Loving The Lost Duke (Dangerous Deceptions #1)(14)

He stayed bent over the bath studying Cal’s damaged body with the detachment of a fencing master assessing the fitness of his pupil, his long, tightly-plaited queue sliding over her shoulder. ‘Strange that you can journey round the world with scarcely a scratch and the moment you are back in England you end up battered and bruised.’

‘This was definitely an accident.’ Cal sat up and began to soap himself one-handed. ‘But I am contemplating some provocative action that should produce a reaction if anyone does have an eye on my title.’

‘Marriage would certainly do that, if that’s what’s preoccupying you,’ Hunt agreed. He hefted a jug of clean water and poured it over Cal’s head.

He came up spluttering. ‘And the lady in question may well be of interest to my cousin. Give me a hand to get out, will you?’

Hunt hauled him to his feet, passed him a towel and listened while Cal explained about Sophie and Cousin Ralph’s apparent interest in her. ‘It’s a complicating factor. If he does nothing to counter you then he is lacking in backbone but we’re no further forward as regards his private feelings about you. If he does react strongly we won’t know whether it is to protect his position with the lady or because he is using that as an opportunity to damage you.’

‘Now that would be a scandal, to inherit a dukedom by killing your predecessor in a dual over the future duchess.’ Cal gave up on drying himself with one hand and shrugged damply into his silk banyan. ‘Ralph’s not a hot-head, nor is he reckless. Damn it, Jared, I could almost think this is all my imagination now that I am back in the country and I’ve met my uncle and cousin again. It seems such a gothic tale.’

‘And yet?’ Hunt followed him through into the bedchamber where Flynn was laying out clothes. ‘You said almost.’

‘And yet. I told them I had a child and they exchanged such looks. Or, rather, they looked at each other. It was not an exchange, it was as though each was startled and was checking for the other’s reaction. Very odd. I caught them doing the same thing in the ballroom last night.’

‘It is one of them who is plotting and the other suspects them,’ Flynn stated.

‘That is how I read it. But how to establish which it is, I don’t know yet.’ He sighed and ran his hand through his wet hair. ‘Damn it, I had hoped to come home and realise that it was all in my imagination. That I had been sick and brain-fevered and had it out of proportion. Now I fear I was right all along.’

‘So, what is to be done?’ Hunt picked up a fencing foil from the rack in the corner and lunged with it, a straight, killing strike that plucked a flower from the vase on the dresser.

‘Court a bride, watch my relatives and guard my back while I expose it as temptingly as I can.’

‘You marry and you have another life to guard. You get your bride with child and you have two,’ Hunt observed as he shredded a second blameless bloom.

That had occurred to Cal as well. He plucked another flower from the vase and tossed it up for Hunt to skewer in mid-air. ‘The lady would be safe enough until I married her. So I must get to the bottom of this before then, mustn’t I?’

‘And when you do and discover that your uncle or your cousin truly is guilty, what will you do then?’ Hunt’s dark, sardonic face showed nothing but mild curiosity.

Break my heart. ‘I’ll think of something.’



Ralph Thorne might be the one. Sophie passed him a cup of tea and watched covertly while she served the other guests who had called that afternoon. Mama’s At Home days were Tuesday and Friday and there were four ladies gossiping over the Oolong while the three gentlemen who had come in their wake made inroads into the macarons and tried not to look as though they wished they were at their clubs.

Ralph was the fourth, and the only unmarried, man present and he had made it subtly apparent that he was there to see her and not as part of the polite social round. He smiled, a slight curving of his lips, as she turned back to him from the tea tray. He matched every one of her criteria. He was well-bred and even Mama, who rather hoped for a title for her, had no objections to the grandson of a duke. He was certainly comfortably off, intelligent, good-humoured and good-looking, even if he was a paler copy of his cousin Calderbrook.

And, while her heart could not even manage the smallest flutter when she was with him, civilised indifference was definitely a safer basis for a lasting marriage than foolish passion which could only fade with time or be killed with sudden, vicious disillusion. Mr Thorne certainly showed no sign of succumbing to any variety of passion in her presence but he did look as though he might be understanding and forgiving, something a duke could not be when considering marriage.

Yes, she could like Ralph Thorne very well and she could make him a good wife she was certain. She really must stop thinking about dukes and certainly in the same breath as marriage. He, the singular duke in question, was married of course, for she did not believe for a moment that he was openly acknowledging a love-child by raising her in his London house. Gentlemen simply did not do such things.

And besides, even if he had been a bachelor, he was not for her, however much those silver eyes seemed to speak to her of shared knowledge, of shared awareness. It did not matter that she had seen him exhibit courage and physical prowess and the grace to smile and comfort a small child when he was in great pain. And she most certainly should not be thinking about those long legs and broad shoulders and muscled thighs, not when she was talking to a gentleman who, though no weakling, was not such an impressive physical specimen.