smile. Then he approached. “Did you really fall in my way on purpose?” he said.

  “That was a joke,” she said. “The truth is, I was shocked witless to see you in Charles Street. I wish you would give warning the next time you decide to come looking for me. I had rather not walk into a shop front and black my eye or fall over a curb and break my ankle.”

  He had come too near, and his gaze was a magnet, drawing hers. She was caught for but a moment—time enough only for her to breathe in and out—yet it was time enough to lure her in deeper. Looking into those eyes, so dark, was like looking down a long, shadowy corridor. Too intriguing. She wanted to find out what
was at the end of it, who was at the end of it, and how great a distance it was from the man on the outside to the man on the inside.

  She looked away. “I did not mean you ought to come looking for me,” she added. “I was not issuing an invitation.”

  “I know I ought not to have come,” he said. “I could have written to you. Yet here I am.”

  She could not let herself be drawn in again. She focused on the gravestone behind him, where her parcels lay.

  “Yes, well, I must be going,” she said. “Olivia returns home from school soon, and if I am not there, she finds things to do. Usually it is something one had rather she didn’t.”

  “Ah, yes, how remiss of me.” He moved away, to the gravestone, and started collecting her belongings. “I should not have troubled you in the first place, and I have compounded the offense by trespassing too long upon your time.”

  He hadn’t trespassed for long enough. She hadn’t found out a fraction of what she wanted to know.

  Think of your daughter, she told herself. Curiosity about this man is a luxury you cannot afford.

  “I prefer to carry them now, my lord,” she said. “A footman will be out of place in Bleeding Heart Yard. It would be best if we went our separate ways.”

  BENEDICT DID NOT want to go his separate way.

  He wanted to stay where he was, talking to her, looking at her, listening to her. She had laughed—at what must have been a comical look of horror on his face when she asked whether his father understood him.

  The sound of it wasn’t what he’d expected. It was low, deep in her throat.

  Wicked laughter. Bedroom laughter.

  The laughter seemed to hang in the air about him as he returned to the hackney. It hung there during the short journey home. It followed him into the house and up to Peregrine’s room.

  He found the boy kneeling in the window seat, bent over a colored plate from Belzoni’s book. It illustrated the ceiling of the pharaoh’s tomb, with an assortment of strange figures and symbols in gold on a black background, possibly a representation of the nighttime sky and constellations as the ancient Egyptians saw them.

  Benedict refused to puzzle over it. The ancient Egyptians were too aggravating for words.