But Miss Isabella Hilgrove was not the sort of woman to issue such a challenge, or to offer herself with such ease—if at all, he suspected.
A companionable silence fell between them then as they took their tea and consumed their biscuits. It was strangely comforting, the lack of speaking. There were no expectations, none of the endless weights and dreads that accompanied ordinary societal engagements. Instead, it was freeing. Almost familiar.
Too familiar.
He needed to put an end to this madness. Benedict finished his cup of tea, settling the saucer back down upon the table. And instead of deciding to resume their work for the day, he found himself wanting to continue this interlude.
“Perhaps now that we have shared tea and my chef’s delicious biscuits, you will cease referring to me as Your Grace,” he suggested.
She smiled sweetly. “The biscuits are indeed delicious, Your Grace, and I do thank you for the respite. However, they are not so delightful that they have caused me to vacate my sense of propriety.”
“You are, at this moment, alone with me in my private library,” he pointed out, irked with her for her tenacious insistence that she cling to her sense of propriety.
It was the wrong thing to say.
Her cheeks went pink. “Yes, and I thank you for the reminder of my lapse in judgment. I will return to my work forthwith.”
She stood.
He did as well, skirting the table to block her egress. “That is not what I intended and you know it.”
She looked panicked, rather like a wild creature who had just been run to ground by the hunter and all his hounds. “I cannot begin to know what you intend, Your Grace, but I am sure I should not like it.”
“Should not, or do not?” he dared to ask before he could think better of such a question.
Before he could question the wisdom of prolonging this moment between them.
Her pink lips parted, drawing his attention once more to the lush fullness of them. He burned to feel them beneath his. When had he ever wanted a woman as much as this delicious cipher before him?
“I ought to say both.” Her hands clasped the somber black of her skirts, suggesting her indecision.
He was suddenly keenly aware of his power. He stood before the door, and she was in his employ. By God, was he no better than a lecherous lord attempting to get beneath his servant’s skirts?
He would like to think not, for his relationship with Miss Hilgrove was not nearly as simplistic. First, she was not a servant. Second, her employment with him was limited. Five more days after this one. Third, he would eat his own damned hat if she did not feel the same intense desire simmering beneath the surface of their every encounter that he did.
“Go back to the library if you wish, Miss Hilgrove,” he forced himself to say, hoping she would not. “Or linger here. Be reckless, for just a moment.”
He had just issued an invitation for sin, and he knew it. He also knew he was behaving out of character. Indeed, he was behaving recklessly himself. His sister was beneath this roof, as were a host of servants. He could not very well attempt to debauch Miss Hilgrove here in the midst of the day. And yet, neither could he seem to let her go.
Spending more endless hours with her, engaged in reports, watching her fingers flying over the keys, seemed like torture.
She watched him solemnly. “I cannot afford to be reckless, Your Grace. I have a school to run, and many ladies dependent upon me. Thank you for the tea.”
With a curtsey, she was gone.
He watched her depart, frustration rising within him. She was right, of course, and he had been wrong to tempt either of them. But the scent of sweet soap and orris root lingered on the air after she fled, and he could not deny the longing coursing through him. The next few hours were going to be hell.
Chapter Six
Be reckless, for just a moment.
How tempting those words were. How tempting the man who had spoken them.
That single sentence, along with all the possibility behind it, had haunted Isabella through the interminable hours of work which followed their utterance. They had haunted her all evening long as she had returned to her school to oversee a new training class. They had haunted her during her quiet dinner. As she had lain awake in her bed, unable to sleep.
They haunted her now as she followed Young to the library for the third morning in a row.
Four more days, she told herself. Four more days, and then an endorsement in the Times. She would prove him wrong, and having the approval of the Duke of Westmorland, leader of the Special League, would be a massive boon. It was worth it, she told herself. She simply had to cease being a ninny.
The picture gallery was gloomier than normal today as they passed through, dozens of eyes memorialized in oil paints seemingly watching her with silent condemnation. Surely Westmorland’s ancestors could not guess at the tumult roiling within her.
This morning had dawned grim and gray and cold. She had shivered as she dressed, shivered all the way here, and her hands were still numb, although she had worn gloves and hidden them deep within her fur muff for the short journey. A hot brick at her feet had aided her toes. But she needed her hands to be warm for typing. She flexed her fingers at her sides as Young stopped at the door to the library.
“Miss Hilgrove, Your Grace,” the servant announced.
With a bow, he was gone, leaving Isabella alone to
