43Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmVU3lvZdZjCaspian had not left the Chelsea house in twelve days.
Benedict had forbidden it. Just wait, he had said. Let me sort this out. Give me time. Caspian had not argued; he had only looked at him with that expression Benedict had spent these weeks trying to name: I understand, I accept this, and it costs me more than you know.
The Chelsea house became his world. In the mornings Caspian played the pianoforte, softly, so it would not carry to the street. Sometimes Benedict arrived to find him at it: sitting straight, shoulders loose, eyes closed, fingers finding their way across the keys on their own. In those moments Benedict stopped in the doorway and did not go in. He simply stood there. He memorised it.
In the afternoons Caspian read. The house had a respectable library; its owner, somewhere in Italy, had clearly loved books. Caspian worked his way through Ovid, then turned to Virgil, then found an old French novel on the lower shelf and spent several days wandering around with it tucked under his arm. Sometimes he cooked something simple in the small kitchen from whatever Benedict brought back from the market. One evening Benedict came in to find the table already laid: soup, bread, two places set.
"I'm beginning to suspect you do this deliberately."
"Do what?"
"Cook well enough that I come back here every evening."
"Obviously," said Caspian, with the faintest smile.
In the evenings Caspian waited for him. Sometimes Benedict arrived early, sometimes late, sometimes not at all: obligations, family, the maintenance of an ordinary life. On those nights Caspian sat at the window in the drawing room, in the armchair that had become his, and watched the quiet street. The lamp-posts in the fog. The occasional passerby going about their own business, unaware that behind the glass sat a man who did not officially exist.
Benedict knew it was becoming unbearable. He could see it: something dark gathering in Caspian's eyes with each passing day, not anger, not resentment, simply the exhaustion of four walls and waiting. One night Caspian said quietly, looking up at the ceiling:
"I have been hiding all my life. In different rooms, in different cities. I thought I had grown used to it."
"And?" Benedict asked.
"It turns out I hadn't." A pause. "I had simply stopped noticing."
Benedict could find nothing to say. He covered Caspian's hand with his own. Caspian turned his palm over and laced their fingers together.
They lay like that until dawn.
***
Benedict went to Granville's in the morning, while the fog had not yet lifted.
A servant showed him up to the study on the second floor, the small room buried in books and sketches, smelling of turpentine and coffee. Granville was sitting in the armchair by the fire in a warm dressing gown, holding a cup in both hands and watching the flames. He raised an eyebrow when Benedict came in.
"You look like a man who hasn't slept in a week."
"I need your help," said Benedict, without preamble.
Granville set down his cup and gestured to the second chair.
"Sit down. Tell me."
Benedict sat. He gathered his thoughts. And then he began, starting from the point at which he and Caspian had understood that staying in London was no longer possible. Rome. Documents in a different name. A steamship from Dover.
He did not mention the name Viscount Waverley: only *a man with considerable connections and people who know how to find things.*
Granville listened without interrupting, occasionally glancing toward the fire, as though assembling what he heard piece by piece.
When Benedict finished, he was quiet for a moment.
"Documents," he said at last. "In another name. And passages on a steamer. Dover to Calais. For two."
"When?"
"As soon as it can be arranged."
Granville rose slowly. He crossed to the window and stood there, looking out at the street. Beyond the glass, the fog moved thickly along the buildings, white and slow.
He was silent a little longer.
"There is a man," he said at last. "I went to him once before. Some years ago. A different matter entirely."
Granville turned.
"He knows how to manage these things. He charges a great deal, but his work holds. In his line, that is the only thing that matters."
A pause.
"Two weeks, Benedict. It cannot be done sooner."
"All right."
"One more thing." Granville came closer and looked at him directly. "If anything goes wrong, if anyone begins asking questions, I know nothing. You came to me on another matter entirely. We talked about painting. Is that understood?"
"Understood."
"Good." Granville extended his hand. "Two weeks. Wait for word from me."
Benedict shook it. He stood to go.
"Benedict."
He turned.
Granville stood by the hearth, holding his cup, his expression serious and stripped of its usual irony.
"I am glad for you," he said simply. "That you found someone. It matters more than people think."
Benedict had no words for that. He nodded, and left.
***
Two weeks proved longer than he had imagined.
He was pulled between Chelsea and Grosvenor Square, and each world required a different version of him. In Chelsea he could be himself: tired, strung tight, the man who sat by the fire holding Caspian's hand and said nothing, because nothing needed to be said. On Grosvenor Square he had to smile at breakfast, answer questions about his work and his plans, keep his back straight and show nothing.
Benedict barely slept. He dozed in Chelsea sometimes on the drawing room settee, sometimes in the bed beside Caspian, and woke in the night at every sound from the street. Footsteps beyond the window. The groan of a gate. Voices passing below. He would lie there listening, running through possibilities. Then he would close his eyes again and lie watching the darkness until the sky began to pale.
