‘Coming!’ She walked back, leaving Jonathan where he was, and murmured to Cal, ‘I had forgotten what a tiresome man he was.’
‘In what way?’ He slowed, on the point of turning back.
‘A bore. Heavy flirtation. You must have seen the sort before. Thinks he is irresistible just because of his looks. No doubt if any lady actually responded to his advances he would flee like a startled rabbit.’
Cal snorted. ‘If he is bothering you, I’ll have him out of here.’
‘Goodness, no. He is not important. I just wanted to show off this wonderful parkland and forgot how wearying he was. Now, who else haven’t I met?’
It had been something of a risk, but at least now she had established a mild dislike of Jonathan in Cal’s mind and that would explain any expression he caught on her face as she looked at the man, or why she might seem to be avoiding him.
‘I think you know everyone else.’ Cal surveyed the room. ‘Probably a lot better than I do. Extraordinary how men you thought were perfect companions, entirely in tune with your thoughts and feelings, turn out to have either not grown up at all, or have become positively middle aged in the intervening years.’
‘Lord Micklethwaite?’ she guessed. ‘I was surprised that he had been a close friend of yours, I would have thought you had little in common. Unless you have been hiding your passion for Old Testament scholarship and forestry from me.’
‘We did once share many interests, but neither of those,’ Cal agreed with a snort of laughter, then sobered. ‘Will you ride out with me tomorrow? I would show you the estate and there is something I must talk to you about before many more days pass.’
‘That sounds ominous.’ Sophie gave a little wave to Lord Peter who was watching them, his expression inscrutable. After a second he raised his hand in response.
‘It is serious, but not, I hope, ominous. Ah, here is Renshaw.’
‘Dinner is served, my lady.’
Sophie found herself seated on Cal’s right hand at the top of the table, her mother opposite her. At the foot of the board her father was making conversation with Lady Peter in her role as hostess and Jonathan, thankfully, was on her side of the table and well towards the middle.
Provided Mr Tanner found something substantial to Jonathan’s discredit she could deal with this without anyone’s life being in danger and without any great scandal enveloping Cal and the dukedom.
It took Cal a while to get to sleep that night, despite a replacement bed from one of the guest chambers which was a better fit for his height. The knowledge that only three doors and two private rooms separated him from Sophie did not make for tranquillity. He was concerned about her and that attack of nervous tension and headache. She seemed strong, both physically and mentally, but he was asking a lot of her. Marriage to a man she hardly knew, the prospect of great rank and responsibility, might not bear down on a woman of less imagination than Sophie, but she was more sensitive than she allowed him to see much of the time.
And tomorrow he was going to add to the stress by telling her about his unresolved suspicions, the reasons he had left England. He wasn’t sure he could blame her if she called the match off. Would she fear she was in danger herself? He was convinced that she would not be, not until she was with child, and if this was not resolved, one way or another, by then he would take her away, show her some of the world, until it was. Cal smiled a trifle grimly, punched the pillows and turned over to try for sleep. All the more reason for celibacy until the wedding day.
He drifted off, vaguely aware at the edge of consciousness, of the chime of a distant long-case clock. One, two…
Something woke him, brought him up out of shallow sleep into near-consciousness, a sensation that there was someone else in the room with him. He lay still, ignoring the itch between his shoulder-blades that reminded him that his naked back was to the door, that he had no weapon to hand, that sheets had wound themselves around his legs, that someone was breathing in the room and that it was another man.
It was a moonlit night. Roll to the edge of the bed away from the door, grab the edge of the curtains, yank them back across the window and let in the moonlight, kick off the sheets and there’s a good heavy candlestick on the window ledge…
He was braced to move when the air shifted, a faint draft touched his cheek, the door closed with a click.
It took precious seconds to kick his way free of the sheets, to get to the door, open it onto an empty passageway and to run to the door onto the main corridor. Empty.
He looked down at himself, stark naked. By the time he had gone back to his room, pulled on even a minimum of clothing, whoever it was would be long gone. It was not a comforting thought to recall that the rooms his aunt and uncle and his cousin always used were just around the corner.
Chapter Fifteen - Where Sophie Visits a Castle
‘My dear, of course you want some time alone with my nephew.’ Lady Peter was rather more forthcoming the next morning after breakfast when Sophie asked her if she might be excused for a ride with the Duke. ‘The gentlemen seem to have plans involving the stables and the Home Farm and I was going to suggest that the ladies take a walk to the Temple Folly overlooking the lake for a picnic. But we will all quite understand if Calderbrook wants to show you around. Mind he gives you a nice steady mount though.’
Cal was sitting on the mounting block talking with an elderly groom while half a dozen horses were led around the stableyard. He stood up and raised an eyebrow as she hurried under the arch and the groom effaced himself. ‘Thank you, Hooper. Problem?’
‘No, I am sorry I kept you, but I had to make my apologies to your aunt.’ The eyebrow was still up. ‘She is your hostess, after all.’
‘So she is. What nice manners you have, Miss Wilmott.’ He took her hand in its tight calfskin glove, turned it and dropped a kiss on the exposed skin of her wrist. ‘Do you ride as well as you drive?’
‘I hope so.’ Sophie perched on the step of the block and watched the circling animals. ‘I like the bay gelding.’
‘Not too big for you? I haven’t ridden any of these, but Hooper says they all have reasonable manners except that beast.’ He nodded towards a rangy chestnut that was sidling round the yard showing the whites of its eyes and keeping the lad leading it on his toes.
‘So I suppose that is the one you will be riding,’ she teased him.