now saw no reason why he should prolong this tortuous evening any longer. Nor did he think it a good idea to leave Genevieve here alone. For a woman aged in her mid-twenties and a widow after six years of marriage, Genevieve seemed extremely naïve when it came to an awareness of the licentious behaviour of certain gentlemen of the ton.
Himself included …
Chapter Three
Genevieve was a little surprised at having her evening brought to such an abrupt and unsatisfactory end. Although, after her error in judgement earlier, perhaps it was for the best if she left now in order to retire and regroup so that she might ‘fight another day’.
Besides which, if she did have to leave the ball earlier than anticipated, was it not better that she do so in the company of one of the most sought-after gentlemen of the ton?
‘You did not say where we are going, Benedict?’ Genevieve was careful to use his given name this time, having had no idea, until he’d corrected her, that it was simply not done to refer to him as Lucifer to his face. ‘Benedict?’ she prompted again as he made no effort to answer her as the two of them stepped from Lady Hammond’s town house into the dark of the early-summer evening.
‘Perhaps because I have not decided as yet.’ He looked down at her, his face appearing all sharp and dangerous angles in the moonlight. ‘Your reckless behaviour this evening would seem to imply you are seriously in need of a man constantly at your side to keep you from becoming embroiled in scandal.’
She gave a soft gasp. ‘That is unfair.’
‘In what way is it unfair?’ Lucifer arched his dark and arrogant brows. ‘If not for my intervention earlier, I have no doubts you would even now be in a position where you were completely at the mercy of Sandhurst’s plans for you.’
Much as Genevieve hated to admit it, she now believed that to have been the case too. ‘Is it really so wrong of me to want—to yearn—for fun and excitement?’
Benedict frowned as he saw the tears glistening in her beautiful blue eyes. His frown deepened as he recalled Eric Cargill’s comment of earlier, in regard to Josiah Forster having kept his ‘child-bride … shut away in the country from the moment he had married and bedded her’. ‘Was your marriage so very unhappy?’
‘Tortuous,’ she confirmed flatly.
A ‘tortuous’ marriage which had lasted for six years, followed by another year of mourning the husband she had not loved. That meant that this was perhaps the first opportunity Genevieve had had for a very long time in which to enjoy all that a London Season had to offer. ‘Did Forster treat you unkindly?’
Her shudder of revulsion was answer enough. ‘I will not talk of it, Benedict. It is just—It is so long since I was able to attend and enjoy parties and balls such as this one,’ she confirmed his earlier summation.
‘Some would say that you were fortunate in having done so,’ Benedict drawled, affected, in spite of himself, by the deep yearning he could see in those expressive blue eyes.
‘The “some” who have always been free to enjoy such things, perhaps,’ Genevieve conceded wistfully.
‘Unlike you?’
She sighed. ‘I have said I will not talk about any of that.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘What on earth did you find to do in the country for all of those years of exile?’
‘You are very determined!’ Her little chin rose as she looked up at him. ‘Truth be told, I mainly plotted and planned ways in which I might dispose of my husband!’
Benedict found himself stunned into silence for several minutes, before he then gave in to the urge he had to laugh at the bluntness of Genevieve’s statement. And neither was it the first time that this red-haired minx of a woman had reduced him to laughter with her outrageous candidness.
She arched a red-gold brow. ‘I hope you do not suppose for one moment that I am jesting?’
No, Benedict could see by the earnestness of Genevieve’s expression that she was completely serious. His own humour lessened to an ironic tilting of his lips. ‘What did Woollerton do to earn such a fierceness of emotion?’
Her shadowed gaze dropped from meeting his dark and probing one. ‘I cannot, will not, talk of his cruelties to me.’
Benedict’s humour faded completely in the face of Genevieve’s obvious distress. He had not known Josiah Forster personally—that gentleman had been a contemporary of Benedict’s father rather than himself—but he had never heard any gossip in regard to cruelty by the other gentleman. Which was not to say it had not existed; the ton had a way of keeping the worst of its excesses behind closed doors. Certainly, keeping Genevieve’s beauty and vivacity of nature incarcerated in the country for so many years could be called a sin in itself.
Benedict frowned down at her bent head, the hood of her cloak throwing her face into shadow. ‘Name one thing which for you represents this “adventure and fun” you speak of.’
She raised long lashes, her eyes now twin pools of hurt. ‘So that you might laugh or ridicule me?’
‘I had it more in mind to gauge whether or not I might see fit into escorting you in the endeavour of your choice,’ Benedict conceded drily.
Her eyes widened. ‘Really?’
‘Really.’ Benedict sighed, sure that he was making a mistake by indulging Genevieve in this way, but finding himself totally unable to refuse the appeal of the unhappiness he had brought to those deep-blue eyes by speaking of her dead husband.
Genevieve looked up searchingly into those dark satanic features, but could find no amusement or mockery in his eyes. Indeed, Benedict Lucas wore an expression of resignation rather than amusement. ‘I have always longed to visit Vauxhall Gardens in the evening in the company of a gentleman,’ she answered huskily.
His dark brows rose. ‘You are assuming, if I were to agree to take you there, that I will behave as that gentleman?’
She looked up at him uncertainly. ‘Are you saying you would not?’
He breathed deeply. ‘No. Although I do wonder how it is you have survived these past six weeks of the Season without falling into some sort of scandal or another!’
‘Possibly because, until these past few days or so, I have had Sophia and Pandora to advise me when someone or something is not quite … suitable,’ she allowed ruefully.
And, as Benedict was only too aware, this past week had seen both her close friends becoming entangled in relationships with his own friends Dante and Devil.
Genevieve looked up at him almost shyly. ‘Perhaps I am now to have a fallen angel to watch over me?’
‘It will be for one evening only,’ Benedict warned firmly, not sure he particularly cared for being referred to as a ‘fallen angel’. ‘I do not have the time, nor the inclination, to be continually available to rescue you from your own lack of insight into a gentleman’s true nature.’
‘But you will spare me this one evening?’
