Chapter 5

Emily liked visiting, and she disliked murder. These, she felt, were not controversial opinions.

As she sat in the parlor with her sisters and the Earl of Moore, however, she found that visiting was a misery, and murder was sounding oddly appealing.

Amanda and the Earl, for their part, seemed to be having a perfectly lovely time. Amanda was doing a perfect impression of someone who hadn't touched an amphibian in the last twenty-four hours, and the Earl was playacting as a gentleman instead of showing his true form, that of the Patron Saint of Annoying Behavior.

Rose appeared to be having a moderately fine experience. She'd stuck her head into the room moments after Amanda, Emily, and the Earl had entered, had murmured a low, "Oh dear," and had promptly set herself up as a barrier between Emily and the conversing couple. Rose was occasionally contributing to the conversation but reserved most of her attention for the sketchbook in her lap.

Emily was trying to follow her little sister's example—and wasn't that something she'd never expected to do—but she was less attending to her embroidery and more stabbing frustratedly at a piece of fabric.

She was simply so furious with that awful, awful, awful man!

And, even worse, her mind kept insistently returning to the low, shivery cadence of his voice when he'd said words like authority and command. And how he'd looked when he'd leaned in close to her. The way she'd felt delicate and oddly protected when he'd loomed over her.

This was, quite obviously, insane. She was clearly going insane.

"…don't you think, Emily?" Rose was asking.

Emily's head jerked up. She prayed she wasn't blushing as she forced a pleasant smile to her face.

"Sorry, darling, what was that? I was plotting some stitchwork." She waved her embroidery circle aimlessly. The Earl quirked an eyebrow as if to say he knew she was lying.

He didn't, of course. Even suspecting that was insane. And Emily didn't have time to go insane, not when she had her sisters to mind.

Rose gave her a terse look, her turned back hiding the expression from Amanda—who looked far too gleeful for Emily's comfort—and the Earl.

"Don't you think it's unlikely that the rumor about a ball where everyone must attend on horseback is true?" Rose asked sweetly.

It was a monumental struggle to keep her smile from slipping. Emily knew that rumor was false because Amanda was the one who kept trying to get it going. She'd read a gossip item—Emily really needed to find a better hiding place for the papers—wherein a highly intoxicated young lord had attempted to ride his horse into the middle of an assembly. Amanda had become obsessed with the potential hilarity of a ballroom full of horses. When Emily had told her point-blank that she would be dead in the ground before she allowed such a thing at Drowton House, Amanda had taken to bandying the idea about as rumor in the hopes that someone with more authority over their own ballroom would overhear the idea, decide it sounded like good fun, and make it a reality.

This was the kind of thing Emily had to deal with.

"I think," she said, locking eyes with Amanda, who was barely managing not to giggle, "that such a thing is highly unlikely and would be, if real, extremely impractical and irresponsible, not to mention likely to result in considerable damage to person and property."

Amanda stuck her tongue out at Emily though she managed to arrange her face back into a mask of demure politeness before the Earl turned back to face her.

"I suppose so," she sighed. "The rumor mill is truly the oddest thing, is it not? Why, I recently read…"

Emily ceased listening as Amanda turned to a far more likely—and far more appropriate—conversation about a sailing competition that was interrupted by a flock of cantankerous geese. It was not quite genteel talk of fashion and Society, but Emily would take what she could get.

Besides, she thought with a tiny smile, if Amanda was trying to rile her, it likely meant that her little sister was starting to forgive her for the previous night's antics. And if she was focused on riling Emily, it meant she was not overly serious about the Earl of Moore.

And that was a good thing. Because Emily wasn't entirely certain what to make of this tall, brooding earl, who was frustratingly difficult one minute and effortlessly charming the next, but she did know one thing.

The sooner he was out of their lives, the better.

After his visit to the Rutley sisters, Benedict returned to his house feeling curiously drained of energy. He wanted to blame his sudden exhaustion on Miss Emily Rutley and her endless argumentativeness, but as the visit had stretched on, he'd found himself wishing for more of her arguments, oddly enough. He'd been strangely disappointed when she'd sat there quietly, massacring her embroidery.

He shouldn't feel that way. He should feel pleased that the woman had finally seen sense and had left him to his perfectly aimable conversation with Miss Amanda.

Except…

Well, it had been a bit boring, hadn't it?

Miss Amanda, with the occasional interjection from her twin, had kept up a perfectly suitable conversation. She'd put forth perfectly reasonable questions about his life and work and had offered responses that were polite and thoughtful. But he'd seen no true spark of interest in her, except for when she was talking about that strange bit about the horses.

And he'd certainly felt no spark of interest when she'd talked about things she'd read in the gossip columns.

