Bill leaned one muscular elbow on the gate this time, leaning closer to her as he did so. “Can’t I tempt you with a tour of the stables first? Knowing Lady Frinton, she won’t be up for hours and I’m sure Juno would love to meet you.”
It was her laughter that Guy heard first. Earthy and unabashed, just like the woman herself. How he knew it was Miss Travers he could not say beyond an odd lurch in his gut as he wandered into the tack room to get what he needed to brush Zeus down. He rubbed a porthole in the dusty window and there she was. As bold as brass in his pasture, looking all effervescent and pretty while being adored by tiny Hamish, his usually grumpy old Shetland pony who never gave him the blasted time of day.
Because that was just bloody typical!
Why he’d been compelled to rescue the ungrateful equine curmudgeon from that traveling menagerie where he’d lived in a cage was one of life’s great mysteries. Because after liberating him from incarceration at some not insubstantial cost, Hamish had hated him for it ever since. Now, to add insult to injury, the ingrate had taken a shine to that clumsy shrew! And she wasn’t even feeding the traitor any carrots so the adoration was given for free. Totally gratis when he had to earn every scrap of notice from the most pointless horse he had ever owned.
It was enough to boil his piss.
And on the subject of adoration…
Guy’s gut lurched again when Bill, his head groom, suddenly invaded the scene and said something apparently so hilarious that Miss Travers threw back her pretty golden head and roared. The smug smile on Bill’s face and the way his ludicrously beefy shoulders rose with pride made clear that he had taken a shine to the woman too. The besotted fool reached for her hand to help her up, held it for far longer than was necessary, and she beamed at him in return. Offering Bill a smile so breathtaking, Guy found himself holding his.
With gritted teeth.
What the blazes was that all about when she boiled his piss too?
Furious at himself, he gave Zeus a vigorous brush down, then made sure to check out of the tack room window that the minx was gone before he ventured out. He was in no mood to face her just yet after she had decorated him in soup, and he still hadn’t decided what he wanted to say to her.
Something definitely needed to be said about their collision in Hyde Park.
Something that set the record straight, righted the one wrong he wasn’t proud of, cleared the charged air, and reinstated some of his battered pride. She’d made a fool of him twice now and that left him so off-kilter he honestly could not escape fast enough last night. Afterward, the image of her disdainful cornflower eyes was seared onto his mind. Tormenting him. Even while he’d slept.
Bloody woman!
He was leading Zeus out to join the rest of the herd when she and Bill appeared at the entrance of the stable. They both stopped dead, horrified to see him, which in itself spoke volumes. She offered him a wary curtsy as Bill doffed his cap.
“Good morning, my lord.”
He acknowledged that with a nod. “Miss Travers.” Then, because she made him inexplicably tongue-tied, decided to carry on doing what he had been doing and lead Zeus out.
“I’m just giving Lottie a quick tour of the stables.” Bill smiled as Guy passed them, secure in the knowledge that he wasn’t the sort of employer to get annoyed that he wasn’t doing his duty every minute of every day, yet was blissfully unaware that the fact he was allowed to call the minx Lottie annoyed him anyway. Because of course the stable’s most enthusiastic stud hadn’t wasted any time charming the vixen so that they could drop the formalities.
Lottie.
He rolled the name around in his head as he crossed the yard and decided it suited her far better than Charlotte. Charlotte was such a conventionally proper name. Charlottes did not wear breeches and ride astride. They did needlepoint and played the piano, and she didn’t strike him as the type for those calm pursuits. In fact, he’d lay good money that she’d never picked up a piece of embroidery in her life, and the piano… Well, that might provide him with an opportunity to get a bit of his own back. He might innocently request she play them all something tonightafter dinner and then he could enjoy how badly she did it. Dent her abundant pride some to even the score. Not that he was one to enjoy another’s discomfort normally—but he’d make an exception in her case.
Maybe.
And most likely maybe not.
Sabotage wasn’t gentlemanly.
Annoyed at her, himself, and blasted Bill, he released Zeus into the pasture and, with a huff, closed the gate.
“I should have been on the bridle path.” Her voice so close to his shoulder made Guy jump. As he spun around, her expression was contrite, long, delicate fingers clasped before her like a naughty child before her governess. “I also should have apologized for spooking your fine horse that morning when I galloped right in front of him. I was in a bad mood… distracted… and never slowed to look properly, so what happened was entirely my fault.”
Of all the things he’d expected this whirlwind of a woman to say, an unsolicited apology out of the blue wasn’t one of them. Unfortunately for her, he was too jaded to believe it was genuine. Not when she had been openly disdainful last night and was employed by his ornery aunt. “I see.”
She stared at him for several seconds before she smiled. “This awkward silence is the part where you are supposed to apologize for not thanking me when I retrieved Zeus for you.”
She really was a brazen one, even though he conceded she did make a valid point. “Thank you for retrieving Zeus for me.” Why the blazes was his heart racing? Why did his skin not seem to fit his bones properly? What was it about this woman that unnerved him so?
“And…,” she said, turning her hand like a wheel, smiling. “I am sorry for being a rude oaf, Miss Travers, but you caught me in a foul mood too.” Her cornflower eyes twinkled with amusement as she dared him to elaborate while providing him with an excuse for his ungentlemanly behavior. “Or is that too hard to say, when here I am, standing humbly before you, admitting all blame and desperately trying to meet you halfway?”
Currently, with his innards bunched and his stomach doing somersaults, everything was too hard to say, but thanks to his stubborn pride alone he managed to find his voice. Except what came out of his mouth wasn’t at all what he wanted to say nor at all what he should have. “If you are worried that I will insist that my aunt dismiss you because of your recklessness, then don’t. She’ll probably do that soon enough without my help anyway.”
Her smile melted and he instantly missed it.
