himself with a glass of brandy from the decanter there. She hadn’t appeared to need any such additional support. He walked into the drawing room to find her—cool and elegant, an utterly gorgeous woman, with the same abundance of lustrous moon-pale hair he remembered only too well. His fingers had twitched with the desire to take out her pins and see her tresses tumble over her shoulders again. She was more voluptuous than he remembered, but then she had still been a girl when they had fallen in love. Correction, he thought, with a self-deprecating sneer, when he had fallen in love. And those eyes—huge, violet blue, thickly lashed; they were as arresting as ever. He had always thought of them as windows to her soul. He snorted a bitter laugh at his youthful naivety. Now, with the benefit of eleven more years’ experience, he could see that those eyes had lied as easily as that soft, sensual mouth with its full pink lips.
Such a pity so perfect an exterior disguised such a mercenary bitch.
* * *
Later, before dinner, Benedict visited Malcolm in his bedchamber, as had become his habit in the seven days since his arrival at Tenterfield Court. Malcolm’s breathing had grown noticeably harsher in the past week and Benedict was conscious that the air now wheezed in and out of his cousin’s lungs faster than ever, as if each breath failed to satisfy the demand for oxygen. He pulled a chair to the side of the bed and sat down. Malcolm’s eyes were closed, the thin skin almost translucent. A glance at Fletcher elicited a shake of the valet’s head.
Benedict placed his hand over the paper-dry skin of Malcolm’s hand where it lay on the coverlet. The flesh was cool to his touch, despite the suffocating heat of the room. Sweat sprung to Benedict’s forehead and upper lip, and he felt his neck grow damp beneath the neckcloth he had tied around his neck in deference to his dinner guest.
Damn her! Why did she have to come? And now she would be here all night, a siren song calling to his blood as surely as if she lay in his bed beside him. He forced his thoughts away from Harriet as Malcolm stirred, his lids slitting open as though even that movement was too great an effort for his feeble energy.
‘Water.’
Fletcher brought a glass and held it to his master’s lips, supporting his head as he sucked in the liquid. As Fletcher lowered his head back to the pillow, Malcolm’s eyes fixed on Benedict.
‘Going out?’
Benedict fingered his neckcloth self-consciously. Malcolm still had the ability to reduce him to a callow youth with just a single comment. He had been a careless guardian with little interest in Benedict, who had been a mere eight years old when he was orphaned. As Benedict had matured and developed more understanding of the world, Malcolm’s behaviour and reputation had caused him nothing but shame. Now, although he found it hard to feel any sorrow at Malcolm’s imminent death, he could not help but pity the man his suffering.
‘I dressed for dinner before visiting you tonight.’ The lie slid smoothly off Benedict’s tongue. He kept forgetting that, although Malcolm’s body had betrayed him, his mind was a sharp as ever.
‘Has that harlot gone?’
‘Harlot?’
‘The Brierley woman. She’s no business here... I told her... Fletcher? Has she gone?’
Fletcher glanced at Benedict, who gave a slight nod of his head. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘She left the house straight after she saw you.’
‘Good. Good riddance. Have nothing to do with her, you hear, boy?’
Benedict bit back his irritation at being addressed in such a way. He was a successful businessman. Yes, he was Sir Malcolm’s heir and would inherit both the baronetcy and Tenterfield, but he had no need of the man’s support or wealth. Not any longer. He was his own man.
It was strange to think he would soon be master of Tenterfield. When he had arrived a week ago, he had gazed up at the red-brick Jacobean manor house with a sense of disbelief that, soon, this place of so many memories would be his. He already felt the pride of ownership and had vowed to restore both its reputation and that of the Poole family name after the years of damage caused by Sir Malcolm’s disgrace.
‘I have no intention of having anything to do with her, you can rest assured on that,’ Benedict said. Then, curious, he asked, ‘What do you have against her? I thought Brierley was a friend of yours.’
‘That’s got nothing to do with it. I saw what her fickle behaviour did to you. She’s not to be trusted.’
Benedict felt his eyes narrow. Now Malcolm cared about his feelings? Or perhaps he knew more about Brierley’s marriage than he was saying. Had Harriet played Brierley false, too? He shoved his chair back and stood up.
‘You should rest,’ he said. ‘I will see you in the morning.’
He went downstairs, Harriet and the evening to come playing on his mind and churning his gut.
Crabtree appeared, seemingly from nowhere, to open the drawing room doors for Benedict.
‘Has Lady Brierley come downstairs yet?’ Benedict asked the butler.
‘Not yet, sir.’
Benedict was conscious of a sweep of relief. At least they would not have to make small talk before their meal—that would be strained enough, he was sure.
‘Please impress upon the rest of the staff that they must not reveal the presence of either Lady Brierley or her maid to Sir Malcolm,’ he said. ‘It will only agitate him to no purpose.’
‘Indeed I will, sir.’ Crabtree bowed.
Benedict entered the room to await his dinner guest. Moodily, he poked at the coals in the grate, stirring them to life, pondering this spectre from a past he had long put behind him. He had been caught on the back foot—his feelings tossed and tumbled like a ship caught in a squall. Surely his reaction to Harriet was merely shock and, like a squall, it would soon pass. After all, what was she to him? She was just somebody he used to know a long time ago, when she was a girl. She must be all of seven and twenty by now, by God. Her betrayal—her marriage to Brierley—was ancient history. He was confident he would soon recover his equilibrium, and then he could treat her with the same detached courtesy he would employ towards any unexpected guest. Perhaps he should look upon this unexpected trial in the light of a rehearsal—an opportunity to put their past into some sort of reasonable perspective. In the future, should he happen to see her around town, maybe he could remember their shared past with dispassion and not with this angry bitterness that was eating away inside him.
Voices from outside the door roused him from his thoughts. He turned as Harriet entered the room, his breath catching in his throat at her stunning beauty. She wore an elegant lilac gown that accentuated the violet of her eyes and the fullness of her breasts, despite the neckline not swooping as low as some of the more daring fashions Benedict had seen. Her blonde hair was pinned into a smooth chignon, exposing the creamy skin of her neck and décolletage.
Battening down his visceral reaction, Benedict bowed.
‘Good evening, Mr Poole.’
He straightened. Her gaze was both cool and distant, stoking his resentment. The grand society lady: graciously poised and
