At first she could see nothing, only an expanse of rock, then she realised that it was the ruins of a simple fortress – two turrets, a length of connecting curtain wall, broken down, covered in some place by ivy, in others providing anchorage for saplings. ‘How romantic! Can we get in?’
‘I doubt it is safe. It needs checking thoroughly before I would risk you in there, but I confess that it would be interesting to restore it, make this area part of the park. Come and see the Duke’s Spring.’ Cal swung down out the saddle and held up his hands to help her down.
It was easy to put her hands on his shoulders and slide down, his fingers firm on her waist, his body strong and steady against hers. The kiss was inevitable, prolonged, delicious torture. Sophie felt her resolve weakening, just as Cal moved back and released her.
‘A moment when a cold stream would be very welcome,’ he said ruefully.
‘Yes,’ Sophie agreed so earnestly that he laughed. ‘Show me the spring.’
‘It isn’t a spring any longer, unfortunately. Here.’ He led her to the foot of one of the towers and showed her the ragged gash in the natural stone by its side. ‘Water used to gush out of here and, by a long-held superstition, only the Duke could drink from it. Then, the day after my father died, it dried up. Not so much as a trickle. You may imagine the talk hereabouts. There were rumours of everything from a curse on the ducal house to some wretch drinking from the spring causing the death. And, to reinforce the superstitious talk, a new spring appeared, just over there, two days later.’
He took her hand and helped her over some tumbled stones to a narrow path. The sound of water grew louder and Sophie stopped, sniffed. ‘That’s odd…’ but Cal was forging ahead to where a narrow vertical crack in the rock gushed a torrent into a natural basin beneath before it vanished into another crack in the rock.
He bent, scooped water up in his palm, drank and shook off the drops, grimacing, making her dance backwards with a laugh.
‘May I have a drink?’
‘Certainly not. This is the Duke’s Spring, remember. Anyway, like most spa waters, it doesn’t taste good. I’ve got water in my saddlebag.’
Sophie followed Cal back through the trees, over the fallen stones to where they had left the horses and then, taking the bay’s reins, down to where a flat rock made a natural seat overlooking the land below. ‘This is what your ancestor saw and coveted.’
‘Yes.’ He unbuckled the saddlebags and began to unpack a flask, two horn beakers and a packet wrapped in waxed paper. ‘Just a little something to keep us from collapse.’ They shared out the bread and cheese, poured the water, which turned out to be wine and Sophie settled to admire the view.
‘This is what my ancestor coveted.’ Cal echoed her words, his own voice grim. ‘I think the time has come to tell you why I left England. When my father died I was seven years old. A healthy, fit child. My uncle, my father’s younger brother, my only adult male relative, became my guardian. The estate could not have had a better master, nor could all the parts of the ducal empire – because that it what it is – if it had all been his. Which of course it would be if I died.’
The cheese fell from Sophie’s hand, rolled down the stone and vanished into the gorse below the rock. ‘You don’t mean… no, of course you don’t…’
‘I began to fall ill with vicious attacks of sickness and fever that left me exhausted. I lost weight after every bout so each subsequent one hit me harder. And then I started to have accidents when I was fit enough to get about. A stone fell from the parapet, missing me by a foot, about the distance that a shot missed me in the woods. A poacher, no doubt, and failing mortar that no-one had noticed, perhaps. An over-polished top step on the stairs – there was a broken arm that time. Or the worn girth that broke. That fall broke my leg.’
‘Cal, young boys, youths, have accidents.’
‘True. That is what I believed. Ralph would take tumbles too, although oddly stones never fell near him, nor did shots almost take his ear off. The doctors lamented my poor health: some weakness of the constitution, they said, some incurable illness that perhaps I would grow out of as inexplicably as I had developed it. None of them knew what it was. My aunt encouraged whatever lunacy they came up with for treatment. Lord knows how much blood they drained off me.
‘I came up to London, joined in the Season when I was just twenty, found myself much better. It was almost as though the air of Calderbrook did not agree with me, I thought. Then Ralph joined me. Two days later I was attacked by footpads in an alleyway off St James’s Street and left for dead. Ralph had me carted home and then the sickness came again. I had fought the footpads, done them some serious damage. I could not fight this.’