the audacious woman was dismissing him. Of course. She’d want to get to her own meal. It had been a long day for her as well. She’d been up jumping before he’d even arrived that morning. It had been a long time since a woman had dismissed him.
‘I’m sorry to keep you. I’ll just see to Sheikh and be going.’ Crispin piled the brushes into the kit, disappointment unexpectedly swamping him. He hadn’t been ready to leave the stables. Or perhaps he hadn’t been ready to leave her. They’d got off on the wrong foot yesterday. This brief exchange had been a pleasant contrast, but perhaps that was too much to hope for. Perhaps she was merely being nice.
‘No, don’t go.’ Her words rushed out. ‘I was going to suggest, before you interrupted me, that you stay for dinner.’
There was that sharp tongue he remembered. Crispin stifled a laugh on behalf of the truce they seemed to have struck. But he noticed she couldn’t help sneaking that small rebuke in—‘before you interrupted’. What might have been an invitation had now been turned into a suggestion, which everyone knew was just a step below a command. He was very familiar with ‘suggestions’. Peyton made a lot of them.
But she wasn’t Peyton and Crispin found he’d like nothing more than to have dinner with the intriguing Aurora Calhoun, who was less like his brother and perhaps more like him; a wanderer, a straddler of worlds. A kindred spirit? It was far too early in their acquaintance to draw that conclusion. There was too much unknown about her for him to make such leaps of logic. Still, it couldn’t hurt to find out and Crispin intended to explore the potential.
Chapter Four
What was she thinking to invite the earl’s brother to dinner? Because that’s what he was, when all was said and done. Men with that kind of power were dangerous to her freedom. One word from him and Dursley could shut her down with a single sentence dropped at a dinner party.
She needed Crispin Ramsden to keep his distance. But, no, she’d invited a potential danger right to her dinner table. It didn’t matter that he wore plain clothes and didn’t put on aristocratic airs. It didn’t matter that she wanted to see if he was worthy of riding Kildare. He was still brother to the earl.
In retrospect, she was amazed she hadn’t seen the resemblance instantly. He had the earl’s raven-black hair, the earl’s dark-blue eyes, but not the earl’s urbane demeanour and that made all the difference, distinguishing them from one another in spite of their inherited physical similarities.
Dursley carried his confidence like one born to it. Everything Dursley did was done with a polished veneer of sophistication. Not Crispin. He exuded a rough worldliness. She was certain his blue eyes had seen things that would render most men cynical about the world they lived in. The tanned skin of his face and hands suggested he was a man who knew how to work. The rugged planes of his face and the breadth of his shoulders affirmed this was a man used to hard living. He was no pampered prince of the ton regardless of who his brother was.
That was why she’d invited him to dinner. Like her, he knew a world outside the circles of rarefied society, he’d lived in its milieu and, like her, he’d been a participant in that world beyond the drawing rooms. When their eyes had met across the back of his stallion, she’d felt a connection; two wayward souls contemplating the merits of landowning against the odds of their natural tendencies. It would be somewhat comedic if the connection hadn’t been so strong.
Aurora laid out the dinner things, setting the earthenware plates down on the plank table with a harder thud than she’d intended. She tried to remember anything, everything, Petra or Tessa might have mentioned in passing about Crispin. There was very little she could recall. She could hear his boots coming down the short hall from the stables. In moments he’d be there in her meagre rooms, thanks to her impetuous offer, and she would have to live with it.
‘Smells good.’ Crispin ducked into the room under the low-beamed door. He was all male, all six foot two and change of him. He positively radiated potent masculinity and Aurora wondered what other impetuous decisions she might be tempted to make before the night was over.
Crispin had taken time to wash off at the pump outside in the yard. Leftover droplets of water glistened at his neck where his shirt opened in a V, offering a small glimpse of his chest. She smiled at the interesting dichotomy he posed; a man who cared enough to wash before dinner, but had no use for the finer rules of gentlemanly dining that demanded he eat with a waistcoat and jacket on. Aurora doubted one ever caught Dursley dining in his shirt sleeves.
‘Stew and fresh bread,’ Aurora announced, placing a pewter plate laden with slices of dark country bread on the table. ‘Sit down, I’ll have the stew on in a minute.’ She was suddenly conscious of his eyes on her, following her movements. She told herself it was to be expected. Her quarters were small—where else was he supposed to look? It was only natural to be interested in the one moving object in the room. That object just happened to be her.
Crispin straddled a bench on one side of the table and politely tugged off his boots to save the floor from dirt. ‘You live here instead of the house?’
Aurora put a pitcher of ale on the table. He was referring to the cottage at the end of the drive. She’d never lived there even though it was part of the lease. ‘I like being close to my horses.’
She turned to the fireplace and the hob where the stew pot hung, feeling his eyes peruse her backside. ‘The cottage is too much work for me to keep up and run the stables on my own.’ She set the stew down and began ladling it into bowls.
Crispin nodded. ‘I like these rooms. They’re cosy.’ His gaze stole past her to the small bedroom. Aurora wished she’d taken time to drop the curtain that separated the bedroom from her main room. She wished she could read his mind as well as she was following his gaze. What was he thinking about her invitation to dinner? Was he thinking it was an invitation to something more? Did he think because he was the earl’s brother and she a woman without rank that he was entitled to something more? Aurora rather hoped not, but her experience with Gregory Windham had proved that hope was often misplaced. She was now fully regretting her impromptu decision to invite Crispin Ramsden to dinner and the finer philosophies that might have motivated it. She had convinced herself last night this wasn’t the right time for a flirtation. She should have stuck with that. But those resolutions had been quickly trampled.
‘This is good,’ Crispin said between mouthfuls. ‘There’s nothing like hot stew on a cold night.’
Aurora watched him thoughtfully throughout the meal. He ate much like regular people ate, people who were conscious of the cost of food and the effort it took to prepare a meal. He used a piece of bread to sop up the remaining stew, making sure not a spoonful went to waste in his bowl. It was odd to think of him as a man who knew hunger, who knew of the simple things it took to survive the day when he could have chosen otherwise. His brother’s table was always set with plenty.
Aurora had not meant to pry, but the question was out of her mouth before she could stop it. ‘What do you do, Crispin? I mean, where have you been for three years?’
Crispin set down his bread crust and fixed her with his sharp gaze, a small smile playing at his lips. ‘How badly do you want to know?’
Aurora smiled back, recognising the game afoot. ‘Ah, so it’s to be twenty-questions?’
‘Precisely. I’ll answer your questions, but you need to answer mine.’ Crispin reached for another slice of bread and buttered it.
‘I work for the British government when they have need of me. Before that, I used to be in the cavalry. I found I didn’t enjoy the life of a half-pay soldier. It was too dull for me. I saw some action in the early twenties after Napoleon’s defeat. But then my regiment came home and I spent far too much time being Dursley’s brother.’ Crispin swallowed some ale. ‘There wasn’t much to do as Dursley’s brother, as you can imagine. Peyton doesn’t need any help and, frankly, I’d rather be my own man. I didn’t relish the idea of being defined as the “spare”.