Benedict's Challenge (Regency Club Venus 3) Read online

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Newsletter and Social Media Links

  About the Author

  Other books by Carole Mortimer

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2020 Carole Mortimer

  Cover Design Copyright © Glass Slipper WebDesign

  Editor: Linda Ingmanson

  Formatter: Glass Slipper WebDesign

  ISBN: 978-1-910597-84-2

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All Rights Reserved.

  Dedication

  My husband, Peter

  Chapter One

  Late January, 1819

  Gordon House, London

  If asked later, Benedict knew he would have no explanation as to why, as he handed his hat, cloak and gloves to Lord Henry Gordon’s butler, he also lifted his gaze up to the gallery above the entrance hall.

  Fate, perhaps?

  Whatever had caused Benedict to make that glance upward, it felt as if by doing so he tilted his world upon its axis, as he found himself unable to look away from the most exquisitely beautiful young woman he had ever set eyes upon.

  Her fingers gripped two of the carved oak balusters as she pressed her face against them. Her arms were bare and delicate. A cluster of golden curls surrounded a heart-shaped face as pale as the finest porcelain. But most startling of all were the deepest blue eyes Benedict had ever had the pleasure of gazing into.

  To Benedict, she most resembled an angelic being, much like those painted on some of the ceilings in churches Benedict had once visited while traveling in Italy.

  Impossible to see her figure when she was down on her knees, but he believed her hands and face indicated her to be both slender and young.

  Benedict sincerely hoped she was already a woman and not still a girl, considering the manner in which his cock had completely engorged the moment he set eyes upon her.

  Before he could enquire of the butler as to exactly who she was, there was a flutter of movement behind the golden-haired angel as an older woman dressed completely in black grasped hold of one of those thin arms. She hissed several inaudible words as she pulled the angel to her feet.

  No doubt bruising her skin in the process, Benedict realized with a scowl.

  The older woman continued to mutter words Benedict could not hear as she dragged the young woman away from the gallery. In the process, unfortunately, also removing her from Benedict’s sight.

  Who the hell could that exquisite woman be?

  A maid in Lord Gordon’s household, perhaps?

  She had not been dressed in the uniform of a maid, her gown having been a swirl of blue silk before she was pulled out of sight.

  As far as Benedict was aware, Lord Gordon did not have a wife, nor was he known to have any children, legitimate or otherwise.

  Benedict was especially grateful the delectable creature could not be Gordon’s wife; otherwise, he might have to quietly and quickly dispose of the older man and so make her a widow.

  What the hell…?

  Benedict did not have the luxury of such impetuous thoughts as those, let alone the freedom to act upon them. His life, by necessity, was one of careful thought and control. It was his way of preventing people from delving too closely into his life, both here in London and at his country estate in Surrey; most especially his estate in Surrey! It was these traits which had earned him the reputation in Society as being a cold and arrogant gentleman.

  “Doctor Lord Benedict Winter,” Gordon’s butler announced as Benedict swept into the drawing room.

  Lord Gordon made no attempt to get up from where he lay prostrate on a couch. Nor did the latter’s putrid shade of green in the least flatter the older man’s florid complexion and the bruises on his face and neck, both sustained when he was attacked the previous evening.

  Lord Gordon was a regular visitor at Club Venus, which catered to gentlemen’s carnal needs and was owned by one of Benedict’s three close friends, the Duke of Blackborne. The previous evening, Lord Gordon had been attacked and beaten after leaving the club. As the doctor Blackborne retained to care for the health of the ladies residing there, Benedict had also tended to Lord Gordon after the attack, with the added promise of visiting the older man today to ensure he had suffered no delayed ill effects. The man was aged in his sixties, after all.

  “Any news as to who did this to me, Winter?” Gordon demanded in lieu of a greeting.

  Benedict was accustomed to such rudeness as this being shown toward him simply because he had chosen to enter a profession. It was the reason he preferred to treat the poor and those ladies resident at Club Venus. Many in Society assumed that because Benedict had trained as a physician, this now put him on the same social standing as a tradesperson.

  Those who made such an erroneous assumption were swiftly shown the error of their ways. As Lord Henry Gordon was about to be.

  Benedict looked down the length of his haughty nose at the older man. “I do not believe we are acquainted well enough for you to address me with such familiarity, Lord Gordon. To you, I am, and always shall be, Lord Winter or Doctor Winter.” He placed his black bag down on the side table and began to take out the instruments needed for the examination. “Nor can I look at the bruises on your torso and arms when you remain fully clothed,” he added pointedly.

  “No need to get on your high horse, old chap,” Lord Gordon blustered as he sat up to remove his coat and waistcoat. The removal of his shirt revealed the soft and excess flesh beneath. “I was only being friendly.”

  “I am very particular as to whom I take into the small circle I call friends,” Benedict informed the older man loftily. “Be assured you are not one of those people,” he announced without apology.

