Page 22 of Brave New Earl (The Way to a Lord's Heart 1)

Benjamin encountered his uncle Arthur in the breakfast room. A few days ago, this would have irritated him; he would have consigned his uninvited relative to perdition. But he was in a surprisingly mellow mood today. “Good morning, sir.”

The older man nodded amiably across the table.

“Is your plot going well, do you think?”

“My plot?” He raised his eyebrows.

“Come, Uncle. I may be slow, but I’m not stupid. Do you deny that you aimed Miss Saunders in my direction? Fired her off, in fact, like a cannon barrage?” Benjamin liked the comparison; it fit his spirited guest.

“An interesting young lady, isn’t she?”

“Why?”

“Her upbringing, I suppose. I don’t know a great deal about her early youth.”

“No, Uncle Arthur. Why did you send her here?”

“I didn’t do that.” The older man shook his head.

The smile that had been tugging at Benjamin’s lips emerged. “Oh, come. You arrive on her heels for an unheralded—and unprecedented—visit. And then you lurk around the edges of our company, saying little, looking more, continually slipping out to leave us alone. Quite unlike your usual, convivial self.”

Lord Macklin sipped his coffee. An answering smile escaped him. “What a picture you paint. I promise you, I had no idea Miss Saunders meant to come here. It was her own idea entirely. Quite unexpected. I only followed when I discovered she’d gone.”

“Because?”

“Because it seemed Ihadset her off somehow. Through our conversations about you.”

“Have you turned matchmaker, Uncle?” Benjamin didn’t appreciate that notion.

“No indeed. Nothing so pedestrian. I only wanted to shake you up a bit.”

“Because?” Benjamin repeated, his temper stirred.

His uncle regarded him gravely. “There has been talk about your retreat from the world, Benjamin. More with each passing month. And about Geoffrey as well.”

He hated this idea as much as ever. “But instead of simply talking to me, you hatched this scheme.”

“I tried talking. Several times. After our dinner in London, I concluded that talking had little effect.”

Benjamin gazed at his older relative. He’d nearly forgotten that strange gathering. More precisely, he’d put it from his mind when he returned to his shuttered routine.

“And then I came across Miss Saunders,” his uncle continued. “And it seemed to me that she was particularly suited for…shaking.”

“How so?” Curiosity overcame Benjamin’s irritation.

“I’m not certain. Her quickness, her responses in conversation. Call it an instinct.”

“You’ve become remarkably cryptic, Uncle Arthur.”

“There’s a trick I’ve seen,” his august relative replied, gazing out the window at the garden. “Perhaps you have too. If you drag a magnet beneath a sheet of paper holding bits of iron, it pulls them into patterns. Without actually touching them at all.”

“What?”

His uncle laughed. “Don’t look as if I’ve gone daft. I promise I haven’t.”

Benjamin waited for him to go on. When he didn’t, Benjamin thought of pressing, but in the end, his uncle’s philosophical musings didn’t really matter. Miss Saunders was here, and he wasn’t…entirely sorry. “I’ve conceded that Geoffrey requires more care,” he said instead. “Miss Saunders and I have agreed to…consult about that. So if you have other business to attend to—”

“Nothing pressing,” his uncle interrupted cheerfully. Before Benjamin could reply, he added, “And I am a sort of chaperone, you know.”

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