When Benedict got close enough, he reached out and grabbed Charlotte’s wrist. “Come. Now,” he ordered. Charlotte turned and followed him across the dance floor, looking back at her sister with a sheepish grimace. Arabella’s mouth pursed with sympathy.
Charlotte’s best guess was that Benedict was unhappy about William’s proposal, and this was confirmed when they walked past him, waiting in the hallway like a schoolboy waiting for the principal. It was hard not to laugh at him, when usually he seemed so in charge of everything.
Benedict shut the door. The room was hazy with smoke. She breathed in the tobacco, coughing almost instantly. “It smells horrible in here.”
“Do you think there might be a reason I have picked up my cigar?” he asked. “You and Holdford have caused me an enormous headache.”
Charlotte swallowed her rebuttal and stilled, folding her arms gently in front of her, because he didn’t look like he was finished talking yet. When he got angry, sometimes it was best to just let him get it out of his system before provoking him further. A vein in his forehead rose to the surface. It often had when he was angry. Charlotte had always hated the look of his mad vein.
“You do not seem surprised that he is out there,” he said.
“I knew as much,” she said. “We have both discussed this since.”
“When did you see him since?”
“Benedict,” she shook her head. “Let us leave it there, but be assured that nothing untoward occurred.”
He looked down his nose at her, exhaling sharply. “You have made a mockery of marriage and yet now you expect my blessing?” he asked. “How can I extend my blessing to someone who seems so unprepared for the challenges of married life?”
“Everyone is unprepared for the challenges.”
Benedict’s lip tugged back and his eyes narrowed. “Not as much as you, Charlotte.”
“Okay,” she said. “So then what surprised you?”
He crossed his arms and leaned back against his desk. He pondered her question for a moment, most likely wondering what her point in asking even was. “I did not initially realize how much of an opinion Mary Ann would have.”
Charlotte nodded. “That makes sense. She seems very soft spoken until she no longer is,” she said.
He widened eyes. “About everything. The color of our dinner, the length of the curtains, the precise distance the bed must be from—”
“Oh God,” Charlotte faked a retch. “Spare me the details of your bed.”
“You cannot even talk about a bed without flushing like a child!” he pointed out.
Charlotte rolled her eyes because he truly had no idea what sinful things she had done and would do again. She simply didn’t want to talk abouthisbed. “I have not been so polite to Lord Holdford. In fact, because we began our courtship as rivals, he has seen the most unattractive parts of me, and yet he is still waiting on the other side of that door. We are bound to disagree about something, and so when we do we will meet each other with respect and solve our issues as they come.”
Benedict sighed, shaking his head and clenching his eyes shut. “Do you love him?”
“I do.”
“Properly, fully, devotedly?”
“Devotedly…” she rolled the word around in her cheek and frowned. “As embarrassing as it is to say so, yes.”
Benedict looked down at the floor. Even he knew how impossible something like that could be for her to admit. She had a lot of pride and had spoken with great certainty about things her whole life. To admit that she was wrong was incredibly embarrassing, but yet it felt as if the birdcage she had locked herself in was finally open, and she had an entire world to explore.
“Please,” Charlotte said. “Give him your blessing. I have never been more certain about anything in my entire life.”
Benedict sighed, closing his eyes and rubbing his face with his open palm as if to wipe his indecision away. “I wish father were here to make this decision for me.”
Charlotte swallowed hard and looked at her feet. “It is funny,” she said. “How I am so desperate to make my own decisions, and you, having the power to make them yourself, wish to relinquish that.”
“Not always,” he said. “Only when my choices will affect the whole of my family. It is not easy to commit to a lifetime.”
Charlotte nodded, having understood the sentiment very well. “So how did you finally decide to marry Mary Ann?”
He looked off across the room, his eyebrows slanted in recollection. “This is different,” he said. “It is different. Mary Ann never courted me in jest.”