Pretending to feel that spark when it didn't exist had been far more tiring than he'd anticipated. And, worse, he'd spent the whole time fighting to keep his eye from wandering back to Miss Emily, fighting to keep his mind from wandering back to their unfinished argument or the way she'd bitten that plump lip of hers…

He threw open his front door with more violence than was strictly necessary. He wasn't going to think about it now, either. He was going to return to his study and attend to the day's work and leave the thorny tangle of courtship for tomorrow. Or several days from now. Next week at the latest.

"Oh, there you are, Benedict!"

Or perhaps, he realized with a barely stifled sigh, he was going to deal with his mother.

Benedict supposed that deep, deep down, he probably loved his mother. She was his mother! People loved their mothers, didn't they? He found, however, he had to admit that he sometimes struggled to access that love for his mother, given her persistent conviction that the world was against her and that it was Benedict's job to both hear her (endless) complaints on the subject and to resolve her (unceasing) woes.

"Hello, mother," he said, not bothering to conceal the weariness in his tone. It didn't matter. No matter what he did, no matter how he acted, his mother would find a way to be sour about it.

As gossip told it, the Dowager Countess of Moore had been considered a great beauty in her day; it was her bewitching green eyes and thick raven tresses that had lured the previous Earl of Moore into her orbit. Despite marrying a rich, titled man who thought she hung the moon, Priscilla Hoskins had long suffered the abiding conviction that her beauty should have earned her something more in life.

She had spent all of Benedict's life searching for this ‘something more,' usually in the arms of other men—both before and after her husband's passing. Benedict had been only eleven when he first heard the rumors that he was not his father's son in truth, though the late Earl, who had never once looked upon Benedict with suspicion, had been quick to put end to those rumors.

"Who on earth told you such nonsense?" asked the Earl angrily, furrowing the strong brows that would appear on Benedict's own visage a few years later as he entered his adulthood. "I shan't have you listening to a word of that, Ben. I shan't."

And he hadn't. He'd heard it again, of course, but he'd not listened. To Benedict, his father's word was absolute; he'd never been given reason to doubt it. When the late Earl had died some five years prior, leaving Benedict a titled lord at one and twenty, he'd felt his father's loss like a hammer blow to the head.

Priscilla had scarcely seemed to notice.

Benedict supposed he could see traces of that beauty who had captured and broken his father's heart in the pinched visage of the annoyed woman who stood before him. It was hard, but he supposed he could manage it.

"Where in the good Lord's name have you been?" his mother cried dramatically as if Benedict was a child who had escaped from the nursery and not fully grown. "You are always gone, Benedict. Why are you always gone?"

Benedict handed off his hat and coat to his butler, who did not so much as blink at the Dowager Countess' high, plaintive whine. The staff, alas, was well accustomed to such theatrics.

"I was paying a call," he said shortly, knowing his mother wouldn't probe further. She didn't really care where he'd been, no matter what her question implied. What she cared about was that he hadn't been available the moment she wanted him. "Can I help you with something?"

He started walking into the house, knowing she would follow.

"I should think so!" his mother huffed, close on his heels. "It's my allowance, Benedict. It's a disgrace. A disgrace! Do you mean to shame me in front of all my friends? Are you hoping to give me fits? Because if I have to be seen in the ancient fashions that I have in my wardrobe for one moment longer, I shall have fits. And then you shall have to send me to one of those sanatoriums on the Continent, so I can take in the healing waters. But maybe that is your plan! Perhaps this is your plan to get rid of me."

Benedict stopped walking—not because he wished to give credence to this absurdity but because he had nearly reached his study, and if she entered his study, he would have to practically pry her out with a crowbar.

The hallway was, to its credit, a much less comfortable place for a lengthy session of complaints.

"Mother," he said, digging deep into his reserves of patience as he turned to face her, "I am not trying to get rid of you."

His mother's lips were pursed so tight that one might have thought she'd been sucking on a lemon.

"You have a funny way of showing it," she said prissily.

He sighed then looked directly at her for the first time since he'd entered the house. His brow furrowed.

"Mother," he said, "you are wearing a new gown right this moment."

He knew this was the case because she had gone on and on about something to do with the lace trim and how Lady Something-or-Other had clearly stolen her ideas.

His mother could not have looked more shocked if he'd slapped her directly across the face.

"Benedict, don't be ridiculous," she gasped. "This gown is months old."

"Months," he said flatly. He was nearly certain the shirt he was currently wearing was at least two years old, and while gentlemen's fashion did admittedly change more slowly than that of ladies, he struggled to believe that a gown that was only a few months old could be as horrendously out of date as his mother had so clearly implied.