  Lord Gordon’s face became even more florid as his temper rose. “Arrogant bastard, ain’t ya, just because you’re acquainted with Prinny and your closest friends are two earls and a duke.”

  “I do not believe you know Prinny well enough to address him with such familiarity either. Nor, I assure you, does my arrogance have anything to do with my choice of friends,” Benedict scorned. “I merely know myself to be of superior breeding and education compared to you.” He showed little or no emotion as he listened to Lord Gordon’s heart before inspecting the man’s bruises.

  Lord Gordon harrumphed before returning to his original subject. “Is Blackborne any closer— Is the Duke of Blackborne any closer,” he corrected at Benedict’s reproving scowl, “to finding the men who did this?”

  As of last night, Benedict knew Gabriel had not yet succeeded in apprehending the attackers.

  And Benedict had forgotten, after seeing that angel peering at him from abovestairs, that helping to discover who had hired the thugs who had carried out the beatings outside Club Venus was one of his reasons for calling upon Lord Gordon today.

  There had been three such attacks to date. Lord Evesham. Lord Gordon, and a young gentleman named Jimmy Brown. The latter was currently resting in one of the beds in the infirm
ary Benedict kept at the back of his London home, Jimmy having been severely beaten some time during the night.

  This attack on Jimmy had given Gabriel reason to believe that either Lord Evesham or Lord Gordon was responsible. While in the presence of those two gentlemen, Gabriel’s soon-to-be-wife had inadvertently revealed that Jimmy, who hailed from one of the London slums, was sure to know the names of the thugs who had been paid to carry out the attacks. Mere hours after she had made this statement, Jimmy had sustained a beating of his own.

  Gabriel was talking to Lord Evesham this morning, and Benedict had agreed to question Lord Gordon in the hope they might find the culprit.

  Benedict moved to stand behind the older man and placed the listening tube, invented by René Laennec in France just a few years earlier, so that he might listen to the beat of Lord Gordon’s heart as he questioned him. “What do you know about these attacks?”

  The heartbeat remained steady. “Nothing at all until I was attacked myself.”

  “So you don’t have an axe to grind against the Duke of Blackborne?”

  The heartbeat remained the same, although the older man looked puzzled by the question. “Why would I when the man runs the best establishment in town?”

  Benedict’s top lip curled back at the use of the word “establishment” for what was, after all, a brothel. Admittedly, none of the ladies at Club Venus were there under protest or duress. All also voluntarily agreed to a medical examination by Benedict to ascertain their health and their response to physical stimulus. Gabriel was adamant that this be a necessary requirement of all the ladies who worked at his club.

  As a consequence, Gabriel did run the best establishment in town, as well as the healthiest for all concerned.

  Many might find the intimacy of Benedict’s examinations of those ladies to be offensive, but he had no wife or other significant lady in his life to whom he need apologize. He doubted he ever would.

  He continued to press his ear to the tube he held against Lord Gordon’s pale and flabby back as he questioned him. “You have no idea who could have carried out these attacks?”

  “None.”

  “You did not recognize any of your attackers?”

  “No.”

  “They made no other comment except the one you overheard regarding ‘the earl’?”

  “No.”

  “Who is the young lady living abovestairs?”

  Lord Gordon jerked forward and away before standing up to turn and glare, but not before Benedict had heard the spike and then unmistakable quickening of the older man’s heartbeat. “There are no young ladies living here, abovestairs or anywhere else,” he denied in a harsh voice.

  “I saw her when I arrived.”

  “Then it was probably one of the maids,” the older man dismissed in that same hard tone. “I would like you to leave now.” He pulled his shirt on over his head. “Nor is there any need for you to call here again.”

  In other words, Benedict realized, the other man did not want to give him the opportunity to enter his home again or ask more questions.

  Because Benedict had enquired about the young lady he had seen up on the gallery?

  Undoubtedly.

  Laennec’s instrument did not lie, and Lord Gordon’s heart had first leaped and then quickened in beat when he was asked about the young lady Benedict had seen up on the gallery.

  Benedict bit back the frustration of his still having no idea who she was or why she was in Lord Gordon’s home.

  But Benedict was not a man who gave up easily, if at all, and he was determined he would discover the identity of the angel in the gallery.

  “What on earth do you think you were about, leaving your rooms and spying on Lord Gordon’s guest in that way?” Mrs. Tailor, the housekeeper at Gordon House, demanded as she pushed Chloe into her suite of attic rooms and locked the door behind them. “His Lordship would be very angry if he was to learn of it.”

  Chloe had no reason to ask how Lord Gordon might learn of such a thing. She knew Mrs. Tailor took delight in informing him of any infraction on her part.

  Chloe lifted her chin defiantly. “I will not inform him you omitted to lock the door again if you do not tell him I left my rooms.”

