Page 24 of The Tartan Trap

“I read the book you sent me.” Ellis’s eyes slid his direction.

Callum did his best to suppress his smile. “By your tone, I take it you didn’t enjoy it as much as I did?”

“I certainly didn’t find it as riveting. In fact, I wonder if we read the same book.”

“I found it an interesting exploration on the intersection of the themes of morality and sciences, myself.”

Ellis’s forehead wrinkled. “Truly? Lessons for Children? It’s a children’s book.”

“From the mouth of babes comes great wisdom.”

“I don’t think children wrote it.” Ellis frowned.

Callum shrugged and tried not to be too obvious about searching the ladies around them, wondering if he’d already seen Miss Margaret Preston without realizing it.

Ellis shook his head and squinted at him. “That’s the book that captured your attention for three days straight? Are you quite certain you’re feeling well?”

“Better than I have in a long time.”

“You do look remarkably cheerful. Why is that?” He narrowed his eyes.

“No particular reason.” Callum lifted one of his large shoulders in a casual shrug, hoping that would be the end of the discussion.

If anything, his innocent tone seemed to plunge his cousin deeper into suspicion. His eyes squinted as he leaned forward in his saddle to inspect Callum more closely, a frown firmly entrenched on his features.

Finally, he leaned back and gusted a sigh as his entire body wilted. “Oh no,” he said with deep despair. “The Season hasn’t started yet, and already I’ve failed in my task.”

Callum turned to him. “Whatever do you mean?”

“Some enterprising lady has sunk her claws into you, hasn’t she?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” He did his best to keep his words light, his tone casual, but he wondered how on earth his cousin knew.

“You have that look about you—the look of a man who’s made a matrimonial decision.”

“Certainly not.”

It wasn’t precisely a falsehood. Callum would never make such a decision without the enthusiastic participation of the other party. However, he definitely had a target in mind for his affections.

Ellis squinted at him anew. “Do you promise?”

“I promise that I have not yet met the lady I plan to make my wife.”

Callum had chosen his words carefully. He didn’t enjoy lying, nor did he wish to hide the truth from his cousin, who—despite his sometimes odd way of showing it—only had his best intentions at heart. Still, this was a private matter, and as the lady in question wasn’t aware that Callum had already set his sights upon her, he thought it best to keep it secret.

His promise seemed to pacify the man for the moment. At the very least, Ellis stopped frowning at him and continued his presentation of the young ladies of the ton. As far as tour guides went, Ellis was excellent—discreet, with a thorough knowledge of every single lady under the age of forty.

“Oh, there’s Miss Ballingstone,” he said, doffing his hat in her direction. The next moment, he nodded toward a colorful picnic blanket in front of a copse of trees. “A lovely little grouping there—Miss Evans, Miss Henry, and Miss Cunningham. Shall we ride a little too closely to their blanket by accident so that we must stop and offer our apologies for raising dust?”

Callum agreed every time Ellis suggested such a thing. He didn’t wish to raise his cousin’s suspicions. Besides, there was no telling whether such a detour would eventually lead to the one young lady he hoped most to meet.

Though every young miss was dressed in fine fabrics and ribbons, with curls and the latest fluttering decorations in her hair, Callum barely noticed. To him, they looked like an arrangement in a florist’s stall—colorful and lovely, but of little particular interest to one who was shopping for a dictionary.

Callum forgot the names as soon as Ellis spoke them. The book he’d bought to jot down ladies’ names had turned into a journal of his own—he’d taken notes on Margaret’s diary entries, jotting down his reactions to each as he had them, as well as detailing facts he could use to find her. He hardly saw the point in trying to remember other ladies’ names now that he had Margaret in mind.

They rode through two parks with numerous detours toward young ladies perched just so on little garden chairs or picnic blankets. Callum smiled through it all, even though it felt as if Ellis were showing him off. Or more precisely, that his cousin was using Callum’s presence as some sort of attractant to entice the ladies closer, much like how unscrupulous poachers sprinkled salt on the ground to attract deer.

The sun had come from behind a cloud; Ellis shifted and frowned. “I think our horses quite well exercised.” He swiped his brow. “Besides, I’m getting rather hungry.”