The Dowager either missed his tone or chose to ignore it.

"Yes!" she cried triumphantly. "Months! And you wouldn't have me look the fool in front of the ton, would you, Benedict?"

Benedict had so many potential responses to that.

He could point out that he knew, as an absolute matter of fact, that not all of the ladies of the ton, not even all the ones considered fashionable, had new gowns on a monthly basis. He could point out that there were ways to alter dresses to suit new fashions rather than acquiring an entirely new frock and that this, too, was accepted practice among Society women.

He could point out that accosting people in hallways with outlandish accusations of them trying to drive one to madness over allowances was far more foolish than any gown could ever be.

He said none of this. There was no point. His mother had long since proven that she was not beholden to such forces as logic or reason.

Instead, he made his voice as cold and firm as it could go and said, "Mother. No, you are being ridiculous, and the allowance I give you is not paltry. Surely you realize the money of the estate has to go to more than satisfying your endless vanity."

He hadn't really expected it to work. It never worked. But it still felt like a piercing knife to his skull when his mother clasped her hands in front of her and let her lower lip quiver.

Her eyes, however, he noticed, were entirely dry.

"I see," she said, voice wavering. It physically pained Benedict not to roll his eyes. "I see how you think of me. And why shouldn't you disdain me? I am merely your mother, the only parent you have left living, and you are merely my only child. Why should I deserve your forbearance? I am but a woman, left to drift aimlessly in the world of men, entirely dependent on their sympathy and charity—such as it is."

An agonizing headache was radiating from behind Benedict's left eye. It could scarcely be later than noon, and he already felt that this day had gone on forever. He rubbed his temples and ignored his mother. Sometimes ignoring her was the best route to get her to stop her nonsense. Or if not the best route, the one that at least annoyed Benedict the least.

Today, however, his mother was in rare form.

"I've no husband," she lamented, his lack of response not hindering her speech in the least. She'd produced a handkerchief from somewhere and was now dabbing furiously at her still dry eyes. "And I shall never have means of attracting one, now that I am fated to be dressed in rags for all my days."

The Dowager had, Benedict knew, no intention of seeking a second husband; she'd scarcely been interested in the first. But logic would hold no sway when she got into this mood where her primary motivation was melodrama for melodrama's sake.

Rags for all her days, he thought, not even resisting rolling his eyes. Honestly. What had he done to deserve this histrionic nonsense constantly being cast at his feet? He felt his lip curl in disgust at the bereft act his mother was putting on.

"I shall just be a lonely, dried-up old woman, cast aside by those to whom she gave her youth," the Countess went on. "Unloved, unwanted?—"

"Mother." Benedict had lost his patience. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Stop, I beg you. I will increase your allowance if you just leave me in peace."

Part of him hated to give in to her. Surely that would only make things worse, would only make her continue to act like a spoiled child who had been denied a sweet. But he simply could not take it anymore, the whining and the pretend tears.

It was all so bloody typical, he thought scornfully. Why did women insist on thinking that men would be moved by their pathetic displays? Did they not realize it only generated irritation and disdain?

"Oh!" chirped Priscilla, face suddenly bright as morning.

So much for the tears, Benedict thought, shaking his head disgustedly. He didn't voice the thought aloud, however; doing so would just prolong this miserable interview and that was the last thing he wanted.

"Well, yes, darling, that would be wonderful," Priscilla went on cheerfully, as if the whole thing had been Benedict's idea to begin with. "I do thank you, you know I do. I know just the thing that will suit. I have a wonderful outing planned with a gentleman next week, did I tell you about that? I will want to look my finest, naturally."

This was the last thing Benedict wanted to hear. He held up a quelling hand.

"Mother, please," he said. "I would prefer not to know about your…suitors. And do please try to be inconspicuous. I would hate to see our family name in the gossip columns again. Just…subtlety. It's all I ask."

Priscilla trilled out a little laugh, like Benedict was being charmingly clever.

"Oh, my dear," she said with a teasing shake of her head. "You needn't be so stuffy. Everyone needs companionship, you know."

The headache was behind both Benedict's eyes now. Forget a quiet room, he was going to need to lie down with a cool compress, like a fainting maiden in a sensational story. For Christ's sake.

"I am not telling you to avoid all companionship," he explained wearily. "I am merely asking for some discretion."

Now that she'd gotten what she wanted, however, his mother refused to be anything but happy.

"Oh, Benedict," she laughed again. "You really need to relax."

She was already walking away; she had no further use for him. As a parting shot, however, she threw a last comment over her shoulder.

"Perhaps you ought to seek some companionship of your own."

And with that suggestion—horrifying from one's mother, truly—she was gone.