The livery stables had done Lucian proud with a raking chestnut hunter that was a good match for Twilight, its long legs eating up the ground with ease while the gallant mare had to work hard to keep abreast. But like Sara she was not willing to be bested by a male and she was still in contention when they reached the spur in the track leading to Merlin’s Bay.
‘Down here,’ Sara called as she reined in and the chestnut thundered past. It gave her an opportunity to admire Lucian on horseback without seeming to stare as he rode back to her. Being in the saddle was his natural habitat, she guessed, and it suited him, brought animation to a face that sometimes seemed severe in repose and showed off a fine physique.
‘Where does it go to?’ he asked when he reached her.
‘Merlin’s Bay, which is a recent renaming. I think it was originally something prosaic like Murdle Bay or Mumbles Cove, but it is a local beauty spot and it was given a more glamorous title to attract the visitors when Sandbay began to be more popular.’
There was just room to ride side by side as the track descended into the little valley, woodland crowding in on either side. ‘It seems very isolated and intimate,’ Lucian observed.
‘I’m afraid that is an illusion.’ As she spoke a second, wider, carriage road joined them from the right and the track levelled out into a wide space where two carriages were already drawn up in the shade and grooms were walking three horses up and down. ‘It is a popular tea rooms and gardens now. I thought that we could take refreshments here.’
‘I would very much like to make the better acquaintance of your mama,’ Lucian remarked as he swung down from the saddle and came to help her to dismount.
‘You would?’ Sara kicked her foot out of the stirrup and allowed herself to slide down into his perfectly proper and impersonal grasp.
Lucian lowered her to the ground and gestured to one of the grooms who came forward to take their mounts. ‘She has sent you out into the world perfectly equipped to deal with importunate males, hasn’t she?’
‘I cannot imagine what you mean, Mr Dunton,’ Sara said demurely. ‘You tease a little—that is all.’ At least, I hope it is teasing. I think he will behave as a gentleman should. ‘There are some pleasant places to sit amongst the trees along the shoreline and we can order food and talk with no danger of being overheard.’
There were about a dozen people visible in the little pleasure grounds and they had no difficulty finding a table with benches under an arbour. A waiter came to take their order and Lucian sent him away to fetch cold meats, salads, bread and butter, ale, lemonade and a selection of cakes. ‘You missed your luncheon,’ he pointed out when Sara protested that Twilight would buckle at the knees if she ate all that.
‘Marguerite looked happier than I have seen her since before this whole miserable business began,’ he said abruptly when the food had been delivered. ‘And I had almost forgotten what she looks like with roses in her cheeks. You have worked a miracle.’
‘I fear not. The fresh air and some gentle exercise put those roses there and the opportunity to talk to someone who is completely unconnected with the emotions behind all this helped, I think.’ Sara ate some cold chicken while she pondered how to talk to him and then decided to simply say what she thought. ‘She loves Gregory, she believes in him and it is tearing her apart not knowing what has happened to him. But she fears you looking for him because she believes you will kill him when you find him.’
‘I will call him out,’ Lucian said grimly. ‘Then it is in the lap of the gods.’
‘No, it is not,’ Sara snapped back. ‘It is in your hands. Do not try and tell me that a young man from a vicarage can match you with either rapier or pistols. If he is dead already in some accident, or the victim of footpads, then she will mourn him, but eventually she will recover. If you kill him, she will never forgive you.’
‘He is a predatory seducer.’
‘I very much doubt that. Marguerite might be young and inexperienced in the ways of the world, but she is not foolish, nor is she a bad judge of character, I think. You need to ask her what happened the first time they…were together.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It is not my story to tell.’
He stared at her, frowning for a long moment, then gave a bark of laughter. ‘The little minx seduced him?’
‘I imagine that there are some circumstances when a man, especially an inexperienced young one, might find things are well out of his control before he knows what is happening,’ Sara suggested carefully.
‘They should have come to me.’
‘Really?’ She stopped, her glass halfway to her lips. ‘I should imagine they were terrified of you!’
‘Nonsense. He is a man—it is up to him to do the right thing even if he is terrified, not go dragging my sister all over the Continent. The only mercy is that she appears to have had the sense not to go about in Brussels and Paris and be recognised.’
‘Marguerite thought that if she stayed then you would send her away into hiding and then take her child from her.’ When he stared at her, speechless with what she hoped was outrage at the suggestion and not guilt that she had guessed rightly, she pressed on. ‘If you can only find it in you to promise Marguerite that you will not call Gregory out if you find him alive it would make all the difference to her. She would tell you everything she knows about what he was doing in Lyons and you might well be able to find him.’
‘And you know what he was doing, where he told her he was going?’
‘Yes,’ Sara admitted, reluctantly.
‘Then tell me.’
Oh, yes, those two young people would have had every reason to be scared of Lucian, she thought as the hazel eyes focused sharply on her face and she read the barely leashed anger and intent there.
‘No. Marguerite told me in confidence. If I have to, then I will employ my own investigator to locate him for her, whether it is his person or his grave. At least then she will be able to find some peace.’