Loving The Lost Duke (Dangerous Deceptions #1)(55)
Sophie urged the bay gelding up alongside. ‘Where has Hunt got to?’
‘He will be back behind us now, covering. Look, there’s the herd of fallow deer.’
Sophie followed his pointing finger and admired the herd, listened as he talked about the park and its history and thought about what it would mean to love this man and how she was going to raise a family with him unless they discovered the truth about his mysterious illnesses and the accidents that had driven him from home.
And then she looked across and saw his face, animated, engrossed, as he talked about the land and what it meant to him and she knew that duke or not, under threat or not, she was going to carry on falling in love with him and she would stand shoulder to shoulder with him to fight whatever threatened them, and the family they would have.
‘There is a man I could take a thoroughly irrational dislike to with no provocation at all.’ Jared lounged against the panelling of the drawing room and narrowed his eyes at the nearest group who were talking while they waited for dinner to be announced.
‘Who?’ Cal shifted his position so he could look down the room to the object of Hunt’s attention.
‘Mr Beautiful, the big blond.’
Eyebrows raised, Cal studied the men. ‘What, Ransome, do you mean.’ He was the only large fair-haired man close by. Jared grunted assent. ‘You would call him beautiful?’
‘Of course I wouldn’t. But the ladies do. Heard those two who are hanging on his every word rhapsodising over him when I was coming back from the stables. So beautiful, such a profile, oh those blue eyes,’ he mimicked in an unlikely falsetto that made Cal snort with laughter. ‘And he thinks he’s God’s gift to the female sex too. Look at him modestly exerting all that charm. Makes me want to apply the toe of my boot to his perfect backside.’
‘Jealous, Jared?’ He studied Ransome with covert interest. So that was what women thought made a beautiful man was it? Beside him his friend snorted. Ransome shifted, his gaze over the heads of the pair of worshipful bridesmaids. What was attracting his interest? Then he saw Sophie, laughing, as she turned away from Sir Tobias, caught the predatory, almost smug, expression on Ransome’s face as he looked at her and saw her expression freeze into a mask when she saw the man’s attention on her.
Jared, alert at his side, turned at the hiss that escaped him. ‘What is it?’
‘Nothing. My imagination, merely.’ Sophie, dismissing her lover as a beautiful man. What had she said about him? I was mistaken in him. From the evidence that Cal had gained that morning he labelled that man selfish and clumsy in the bedchamber and there in front of him was boundless arrogance hidden behind a handsome fa?ade and practiced charm. He had arrived with Sir Toby who admitted he hadn’t seen Ransome in years and Sophie, who had seemed completely well until the moment Ransome stepped down from the curricle, had suddenly vanished pleading a headache.
No, it was not his imagination, surely? But if he was right, then what was Ransome doing here? It wasn’t by Sophie’s invitation, that was certain, not with the way she was reacting to him. Cal put down his glass and, beside him, Hunt did the same.
‘Who are we going to kill?’
‘No-one. Stop it, this is not the back streets of Buenos Aires. Stay here, I am simply going to be the gracious host.’
Ignoring Jared’s snort Cal strolled over and insinuated himself in the group around Ransome, who promptly stopped gazing earnestly into the eyes of Miss Belinda Wraythorne (sweet nature, large inheritance, unfortunate teeth) and nodded respectfully to his host.
‘You’ve fine stables here, Calderbrook. Your uncle gave us a thorough tour and I have to confess to being green with envy. And that was just the facilities. The bloodstock is superb. Lord Peter was telling me you have your own stallion for stud purposes.’ He broke off and looked apologetically at the young women. ‘Forgive me, I should not mention farmyard matters before ladies.’ His smile caressed Lady Penelope Beauville (pretty, lively, impoverished family, excellent connections) and she blushed and dimpled back.
Jared’s desire to plant his boot on Ransome’s buttocks seemed perfectly reasonable to Cal. He showed his teeth in an approximation of an agreeable smile. ‘My uncle built up the bloodlines when I was in my minority and I have simply carried on from a distance.’ Lord Peter was coming towards them and he turned, opening the group out in invitation.
It was the first time he had seen his uncle here in Cal’s ancestral home since he had left England and it struck him unpleasantly how very much at home the older man appeared, how naturally his manner had become that of the host.
‘Ransome complimented me on my stables and their occupants,’ Cal said. ’I was just saying how much the strong bloodlines owed to the days when you were in control here.’ He took great care with his expression, and his tone, but his uncle’s gaze sharpened. No fool, Lord Peter. ‘That must seem a long time ago now.’
‘A very long time,’ his uncle agreed, but his gaze flickered to his wife, holding court from the central sofa and then to his son, one foot on the edge of the hearth-stone, his elbow on the mantle-shelf, entirely relaxed and at home. ‘We all look forward to seeing you re-established here with your wife.’
‘And daughter,’ Cal said, easing in the gentle reminder that he was capable of siring children and that an heir must surely follow.