Benedict's Challenge - Carole Mortimer Page 0,29
happily join you.”
Beatrix’s smile widened. “Thank you, I will.”
“Brown.” Benedict tipped his head in the direction of the doorway leading out to the stairs.
Jimmy gave him a mock salute. “I’ll see you again soon, Lady Beatrix. Perhaps next time, we can play a duet on the piano together.”
Benedict’s eyes narrowed. “You play the piano as well as sing?”
“I do, yes.” The younger man raised challenging eyebrows.
Benedict’s nostrils flared. “You are very accomplished for a man who, until two weeks ago, was living—”
“As you said, we should leave Lady Beatrix to rest now,” Jimmy cut in before preceding Benedict out into the hallway. He turned to him. “You—”
“Not here,” Benedict told him firmly as he continued on his way down the hallway and wide staircase. He didn’t stop until he reached the privacy of his study, at which point he waited for Jimmy to precede him into the room before closing the door behind the two of them. “You completely disobeyed my instruction in regard to visiting the east wing,” he immediately accused.
“Grateful as I am for your having brought me here to convalesce,” Jimmy bit out tersely, “it does not give you the right to tell me what I can or cannot do now that I am here.”
“This is my estate and home, and you are my guest—”
“I am also a grown man of six and twenty, and I will not be ordered about by you or anyone else,” Jimmy insisted.
“You had absolutely no right to trespass into the east wing after I had explicitly told you not to do so.” Benedict’s voice rose.
“I have the right of one human being who is concerned for the well-being of another.” Jimmy’s voice was even higher and louder.
“Exactly what do you mean by that?” Benedict’s chest expanded with indignation as he drew himself up to his full height.
The younger man shrugged. “I had thought I was making a joke the day we arrived and I asked if you were keeping your insane wife hidden away in the east wing. But it would seem that’s exactly what you’re doing. Not that Lady Beatrix is in the least mad, of course, but you are most definitely hiding her away.” He glared accusingly at Benedict. “I believe I can guess why, but I certainly cannot condone it.”
“You believe you can guess why?” Benedict repeated in a barely controlled voice.
The younger man eyed him with disgust. “Lady Beatrix is a lovely woman, inside and out, and I deplore anyone for thinking differently—” He broke off with a choking gurgle as Benedict used his hand about Jimmy’s throat to press him up against the wall of books.
“I do not think differently,” Benedict told him harshly.
Jimmy grimaced. “All evidence to the contrary.”
“You know nothing about this situation. As I told you, it is Beatrix’s choice to shut herself away.”
“And why would a young and lovely woman ever choose to remove herself from every pleasure of society?”
Benedict’s eyes narrowed. “Not because of anything I have said or done, I assure you.”
“As I said, all evidence to the contrary.”
“I do not at all care for your tone.”
“And I do not at all care for your having shut away an innocent woman just because—”
“Choose your next words very carefully,” Benedict warned in a dangerously soft voice.
Jimmy continued to glare at him. “Because you are the one who is ashamed of her.”
“You fucking ingrate!” Benedict released the other man’s throat before clenching his hand into a fist and letting fly.
Jimmy, unable to move fast enough, gave a pained gasp when that fist made contact with his jaw. “Arrogant bastard!” He bent at the waist to plough his shoulder into Benedict’s abdomen.
The momentum caused both men to crash onto the desktop, knocking several items onto the floor as they wrestled for dominance, both of them so lost to the aggression of the moment that neither of them heard the study door open.
“What on earth is going on here?” Chloe quickly entered the room and shut the door behind her. “Your raised voices can be heard all over the house.” Her eyes widened as she saw the two men fighting on the desktop.
She hadn’t been able to hear the actual words they were shouting at each other. It had been enough to hear their raised voices as she walked through the entrance hall, having just returned from her daily walk.
She left an openmouthed Carlton holding her cloak, bonnet, and gloves, that poor man obviously as startled at the sound of those raised voices as