Benedict's Challenge - Carole Mortimer Page 0,8
beside the bed, softly answered the panic he could now see flitting across his guest’s expressive face.
Eyelids few wide again as she looked at him with those deep and mesmerizing blue eyes.
Anger burned within him when he saw the fear in their depths. “I will not harm you, nor will I allow anyone else to do so,” Benedict stated gruffly.
Some of her terror faded, but it did not go away completely. “How long have I been here?”
“Only since this morning,” he answered. “You seemed more in need of warmth and sleep than occupying a bed in the infirmary I keep for my patients at the back of this house. Although I have applied salve and dressings where necessary,” he added briskly. “My housekeeper has also been keeping a broth warmed and ready for you to eat once you were awake enough to enjoy it.”
Chloe was aware that there were several things His Lordship had missed out of that explanation.
Firstly, Benedict Winter did not ask how she came to be at his home at all this morning, in need of warmth and sleep.
Secondly, he did not enquire as to how she had come by the injuries that had needed his attention.
He had also made reference to having an infirmary at the back of this house. If that was the case, then why had he chosen to bring her into his home and have his housekeeper stand in readiness to provide her with hot broth?
“I warn you against attempting to think up some lie to tell me in regard to your condition,” he now stated bluntly. “I may not know your name as yet, but I know exactly where you were residing until a week ago. And with whom,” he added in a hard voice. “Look at me,” he demanded when Chloe’s gaze shifted sideways. “What is your connection to Lord Gordon?”
She swallowed round the sudden lump that had formed in her throat. “Might I please have some water to drink?” She hoped that was what was inside the jug on the side table, a glass beside it, both just temptingly out of her reach.
“Of course.” Lord Benedict poured some of the water into the glass. He moved to place his arm about her shoulders as he helped her sit up enough to be able to drink it.
The water tasted like the purest nectar to Chloe’s parched throat.
She also became totally aware of the strength of the man standing beside her, and could breathe in his light cologne and male musk.
“I am still waiting for an answer,” Lord Winter demanded after he had gently helped her to once again lie back against the pillows.
Chloe stared at him, not wanting to admit she even had a connection to such a monster as Lord Gordon.
Winter sighed his impatience with her silence. “How old are you?”
“Nineteen.”
Yet another young woman aged nineteen, the same age as the missing niece Gabriel was now searching for. “Where were you born?” Benedict demanded.
She blinked at the fierceness of his tone. “Ireland. My mother was Irish, my father English,” she added when he raised one dark brow in a demand for further information.
“You do not have an Irish lilt to your voice.”
She shrugged narrow shoulders. “That is because I was only born in Ireland, at the home of my maternal grandparents, and shortly thereafter, my parents returned to their own home in England. My Irish grandparents have since died, and I never knew my father’s parents,” she added sadly.
“Nevertheless, you will tell me their names.”
She looked away. “If you will just return my gown to me,” she murmured, “I will then be able to leave here and—”
“Your gown is destroyed beyond repair,” Benedict dismissed harshly. “I had to cut it off you so that I might attend to your…wounds,” he explained at her shocked expression.
Chloe’s heart began beating so fast and loud at the thought of this man seeing those unsightly stripes upon her bottom and the tops of her legs, she felt as if that organ was about to jump out of her chest.
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “Then perhaps I might borrow a gown from a member of your staff so that I can be on my way? Or—or perhaps one of your wife’s gowns she no longer needs or wants?” Until that moment, it hadn’t occurred to her that this gentleman could be married. But, as he was probably aged in his early thirties, it should perhaps have done so.
“I am unmarried.”