"El?" Theo was still half-asleep - when he spoke, his voice came out as a drowsy murmur.
"Yes?" Eloise immediately snapped to attention, removing her hands from where they had previously been, running through his hair.
"Who's that?" Theo gestured vaguely behind her. Eloise turned immediately. The physician had finally arrived! She quickly stood. "Finally, Dr. Thomas--"
"Oof, woe to anyone who is unfortunate enough to have me as their doctor. I reckon I could hold the record for most patients killed in the shortest time." Benedict stood grinning in the doorway, leaning against the frame. Eloise's mouth hung open in abject horror as Benedict sauntered over to the bed and pretended to examine Theo, who had somehow drifted back into unconsciousness. "Quite a strapping young lad, here. Good face shape. Very handsome indeed." Benedict - infuriatingly - winked, and said, "I can see why you're head over heels."
Eloise almost choked on her own breath. "I am not-- This is not-- I barely even like him, let alone love him. Stop teasing, Ben." Eloise threw her whole weight against Benedict, trying to push him out of the room, but he easily dodged and continued. "Are you going to explain to me why there is a random boy in George's old bed?"
"Theo is--" Eloise clapped her hands over her mouth, realising her mistake far too late. Benedict leapt on the morsel of information like a starving animal. "Theo, is it? You must at least be a little intimate with him if you have already achieved first-name basis. You know how the rhyme goes - first names, then marriage, then the baby in the baby carriage..." Benedict laughed out loud as Eloise made an attempt to hit him again.
She all but screamed in frustration. "BENEDICT!"
He froze.
She smiled as sweetly as she possibly could. "Please let it alone."
Benedict sat on the nearby cabinet with a thud. "I just worry for you, El. You've always been so secretive, trying to stay strong for everyone else." He got up and placed a placating hand on her forearm. "You don't always have to be."
Benedict looked so painfully sincere that Eloise felt that she had to confess. She sighed. "I met Theo months ago. In my searches for Lady Whistledown's identity." Information she now had, questions she now had the answer to, but she wished she didn't. She wished she was just as ignorant to the truth as she had been all those months ago. "He worked in a printer's shop that I suspected to be Whistledown's . He offered crucial information on finding who she was."
Benedict raised an eyebrow. "This still does not explain why he is in our house."
Eloise rushed through the rest of her sentences, trying to offer as little information as possible. "We became friends - we had the same taste in novels, you see. When I visited today, he was injured, so I brought him home and wrote to the physician to attend to him. Described his symptoms. Dr. Thomas said he would come at once." Do not mention how you hurt him. Used him. Pushed him away.
Benedict shrugged. "As long as Mother doesn't see, I think you should be quite well. I have art school to get to."
Art school? Wait. Art school! How could she have not seen this before? "Wait, Ben!"
Benedict paused in the doorway. "Yes?" he said, turning.
"You meet all sorts of interesting people at your academy, don't you?"
Benedict's brow furrowed as he looked at her, confused., "That is not an incorrect assumption, no. People attend hailing from travels across the land. One has even lived in India most of his life."
Eloise's brain was spinning at a million miles per second. "So it wouldn't be unheard of if, say, a man appeared in Mayfair hailing from long travels in America?"
YOU ARE READING
A Paperboy's Guide to being a Gentleman
Roman d'amour"It is brilliant, Theo! This will work, I am sure of it." Eloise is falling in love with Theo. She knows it. She is not slow, or stupid. She also knows that there are... rules that prevent her from seeing him. But what if there was a way that they c...
