Benedict's Challenge - Carole Mortimer Page 0,24

whipping to the forefront, Chloe was in all likelihood doing the same.

It ravaged Benedict inside and out, causing the food to churn from the acidity in his stomach, to know he was the reason Chloe had been beaten by Lord Gordon.

Not only was Benedict’s arrogance to blame for the incident occurring, but this evening, he had forced that truth out of Chloe without a single thought to the pain it might reawaken within her, emotional as well as physical.

Jimmy was right. He was a bastard. Not only that, but he was a selfish and unthinking one.

Benedict owed Chloe his apology. On his knees, if necessary.

He owed her so much more than that, but offering her his sincere apology would be a start.

Now?

There would be no rest for Benedict until he had made that apology, and he believed the same to be true of Chloe.

Was he behaving selfishly again to even be thinking of going to Chloe’s bedchamber? Putting his own need to tell Chloe how sorry he was ahead of her desire for the time and privacy to deal with her own feelings on the matter?

Benedict had to apologize, and it had to be done now if he was ever to find any peace, and hopefully comfort Chloe at the same time.

Chapter Nine

Chloe suspected who might be knocking on the door of her bedchamber some two hours after she had retired for the night.

Unless the house was on fire, only Benedict would have the audacity to come to her bedchamber this time of night.

But once she had got out of bed and opened the door to see a disheveled Benedict standing outside in the hallway, her eyes still widened. His hair was tousled, and he was dressed for bed, as she was, in his slippers and a long, dark brocade velvet robe, fitted across his wide shoulders and secured by a belt about his tapered waist.

“I have come to apologize to you.” The words burst forth from him, as if he had been repressing them for too long. “I had no idea that I would bring about such hardship to you that day. I should not have…” He ran a hand over his face. “Dear God, I felt gleeful as I tested the ability of one of my new medical instruments that day. I wished to know if it would be able to discern from listening to the rate of Gordon’s heartbeat whether he was lying to me when he denied there was a young lady living within his household.”

“And did it?”

“Yes!” Benedict groaned self-disgustedly. “But, selfishly, I did not think of the repercussions to you when I asked that question, saw it only as a confirmation of medical progress.” He looked pained. “Jimmy called me an arrogant bastard earlier, and he was right to do so, for that is exactly what I am. That day and this one. Certainly, there was very little of that kindness you have previously attributed to me tonight when I forced you to talk again of Gordon’s reprehensible behavior brought about by my actions.”

Chloe’s expression softened at his obvious anguish. “Lord Gordon never needed an excuse to whip or hit me,” she acknowledged ruefully. “And no matter what transpired before, you have now become my savior.”

“You would not have needed saving if I had not so thoughtlessly revealed that day I knew of your presence upstairs in Gordon House.”

She smiled sadly. “I have needed rescuing for the whole of the two years I have lived in Lord Gordon’s household. He… For some reason, he seemed to dislike me on sight the day we met at my parents’ funeral, and that dislike has deepened to hatred since he became my guardian.”

“You told me he was half brother to your father?”

“Yes, I…” Chloe repressed a shiver from the cold draught of the hallway. Her own robe was nowhere near as warm as his brocade velvet one. “Would you like to come inside?” She stepped back. “There is a fire burning in the hearth,” she encouraged when Benedict hesitated.

Chloe accepted, as an unmarried lady, it was not the correct thing to invite Benedict, a single gentleman, into her bedchamber late at night. But during their short acquaintance, she had already been half or fully naked in front of him, and the two of them had shared previously unknown intimacies just days ago. In those circumstances, it now seemed ridiculous for her to keep him standing in the cold hallway outside her bedchamber.

She gave another shiver as the