His Wedding-Night Heir(24)

‘I suppose you know that you're trespassing?'

And her own reply, made defensive by guilt, as she stared down from the back of her horse at the tall young man confronting her on the path. I was just taking a shortcut across the edge of the wood. Sir Ranald never objected.'

'Unfortunately Sir Ranald's no longer around to express an opinion either way,' he said. 'But I am, and I came out after pigeon.' He indicated the gun he was carrying. 'Supposing I'd accidentally winged you instead? Or your horse? In future, sweetheart, take the long way round.' The strange silver-grey eyes flickered over her, absorbing the damp cotton shirt outlining her small breasts, her slender denim-clad thighs. He added quietly, 'You'll find it safer.'

And with another long, considering look he turned and vanished as abruptly as he 'd appeared, leaving Cally to lean forward on Baz's neck, gasping as if she'd been winded after a gallop, instead of merely taking a gentle hack across someone else's land as she 'd done so often before.

But never again, she swore as she clicked her tongue to Baz and they set off again. In future she'd give the Wylstone estate, and its new owner, a very wide berth.

And she'd meant it, Cally thought. From then on she'd scrupulously avoided any diversions through the dappled shade of the Home Wood.

And then she'd come in from shopping one day to find her grandfather entertaining a visitor in the drawing room.

'Ah, come in, my dear,' Robert Naylor had hailed her. 'Tempest, I don't think you've met my granddaughter, Caroline. Cally—this is poor Ranald's cousin. Sir Nicholas Tempest. He plans to live at Wylstone, so the rumours were wrong. We're going to have neighbours after all.'

'No, we haven't been formally introduced.' Nicholas Tempest's mouth was solemn as he shook hands with her, but the grey eyes were sparking with amusement. 'I came to ask your grandfather to dine with me next week,' he went on, his fingers still holding hers. 'I hope you'll be able to accompany him.'

'Of course she will,' Robert said robustly. 'She must find life damned slow down here, spending her time with an old fellow like me.'

Nicholas Tempest's brows lifted. 'Then we shall have to find some means of keeping her entertained,' he said softly.

Cally freed herself hastily, murmured something about unpacking the groceries, and escaped. But even as she busied herself, stowing things away in the larder and the big old-fashioned refrigerator, she found herself assailed by the memory of the touch of his hand on hers. And scared by it too, in a way that was both unfamiliar and totally unwelcome.#p#分页标题#e#

And that, she thought tiredly, was how it had begun. Meeting him socially at dinners and parties in the locality, and when he came to visit her grandfather for reasons she'd never been able to fathom—not then. Occasionally she'd encountered him when she went riding, and he'd joined her astride a smart bay gelding that was a marked contrast to her own gentle, ageing Baz.

That had been the only time they'd ever met alone. Their conversation had always been general, and Cally had been astute enough to realise that she was being kept at a distance mentally as well as physically. Because he'd made no attempt to touch her again.

Yet before long she'd found herself looking out for him— hoping that she'd see him. Finding herself curiously at a loss when the business of his various companies had called him away. Shyly delighted when she'd learned of his return.

She'd never found the visits to Wylstone Hall much to her liking, particularly as Sir Ranald's widow Adele had still been snugly ensconced there, acting as Nick's hostess. Cally had been discomposed to find herself pinpointed by Lady Tempest's contemptuous violet gaze on more than one occasion, and the crimson lips had been quite capable of uttering limpid remarks, supposed to be teasing, yet designed to make Cally feel like a gauche schoolgirl. She'd found herself half-dreading those uncomfortable occasions.

'Says she doesn't want to be known as a dowager because it sounds so elderly,' Robert Naylor snorted after one of them. 'But Nicholas should pack her off to the Dower House just the same, and be quick about it—before the gossip starts. All this drooping around in black doesn't fool anyone, and I'd put money on her not having shed a single tear for poor Ranald. God only knows where he found her, but she's no intention of going back there.'

He shook his head. 'Wouldn't surprise me if she was banking on becoming Lady Tempest for a second time.'

'You mean Sir Nicholas might marry her?' Cally was startled in a number of ways, not all of which she wanted to examine too closely. 'But she's older than him.'

'Well, he's thirty, so there can't be more man a few years in it,' her grandfather said with a grunt. 'And she's a looker. I'll grant her that. No one could blame her for trying.' He gave another wag of the head. 'And proximity's a damned dangerous thing.'