Calder Promise Read Free Page B

was almost a relief. “Laura Calder. And this is my aunt, Tara Calder,” she said, rather than going into a lengthy explanation of their exact relationship.
    “My pleasure, ma’am,” he murmured to Tara, acknowledging her with the smallest of bows.
    “And perhaps you already know Max Rutledge and his son, Boone.” Laura belatedly included the two men.
    “I know of them.” He nodded to Max.
    When he turned to the younger man, Boone extended a hand, giving him a look of hard challenge. “And you are?”
    “Sebastian Dunshill,” the man replied.
    “Dunshill,” Tara repeated with sudden and heightened interest. “Are you any relation to the earl of Crawford, by chance?”
    “I do have a nodding acquaintance with him.” His mouth curved in an easy smile as he switched his attention to Tara. “Do you know him?”
    “Unfortunately no,” Tara admitted, then drew in a breath and sent a glittering look at Laura, barely able to contain her excitement. “Although a century ago the Calder family was well acquainted with a certain Lady Crawford.”
    “Really. And how’s that?” With freshened curiosity, Sebastian Dunshill turned to Laura for an explanation.
    An awareness of him continued to tingle through her. Only now Laura was beginning to enjoy it.
    “It’s a long and rather involved story,” Laura warned. “After all this time, it’s difficult to know how much is fact, how much is myth, and how much is embellishment of either one.”
    “Since we have a fairly long walk ahead of us to the dining hall, why don’t you start with the facts?” Sebastian suggested and deftly tucked her hand under his arm, turning her to follow the other guests.
    Laura could feel Boone’s anger over the way he had been supplanted, but she didn’t really care. She had too much confidence in her ability to smooth any of Boone’s ruffled feathers.
    “The facts.” She pretended to give them some thought while her sidelong glance traveled over Sebastian Dunshill’s profile, noting the faint smattering of freckles on his fair skin and the hint of copper lights in his very light brown hair.
    Despite the presence of freckles, there was nothing boyish about him. He was definitely a man fully grown, thirty-something she suspected, with a very definite continental air about him. He didn’t exude virility the way Boone Rutledge did; his air of masculinity had a smooth and polished edge to it.
    “I suppose I should begin by explaining that back in the latter part of the 1870s, my great-great-grandfather Benteen Calder established the family ranch in Montana.”
    “Your family owns a cattle ranch?” He glanced her way, interest and curiosity mixing in his look.
    “A very large one.”
    “How many acres do you have? I don’t mean to sound nosy, but those of us on this side of the Atlantic harbor a secret fascination with the scope and scale of your American West.”
    “So I’ve learned. But truthfully we don’t usually measure in acres. We talk about sections,” Laura explained. “The Triple C has more than one hundred and fifty sections within its boundary fence.”
    “You’ll have to educate me,” he said with a touch of amusement. “How large is a section?”
    “One square mile, or six hundred and forty acres.”
    After a quick mental calculation, Sebastian gave her a suitably impressed look. “That’s nearly a million acres. And I thought all the large western ranches were in Texas, not Montana.”
    “Not all.” She smiled. “Anyway, according to early ranch records, there are numerous business transactions listed that indicate Lady Crawford was a party to them. Many of them involved government contracts for the purchase of beef. It appears that my great-great-grandfather paid her a finder’s fee, I suppose you would call it—an arrangement that was clearly lucrative for both of them.”
    “The earl of Crawford wasn’t named as a party in any of this, then,” Sebastian surmised.
    “No. In fact, the family