Page 103 of A Duchess for his Family

Benedict looked away before his own expression betrayed him. “I fail to see what is so entertaining.”

“That is because you are determined not to.”

“I am glad you found the afternoon amusing.”

“Oh, I did.” The answer irritated him, though not as much as it should have done. Sophia stepped closer, still smiling. “Mr. Fairford is pleasant.”

“So it appears.”

“And very knowledgeable.”

“On several subjects.”

“You disapprove of his knowledge?”

“I disapprove of its duration.”

Her laughter threatened again. Benedict found himself watching her mouth. That was dangerous.

Sophia gathered her embroidery and passed him. The faint scent of roses at her wrists lingered in the air after she had gone. Benedict remained beside the open window, attempting to understand his own behavior.

Jealousy was the obvious explanation.

It was also absurd. His marriage to Sophia had been practical. He had offered her security, position, and a family in need of her kindness. Whatever tenderness had developed between them did not alter the nature of their arrangement.

It was not a real marriage, not in the sense marriages were described in poetry, novels, or vows spoken with more hope than caution.

He had no reason to resent Fairford for making Sophia smile. No reason to remember how closely the man had watched her. No reason to object to a borrowed book, a ruined abbey, or an invitation which had included them both. No reason to wonder whether Sophia might prefer a gentleman who discussed books easily and did not spend half his life forbidding things.

Fairford was nearer her age. He laughed readily. He listened without turning every conversation into an examination of risk and consequence. Perhaps Sophia would have found such a man easier to marry.

The thought entered Benedict with an unpleasant sharpness.

Rivermere changed since Sophia came to it. The house no longer seemed built entirely from silence. Neither, Benedict suspected, was he. Yet the thought of Fairford returning made something dark and unreasonable tighten beneath his ribs.

He did not want the man’s books in Sophia’s hands. He did not want her standing beside him at Belgrave, laughing over ruined angels and disorderly roses. Most of all, he did not want Fairford to discover how easy it was to make her laugh.

Benedict closed his eyes.

It was not Fairford’s face he saw. It was Sophia’s, bright with amusement in the afternoon light. He heard her laughter again, not the polite sound she had given their visitor, but the freer laughter which had escaped after Fairford left, the laughter Fairford had not heard. That should have satisfied him.

Instead, Benedict found himself wanting more. He wanted to be the cause of it.

And he could not stop wishing that every beautiful sound she made belonged only to him.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Sophia discovered at half past ten that modesty was of no help against seven pearl buttons placed directly between one’s shoulder blades.

She stood before the looking glass with one arm bent behind her and the other reaching awkwardly over her shoulder. Her fingertips found the uppermost button, pushed at it, lost it, and caught a strand of hair instead.

“Oh.”

The reflection staring back at her appeared flushed, disordered, and increasingly resentful of dressmakers. She gathered her loose hair over one shoulder and attempted the maneuver again. The button shifted within its narrow silk loop but refused to come free.

“Traitorous little thing.”

The pearl button shone with complete innocence.