Benedict's Challenge - Carole Mortimer Page 0,33
one of your oldest friends?”
Chloe stared curiously at the gentleman standing in the doorway.
He wore no hat, gloves, or overcoat, having presumably left them with Carlton when he arrived. He was very tall, with fair hair brushed back from his harshly etched features, and eyes of the deepest blue Chloe had ever seen. He had large but graceful hands. His black superfine was tailored to the muscular width of his shoulders and chest, with a dark blue waistcoat buttoned over a flat stomach, and pale gray pantaloons fitted to muscular long legs. His black Hessians were splotched with mud. Evidence he had arrived here on horseback?
He looked every inch the gentleman, from his stylishly overlong hair to his soft leather boots, as Chloe would have expected of a close friend of Benedict’s.
He turned that dark-blue gaze toward her. “Am I right in thinking you are Miss Chloe Gordon?”
She eyed him warily, not sure how he even knew of her existence, let alone her name. “I am, yes,” she confirmed slowly.
He nodded. “My name is Julius Soames, and I am pleased to meet you.”
“He is Lord Julius Soames and the Earl of Andover,” Benedict put in dryly.
“And I am still very pleased to meet you,” the earl said, mocking Benedict’s formality.
“Your Lordship.” Chloe affected a curtsey.
Benedict wasn’t sure he altogether cared for the way in which Julius was looking at Chloe. Almost as if she were a tasty morsel he was contemplating eating for his next meal.
Chloe was his, damn it. The woman he would protect with his life.
Not just because she was some random female he felt an obligation to protect, but because he had fallen in love with her?
Benedict believed that to be the case, yes.
After years of dismissing any thought of love, he had only to look at Chloe to know happiness. A happiness that, without him having realized it, told him Chloe had taken up residence inside his heart. She was his heart.
“So.” Julius straightened. “Shall we discuss my findings now, or will I wait until Mr. James Metford is able to join us?”
Benedict’s eyes narrowed. “That’s who Jimmy is, then?”
“Oh, indubitably.”
“Then why—”
“We should wait until we are all together to discuss either of the matters you requested me to look into further,” Julius agreed. “In the meantime, with your permission, I should like to go and pay my respects to Beatrix.”
“Of course.”
Chloe waited until the two men had bowed formally to one another and the Earl of Andover had left the study before speaking again. “How did the earl know my name? And what did he mean by discuss either of these matters?” She eyed him suspiciously. “Matters you apparently requested he look into on your behalf. One of the two was obviously Jimmy’s identity, but did the other one concern me?” Her voice rose in her agitation.
“Chloe—”
“No.” She stepped back as Benedict would have reached out to grasp her arm. “You asked a complete stranger—he is a complete stranger to me,” she insisted when Benedict would have protested, “to poke about in my private affairs. If you had wished to know more of my situation, then you should have asked me first. Instead, you chose to ask one of your friends to do so without my knowledge.”
“Chloe—”
“I said no!” She took another step away as he reached for her again, tears balanced precariously on her lower lashes. “You had no right to do that. None at all!” she choked out before turning on her heel and running from the room.
All Benedict could do was let her go.
And know that, because he had not been completely honest, he had once again pushed a wedge between himself and the woman he now knew he had fallen in love with.
Chapter Twelve
“Are your other guests merely tardy, or will neither of them be joining us for dinner at all?” Julius drawled as the two men sat in the drawing room, enjoying a glass of whisky together before dinner.
Benedict’s lips thinned. “I have a feeling it is going to be the latter. They are both exceedingly angry with me at the moment.” He grimaced.
Julius looked amused. “I did chance to hear shouting coming from your study when I returned from visiting Beatrix.” He eyed Benedict questioningly.
Benedict had felt that, after the way Chloe had reacted so badly to the reason for Julius’s arrival, he ought to explain the situation to Jimmy before he and Julius met later that evening at dinner. Jimmy’s immediate response had not been favorable, and he