Married By Morning (The Hathaways #4)(13)

Leo smiled quizzically, replacing a book on a shelf. “Who’s Lucky?”

“Oh, I forgot you hadn’t met her. She’s a three-legged cat who used to belong to the cheesemaker in the village. The poor thing got her paw caught in a rat trap, and it had to be amputated. And now that she’s no longer a good mouser, the cheesemaker gave her to me. He never even named her, can you imagine?”

“Given what happened to her, the name ‘Lucky’ is something of a misnomer, isn’t it?”

“I thought it might improve her fortunes.”

“I’m sure it will,” Leo said, amused. Beatrix’s passion for helping vulnerable creatures had always worried and touched the other Hathaways in equal measure. They all recognized that Beatrix was the most unconventional person in the family.

Beatrix was always sought after at London social events. She was a pretty girl, if not classically beautiful, with her blue eyes, dark hair, and tall, slender figure. Gentlemen were attracted by her freshness and charm, unaware that she showed the same patient interest to hedgehogs, field mice, and misbehaving spaniels. And when it came time for active courtship, men reluctantly left Beatrix’s engaging company and turned to more conventional misses. With each successive season, her chances at marriage diminished.

Beatrix didn’t seem to care. At the age of nineteen—nearly twenty—she had yet to fall in love. It was universally agreed among the Hathaways that few men would be able to understand or handle her. She was a force of nature, unhampered by conventional rules.

“Go take care of Lucky,” Leo said gently. “I don’t expect to have any difficulty finding the ruins by myself.”

“Oh, you’re not going alone,” she told him. “I arranged for Miss Marks to accompany you.”

“You did? And she was willing?”

Before Beatrix could answer, Catherine entered the library, her slim figure dressed in riding clothes, her hair pulled back in a tight braided chignon. A sketchbook was clasped beneath her arm. She stopped short at the sight of Leo, who was wearing a gentleman’s riding coat, close-fitting breeches, and well-worn boots.

Her wary gaze went to Beatrix. “Why haven’t you changed into your riding habit, dear?”

Beatrix replied apologetically, “I’m sorry, Miss Marks, I can’t go after all. Lucky needs me. But it’s just as well—you can show Leo the way even better than I.” Her sunny smile encompassed them both. “It’s a fine day for riding, isn’t it? Have a good outing!” And she left the library in her long, lithe stride.

Catherine’s slender brows rushed downward as she looked at Leo. “Why do you want to visit the ruins?”

“I just want to look at them. Hang it all, do I have to explain myself to you? Just refuse if you’re afraid to go somewhere alone with me.”

“Afraid of you? Not in the least.”

Leo gestured to the doorway in a parody of gentlemanly manners. “After you, then.”

As a result of the strategic importance of the ports of Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire was filled with ancient castles and picturesque ruins of forts and Saxon dwellings. Although Leo had known that there were remains of an old manor on the Ramsay estate, he hadn’t yet found the opportunity to visit them. Among the concerns of farming, the accounting of rents, rates, and labor, the timber cutting and the architectural commissions Leo took on occasion, there hadn’t been much time left for idle touring.

Together he and Catherine rode past fields of flowering turnips and wheat, and clover pastures where fat white sheep grazed. They crossed through the timber forest to the northwest of the estate, where heavy streams cut through green hills and limestone crags. The ground was less arable here, more rock than loam, but its location was a solidly defensible position for an ancient fortified manor home.

As they ascended a hill, Leo took covert glances at Catherine. She was slim and graceful on horseback, guiding the horse with a smooth economy of motion. An accomplished woman, he mused. Poised, articulate, competent in nearly everything she did. And yet when another woman would have advertised such qualities, Catherine went to great lengths to keep from drawing attention to herself.

They reached the site of the original manor, where the remains of ancient walls protruded from the ground like the vertebrae of fossilized creatures. Inequalities in the scrub-covered ground marked the locations of the manor’s outbuildings. A shallow circular ring, approximately twenty-five feet wide, revealed the dimensions of the moat that had surrounded a sixty-square-foot elevation of land.

After dismounting and tethering his horse, Leo went to assist Catherine. She disengaged her right leg from the pommel and took her foot from the stirrup, letting Leo control her descent. She alighted on the ground, facing him. Her face lifted, the brim of her riding hat partially shadowing her opalescent eyes.

They stood together with her hands on his shoulders. Her face was flushed with exertion, her lips parted … and all at once Leo knew how it would be to make love to her, her body light and supple beneath his, her breath rushing against his throat as he moved between her thighs. He would bring her to ecstasy, slowly and ruthlessly, and she would claw and moan and sigh his name …

“Here it is,” Catherine said. “Your ancestral home.”

Tearing his gaze from her, Leo regarded the crumbling ruins. “Charming,” he said. “A little dusting and sweeping, and the place will be as good as new.”