Benedict's Challenge - Carole Mortimer Page 0,7

up at angels and cherubs. Until she realized she was looking at the painted and ornate ceiling above her.

Where on earth was she?

“You are currently occupying a guest bedchamber in Winter House.”

Chloe turned her head to the side as her question was once again answered without, she was sure, her having asked the question.

She drew in a sharp breath as she found herself looking into the face of the man Mrs. Tailor had told her was Doctor Lord Benedict Winter.

Which, considering the name of the house, made sense.

The part that didn’t make sense was that Chloe appeared to be staying in his home. In one of his guest bedchambers lit by several candles. The darkness outside the windows told her it was nighttime.

But how—

Oh God, yes…!

Chloe closed her eyes again as the events of the past week came back to haunt her. The pleasure and inner warmth she had felt that day as she had stared at the handsome and confident Lord Benedict Winter. Then the price she had paid for having left her room. A punishment that had also resulted in her being fed only bread and water once she felt well enough to eat or drink at all.

Followed by the leap of hope a week later, after Mrs. Tailor had delivered her meager breakfast tray, but had once again forgotten to lock Chloe’s room before she returned to the kitchen to enjoy her own no doubt sumptuous breakfast with the rest of the household staff.

Chloe’s heart had been in her throat and beating far too fast as she gingerly opened the door before stepping out into the hallway and checking over the bannister of the gallery to see that the butler wasn’t standing at his usual post beside the front door. He was no doubt also enjoying a full breakfast with his fellow employees. Whatever the reason for his absence, it had allowed Chloe to quietly open the front door and make good her escape.

It had only been once she was a safe distance away from Gordon House and sure no one was following her that Chloe had realized she should have taken one of Lord Gordon’s cloaks to wear over her short-sleeved gown. She had quickly learned the error, her thin gown completely inappropriate against icy cold and wet weather.

Something else Chloe also hadn’t considered when she made her great escape was that she had nowhere else to go. No one she could go to. That she didn’t know anyone who lived in London, nor did they know her.

Except Lord Benedict Winter.

With only that faint glimmer of hope to cling to, Chloe had asked a passerby for directions to Winter House, logically hoping that if Lord Gordon lived at Gordon House, then hopefully, Lord Benedict lived at Winter House.

The relief Chloe had felt was immense when the gentleman she asked for those directions, after the briefest of frowning glances at her unsuitable attire and bedraggled appearance, had then instructed her on how best to reach Winter House.

Although there had still been the possibility it was not the home of Lord Benedict at all but that of another gentleman with the last name of Winter.

Chloe vaguely remembered hurrying through the wet roads and drizzling rain until she was looking up at the huge three-story white house with the nameplate Winter House attached to the brickwork near the front door. A huge and imposing front door which, after a glance down at her disheveled appearance, Chloe decided was not for the likes of her. Rather, she went down the lane at the side of the house and through a gate that led to a path which meandered through the garden to the back door.

It was after this that things became a little hazy. She vaguely remembered a tall and imposing gentleman in livery opening the door into the kitchen, her mumbling something about needing to see Lord Winter. Chloe had been hit with such a wave of relief once the man had hurried off down the garden in search of his employer that it was quickly followed by dizziness and then total blackness.

Chloe had no idea how much time had elapsed since then, nor the reason she was currently lying in a comfortable bed in one of the guest bedchambers at Winter House wearing only a night rail.

Oh God, did that mean someone had removed her clothes? That they had seen—

“I am the one who carried you up to this bedchamber and undressed you,” Benedict, seated in the chair