Page 81 of Bound By her Earl

“There’s nothing worrisome about it,” he reminded her. “If anything, Graham is the one you should be worried over. He’s about to learn something that will doubtless shock him terribly.”

“I suppose that is true,” she allowed, not sounding terribly convinced. “But you will be careful, won’t you? And you will come back at once and tell me everything?”

“Of course,” he assured her. Returning to her had quickly become the very top of his list of priorities. It had come upon him almost without his noticing, but he trusted her implicitly,and that was so comforting—so safe—a feeling that he wanted to have it as much as possible.

He’d realized it when he’d seen the altercation between Emily and his mother and known, in an instant, without the vaguest doubt, that Emily was not to blame. She hadn’t even needed to deny it. Her face said everything, and she hadn’t ever lied to him—not by word or by deed.

In fact, he thought with an inward chuckle as he kissed her swiftly goodbye, his initial complaint against her had been anexcessof honesty, particularly regarding how she felt about him and his attitude.

Even as their interactions had grown less fraught and more pleasurable, she’d not gotten any less forthright, not even when she was angry with him. She’d not been vindictive, either. Instead, she’d laid her concerns simply and plainly at his door. And she’d been right to make those complaints, by and large. Hehadbeen holding his mother’s actions against all the members of her sex. Hehadbeen ungenerous when initially refusing to help chaperone her sisters.

It was annoying to admit, but it was true. Or, rather, he found it didn’t even annoy him that much, not when he saw the gratitude in his wife’s expression when she thanked him for his apologies or when she praised his willingness to rethink his perspective on things for her benefit.

Emily’s sweet smiles made it all worth it, he’d found.

He spent the short ride over to the Duke of Graham’s residence thinking about his wife’s smiles—and the other delightful expressions she made while he pleased her in their bedchamber—finding such musings infinitely preferable to the task he was set to undertake.

It was only when he arrived at the Millers’ home and presented his card to the butler that he forced his mind back to the subject at hand.

It was not Frederick, the Duke, who first greeted Benedict, however; it was his son, Evan.

“Itisyou!” Evan exclaimed, crossing the parlor where Benedict had been instructed to wait so he could clap his friend affectionately on the shoulder. “When Dobson said you were here, I couldn’t believe it, let alone when he said you came to see my father. Were you actually looking for me? How did you even know to find me here? I just stopped in for tea.”

Benedict swallowed hard, certain his smile looked more like a grimace. Evan, like many young noblemen whose fathers were in good health and unlikely to shuffle off this mortal coil any time soon, preferred not to abide indefinitely under his parents’ roof and instead let a small suite of rooms in the boarding houses maintained for the bachelors of thetonwho lacked their own properties.

“I’m afraid the rumors are true, Ockley,” Benedict said, striving for lightness in his tone but not quite managing the thing. “I’m here to see your father. Matter of business.”

He cursed his stupidity at not considering that Evan might be here. Telling the Duke that Priscilla had possibly been involved in his daughter’s death was bad enough—but telling his oldest and dearest friend that a member of Benedict’s family had led to the loss of his beloved little sister? It was unthinkable.

A shadow crossed Evan’s usually affable face, and for a moment, Benedict feared that he’d somehow given himself away. But the flicker was only passing.

“Right,” Evan said, early ebullience notably muted. “Of course. I just— Do be careful, Benedict,” he said, the rare use of his given name making Benedict take note. “Politics can take over one’s life if you let it.” He smiled, clearly trying to force his joviality to return. “And Emily’s a grand girl, but I don’t know that she’s cut out to be a political wife.”

“You’d be surprised,” Benedict returned without thinking about it. “And don’t call her by her given name, you blackguard. Show some bloody respect.”

This made Evan’s grin shift, the coercion leaving behind an effortless entertainment.

“I knew it would be like that,” he said smugly.

Before Benedict could push his friend to explain himself—and before he could argue with the voice in his head that said he knewexactlywhat his friend meant—the Duke of Graham entered the room, an air of immovable confidence surrounding him. This sense of his, the notion that the man in front ofBenedict could accomplish anything he set his mind to, had made Graham an unparalleled politician, one who had more access to the Crown than any other parliamentarian save the Prime Minister himself.

“Lord Moore,” he said, inclining his head briefly, his voice smooth and unbothered by the unexpected intrusion into his home from a near stranger. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

Evan’s expression had, once again, grown strained. “I’ll leave you two to it,” he muttered, already making his way toward the door. The Duke scarcely acknowledged his son and heir. Benedict allowed that it likely could not be easy to live with a man whom the whole of Britian regarded as a force to be reckoned with.

But now was not the time for Benedict to fret over his friend; he had graver matters to attend to than the troubles that went on between fathers and sons. Not when his own parent had caused as enormous wreckage as she’d apparently done.

“Your Grace,” he said with an exacting bow, “thank you so much for seeing me on such short notice.”

“Of course, of course, my boy,” the Duke said affably, waving Benedict over to a seat. Benedict tried not to wince at being called a ‘boy’ at his age; perhaps it was natural for the Duke, given that he had a son who was Benedict’s contemporary. “What can I do for you? Have you a bill you’re planning to put forth this session?”

Benedict inclined his head slightly, offering a faint, apologetic grimace.

“I’m afraid that I’m here on rather a more personal matter, Your Grace,” he said. The Duke raised a curious eyebrow but did not otherwise react. “Am I correct in saying that you know my mother?” he asked, aiming for delicacy. As this was not his natural way of doing things, the words felt clumsy in his mouth.

No doubt it was because he was a consummate politician that the Duke did not react to any detected awkwardness.

“Priscilla Hoskins? I do know her,” he allowed casually, no hint of discomfort in his features. “Though I cannot say I know her particularly well. I know her more in the way that one knows a contemporary; we travel in the same circles, have attended many of the same parties, but have no close personal acquaintance.”

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