Benedict's Challenge - Carole Mortimer Page 0,35

to glare at Julius. “The two of them have left here, the one still suffering from the bruises he received after being set upon by thugs, and Chloe, also having sustained injuries and with nowhere to go once she reaches London.”

“Presumably, they will stay together?” his friend suggested.

Benedict’s scowl deepened. “I sincerely hope not, having seen firsthand the conditions under which Jimmy was living before becoming a patient in my infirmary.”

Julius rose to his feet before addressing Carlton. “Could you please give our apologies to Cook? We shall not be requiring dinner this evening after all,” he said soothingly. “Perhaps you could have her prepare some cold cuts and bread instead, which we might eat during our ride to London on horseback?”

“I will see to it immediately, my lord.” The butler gave a bow before hurrying away.

Julius raised blond brows. “No point in taking your temper out on the staff, Benedict,” he reproved. “And what the hell did you say to Miss Gordon and Mr. Brown to have caused this reaction?”

“What did I say?” he snapped in frustration. “I believe it was your arrival, and my confessing the reason for it, which set this course of action in motion.”

Julius sighed. “You keep too much inside your own head, Benedict, without taking the feelings of others into consideration.”

“So I have heard, several times,” he snapped. “Now, could we perhaps stop dwelling on what you perceive to be my faults and instead go and change into our riding clothes so that we might follow, and hopefully apprehend, my rebellious guests before they disappear into the bowels of the slums of London?” Benedict threw the last of the whisky in his glass to the back of his throat before placing the empty glass on a side table.

Julius did likewise before the two men went upstairs to their respective bedchambers.

“Perhaps we should not have left without first telling Benedict of our plans?” Chloe ventured to the man seated across from her in the public coach as she held on to a leather strap situated on the roof above her. A single lamp lit the inside of the coach.

This early in the year, with the weather bitterly cold, both outside and inside the coach, and the sun having disappeared several hours ago, they were the only two people traveling in the public conveyance. It nevertheless smelled of unwashed bodies, with an underlying aroma of vomit, the latter no doubt spilled by several previous passengers as the coach swayed precariously from side to side. As it was doing now.

Chloe was also swaying from side to side, despite the aid of the leather strap. “It now seems rather ungrateful of us to have done so,” she added when Jimmy remained silent.

He looked at her with clear blue eyes. “What is your story, Chloe? And once it has been told, will your circumstances have changed in the slightest?”

Chloe thought of her age of only nineteen, of Lord Gordon’s guardianship of her until she was one and twenty. “No,” she acknowledged heavily.

Jimmy stared out into the blackness. “Nor will mine.”

“Who are you really?”

His smile was bitter. “I am Lord James Charles Malcolm Metford, the true Earl of Ipswich.”

Chloe gasped. “Then why—” She broke off, shaking her head. “I do not understand.”

“There is no reason why you should.” His expression hardened. “And if you tell another living soul what I just told you, I shall deny it to my last breath.”

“I would never betray your confidence,” she assured him.

“Why not?” he prompted curiously.

“Firstly, because I like you,” she told him warmly. “Secondly, because I am sure your reasons for demanding silence on the subject are valid ones.”

“They are, yes.” Jimmy’s voice had warmed and gentled.

At his silence on the subject, Chloe accepted those reasons were obviously ones Jimmy would prefer not to talk about. How could she not accept it when there were things about her own past she had not told anyone but Benedict?

A trust and confidence he had broken when he wrote to his friend Julius!

Perhaps.

Chloe now realized, the closer they came to reaching London, she had not given Benedict the opportunity earlier to defend himself on the subject before leaving his study.

And now she had left him completely and would possibly never see him again. She had decided to do so impetuously once she had spoken to Jimmy and learned he was leaving. But she had not thought those plans through properly, or what she was going to do once she reached London. Returning to Lord Gordon’s