The Lodestone Read Free Page B

nature—and, there was no rendezvous after all.” Cleome bristled at his words but he stepped up to her and caught her hand. “What? Not even a hello for me, after all these years? Why, Cleome . . . such manners!”
    “Hello, Garnett,” she muttered.
    “ Enchante ,” he murmured, bending to brush her hand with his lips. With no apology, she pulled it away from him.
    “Get the damned horse!” Lord Easton barked at his groom and as the man led the errant mare into the stable yard, Easton warned Cleome anew. “I promise you, impertinent miss, that if she finds her way here unattended again, it will be the last time.”
    Cleome led Molly to the edge of the lawn where the old man Drake had passed on the road was just pulling the Shetland to a halt. She quickly tied the mare to the back of the cart, and then she went to the splendid colt that had conveyed her to the Easton estate. With a slight bow, Drake held her bonnet out to her as she passed him.
    “I believe this is yours, mademoiselle,” he said.
    **
    With a terrible shock, Cleome realized that a stranger had witnessed the entire uproar. If her Grandmamma were still alive, she would have punished Cleome severely for acting “like lowborn Liverpool trash.” A blush crept into her cheeks and heightened them to a warm glow as she looked up into smoky, hazel eyes that were thickly fringed with dark lashes and sparkling with unspent laughter.
    “Thank you, sir,” she said as she took the bonnet from the tall stranger. She turned away from him and hastily replaced it, trying to restore her hair to some semblance of order. By the time she had tied the ribbons, this giant of a man was bending in front of her beside Epitome, his hands forming a stirrup; and she realized she had also lost her slippers somewhere along the way. Her blush deepened but she allowed him to help her up onto Epitome’s back; and his warm flesh cupping the naked arch of her foot inspired within her a longing such as she’d never experienced, and that she could not name.
    She nodded with as much dignity as possible to the small company of gentlemen and motioned for Old Sam to follow her. He touched his brow to Lord Easton, the younger Easton and the stranger; and then he dutifully followed his mistress down the lane and into the forest.
    **

“She has grown into a regular beauty, has she not?” Garnett said, looking after Cleome with undisguised longing.
    “That piece of baggage is none of your business, sir,” Lord Easton informed him curtly. “I will thank you to remember your place and allow her to keep to hers.”
    “Daresay, you do not take Desmond’s place into consideration when there’s cribbage or whist going on ever there!” the young man retorted pleasantly.
    “ Yes . . . well. That’s different. All men are equal on the turf—and under it! Indeed, in any game of chance, if a man’s purse is sufficient to his daring. What you have in mind for that lass is considerably different, I wager.”
    “’Pon my word, Father! What a low opinion you have of me. To think I would do such a comely maid any kind of dishonor!”
    Lord Easton laughed at his son’s dry wit. “You, sir, are incorrigible!” he said proudly. “You think all it takes is a bit of nonsense to make me forget you were sent down from university in disgrace.”
    “Disgrace? To be sent from that damnable, boring place?” Garnett countered. “They have no investigative courses on fine wine or women—and what else is there in life, after all?”
    Drake cleared his throat and the two Eastons turned to face him. “I beg your pardon,” he said. “I hesitate to interrupt your levity on such a lovely day but I seem to have lost my way in search of an inn.”
    “How very Biblical!” Garnett exclaimed. “I say! I thought you were with Cleome and Old Sam. ‘Pears the joke is on me.” He held out his hand to Drake, who shook it heartily. “The country can become a frightful bore sometimes. You look a dashing