would have to know he was coming for it to be one of those, wouldn’t you?’ Kate said as if she was quite convinced Isabella had been waiting for him to catch up with her ever since she broke her engagement to his brother and how much more wrong-headed could one woman get?
Wulf cursed himself for not being able to resist the shine of tears in a little boy’s eyes when he begged for help to catch up with his big sister. He’d been excluded from so much as a boy that the little rascal couldn’t have chosen a better bid for sympathy. Yet what would such a young girl think when confronted by a strange man with her brother aloft, especially one this unkempt and in need of a shave? His windswept, travel-stained appearance would probably terrify her and exhaustion was making it easier for him to frown than smile.
‘How did the infernal brat persuade you to hunt me down?’ this girl demanded when she saw her brother riding triumphantly on a stranger’s shoulders. ‘I do wish people would ignore him when he pretends to be an ill-treated waif. Every time someone believes him it only encourages him to keep doing it,’ she went on and he should have known this sturdy little rogue couldn’t have a shrinking violet as a sister.
‘Thank you for the advice. I’ll bear it in mind if I’m not invited again,’ he managed to reply with a straight face. He had ridden here too hard to get this over with. Lack of sleep and a decent meal must be making him light-headed, because there wasn’t anything here to laugh about.
‘We don’t live here, so that won’t do any good,’ she told him with a resigned sigh that almost set him off again.
‘I promise to learn from my mistakes, then,’ Wulf said, swinging his giggling passenger down so the boy could run into a clever lavender labyrinth and gallop its paths as if he’d had enough energy to run from Herefordshire to the distant Welsh Mountains all along.
‘He’s a horrid brat and should be beaten at least once a day for the good of all our souls, but who the devil are you?’ the girl demanded as if she’d only just taken in his windswept, bearlike appearance and realised he wasn’t the sort of visitor a grand house like Cravenhill Park usually attracted by daylight.
‘I’m Wulf FitzDevelin; who the devil are you?’ he replied, wondering if the young men of the ton had any idea what a whirlwind was going to hit them when she was old enough to be presented at Court.
‘I’m Miss Sophia Kenton, because my older sister Julia got to be Miss Kenton when our aunt married Mr Sandbatch, and Wulf’s not a proper name for a gentleman.’
‘I’m not a proper gentleman, but it’s short for Wulfric if that helps.’
‘He’s my horse,’ young Master Kenton shouted breathlessly from the labyrinth and this time Wulf did laugh out loud. The sound sent a pair of crows cawing into the treetops and broke the almost uncanny peace of this place.
‘I’d have thrown him off a lot sooner if I were you,’ Sophia said with a frown at her little brother.
‘I really don’t think you would,’ Wulf said, seeing reluctant affection in the girl’s eyes and contrasting it with the open dislike in the eyes of his two eldest half-siblings when he’d been a scrubby brat himself.
‘Probably not, but I’d be tempted,’ the girl said with a wry smile.
‘It is you, Mr FitzDevelin; I thought my eyes were deceiving me. What a very unexpected surprise,’ Isabella Alstone’s cool voice said from behind them.
Wulf felt his heart thunder; instinct should have warned him she was there. The sound made him feel as if parts of him he didn’t want to think about right now could burst into flames. ‘Good day, Miss Alstone,’ he said flatly.
Somehow he managed to meet her dark blue eyes calmly and she obviously couldn’t imagine why he was polluting the clean air of her brother-in-law’s fine estate and ought to go back where he belonged. In the gutter presumably, he concluded and hoped a cynical half-smile would divert her from the ravenous hunger roaring through him like the hottest and most ill-timed lightning.
‘Is my brother-in-law expecting you?’ she asked as if she had no idea how she made red-blooded males feel by being so perfectly, femininely arrogant. All he wanted right now was to kiss her and it took too much effort to recall why he’d come. She’d jilted Magnus—Gus, as he’d always been to Wulf—and he’d done so much damage between them already even the idea was madness and he should be ashamed of himself.
‘I doubt Lord Shuttleworth has the least idea I’m here, but you should have known I’d come, Miss Alstone,’ he said stiffly.
‘Why would I? There’s no reason for you to intrude on a private family gathering and I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw you walking up the Broad Walk with young Kit on your shoulders,’ Isabella said stiffly.
Now she was faced with the real man her silly heart was racing as if she’d run all the way from the house to simper at him. She half-wished he was still on the other side of the Atlantic, building the new life he’d claimed to want when he left England. If he’d stayed away, she wouldn’t have to face the fact he still stirred her as no other man ever had. She wouldn’t have to feel the Isabella he woke up that night straining against the leash.
‘You didn’t send your brother-in-law to throw me out, though, did you?’ he challenged in the husky undertone she found so ridiculously enchanting that moon-mad night.
‘I don’t want to embarrass my family, Mr FitzDevelin,’ she said primly.
‘I presume you are part of Miss Alstone’s family, Miss Sophia? Am I making you uncomfortable?’
‘Yes, I am and, no, you’re not. I’m far too interested in how Aunt Izzie knows you and what you’ve done to make her glare daggers at you. I don’t think Kit has ever been embarrassed about anything in his life, so I shouldn’t bother to ask him.’
‘Oh, please run along, Sophia, and take young Kit with you,’ Isabella interrupted before this meeting turned into an even bigger farce.
‘I can’t; it would be improper to leave you alone with a strange gentleman, Aunt Izzie. It’s our duty to chaperon you,’ Sophia said so virtuously Isabella frowned to say she was overdoing it and should do as she was bid for once.
‘Maybe so, but show your little brother the way to the middle of the lavender labyrinth and at least try to mind your own business while you’re doing it,’ she said, in lieu of Sophia turning into a proper young lady by a minor miracle.
Sophia crossed her arms and stared back as if Isabella was the one being difficult. ‘For that I should stay here and insist on listening to every word.’
‘Go away, Sophia. Please?’ Isabella gave up trying to reason her out of eavesdropping. ‘Please?’ she cajoled as she was desperate to get this over and Wulf back on the road before Edmund or Hugh knew he was here.
‘Oh, very well, but you owe me half-a-dozen favours.’
‘And she’ll make me pay,’ Isabella muttered gloomily once Sophia demanded little Kit’s attention until he found something more interesting to do.
‘You don’t treat her as an irritating little girl,
