Chapter 3

“Limp,” James said to Seistan. “Limp, my lovely, my treasure, my Jewel of the Mountains.”

The horse obeyed his master’s hand signals and limped heavily as they turned through the gates of the manor, beginning the long trek along the dyke that led between extensive water gardens to where Lady Sophia Belvoir was attending a house party.

In his mind, James was measuring his reasons for being here against his reasons for staying away. 

His father had commanded him to marry before his grandfather the duke died of the disease that consumed him, and Lady Sophia was the other half of his soul. Every meeting since the first had merely confirmed the connection in his mind. Was it only his desire that had him believing she felt it, too?

On the other hand, Lady Sophia’s brother, Lord Hythe, had threatened to have him beaten like a dog if he approached either of the Belvoir ladies. His father’s greatest enemy owned the house he approached. The party would be full of aristocrats and their hangers on, ignoring him until they found out whether he was a future duke or merely the half-breed by-blow of one.

And Lady Sophia had told him that neither she nor her sister Felicity wished for his company.

Her eyes spoke a different message, though, finding him as soon as he entered a room and following him until he left, blue-gray eyes that veiled themselves, when he caught them watching, in the longest soft brown lashes he had ever seen. She was not, as these English measured things, a beauty: her arched nose and firm chin too definite for their pale standards, her frame too long and too robust. They preferred dolls, like her sister, and Sophia was no doll.

The family needed him to marry a strong woman, one with family ties to half the peerage of this land to which they somehow belonged, though he had first seen it only eight months ago. His foreign blood and upbringing meant he needed a wife who was English beyond question and English nobility to her fingertips.

James needed to marry Sophia, had needed to since he first saw her in a village street. And then he found she had all the connections his family could desire. Surely their love was fated?

The house came into view—a great brick edifice rising four stories above the gardens and glittering with windows. Nothing could be less like the mountain eerie in which he had been raised, but he squared his shoulders and kept walking, soothing Seistan who reacted to his master’s nerves with a nervous sideways shuffle.

“Hush, my Wind from the North. We belong here, now. What can they do, after all?”

Beat him and cast him out, but from what he’d heard of the Duchess of Haverford, that was unlikely to happen.

“It is, after all,” he reminded his horse with a brief laugh, “the season of goodwill.”

The stables were off to one side, on a separate island to the main house. At the fork in the carriageway, James hesitated, tempted to take Seistan and see him cared for before chancing his luck at the house. If they invited him in, he would need to hand his horse over to grooms who were strangers while he consolidated his position.

But if they turned him away, he might need to remove himself at speed, Seistan’s convenient limp disappearing as fast as it appeared. Besides, in the mountains between Turkmenistan and Persia, as in England, one did not treat a private home as a caravanserai. He must be sure of his welcome before he took advantage of their stables.

The carriageway crossed the moat surrounding the house and ended in a generous forecourt. James left Seistan at the foot of the long flight of steps leading up to the front door, giving him the command to stay. Seistan stood, weight on three legs and ears pricked with interest as he watched his master climb the steps. Nothing short of outright panic would move the horse from his silent watch before James gave the counter command.

James lifted the heavy knocker, but before he could drop it, the door opened outward, and he had to step back smartly to avoid being hit. The pair of young ladies who were about to follow the door paused on the threshold.

“Lord Elfingham! You startled me.” The pretty child with the large blue eyes and blonde hair was the younger of the two Belvoir ladies.

James bowed, and meekly accepted the blame. “Please accept my apologies, Lady Felicity.”

Felicity turned to her companion, a slender girl who had not waited for an introduction to begin batting her eyelashes. “Miss Ellison, have you met Viscount Elfingham?” She lowered her voice. “One of those Winderfields, you know.”

“Felicity!” A shocked hiss.

Ah. Here was his goddess, approaching across a generous entrance hall that appeared at first glance to be full of people, though in truth he counted eight, not including the pair blocking his way inside.

“Felicity, you put me to the blush.” She turned from her sister to address the girl with her sister. “Allow me to present Lord Elfingham, Miss Ellison.” Then she regarded him with wary eyes. “Have you come for the house party, Lord Elfingham?”

James gathered the wits that had scattered at Lady Sophia’s approach and told his tale of a lame horse and the need for shelter until he could diagnose and fix the problem. The other ladies and gentlemen stopped their work of hanging ribbons, garlands, and wreaths from every available vantage point, and gathered around to be introduced to the scandalous barbarian suddenly in their midst.

James smiled, nodded, and exchanged pleasantries, moving farther into the hall, his back prickling as he found himself surrounded by these polite strangers.

“There is a horse in the forecourt, and it will not move. Odd looking beast. Small head and too long in the back. And one blue eye! Whoever heard of a horse with blue eyes?”

James turned toward the voice at the door, and met the eyes of Nathan Belvoir, Earl of Hythe.

For all his youth—Hythe was three years Sophia’s junior and seven years younger than James—he was head of the Belvoir family, and James would prefer to have his blessing to court the man’s sister. From the hostility in young earl’s blue eyes, it would not be forthcoming.

“My horse,” James explained mildly. “Seistan.”

“The horse is lame, Hythe,” Lady Felicity told her brother, “so Lord Elfingham cannot travel on tonight.” She turned to the young woman in spectacles who had entered behind Hythe. “Will you inform the duchess, Cedrica?” The girl nodded and went back outside.

“He cannot stay here,” Hythe declared, his brows almost meeting as he frowned. “You should have stopped in the village, Winderfield, or whatever your name should be. The duchess will not want your sort mixing with her guests.”

James schooled his face to show no reaction. At least two insults in as many sentences: the denial of his title and his legitimacy, and the “your sort” comment. Sophia would doubtless be displeased if he challenged Hythe, or simply punched his smug face.

Or punched Wesley Winderfield, who was grinning like a loon at Hythe’s elbow. Weasel Winderfield was some sort of a distant cousin and had been heir presumptive to the Duke of Winshire after the untimely deaths of the duke’s three sons one after the other, and then of his eldest son’s heir, his only known grandson. Weasel was most disappointed when Winshire’s second son proved to be not nearly as dead as reported, the inconvenience of said son’s return compounded by the tribe of offspring he presented to his father when he arrived in England.

Weasel’s presence here was unfortunate but not unexpected. He was an acolyte of the man most determined to prove James a bastard: the man who owned this house, the Duke of Haverford.

James shrugged. “The village is full, Hythe. They sent me on here.”

Sophia was displeased, but not with James. She tugged on Hythe’s arm and whispered to him, so quietly that James had to strain his ears to hear over the chatter of the onlookers. “That is not for you to say, Hythe. Please do not embarrass yourself and me by being so rude.”

Whatever Hythe was about to reply was interrupted by the arrival of the duchess herself, the messenger fluttering in her wake. The Duchess of Haverford was an elegant and still lovely woman who looked in no way old enough to have a son in his thirties. James regarded her hopefully. She was the wife of the man most determined to spoil his father’s return, but also a dear friend of his uncle’s widow, the Dowager Countess of Sutton. Would the duchess support him? Tolerate him? Cast him and his horse out?

She stopped a few paces away and looked him up and down. “Elfingham,” she said. “Welcome, my dear.” Her smile warmed her face, and she held out both hands to James in greeting. “You are very welcome. Cedrica has told me about your horse, and of course you must stay as long as you wish.”