Loving The Lost Duke (Dangerous Deceptions #1)(12)

‘Isobel.’ Cal scooped up the wriggling armful one-handed and was rewarded with a smacking kiss on his bruised cheek and the application of a pair of thrashing feet to his sore hip. ‘Where is Nanny?’

‘Lost.’ Her big brown eyes, so like her mother’s, widened in a mock innocence. And that had been one of Madeleine’s little tricks too. The child was going to be a handful by the time she was putting her hair up and her skirts down, and he would have to buy himself a shotgun to deal with the young men.

‘You mean you lost her,’ he scolded. ‘Now, behave properly and say good afternoon nicely to Miss Wilmott. Miss Wilmott, Lady Isobel Thorne.’

Now what was wrong? Sophie’s blue gaze had all the warmth of an ice crystal, for all that she smiled at Isobel.

‘Good afternoon, Lady Isobel. I am pleased to have met you, but perhaps you should not run out into the street. Your nanny will be worried about you.’

‘It wasn’t my fault.’ The little madam quivered her lower lip and turned tragic toffee-brown eyes on Sophie. ‘I’m a very good girl. Truly.’

‘You are a minx,’ Cal corrected absently, still watching Sophie who blushed, lost all of her poise and mumbled,

‘I am very glad to hear that. Your mama must be very proud of you. Good day, Duke. I trust your arm will cease paining you very soon.’ She dropped her hands and the dapple was into its stride and heading towards York Street before he could respond.

So that was what that was about: when she saw Isobel she had thought him married, believed he had been flirting with her despite it. How very flattering that it should matter to her. Cal grinned, warmed by the rush of masculine smugness. It had been a while since he had enjoyed flirting with a pretty woman and a very long time since he had encountered a well-bred young lady who had made him want to. Miss Wilmott, seen in the broad light of day and with his full attention on her and not on the confrontation with his family, was frankly beautiful. Well worth pursuing, and the suspicion that Cousin Ralph had his eye on her only added a pinch of spice.

Nanny Jenkins was standing in the open doorway, hands on hips, shaking her head at him. He had hired the fierce little Welsh widow in Calcutta in the days following Madeleine’s death and she had bustled into his life, a scolding bundle of warmly loving efficiency. Cal had been left with an infant, a guilt-inducing awareness that he was free and an almost irresistible urge to stop wandering, come back to England, see if he could finally lay his ghosts. Nanny Jenkins had taken one long, assessing, look at him and pronounced, ‘The little one should be home. You’ll be taking a passage as soon as you can find a ship.’ It was an order and for once in his life, Cal did not demur.

‘Good gracious me, what have you been doing to yourself?’ she demanded now as she lifted Isobel from his arm. ‘Your Grace.’ It was always an afterthought, his title. ‘Fighting?’

‘An encounter between a phaeton and a small child in Green Park,’ he admitted. ‘The child is fine, I dislocated my shoulder and lost my hat.’ Any proper employer would be outraged that she might suggest him capable of brawling in the middle of a Thursday afternoon. He was long since resigned to being an improper employer.

Prescott, his secretary, looked round the study door, studied his dusty, battered appearance and raised his eyebrows. ‘There is a considerable amount of business awaiting you, sir. However it will all keep until tomorrow.’ The door clicked shut behind him.

In the days before his twenty first birthday, when he had been finalising the plans for his escape, Cal had realised that he had to leave behind him a confidential secretary of the utmost respectability, intelligence and probity. If he could not, then there was no way he could square his conscience about abandoning his estates to be administered at arms’ length. George Prescott, the third son of Lord Warnley, a neighbour, was the soberest, most hard-working and conscientious man Cal had ever encountered, despite George’s youth. He had left university with honours and was choosing between the various flattering offers of work he had received, which included posts with a bishop, two lords and a leading member of the House of Commons, when Cal poached him.

He was one of only three men in whom he had confided his suspicions about his uncle and cousin. The second was Jared Hunt, originally employed as his fencing master, a taciturn man of lethal fighting ability whose past was a mystery. He was a year older than Cal, had presented himself in answer to an advertisement and appeared to have no background whatsoever, only excellent references from two French émigré sword masters.

His loyalty became apparent when he had taken Cal to one side a month before he put his plan of escape into action and warned him that he was suspicious about the accidents and ill-health that had plagued him. The relief at finding someone with whom he could discuss it, and the knowledge that he wasn’t losing his mind, had given him the strength he need to break free.

He left George behind him as his confidential secretary with powers of attorney, the only man who knew where he was going in advance and who received letters and orders from wherever Cal went. Jared travelled with him, at first while he was still weak from the last bout of illness, as his bodyguard. Then, as his health returned, as his friend and companion.

The third man in his confidence was his valet, Michael Flynn, a young Irishman whom Cal had rescued when he was being beaten up by a gang of toughs on a New York street. He had got the battered youth back to his dingy lodging room, tended his wounds and thought nothing of it until Flynn had turned up the next morning at the hotel, his smart appearance marred by two magnificent black eyes, and announced that Mr Thorne – as he was calling himself – needed a valet and that he was his man.