An hour and a half later, just as the three men were preparing to sit down to luncheon, James announced the arrival of Miss Sophia Stanton-Greville.
Emile shot Ryder a quizzical look. Ryder was frowning slightly. He hadn't thought she would come here, to him. It wasn't her style, at least he hadn't thought it would be. Something must have happened to get her here, that, or someone must have put the spurs to her to come.
Samuel Grayson gave James a fat smile and actually rubbed his hands together. "Do show her in, James. Oh yes."
When she came into the dining room, a vision in a pale yellow riding outfit, with only a minimum of cosmetics on her face, Ryder's eyes glittered. He knew her face wasn't completely clean because to do a good scrubbing would require utter compliance to his wishes. She would give up a single battle, but not the war.
She was all laughter and charm. She was gay and witty and she played with incredible boldness to Samuel Grayson's besottedness. She cast Ryder sloe-eyed looks, remarkably seductive, really. As for Emile, she ignored him for the most part. She readily accepted Samuel's luncheon invitation.
Ryder was content to sit back and watch her perform. He had no intention of entering the fray until he had her alone. And he did indeed want to be alone with her. As for Emile, he was clearly distracted.
Near the end of the meal, Sophie raised laughing eyes to Ryder and said, "I'm here actually to ask Mr. Sherbrooke to visit a fascinating cave one of our field slaves just discovered. It is much larger than the one I showed him on Penelope Beach and it isn't quite so cold and damp because the entrance is larger and thus more sun can come in."
"You would make a charming guide, my dear," Samuel Grayson said in a voice so infatuated that it made Ryder nauseous. "Ryder normally stays c>ut of the sun during this part of the day, the suffocating heat, you know, and he isn't yet used to it."
"Perhaps Mr. Sherbrooke would consider himself to have sufficient fortitude, to be a man of strong enough will, to bear up under the heat when the end result would be this charming cave."
Ryder recognized a bucket of bait when it hit him in the face. Ah yes, question a ma
n's virility and he would leap onto the hook with no hesitation.
"I don't know," he said slowly. "Perhaps another time, Miss Stanton-Greville. I'm really quite fatigued."
"Sophia," she said, her voice testy.
"Yes, Sophia. You know I'm not all that strong and my fortitude appears to be at low ebb. Yes, I am a weak man, one who must take care of his precarious health."
"Surely you can survive a simple ride to the beach!"
"Do you have an umbrella I can hold over my head on the way there?"
"A hat should be sufficient."
"I'm also worried about my horse," he said. "He pretends to be a mean devil, but underneath he's just as weak and low-ebbed as I."
She sucked in her breath. He was slippery as a spotted moray eel. Then she smiled. "Very well, then. I'm off to visit the cave. Good-bye, Mr. Grayson. Thank you for the delicious luncheon."
"But you didn't eat anything," Grayson called after her.
Emile began to laugh. His father spun on his heel and hurried after Miss Stanton-Greville.
"You have her going every which way, Ryder. I fancy this has never happened to her before."
"Yes. But enough is enough. I think I will have to follow her now. She just learned an important lesson in control. Now it's time for a frontal attack."
"No flank? No coming around the back?"
"You're becoming impertinent, Emile," Ryder said, grinned from ear to ear, and left.
Sophie didn't know what to do. She let a small slave lift her onto Opal's back. She sat there, staring blankly ahead of her. What to do?
She couldn't simply return to Camille Hall because Uncle Theo would know she'd failed. She shuddered at the consequences of that, unconsciously touching her fingertips to her cheek. It was a bit swelled from his blow. The powder covered it, but it didn't bury the memory of the pain, the humiliation. She would have liked to shout to that smug bastard, Ryder Sherbrooke, that she didn't wear makeup to look like a tart. She wore it to hide bruises, at least she had at first until Uncle Theo decided she looked more worldly, more seductive, painted like a whore. Of course he also realized that he could hit her more often without chance of discovery if her face was covered with cosmetics.
She had no choice. She would ride to the beach and loiter about before she returned home. Then she would lie to him. She would tell him that Ryder Sherbrooke had kissed her, had told her he wanted her. But then why wouldn't he want to take her to the cottage immediately? In her uncle's mind, a kiss made a man think instantly of bed. In her experience her uncle was quite right. Her brain closed down. She would deal with that when she had to.
Her decision made, Sophie urged Opal forward and made for the beach. It was called Monmouth Beach and it lay a mile farther east from Penelope's Beach. It was littered with jagged rock formations, the sand was a dirty brown from the swirling tides that crashed over and around the rocks. The cave was real. A slave had found it but yesterday. Opal picked her way carefully through the rocks, avoiding tide pools and battered tree limbs.
She didn't want to go to the damned cave. She pulled Opal to a halt, dismounted, and looked around. Within minutes, she was spreading the saddle blanket beneath a coconut tree and sitting in the shade, staring out over the brilliant blue sea. Her thoughts were, oddly, of her parents, of the last time she'd seen them four years before.