Not a trace ofher.
Disappointment stole through him. What was he doing here? He hadn’t the faintest interest in drinking the afternoon away with Archer and his morose friend. He saw but one way forward—the direct. “Is it only the three of us in the party?”
“Oh, no, the women have struck off in a ramble. Scattered amongst the hills like dandelions.” Archer didn’t seem too concerned. “And thank God for that.”
“Oh?” asked Tristan.
Archer popped a grape into his mouth and spoke around it, “Amelia received a letter from England this morning that’s got her all in a tizzy.”
Kilmuir pushed to a stand. “I’m off on a ramble meself,” he said in his light Scottish burr.
“But Ravensworth will be here any minute with opera singers,” said Archer.
Kilmuir grunted and stalked off toward the olive trees.
Just then came the sound of carriage wheels crunching across dirt and gravel, accompanied by a wafting of feminine laughter. Tristan caught a glimpse of ostrich feathers. Ravensworth and the opera singers had arrived.
Tristan took that as his cue to embark on a ramble himself and told Archer as much.
“But the opera singers, Ripon,” said Archer.
“More for you,” said Tristan and tipped his hat. He headed in the direction opposite the one taken by Kilmuir. No morose Scotsmen for him today.
Across the tall grass he strode. This was no lazy afternoon ramble. He had a woman to find.
On the other side of a thin blade of cherry laurels and halfway down a small hillside, he caught sight of two female figures on a blanket—one with silky raven-black hair and the other with a riot of short blonde curls. His heart performed a neat little flip in his chest before his mind caught up with the reaction. Lady Amelia had long, flowing curls. This was Lady Delilah and their cousin Miss Windermere.
“If it isn’t the Duke of Ripon,” called out Lady Delilah, holding a hand to her forehead. “How interesting to see you here.” Both women stared at him with matching curious expressions.
“Just here for an afternoon ramble.”
Their heads canted at the exact same angle. They weren’t convinced. “Tell me, Your Grace,” continued Lady Delilah, “what is your opinion of Christopher Marlowe?”
“The playwright?” A conversation with the Windermeres certainly never took the usual turn.
As one, the ladies nodded.
He had a feeling there was a correct answer, and he wasn’t about to deliver it. “I haven’t one.”
He gave them a tip of the hat and was on his way.
“If you see Amelia, give her our regards.”
A flurry of soft giggles might have met his back. No matter. Lady Amelia was near. He sensed it.
Just inside an oak woodland at the bottom of yet another hill, he encountered a narrow stream. Instinct had him cutting left and following its shallow bank upstream. If he knew Lady Amelia Windermere at all—and he did, quite well—she would be situated alongside the mellow trickle of water flowing lazily over rocks and moss with a charcoal or paintbrush in her hand.
He rounded a bend and found her not thirty feet away just as he’d imagined her: tucked in a little patch of grass beside the water, green checked blanket spread beneath her, charcoal in hand, sketchbook on her lap, gaze both dreamy and focused, lost in the state of creation. She must have caught movement in the corner of her eye for her gaze flicked up and held his. He kept placing one foot in front of the other until he reached the edge of her blanket.
She looked a vision, Lady Amelia Windermere, in her mint-green sprigged muslin dress and hair tied loosely back, her curls having their own ideas about their bound state. In truth, she looked like a woman waiting to be ravished. Which, of course, she wasn’t. But the way she was staring up at him…
Or was she?
With care, she set her sketching materials off to the side and pushed to a stand. No words had yet been spoken, but they didn’t seem all that necessary. Between them lay not five feet which she crossed with a few steps; now separated by mere inches, a light blush staining her cheeks, her mouth parted in an upturned O, her delicate, crisp scent of lavender just reaching him. Her breath came in shallow bursts as if she’d run a great distance.
She reached a tentative hand out and caressed his cheek while pressing the flat of her other palm against his chest, his heart a gallop against his ribs. How he’d craved her touch these last three days. Ached for it, in fact. But his body was greedy and wanted more than the caress of a cheek.
It wanted all of her.
