Page 78 of Brave New Earl (The Way to a Lord's Heart 1)

“How beautiful you are,” Jean said when he handed her the square of cloth.

“Isn’t that my line?” He climbed back into bed and settled at her side once more.

“I have no objection to you saying it.” Emptiness was lighter, Jean noticed. A bit like floating. She blew her nose.

The ache of physical passion was familiar, Benjamin thought. But this desperate desire to make her happy again was new to him. “Youarebeautiful,” he said. “Far more than I realized.”

His tone made her tremble. She tried for a light response. “Without my clothes, you mean?”

“When seen in your…entirety.” He ran a hand along her arm. He wanted to make love to her with boundless tenderness and wild abandon. But only a few minutes ago, she’d been sobbing. This might not be the moment.

She answered him by casting her arms around his neck and pulling him down onto the pillows. In the ensuing enthusiasm, the handkerchief was lost.

Some while later, the candle guttered, an unwelcome reminder of the passage of time. Jean sat up. “I should back go to my room,” she said. “I can’t stay all night.”

“More’s the pity.” He’d like to wake beside her and greet the new day with embraces, Benjamin thought. He still hoped to. But this wasn’t the time to bring up marriage again. He was in too good a mood.

She left his bed, found her nightgown on the floor, and slipped it on. Benjamin saw that she’d arranged her wrapper, slippers, and a candlestick in a little pile next to the door. This sign of forethought made him smile as he retrieved his nightshirt. “I’ll go with you.”

“No, you won’t. No one must see us together like this.” She indicated her nightclothes with a gesture.

“I feel that I should escort you ‘home.’” He acknowledged the silliness of this with a shrug.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

He was never going to tire of her. He carried the dying candle over to the door. “Here, light yours from this before it goes out.”

“I’ll creep along without a light.”

“Nonsense.”

“But someone might see me.”

“At this hour? They’re all sound asleep. And if someone should happen to, tell them you were sleepwalking.”

She giggled. Benjamin thought he’d never enjoyed a sound more. “In my slippers, with a light?” she asked. Her smile as she slipped out of his room buoyed his spirits even more.

Jean walked quickly down the corridor, mind and body full of the past few hours. She was only a few feet from her bedchamber door when a hint of movement in the dark made her jump.

A small, pale figure hovered in the blackness beyond her candle flame. Was Furness Hall haunted? The phantom shifted again. “Geoffrey?”

After a lengthy pause, the boy came into the light.

“You scared me out of my wits. What are you doing out of bed at this hour?” Had he seen her leaving his father’s room? Jean wondered.

“What are you?” he replied.

“I couldn’t sleep.” For reasons he was not to know. “I often read when I’m wakeful. There are so many books in the library.” None of that was lies, Jean told herself. She could be excused a bit of indirection.

Geoffrey looked at her empty hands.

“But so hard to find one you actually want to read. RememberGoody Two-Shoes.” She shouldn’t have offered an explanation. She didn’t really owe him one. “You ought to stay in bed at night,” she added.

“You can’t tell me what to do.”

Jean had a sudden vivid memory of being small and at the mercy of any adult who wished to criticize one’s behavior. She’d hated that!

“This ismyhouse,” Geoffrey added. “I can go wherever I want.”

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