  The older woman’s eyes darkened to almost black. “Are you threatening me?”

  “I do not believe so,” Chloe dismissed lightly. “I was merely pointing out that we were both of us at fault and that the transgression is probably best forgotten.”

  Although aged only in her midthirties, Edith Tailor’s countenance was naturally dour, and her current frown only added to her air of bleakness. “I am willing to forget it this time,” she allowed begrudgingly.

  A heavy weight lifted from Chloe’s shoulders. “Who is the gentleman calling on Lord Gordon?” she prompted curiously.

  “I believe Lord Gordon mentioned he was expecting Doctor Lord Benedict Winter to call this morning.”

  It was a strong-sounding name and perfectly suited the gentleman Chloe had seen earlier.

  He was a man who looked to be aged in his early thirties. Exceedingly tall, possibly a foot taller than her own four inches over five feet, with a wide and muscular frame shown to advantage in perfectly tailored and fashionable black superfine and gray pantaloons. His hair was dark and curled slightly about his ears, and his eyes, when he looked up at her, were a dark brown with what appeared to be a gold ring about the iris. His features appeared as if carved from marble: prominent cheekbones, a long aristocratic nose, and chiseled lips above a square and determined jaw.

  Chloe frowned as she recalled the entirety of the visitor’s name. “Is Lord Gordon ill?”

  Mrs. Tailor gave a sniff. “No doubt you would like it if he was. But I believe the doctor is here to check on His Lordship after he was set upon by thugs on his way home yesterday evening.”

  Chloe knew from the gossip belowstairs that Lord Gordon spent most, if not all, of his evenings at a place called Club Venus, where there were apparently scantily clad ladies aplenty whose time he might purchase for one or several hours. As Chloe suspected that Mrs. Tailor occasionally warmed His Lordship’s bed, she wondered how the older woman felt about his nocturnal visits to such an establishment.

  Chloe stood to walk over to the window when she heard the sound of voices outside the house.

  She was just in time to see Lord Benedict Winter striding purposefully down the pathway to where his carriage waited at the front of the house. One of his grooms leaped down from the back of the vehicle to open the nearside door with a flourish for his employer.

  Lord Winter hesitated before stepping inside the carriage, instead turning and look up at the front of the house through narrowed lids. He perused the first floor, the second, then higher. That questing gaze stopped the moment he spied Chloe looking back at him as she stood at one of the small windows at the top of the house.

  Firm lips curled into a smile as he lifted his top hat and bowed to her.

  Chloe heard a pounding on the door behind her before she could respond to Lord Winter’s acknowledgment of her. She turned back into the room in time to see Mrs. Tailor unlocking the door so that Lord Gordon might enter.

  The riding crop he carried in one of his pudgy hands and the glitter of anger in his piglike pale blue eyes did not bode well for Chloe’s immediate welfare.

  Chapter Two

  One week later.

  “There is a young lady at the back door asking to speak with you, Your Lordship,” Carlton, Benedict’s butler, informed him as he stepped into the infirmary.

  Benedict finished adjusting the bandages on what he had initially thought were Jimmy’s broken forearms, but which he now believed were but severely bruised, before answering the butler. “You may show her into my examination room and tell her I will be with her shortly.”

  “Got yaself a lady friend callin’ on ya, Ya Lordship?” Jimmy teased.

  Benedict gave the younger man a chiding smile. Despite the difference in their station
s in life, Benedict of the aristocracy, Jimmy from the London slums, the two men had formed a friendship of sorts since Benedict had taken the beaten Jimmy into his infirmary a week ago.

  He was very pleased with Jimmy’s progress during that time. The bruises had faded from his face, the swelling gone from about his eyes, and his split lip had healed. His arms were severely bruised, possibly sprained rather than broken. That and the internal bruising to one of his knees had so far kept Jimmy from returning to his life in St Giles, one of London’s many impoverished areas.

  Benedict liked to think that regular bathing and the delousing of Jimmy’s body while he was here would have also added to the younger man’s comfort.

  “No, I do not think so.” Benedict stood as he answered the younger man’s teasing. He turned enquiringly as his butler lingered rather than left to do his bidding. “Do you have something you wish to add, Carlton?”

  The butler looked hesitant. “I do not believe the young lady to be one of your usual…patients, my lord.”

  “Explain, if you please?”

  “Her gown is made of silk, even if it is too big for her and unsuited for the cold weather. Also, she is not wearing a cloak and bonnet. She is exceedingly thin, and her face very pale,” Carlton explained in an increasingly worried tone. “The dark circles beneath her blue eyes are so intense, they almost look as if someone has struck her.”

  “Blue eyes, you say?” Benedict echoed sharply.

  His butler nodded. “Of such an intense blue as I have never seen before— Your Lordship…?” Carlton called after Benedict as he rushed from the infirmary toward the back of the main house.