Page 44 of An Innocent Bride for the Duke

“What about new dreams, better dreams?” his friend questioned him. “A marriage should be built on its own foundations in any case, not imaginary ones from fairy stories.”

“Unless you are talking of the bedroom, I do not believe I have any dreams to offer a woman, Damien. I must be honest with Louisa on that point. I did not grow up in a happy family with a happy marriage at its heart and do not believe I could build one. You know that.”

“Is this is about what happened to your father and mother all those years ago, Benedict? Are you really still letting your past dictate your future?”

Benedict turned away again. How could he possibly expect Damien to understand? Damien knew only the version of the double tragedy that appeared in newspapers and was whispered about among schoolboys behind their masters’ backs.

Damien could never imagine being a child trying to protect his beloved mother against a raging monster who was also his father, and for so many years. He could not understand the depths of despair from having failed to save her. It was not only his parents’ deaths that had scarred and warped Benedict, it was their whole lives together.

“It does not presently feel as though my future is in my hands,” Benedict returned with forced evenness, gazing out of the window.

Keen to leave this conversation behind, his eyes settled on a still figure that moved steadily along one of the more distant paths and then paused there. Benedict could not make out much of the figure at this distance except to note that it appeared to be a tall, thin man.

There was something in the figure’s dress and attitude that made Benedict sure it was not a gardener nor gamekeeper going about estate business. His skin tingled with the threat of physical danger in a way he had rarely felt in adulthood. Likely, Damien had touched a nerve with his questions and Benedict was responding to that as much as to the figure on the path.

“Pass me that telescope, would you?” he asked his friend, gesturing to the window seat at the next window a few feet away, not wanting to take his own eyes from the stranger.

“Why?” Damien questioned, intrigued but slightly impatient too. “What is so interesting out there that you escape from our conversation into examining it more closely?”

Benedict only held out his hand until the telescope was placed into it. Peering into the lens and focusing it on the resting figure, he felt a strong jolt of alarm and then anger.

“The bloody cheek of the man!”

With the aid of the telescope, Benedict was now able to make out that the man outside was somewhere in his forties with blonde hair and a thin, sculpted face. He was not only looking towards the house, but actually doing so through a pocket telescope of his own - a deliberate and intentional spy!

“What? Let me see,” Damien said, coming now to stand beside him and taking the instrument.

“Standing there, spying on Rosemere, who the hell does he think he is?” fumed Benedict.

“Not one of the staff then?” Damien remarked, returning the telescope to Benedict and not seeming to feel anywhere near as troubled by the sight as Benedict.

“No. I rather suspect it is a neighbor, and that he is not someone who ought to be creeping around a widow’s estate and spying on the household. I ought to go outside now and have it out with him.”

“Dear me,” responded Damien, seeming taken aback by Benedict’s reaction. “You had better inform Lady Esher before you do anything rash, Benedict. Maybe there is an innocent explanation, in any case. He might be a naturalist looking out for birds and that path a local right-of-way.”

“Pigs might fly,” Benedict remarked cynically, his narrowed eyes still on the apparent trespasser, and his blood still up.

“I gather that you know this man?”

“I have come to know his handwriting rather too well since I’ve been here,” admitted Benedict. “Apparently this man once had some vague hopes towards Lady Louisa. I shall tell you a little more presently, but let us talk over our guns. I have a mind for some target practice this afternoon.”

Damien smiled and nodded his agreement.

“Very well, I am intrigued, but I hope you are not planning to shoot a man only because he might be spying on your betrothed?”

He could see that the question was meant largely in jest, but Benedict still felt the tensing of all his muscles and the increasing drumbeat of his heart in response. Pulling the bell to summon Harper and order the guns prepared, he hoped that the truth of his most vicious and primal instincts would not show on his face.

The Duke of Northwick knew very well that he likely could kill a man who merely threatened Lady Louisa’s safety. Whether he had intended to kill his father or not, he would always regret that he had not shoved the brute away from his mother only a few seconds earlier, before that fatal blow…

Next time, if ever there was a next time, he would not be too slow to act. Love was not within Benedict’s gift, but Lady Louisa could count on his protection.

“No, I only plan to scare this fellow off with the sound of shooting,” Benedict assured Damien, slipping the telescope into his pocket. “In any case, if his presence is innocent, he will likely be gone by the time we get near him. We might bag some rabbits down near that woodland too, and do the gamekeepers a favor.”

“You should have seen him jump at your first shot,” laughed Damien as they returned from the woodland a few hours later. “I’m glad I had the telescope to watch at close quarters, for I have scarcely seen such good comedy even on the London stage.”

“Good,” pronounced Benedict, his gun now disarmed and slung over his shoulder. “We have done good work this afternoon in keeping down the vermin at Rosemere, my friend.”

Having obtained a physical description of Lord Ashbourne from Harper earlier, he was now sure that this was the man lurking so suspiciously on the Rosemere path today. If so, Benedict wanted him frightened. He wanted him very frightened indeed.