Page 21 of Fit for a Duke
Godfrey gave a belly laugh. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’
‘Not especially, no. Just don’t forget what you are supposed to be finding out below stairs. Your primary purpose is to keep me alive, not chase after the maids.’
‘I shall endeavour to oblige.’
Ezra laughed as he climbed between the sheets. ‘Get out of here!’ he said.
Merlin abandoned the open window, jumped onto the bed beside Ezra and fell asleep in seconds, his gentle snores reverberating through his body. But Ezra, his mind overflowing, knew that for him sleep would be longer in coming.
Chapter Six
An exhilarating, flat-out gallop soon cleared the cobwebs from Clio’s head. She drew rein when she reached a rise in the ground and pushed the tangle of hair away from her eyes. Her ribbon had slipped and Daisy would complain about having to get rid of all the knots in the tresses that fell to her waist in an unruly jumble. Clio patted Raven’s sweaty neck beneath the thick mane that reached his shoulder and gloried in the magnificent vista that had opened up in front of her—a view of which she would never tire.
‘It puts it all in proportion, don’t you think?’ she asked Raven, who seemed more interested in dropping his head and cropping at the grass than he did in the natural beauty of his surroundings. ‘We are all of us so small and inconsequential in comparison to this.’ She waved one arm in a wide arc. ‘We did right to accept my aunt’s offer to stay with her. I was worried that I might cause an upheaval, but unlike my Welsh relations Aunt Fletcher has shown me nothing but kindness. And Adele is the sister I never had. Things have a way of working themselves out and I would have nothing to worry about were it not for Captain Salford and his ridiculous expectations. I wish my aunt had asked me before inviting him, but I expect she thought she was doing me a kindness and that I would enjoy the surprise.’
Clio pushed Raven forward into a trot as she continued on the track to the old priory, a relic from the Tudor age when Henry VIII sacked the monasteries and stripped them of their valuables. Clio had been told that it was haunted, but she had seen no evidence of the ghosts of any discontented monks. Instead she found the ruined cloisters restful. They gave her sanctuary when she required solitude.
Accustomed to their routine, Raven seemed content when she tied his reins to a low branch and left him to crop at the grass once more. It was a fine morning and so Clio stripped off her gloves and threw back her head to embrace the day as she clambered over the buried remains of old walls to reach her perch in the cloister. She seated herself on a worn stone and enjoyed the view, emptying her mind and allowing the peace of her surroundings to envelop her. She was assured of privacy since no one else ever came up here.
Except that today, it seemed, they did.
The sound of a horse being ridden fast reached her ears and she sighed, hoping that Captain Salford had not somehow managed to follow her to this secluded spot with the intention of bullying her into acquiescence. She tapped her riding crop aggressively against the adjoining rock.
‘Let him try it!’ she muttered.
She realised her mistake when the horse drew nearer and an involuntary gasp slipped past her guard. The duke, in shirtsleeves, sat astride the magnificent black stallion she had noticed in the stables that morning, his long hair flying out behind him. He and the spirited horse made a magnificent sight, especially with his dog loping along beside them. What were the chances of him taking the same route as her by accident, she wondered? Next to none, she decided. He must have deliberately followed her, but for what purpose?
‘What is he doing here?’ she asked aloud, ignoring the fact that her heart rate had accelerated and her cheeks felt unnaturally warm. The prospect of being alone with the duke filled her with a very different emotion to that engendered by the possibility of Salford’s presence. He was one of the few people who could invade her favourite spot without Clio raising objections.
He reined his stallion in, tied him to a branch a safe distance away from Raven, shaded his eyes against the sun and smiled up at her.
‘May I join you?’ he asked.
‘Do I have a choice in the matter?’ she replied ungraciously, wondering why her instinct was to be short with him. Perhaps, she decided, because no one else tended to be. Besides, he had sought her out. It wasn’t as though she had somehow enticed him here.
‘Apparently not,’ the duke said, as Merlin scampered up to her, demanding attention. She smiled at him as she obliged, pointedly ignoring the duke while she waited for her erratic heartbeat to settle into a more natural rhythm. She glanced at him as he stretched his long legs and easily covered the distance between them without stumbling over the rugged ground. ‘May I?’ he asked, indicating the rock beside hers.
‘I believe that seat is free.’
‘I saw you from the window and followed you, in case you are wondering,’ he admitted, glancing at her profile. ‘I hope you do not mind.’
‘This is a favourite destination for Raven and me,’ she replied. ‘It is so peaceful. I feel that I can breathe up here.’ She threw back her head and closed her eyes as she filled her lungs with sweet, fresh air. ‘No one else ever comes this way.’
‘Then I am disturbing your reverie,’ he said, making to stand.
‘You are disturbing me, but it doesn’t follow that the disturbance is unwelcome, and there is no need for you to leave. I don’t know why I am being such a crosspatch.’ She plucked at a blade of grass, unable to meet the penetrating gaze that she felt burning into her profile. ‘Take no notice of me. I am not myself.’
‘Because of Salford?’
‘Yes, in part.’ Merlin had run off to investigate but returned with his tongue hanging out and flopped down beside her. She tugged at his ears. ‘I wish I knew why he had come and what he expects from me, since I do not believe he feels any particular affection for me. Nor is he fulfilling my father’s wishes, as he is trying to make me believe. Anyway, whatever it is, I sense that he will not give up easily.’
‘I concur. I believe he intended to follow you upstairs when you left the party, which implies a degree of urgency on his part. I made sure that you were not inconvenienced.’
‘Thank you.’ Clio ran her lower lip through her teeth, contemplating this revelation. ‘His desperation concerns me, I won’t deny it.’
‘The man is not to be trusted.’
‘Really?’ She sent him a sweetly sarcastic smile. ‘I appreciate that I am a feeble female, incapable of rational thought, but even I had managed to reach that conclusion.’
