Chapter Fifteen
Lord Laughraine’s Summer Promise
Elizabeth Beacon
A vow to heal the past
Nine years ago, beautiful Callie Sommers eloped with wild young Gideon Laughraine. But their passionate romance ended in tragedy. Now, at the behest of his godmother, Gideon has promised to reclaim the wife he loved and lost.
Callie never thought she’d see Gideon again, but his return reminds her how she blossomed under his touch. With her husband fighting for a second chance, now could be the time for Callie to forget scandal and trust in the man she once held so dear...
‘So where is this Cataret House School you might recall if you weren’t feeling “quite so mazed” by the heat?’ Sir Gideon Laughraine, otherwise known as Mr Frederick Peters, asked the pretend idiot he’d hailed for directions.
The idler scratched his grizzled head and shrugged as Gideon bit back a curse and wondered if anyone else would be about on such a sweltering afternoon. Unless he found a field being worked close to the road, there was probably nobody who wasn’t at work or staying inside out of the sun within hailing distance, so he dug in his waistcoat pocket for a small coin and held it up to encourage the man’s memory.
‘That’s it over yonder,’ the man finally admitted with a nod towards a farmhouse on the opposite side of the valley that looked as if it had delusions of grandeur. ‘Likely you’ll find the old girl in, but young miss went down the track to Manydown a half hour ago.’
Gideon bit back a curse and flipped the coin to the knowing rogue before turning his weary horse and following in young miss’s footsteps.
‘I wouldn’t want to find the old besom in a hurry either, mister,’ the knowing idiot told him before slouching off to spend his windfall in the local ale house.
‘Needs must when the devil drives,’ Gideon muttered grimly, not much looking forward to that encounter either, then he forgot the ‘old girl’ by wondering what the young one might be up to.
Would she blench at the very sight of him and look as if the devil was on her heels, or give him that delightful smile he still remembered with a gasp of the heart all these years on? Who knew? Lady Virginia Winterley was right though; he had to find out if his wife would ever smile at him again outside his favourite dreams.
Dear Boy, his late patroness and friend began the letter that heralded the third quest on her list, left in her will to chime with every new season of the year after her death. He’d had no inkling he was one of the unfortunates she’d decided to do good to until that demand he do as he was bid for the next three months was put in his hand by the new Lady Farenze.
I am quite sure it will come as a great surprise to you when dear Chloe tells you that you have the next quest on my list.
Well, yes, you’re quite right there, my lady, he thought with a shake of his dark head to admit she’d outfoxed him once again.
It should not be, she continued, as if she were standing at his shoulder and could see the sceptical expression on his face when he finally realised why Luke Winterley’s new wife had sought him out to hand him the letter from Lady Virginia.
You are my beloved Virgil’s