One night Caspian woke at four in the morning and found Benedict still awake. He asked nothing. He simply moved closer, laid his hand on Benedict's chest, heavy and warm, and closed his eyes again.
Within a few minutes, Caspian's breathing had steadied into sleep.
Benedict lay and looked at him in the dark: the profile, the lashes, the calm face of a man who had finally learned to sleep without fear, here in this house, here beside him.
I will do this, Benedict thought. Whatever it takes. I will get him out.
But the days passed, and he grew thinner, and the stubble accumulated, and the shadows under his eyes deepened.
Caspian said nothing. But one morning, as Benedict was leaving, he held his hand a moment longer than necessary. That was enough.
***
Violet caught him on Wednesday morning.
Benedict was cutting across the drawing room quickly, almost silently, like a man who hopes to slip through undetected. He had been certain the house was still asleep.
It was barely past seven.
Violet sat by the window with a cup of tea. Her back was straight, as it always was: she never slouched, not in joy, not in grief, not at seven in the morning in her own drawing room.
She looked up at him.
"Mama."
"Sit down, Benedict," she said.
The tone was such that he sat. He lowered himself onto the sofa opposite, folded his hands, and prepared himself.
Violet was quiet for a long time. She had always done this when they were children and had done something wrong: calm, unhurried, giving the guilty party time to arrive at understanding on their own. Benedict could not remember the approach ever failing to work.
"When did you last sleep properly?" she asked at last.
"I sleep."
"Benedict."
"Mama, I am perfectly well."
"You came home at half past five this morning," she said evenly. "Before that you were away for three days. You haven't shaved. You have lost weight. Mary tells me you barely touch your food when you are home." She set her cup in its saucer. "And you are looking at me now as though I am an adversary you need to persuade to stand down."
"I'm not looking at you that way."
"You are." No sharpness in it: simply a statement of fact. "Benedict. I am not your enemy. I am your mother."
"I know that."
"Then allow me to be one." She paused. "Friday evening there is a family dinner. Daphne and Simon are coming, Colin and Penelope, Anthony and Kate. I want us all together." Another pause. "You will be there."
"Mama, I have "
"You will be there, Benedict."
Her voice was gentle. Warm, even. But it contained not one inch of room for argument.
He looked at her. At the fatigue around her eyes that she concealed so well, but that was visible to anyone who looked with care. At her hands in her lap, folded with perfect patience.
"All right," he said.
Violet nodded. She raised her cup. She turned her gaze back to the window, to the morning street, to the fog that was beginning to lift.
"Do shave," she added quietly. "Please."
***
On Friday evening the house on Grosvenor Square was full of people, light, and voices.
Daphne and Simon arrived with the children, who immediately thundered upstairs to find Hyacinth and Gregory, and the whole house filled with the sound of running feet and laughter, and something on the upper floor fell with a crash and no one looked up, because this was how it always was when all the Bridgertons gathered at once. Colin and Penelope arrived first, Colin with a bottle of decent Bordeaux, Penelope with a book she would not open but always carried as a kind of talisman. Anthony and Kate appeared last, slightly late; Anthony was explaining something as they came through the door, and Kate was listening with the expression of someone who had heard this particular explanation before.
Benedict came downstairs on time. Freshly shaved, in a good coat, wearing the smile he had learned over years to put on as one puts on a glove: easily, from habit, without quite noticing.
Violet saw him in the doorway. Something crossed her face for an instant, relief, or simply gladness. He smiled at her. She smiled back.
The table was warm and loud. Simon was telling some story about the races, Colin was interrupting, Daphne was laughing and saying they were both wrong. Penelope was murmuring quietly with Eloise about something of their own. Kate was arguing with Anthony: in English first, then she switched to Bengali for what was clearly something she did not wish the whole table to hear, then back to English when she needed Daphne's support.
Benedict sat, ate, answered questions. Nodded at the right moments. Laughed at Colin's jokes. He poured himself wine, took a sip, set the glass down.
He thought of Caspian.
Who was sitting now in the armchair by the window in Chelsea. Or playing softly so the sound would not carry to the street. Or reading by candlelight. Or simply watching the fire and waiting for Benedict to come.
While Benedict sat here and passed the salt and laughed and counted the days until Granville's message arrived.
"Benedict," Colin called across the table.
He looked up.
"Did you hear a word I just said?"
"I'm sorry. I was elsewhere."
"I was saying you're barely drinking. That's suspicious."
"I'm keeping a clear head."
"For what?" Colin narrowed his eyes. "Nothing remotely serious has happened at this table for the past half-hour."
"Precisely why." Benedict picked up his glass and drank. "Waiting for things to improve."
Colin laughed. Simon shook his head. Daphne said something to her husband under her breath, and Simon smiled.
