An Offer From a Gentleman - Page 87/108

It didn’t escape him that aside from the nursery, the second floor was home to bedrooms for the higher servants. Including the lady’s maids.

Sophie.

She was probably off in some comer somewhere with her mending—certainly not in the nursery, which was the domain of nurses and nannies. A lady’s maid would have no reason to—

“Heeheeheehahaha!”

Benedict raised his brows. That was most definitely the sound of childish laughter, not something likely to come out of fourteen-year-old Hyacinth’s mouth.

Oh, right. His Wentworth cousins were visiting. His mother had mentioned something about that. Well, that would be a bonus. He hadn’t seen them in a few months, and they were nice enough children, if a little high-spirited.

As he approached the nursery door, the laughter increased, with a few squeals thrown in for good measure. The sounds brought a smile to Benedict’s face, and he turned when he reached the open doorway, and then—

He saw her.

Her.

Not Sophie.

Her.

And yet it was Sophie.

She was blindfolded, smiling as she groped her hands toward the giggling children. He could see only the bottom half of her face, and that’s when he knew.

There was only one other woman in the world for whom he’d seen only the bottom half of her face.

The smile was the same. The gamine little point at the end of her chin was the same. It was all the same.

She was the woman in silver, the woman from the masquerade ball.

It suddenly made sense. Only twice in his life had he felt this inexplicable, almost mystical attraction to a woman. He’d thought  it remarkable, to have found two, when in his heart he’d always believed there was only one perfect woman out there for him.

His heart had been right. There was only one.

He’d searched for her for months. He’d pined for her even longer. And here she’d been right under his nose.

And she hadn’t told him.

Did she understand what she’d put him through? How many hours he’d lain awake, feeling that he was betraying the lady in silver—the woman he’d dreamed of marrying— all because he was falling in love with a housemaid?

Dear God, it bordered on the absurd. He’d finally decided to let the lady in silver go. He was going to ask Sophie to marry  him, social consequences be damned.

And they were one and the same.

A strange roaring filled his head, as if two enormous seashells had been clapped to his ears, whistling, whining, humming; and the air suddenly smelled a bit acrid and everything looked a little bit red, and—

Benedict could not take his eyes off of her.

“Is something wrong?” Sophie asked. All the children had gone silent, staring at Benedict with open mouths and large, large eyes.

“Hyacinth,” he bit off, “will you please evacuate the room?”

“But—”

“Now!” he roared.

“Nicholas, Elizabeth, John, Alice, come along now,” Hyacinth said quickly, her voice cracking. “There are biscuits in the kitchen, and I know that...”

But Benedict didn’t hear the rest. Hyacinth had managed to clear the room out in record time and her voice was disappearing down the hall as she ushered the children away.

“Benedict?” Sophie was saying, fumbling with the knot at the back of her head. “Benedict?”

He shut the door. The click was so loud she jumped. “What’s wrong?” she whispered.

He said nothing, just watched her as she tore at the scarf. He liked it that she was helpless. He didn’t feel terribly kind and charitable at the moment.

“Do you have something you need to tell me?” he asked. His voice was controlled, but his hands were shaking.

She went still, so still that he would have sworn that he could see the heat rise from her body. Then she cleared her throat—an uncomfortable, awkward sort of sound—and went back to work on the knot. Her movements tightened her dress around her breasts, but Benedict felt not one speck of desire.

It was, he thought ironically, the first time he hadn’t felt desire for this woman, in either of her incarnations.

“Can you help me with this?” she asked. But her voice was hesitant.

Benedict didn’t move.

“Benedict?”

“It’s interesting to see you with a scarf tied around your head, Sophie,” he said softly.

Her hands dropped slowly to her sides.

“It’s almost like a demi-mask, wouldn’t you say?”

Her lips parted, and the soft rush of air that crossed them was the room’s only noise.

He walked toward her, slowly, inexorably, his footsteps just loud enough so that she had to know he was stalking her.  “I haven’t been to a masquerade in many years,” he said.

She knew. He could see it in her face, the way she held her mouth, tight at the corners, and yet still slightly open. She knew  that he knew.

He hoped she was terrified.

He took another two steps toward her, then abruptly turned to the right, his arm brushing past her sleeve. “Were you ever  going to tell me that we’d met before?”

Her mouth moved, but she didn’t speak.

“Were you?” he asked, his voice low and controlled.

“No,” she said, her voice wavering.

“Really?”

She didn’t make a sound.

“Any particular reason?”

“It—it didn’t seem pertinent.”

He whirled around. “It didn’t seem pertinent!” he snapped. “I fell in love with you two years ago, and it didn’t seem pertinent?”