Page 2 of Barbarous

Daphne ignored the mortification that flooded her body at her foolish words. “Hugh Redvers died almost twenty years ago. My husband, the Earl of Davenport, received word of his demise from an agent in his employ.”

The towering man lifted his hands at his sides as if to say, Yet here I am.

Daphne studied him with the intensity of a horologist examining a rare timepiece. He bore her examination without blinking, exhibiting none of the nervousness one would expect of an imposter claiming to be her nephew.

In fact, he took a step closer, allowing her to see he was older than she’d first believed—closer to forty than thirty—but no less attractive for it. Deep lines radiated from the corner of his green eye and his guinea-gold hair was heavily dusted with silver at the temples. He was currently smiling but the determined set of his jaw showed him to be a man accustomed to having his own way, and the deep grooves bracketing his smiling lips were evidence he enjoyed getting it.

The white scar that almost bisected his face began at his left temple, disappeared beneath the black patch, and reemerged to continue over the bridge of his nose and end at his jaw.

Daphne compared the scarred but still handsome man standing before her against the memories of her ten-year-old self—the memories of an infatuated girl who had idolized her dashing, handsome neighbor and had mourned deeply at the news of his death.

This man was tall—remarkably so—golden, and devastatingly attractive. Not even almost two decades, brutal scarring, and the black patch over his eye could obscure the truth. He was, without a doubt, Hugh Redvers, her dead husband’s true heir: a man everyone had believed dead for almost twenty years.

A man Daphne had robbed of title, lands, and fortune.

She opened her mouth to say—to say what?

“My lady?”

She swung around to find Caswell, her groom, standing at the head of the narrow path, his eyes bouncing like cricket balls from Daphne to the towering stranger to the local squire dripping blood on their picnic blanket.

Before she could answer him, her elder son’s voice rang out behind the groom.

“I am not telling a bouncer, Richard. The fish was enormous—far bigger than that minnow you caught.” Lucien sounded aggrieved. “If only I hadn’t slipped and dropped the pole.”

Richard, Lucien’s younger twin by twelve minutes, had only one word for his brother’s claim. “Bosh.”

Lucien had to turn sideways to squeeze around the frozen, staring groom. “I say, Caswell, what—” And then he, too, stopped in his tracks, his mouth forming an O of surprise. Richard came around Caswell’s other side, and he and his brother stared, their identical brows wrinkled with confusion.

Because they were healthy, bloodthirsty young males, the first thing to snag their attention was the man with the crimson neckcloth. Then they turned to look at the one-eyed giant beside their mother. That sight, while interesting, couldn’t hold a candle to Hugh Redvers’s awe-inspiring horse, which was grazing not far behind him.

All other thoughts vacated their heads and they moved toward the enormous horse as if pulled by a string. Ramsay watched their rapt progress toward his horse with open amusement. He said something in a language Daphne believed to be Arabic and the animal sauntered forward, extended one foreleg toward the twins, and bowed low over it before returning to a standing position and regarding the two small boys with a haughty equine stare.

“He’s smashing, sir!” Lucien said to the man he’d unknowingly robbed of title, land, and money.

Daphne briefly closed her eyes. Can this really be happening?

“May we pet him, sir?” Lucien asked, jarring her from her misery.

“You may,” Redvers said. “Just don’t stand behind him, he’s got a kick that will send you to Newcastle.”

The boys grinned, as if such warnings of grievous bodily harm made the prospect of touching the great horse even more appealing.

“His name is Pasha.”

Malcolm cleared his throat and all heads swung in his direction. His chest was puffed out like a pigeon’s and he resembled an overgrown, pudgy schoolboy who’d been soundly thrashed and was desperate to salvage some dignity.

“Just what the bloody hell is going on here, Ramsay?”

“Language, Hastings.” Ramsay’s single eye narrowed until it was barely a slit. “You know, I was wondering the same thing myself.” The words were quiet but there was a chill in the air as he contemplated the other man.

Malcolm lifted his bloody cravat. “What, this? This is nothing.” He shrugged. “My horse is rather skittish and something startled him.”

Ramsay turned to look at the placid creature cropping grass a few feet away and then back to Malcolm, his eyebrows arched.

“I kept my seat, of course, but I took a rather nasty knock.” Malcolm glanced at the carnage on the picnic blanket. “Terribly sorry about your picnic, Coz.” He cut Daphne a sneering look before turning back to Ramsay.

The men stared at one another for a long, charged moment before Malcolm muttered something unintelligible, led his horse to the nearest stump, and hoisted himself into the saddle, his feet flailing as he sought his stirrups.