‘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.
‘Not when I am out with you, no.’ Cal turned, shielding her from the busy yard with his body. ‘I want to take care of you, Sophie. I want to keep you safe.’
That seemed a touch melodramatic when all they were discussing was one chestnut gelding in need of a few lessons in manners. Or was it? Sophie had the uneasy feeling that Cal was talking about more than horses.
‘Which then?’ She pulled off her glove and touched his cheek, very smooth from his morning shave. She brought her fingers to her lips, the scent of lemons touching her senses, and his eyes darkened.
‘Sophie.’ The moment lengthened, her breathing shortened, then he smiled and said, ‘The grey.’
Cal led the way out of the yard at a walk, and kept to that pace for half a mile.
‘Where are we going?’ She had thought he was going to show her the park, but they were heading out of it, towards the line of hills that rose to the west. ‘Are we leaving your land?’
‘We are going almost to the edge to where the first Thorne had his stronghold. Over there,’ he waved at the far distance where the hills rose higher. ‘That is where the Cheddar Gorge runs. Jocelyn de Thorne was, by the sound of it, a local robber baron and he had his own miniature gorge here, running back into the crest of the line of hills in front of us. That’s where he built a castle and proceeded to expand eastward, getting control over as much good land as he could lay his hands on.’
‘By marriage?’
‘By marriage and by battle and by downright trickery, I strongly suspect. His son was a landowner with some power hereabouts. His grandson was rich enough and powerful enough to be made an earl, and so it has gone on.’
‘You own land beyond the crest?’
‘No. There are minerals on the far slope and mines here and there, but it is tough country and the Thornes never concerned themselves with it, not when there were easier pickings, rich farm land and wealthy heiresses between them and Bristol. There is a village over the crest, but the road doesn’t even run this way and it is a poor place – or it was when I left.’
‘And the villages on your land?’
‘Brookwood is the nearest and largest. Then there’s a couple of hamlets, Rundene and Herriots End. I must visit those soon because most of the property belongs to the estate and so they are my responsibility.’
‘Does your uncle still act for you?’
‘No.’ Cal used his heels and the grey broke from a walk into a canter. By the time she caught up with him he seemed disposed to answer. ‘When I left I employed Prescott as a secretary. He is, in effect, my confidential assistant. He deals with my agents, carries out my orders and I have total trust in him – he is intelligent enough to do what I would do under any circumstance, which was necessary when I was often months away by post.’
They reached the edge of the parkland and Cal held a gate for her to pass through into a mix of small fields and woodland that became scrub and moorland as they climbed. Then he turned from the open country onto a wide track through the wood and into a valley, steep and narrow. Through the trees Sophie glimpsed outcrops of rock above their heads.
‘Where is the river?’
‘This is dry. The rock here is limestone and water eats into it. Streams run a short distance then vanish into chasms or quite small holes, only to reappear miles away. At one time a stream must have cut this miniature gorge and then hit a fault in the rock and vanished underground. Here is the castle.’