“Oh, your claws are sharp! Oh…oh,” she finished, in a different tone entirely.
Benedict had stooped to pick up her letter.
He looked down at it for a long moment, his eyes shaded by a fallen lock of thick brown hair. Then he looked back up and met her gaze. “Mrs. Galsworthy,” he said. “Would that be Mrs. G. Galsworthy?”
“Well…yes,” Elinor said. “Do you know her?”
“No,” said Benedict, and dropped the letter onto the salver, just on top of Miss Armitage’s missive. She gave an instinctive jerk of protest, and he looked questioningly at her. “You did want to post this, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” she said, “I only…” She forced herself to pull back her hand. “Thank you. It was nothing.”
There was no reason to worry about other people seeing it, she told herself. No one would think anything of it.
…Except, perhaps, for Benedict Hawkins, who was giving her exactly the kind of disconcertingly probing look that she had surprised upon his face all too often in the last two days.
“How do you know of Mrs. Galsworthy?” she asked him.
He raised his eyebrows. “How do you?”
She was silent for a moment, weighing possibilities. He smiled ruefully and reached out to scratch Sir Jessamyn behind the ears. Sir Jessamyn leaned into his hand; Elinor forced herself not to step closer and seek his warmth, too.
“Thereyou both are!” Penelope swept into the hall, resplendent in a bright blue riding habit that matched her eyes perfectly. The feather on her bonnet curled fetchingly against her cheek; her smile turned jubilant as Gavin Armitage, his sister, and a wide-eyed, giggling Millie all followed in her wake. “Now we can finally leave. I hate waiting!”
So do I, Elinor thought grimly.
In three days, she would leave Hathergill Hall and never see Benedict Hawkins again.The sooner the better. Every day that she allowed herself to watch the shifting expressions on his face, to listen for his voice and his rich laugh, and to wonder hopelessly what he might think of her, only intensified the unwilling attraction that she felt…and the pain of its impossibility.
She was too sensible for such foolishness, so she swept past him to the front door without looking back.
Somehow, though, she found him at her side again only ten minutes later, as they rode across the fields on the way to a picturesque set of ruins that Penelope often visited with her friends. They had begun the trip in a close cluster of horses, but Elinor struck off as soon as she could, grateful for the opportunity to escape Penelope’s high-pitched laughter—aimed equally at both gentlemen—and Gavin Armitage’s mocking wit. She could even forget Miss Armitage’s watchful—and coolly assessing—gaze as she urged her mare forward, away from all of them.
It was the first time she’d been on horseback in over a year, and it felt like pure freedom. Lady Hathergill’s mare, Buttercup, was sweet-hearted and clearly anxious for a good gallop. The wind against Elinor’s face swept away every worry that plagued her. Even Sir Jessamyn, harnessed tightly against her lap, lifted his head to luxuriate in the sensation.
When she heard approaching hoofbeats, she bit back a groan. It would be Miss Armitage, no doubt, ready to press more offers of friendship…and even more of her sleuthing, which had become more and more blatant over the past two days. Elinor readied a neutral expression, marshaled her inner resources, turned…
And Benedict smiled at her, only a few feet away. “I couldn’t resist,” he said. “It’s the first time I’ve ever seen you truly happy.”
His words felt, ridiculously, like the sun breaking through the clouds. Elinor tried and failed to look reproving. “You shouldn’t be here,” she told him, even as she nudged Buttercup to match his pace. “You’re leaving Penelope to Gavin Armitage.”
He shrugged. “She was riding between him and his sister anyway.”
“Only because you didn’t make an effort to push yourself forward.”
“I didn’t want to,” he said. “I wanted to be with you.”
Elinor had no good response to make. Luckily, he didn’t seem to expect any. He tipped his face back to soak in the sunlight, and they rode side by side in silence for a few minutes. Laughter from the others floated through the air as if from very far away, mixing with the soft hum of insects and the low mooing of cows at the other end of the field.
In their own perfect bubble of companionship, they were alone.
Together, they jumped their horses over a low hedge. It felt like flying through the air. Laughter bubbled up in Elinor’s throat for the first time in days. She looked across at Benedict and found him grinning at her, his intelligent hazel eyes warm with pleasure.
For the first time in days, he looked the way he had when they’d first met: open and relaxed and effortlessly charming, with none of the tension that had gripped him ever since. It must have been the pressure of battling Gavin Armitage to woo Penelope that had made him so tense and grim these past few days. But how could he possibly forget that worry with Gavin and Penelope laughing together only half a field behind them? Unless…
All the pleasure that had been radiating through her body suddenly coalesced into a tight, spiky ball of sickness in her chest. She nearly choked on it.
Unless he thought that he had found a new marital prospect to replace Penelope…an even wealthier one.
“What is it?” Benedict’s grin had disappeared; he was frowning at her. “What’s amiss?”