The conversation rolled on.
Eloise sat beside him. He felt her gaze now and then: quick, attentive, the look she always tried to make invisible and never quite managed. She said nothing. But her hand lay on the table beside his, close, within a single movement's reach. He was grateful for her silence.
The windows had gone fully dark outside. The servants had lit every candle, and the table blazed with it, reflections dancing in the black glass, and the laughter did not stop, and everything was as it always was at a Bridgerton family dinner: warm, loud, alive.
Benedict looked at them all. At Violet at the head of the table, straight-backed, smiling, her gaze moving from one of her children to the next with that expression he had never been able to name. At Anthony arguing with Simon, gesturing, laughing, the Anthony almost nobody outside this room ever saw. At Daphne listening to Penelope with genuine interest. At Colin telling Eloise something while she rolled her eyes and smiled in spite of herself.
His family.
After I leave, I will miss this, he thought. The noise, the warmth, all of them talking at once with no one listening and no one minding. Violet looking at her children as though they are the only thing she needs in this world.
Caspian never had this. After his mother died: no one. Empty rooms under borrowed names. Loneliness that became a habit.
On the continent I will give him something of my own. Something of ours.
***
The footman came in between the third course and dessert.
Benedict caught him at the edge of his vision: John, young, reddish-haired, usually cheerful. He was walking with a grave expression now, carrying a small silver tray. He came to Benedict, leaned in.
"For you, sir. They said it was urgent."
A small envelope. Plain paper, no name on the outside. Dark wax with no seal.
The conversation at the table did not falter. Daphna was telling some story, Colin was laughing. No one was paying particular attention to Benedict's corner; letters during dinner were hardly unusual, business would not wait.
No one except Eloise.
Benedict took the envelope. He lowered his hands beneath the table. He broke the seal.
Unfolded the paper.
A single short line. A clear, steady hand: whoever had written this had done so without haste and without nerves.
*Forget Caspian. Stop looking for him.*
For a moment he stopped breathing.
His fingers tightened on the paper, slightly more than necessary; the sheet gave a quiet creak. Benedict made himself open his hand. He folded the note slowly. He slipped it into the pocket of his waistcoat.
His first thought was: *they know where he is.*
He raised his eyes.
Daphne was laughing. Colin was saying something to Simon. Violet was listening to Penelope. Anthony was pouring wine. Everything exactly as it had been.
A warm evening. His family. Candlelight.
Only Eloise, sitting beside him, was watching him without blinking.
Benedict laid his napkin on the table.
"Excuse me," he said, keeping his voice even. "I need a moment."
He stood. The chair scraped back a fraction too sharply. His glass gave a faint ring against the edge of his plate.
He was already walking toward the door.
"Benedict."
Eloise was on her feet behind him. She caught him in the hall and took hold of his arm.
"Where are you going?"
"Let go, Eloise."
"No."
"Not now."
"Especially now." She looked at him steadily. "What was in the note?"
"It isn't "
"Benedict, don't treat me like a fool."
He said nothing.
He moved toward the door. Eloise kept pace.
"Benedict, where are you going? What was in that note?"
He was already pulling on his gloves.
"Eloise, go back to the dining room."
"No. Not until you tell me."
He turned sharply and pressed the folded sheet into her hand.
"There. Read it."
She unfolded the paper as she moved, skimmed it.
Raised her eyes to his.
"That is a threat."
"Yes."
Benedict was already reaching for the door handle.
"And where exactly are you going?" she asked.
"Chelsea."
"Benedict "
"Eloise, please." His voice came out harder than he intended. "He is alone, and they know where Caspian is."
She looked at him carefully.
"Then he is in danger."
"Yes."
A few seconds of silence.
Then:
"I'm coming with you."
"No."
She folded her arms.
"Then I'll fetch Anthony. And Colin."
Benedict swung back toward her.
"Eloise, no."
His voice cracked, sharp, almost rough.
She did not look away.
"This is serious."
"You cannot come there."
"You cannot go alone."
"I cannot not go."
He turned back to the door.
She caught his sleeve.
"Benedict, think. What if they're waiting for you there "
"Let go."
"No."
"Eloise."
"*No.*"
And then Violet's voice.
Calm. Precise.
"Benedict."
They both turned.
She stood in the doorway of the dining room with that expression Benedict remembered from childhood: the face of a woman who has already understood everything.
Behind her stood Anthony. Th
en Colin. Daphne and Simon. Kate against the wall. Penelope at the foot of the stairs.
They had come out one by one, quietly, while Benedict stood in the hall with the note.
Silence settled over the house.
Violet looked at him. At the paper in Eloise's hand. At his face, which he had stopped trying to conceal.
"The study," she said quietly.
A pause.
"All of you.”
43Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHJRkOnVtZT
43Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJbxp1YtjWd
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