Loving The Lost Duke (Dangerous Deceptions #1)(19)

‘Is he – No, you go first, Sophie,’ Cal murmured.

‘Are you deliberately trying to pick a quarrel with your cousin, Duke?’

So, they were back to titles, were they. ‘Certainly not,’ he lied. ‘But he is acting like a pompous ass.’

‘You both were,’ she said snappishly. ‘Or, rather, like boys.’

Cal let that go, it was too near the truth to counter convincingly. ‘Tell me, is he courting you?’

‘No. Yes… Perhaps.’ Sophie let the pair trot and reined them back. ‘He hasn’t said anything either to me or to Step Papa. He doesn’t… that is, he has not…’

‘Tried to kiss you?’ If Ralph had tried anything more he’d have his balls.

‘Yes, I mean, no, he hasn’t.’

‘So how long has perhaps been going on?’

‘About three months. We are almost at the Serpentine, which way should I go?’

‘Follow the road round and we will go back north up the eastern edge of the park,’ Cal said with a vague wave of his hand that sent a stab of pain through his sore shoulder. ‘Three months? And he has made no declaration, not tried to make love to you? What the devil’s the matter with him? Does he snarl at any other men who take you about or ask you to dance?’

‘Only you,’ she admitted. ‘I suppose it is very gentlemanly to be so, um, well-behaved, but…’

‘You rather wish he would get on with it?’

‘If you put it like that, yes.’ The smile was back in her voice now.

He fell silent, watching the horses as she negotiated the stretch of road alongside the water. He didn’t want a sudden flight of duck to spook them and unnerve her. Once they were safely past the danger he said, ‘And what will you answer when he does, finally, summon up the courage to put the question?’

‘That is none of your affair, Duke.’ She reined in. ‘Will you take them now, I am becoming tired.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Cal took the reins, adjusted his grip on the whip without actually wincing and sent the pair into a collected canter. ‘I will drive you home directly.’ He wanted to ask her more, never mind that it was already a most improper conversation and she had very firmly, and properly, snubbed him. But Ben was up behind and, discreet as he was, he had already overheard too much.

He half expected to be treated to affronted silence for the half hour it took them to reach her front door, but he should have realised that Miss Wilmott was far too well-mannered for a fit of the sulks. She remarked upon the weather, other carriages they passed, the gait of his horses, the latest plays and the crowded streets, all in the most pleasant of conversational tones. By the time they drew up at the Wimpole Street house Cal was wishing for either stony silence or a tongue-lashing. If she was auditioning for the role of duchess she could not have performed better.

Ben jumped down and ran to the horses’ heads. Cal dismounted with rather more caution, cursing his stiff shoulder and very much aware that he was smarting at not being able to vault down. To be fretting about it was almost as humiliating as feeling twenty years older than he was.

Sophie allowed him to help her alight. ‘Thank you. That was most… instructive. I did appreciate being able to drive such a dashing vehicle, Duke.’

‘I would be honoured to take you out again, Miss Wilmott. We never made it to that ice cream, did we? Perhaps another time.’

‘I do not think that would be a good idea, do you, Duke?’ She did not wait for his answer before she mounted the steps with a smile for the butler who had flung the door wide for her.

Cal drove off down Wimpole Street very conscious of his tiger’s crashing silence behind him. He had known Hooper, Ben’s grandfather and the stable master at Calderbrook, since he was a child. On hearing of his impending return Prescott had sent to his long-unvisited estate for grooms and a coachman and young Ben had come too.

In a few days Cal had discovered that, besides being a magician with horses, the lad had an almost irrepressible urge to comment on everything. He was also vocal about how pleased everyone was that His Grace was home and how his ‘granfer’ had given him a lecture on the importance of a tiger. ‘He said I was a confidential servant, ’cos of what I see and overhear when I’m out with my gentleman,’ he had reported, swelling with pride.

‘He did?’ Cal had asked, managing to keep his mouth from twitching into a smile.

He must have looked sceptical because the boy said fiercely, ‘I can keep me trap shut. Gossip’s for girls. And Granfer said I would be a bodyguard too.’

‘A what?’ What did old Hodges know if he thought Cal needed a bodyguard?

‘I’m to throw myself between you and highwaymen with shooters and make sure you get’s home when you’re top heavy,’ Ben had announced with total confidence. Cal had refrained from pointing out that the boy’s skinny little body would hardly stop a bullet and that he was not in the habit of driving himself when too drunk to cope, but he had believed in the lad’s loyalty and guts.

‘Well?’ he enquired when the heavy breathing became intolerable.

‘You made a right pig’s ear of that, Your Grace, iffen you don’t mind me saying so.’

‘Would it make any difference if I did? No, don’t answer that. I made a pig’s ear of it, as you so tactfully put it, only if I was actually courting the lady. I am not.’ He was not ready to commit himself. Not yet.