The American Heiress by Daisy Goodwin

was light but she was testing him.
    Reggie simply smiled. ‘Do you really think so? It must be you drawing all these secrets out of me. Normally I am the soul of discretion, but I feel the urge to confide in you.’
    ‘I am flattered. I wish I had something interesting to tell you in return.’
    ‘Well…’ He narrowed his eyes a little. ‘You could tell me how you got here. Ivo hasn’t had company at Lulworth since he got the title, and then this morning I got a telegram summoning me to a house party.’
    ‘That’s no secret. I was hunting with the Myddleton and I got lost.’ Cora was not about to tell her new friend about Mr Cannadine and his tattoos. ‘I was in a wood and something startled my horse, I must have hit my head on a branch. The Duke found me unconscious. When I woke up I was here in the house.’
    ‘A damsel in distress, eh. Well, lucky old Ivo.’
    ‘Oh, but surely I was the lucky one. If the Duke hadn’t found me, who knows what might have happened,’ Cora protested, but Reggie looked at her assessingly.
    ‘No, I still say he’s the lucky one,’ and then he smiled and Cora smiled back, showing her small white teeth. After the strange encounter with the Duke, it was reassuring to find herself in familiar territory. She was used to being admired by charming young men. Reggie clearly understood her value even if the Duke did not.
    Mrs Cash could sense a flirtation at a hundred paces. She beckoned to her daughter with a hand glittering with sapphires.
    ‘Excuse me, Mr Greatorex, I am being summoned.’
    ‘You must go. I believe your mother is about to give me a look and I will certainly crumple.’
    Cora moved over to the chimney piece supported by carved caryatids whose proportions echoed those of Mrs Cash.
    ‘Cora, I want you to meet Father Oliver. He is writing a history of the Maltravers family. Such a fascinating subject, so much tradition, so much self-sacrifice. I think it is just the sort of thing that you like.’ She raised her voice slightly so that the Duke, who was standing close by, could not fail to hear her. ‘My daughter is a great reader. She has had every kind of tutor and has outdistanced them all. You must ask the Duke to show you his library, Cora.’
    This had the desired effect of making it impossible for the Duke not to be drawn into the conversation.
    ‘As to the library, I am afraid that Father Oliver is a guide far more suited to a lady of Miss Cash’s intellectual gifts than myself. My brother was the scholar in the family. He was fascinated by the vicissitudes of the Maltravers – it was Guy who asked Father Oliver here. Guy was very proud of our recusant status. He felt that the Maltravers family’s refusal to accept the tenor of the times and leave the Church of Rome was proof that we were somehow of a finer moral weave than others.’ He smiled wryly.
    ‘I think if Guy had not been the eldest son, he would have followed his true vocation and become a priest. When we were children we were always playing Crusades. He was the Knight Templar and I was always the Saracen. Guy would fire his infernal toy arrows at me through the arrow slits until I surrendered. I always did surrender, of course.’ The Duke halted. Cora was about to make some droll comment but realised with a sudden hot gust of embarrassment that Guy the older brother must be dead. She looked at the Duke, but he had recovered himself and addressed her with exaggerated gallantry.
    ‘So, Miss Cash, you must let Father Oliver show you the library, but I will show you the best places to play Crusaders!’
    ‘Do you still have the bow and arrows?’ Cora responded in the same tone.
    ‘Of course, you never know when you might have to repel marauders.’ The Duke smiled at Cora when he said this but she heard the warning there. She felt his words like a slap. She was there by pure accident, after all; how could he imply that he was under siege? She wondered if she could persuade her mother to leave