Loving The Lost Duke (Dangerous Deceptions #1)(46)

The arrivals proved to be several bridesmaids, complete with two guardian mamas, in one coach; Lord and Lady Faversham in the second and Sir Tobias Greenwich driving himself in a curricle with another man in his mid-twenties beside him, presumably the old friend he had asked if he could bring along.

After his initial greeting Lady Elmham dealt with the female contingent, ushering the young ladies and their chaperones off to the care of Mrs Fairfax and leaving him to shake hands with Greenwich and his friend while the Favershams spoke to Renshaw about their baggage.

‘This is an old acquaintance I had not seen for years, Your Grace,’ Toby was explaining as they shook hands. ‘He’s been out of Town so long I thought this would be ideal for him to make himself known again.’ He stepped aside and let the tall blond man a pace behind him step forward. ‘Your Grace, Jonathan Ransome of Penzance.’

Cal shook hands, waved aside the Your Graces with the insistence they all call him Cal and turned to find Lady Faversham at his side.

‘Where is Sophie?’ she asked. ‘I cannot wait to see her.’

‘Just back here.’ Cal turned and looked. The hall was empty.





Chapter Fourteen - Where Sophie Finds Trouble on the Doorstep


Sophie fled. Two sliding, backwards steps to take her under the curve of the stairs, three hasty steps to the baize door into the realm of the servants and a clear run down the flagged passageway with a glimmer of daylight at the end. Mercifully there were no staff to wonder what their future duchess was doing, running as though the hounds of hell were on her heels. She burst out into the semi-basement area at the side of the house nearest the stables and ran up the steps.

At the top Sophie slumped against the balustrade and dragged air into her lungs until the dancing black spots in front of her eyes went away. Do not panic. That was the first thing. Get back to my room. Once she was there she could feign indisposition and think. Plan. Think of something. There was the rub. How was she going to get out of this?

But first, back into the house. She walked round the outside with a wary eye on the windows. No-one was inside to see her and there was one ajar, the one that opened into the breakfast room. And she knew how to get from there to the bedroom floor using one of the minor staircases that she had seen when they looked round the house that morning.

The window was tall, with a low cill that was easy to climb over, and she was inside in a minute and hurrying towards the stairs in two. It took several false turns and a nerve-wracking retreat when she heard the voices of two of the maids approaching, but she found the door into the ducal apartments, and her own suite without anyone seeing her.

Lock the door. Every instinct urged her to turn the key, jam a chair-back under the handle. Instead she took off her shoes and gown, unlaced her stays, slipped on a wrapper and lay down on the bed after drawing the curtains. How long before they missed her? Best to make sure no alarm was caused by her unexplained absence. Sophie pulled the bell cord and waited.

‘Yes, Miss Wilmott?’ Mary appeared in a few minutes. ‘Are you unwell, ma’am?’

‘I have a migraine.’ She lay back and made her voice a little faint. ‘Please will you tell my mother that I am resting. I think I will be better by dinner time if I just lie quietly and try and sleep.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ Mary closed the door carefully behind her.

She’d had migraines before, although they had become rarer as she got older, but Mama knew they were usually brought on by some stressful situation or worry and she would assume that was the case now. Mama also knew that they vanished with rest and quiet and would not fuss over her.

Sophie sat up in bed and fought the urge to bury her face in the pillows and pretend it was a bad dream. She couldn’t blame Toby, who wouldn’t recognise a love-affair going on under his nose unless he actually fell over the couple kissing, had never known about the disaster with Jonathan. When it became clear that her parents thought she could do better for herself that to marry him she had fallen in easily with Jonathan’s urging to keep their feelings quiet, and afterwards what had happened was not something to confide in a male friend. Besides, she had thought Jonathan had gone from her life for good.

It was bad enough to imagine what Cal would do to the man who had seduced her into elopement and then forced himself on her, but she couldn’t imagine his reaction if he discovered that Jonathan had insinuated himself into Cal’s own home in order to blackmail her.

She had been worried before that Cal would call Jonathan out and kill him. That was bad enough, making Cal into a killer, creating the most appalling scandal, even if he did escape hanging. And there was always the possibility that Jonathan would kill him. Accidents happened in duels, people tripped, guns misfired, dualists cheated. And Jonathan was a very good shot and would have the choice of weapons, whilst she had no idea if Cal could hit a barn door at ten paces.

But now, surely, he would simply tear Jonathan limb from limb, and while a death in a dual might escape the full penalties of the law, hot-blooded murder would not. Although if anyone could cover it up, it would be a duke with experience in some of the wilder parts of the world…

What was she thinking? Sophie flung back the covers and began to pace the room. Murder was not an answer. It was never the answer to anything. She had to get herself out of this quagmire, the swamp she had got herself into because she was such a terrible judge of men. She had thought she had paid for that mistake, but apparently not.