Which of course he wasn’t now that his baby sister had trounced him on their last steeplechase—and she had been on the lesser horse.
“Well, there is no harm in watching the sunrise out in the fresh air here. So long as you stay within the sanctuary of our garden. If a worldly-wise woman like myself isn’t safe on the streets of London in the dark from those who lurk in the shadows ready to take advantage, I dread to think what would happen to a naïve and unchaperoned country mouse of barely sixteen. How on earth would I ever face the families if something happened to one of my girls?” Miss P tensed as she contemplated that horror, making Lottie want to wince again.
Because she had, indeed, learned firsthand this very morning that there were lurkers in the dark shadows of Mayfair ready to take advantage. Half Moon Street might well be the home of the respectable, and the whole area might well be a well-to-do and leafy enclave during daylight hours, but she had certainly seen some evidence of the dissolute in her fast jaunt through the parks that abutted it this morning! Certainly enough to confirm that it wasn’t the sort of place a genteel and delicate young lady should venture alone until the rest of the world woke up.
However, one of the advantages of growing up in a house full of brothers was that she was also as far from delicate as it was humanly possible to be. She had her father’s height, so she towered over most women, and a lifetime of farmwork had made her muscles strong. With so many overbearing and quick-tempered siblings all vying to be top dog, she had also always known how to fight. She had a wicked right hook and a decent enough left one if Dan’s now wonky nose was any gauge. Besides, from the moment womanhood had begun to blossom and the local boys had come sniffing around her, her overprotective brothers had taught her how to hone all those things to fightreallydirty. That was why she knew every weak spot on the male body and how to turn a randy stud into a gelding quick sharp—and had done so on more than one occasion.
The miller’s son, especially, back in Aylesford, had certainly been able to hit some very high notes in church for several weeks after he had attempted to take some liberties with her person at the last harvest festival, that was for sure! Or at least more liberties than she was comfortable granting. A stolen kiss or two was one thing, because a kiss was harmless in the grand scheme of things, but she had drawn the line at his hand up her skirts!
“Should I ask cook to save some breakfast for you so you can grab another hour of sleep?” Miss P’s concern and generosity were doing nothing to ease Lottie’s guilt. Guilt that she was lying. Guilt that she had snuck out. Guilt that she had broken several school rules in her quest for an hour of familiar freedom when she really appreciated being here. And yet more guilt at not being ladylike enough despite all her best intentions. “Two if you need it. I could inform your first teacher…”
Lottie shook her head. Talk about killing her with kindness! “No need. I am wide awake now.” She smiled at her new mentor as she extracted her hand from Miss P’s concerned grasp and backed up the stairs, the shame at her outright disobedience now somehow outweighing her need to be at one with the great outdoors again. Perhaps because that unbearable itch had been scratched? She certainly hoped so because this was too good an opportunity to ruin with her usual wild ways.
“But as I am up, I might as well make myself presentable and then go help Miss Denby set up the classroom for our deportment lesson—where I promise I will make a concerted effort to soak up every word and then act on all of them from this day forward.” She resisted the urge to cross her fingers again and instead clasped both hands primly out in front, determined that she had told the truth rather than a lie because she really would try. Papa would tell her never to look a gift horse in the mouth, and she appreciated that becoming a governess one day would give her the life that he wished he could’ve given her. Fine clothes. Fine company. A decent salary and no more backbreaking work in the fields alongside her brothers. “I am determined to make everyone proud.”
“That is very good to hear, Charlotte. Once you’ve learned to curbthat unfortunate streak of wildness inside you, I have every faith that you will be aprotégée par excellence.”
Ready to get on with her own day, Miss Prentice spun on her heel and headed toward her office and Lottie sagged in relief as she plodded upward to her bedchamber.
That had been too close a call for comfort.
Now she knew that Miss P’s day started at six o’clock, if she ever ventured out on another morning jaunt again—which of course she wouldn’t—Lottie would be sure to be back by a quarter to, next time. She also needed to find a secure place to store her brother’s boots where she could swap them out for more appropriate footwear before she came back in.
And in view of the fact that Mayfair before dawn was nowhere near as safe as Kent was and the ne’er-do-wells had seemed much worse, she should probably also consider taking some sort of weapon with her if there was a next time too. A stocking filled with a few marbles would be small enough to conceal about her person but still effective enough to deliver a decisive wallop if she needed to whack any lurking scoundrel—
“Where the hell have you been?” Her new friend and roommate, Portia, emerged from their bedchamber door and grabbed Lottie by the shoulders, simultaneously shaking them as she dragged her inside. Only once she had kicked the door closed did Portia hiss, “We’ve all been worried sick!” She jerked her pretty, dark head at Lottie’s abandoned bed, the plump eiderdown now yanked back to reveal the pillows she had arranged to resemble a sleeping body beneath the covers. Behind that, the worried faces of her other two new friends and roommates, Georgie and Kitty, added several fresh layers to her already massive guilt. “We were on the cusp of raising the alarm and thought you’d run away back to your farm!”
“Wethought she had run away,” corrected Kitty with a pointed look at Portia. “Shethought you’d snuck out to indulge in some clandestine petting with that stable lad we all collided with in the park yesterday because Portia always likes to think the worst.”
“Who can blame me?” Portia shook Lottie’s shoulders again. “Youwereflirting with him outrageously! For almost an hour too! And while I think that the rules that society expects we women to follow are archaic and that our reputations shouldn’t be the be-all and end-all when character is more important—the rest of society is yet to wake up to that unfairness.” Her friend’s finger wagged just like Miss P’s had. “You still have a reputation to protect if you want to become a protégée and I am sure I overheard you agree to meet that stable lad today when I had to practically drag you away from him! Is he who you were up to no good in the small hours with?”
Lottie considered trying to lie again until she realized it really wouldn’t wash. She had hoped to sneak in and change before her three friends woke, but as they were all clearly wide awake now, that horse had bolted. Emotions were obviously also running high, so she was unlikely to get any privacy now to strip out of the muddy breeches concealed beneath her skirt, which would undoubtedly give the game away anyway. And she couldn’tnotchange out of Dan’s riding boots before she ventured downstairs again because they were another dead giveaway of what she had been up to. Any more than she could completely deny the accusations about the stable lad, when she had gone out of her way to flirt outrageously with him. Would have probably even kissed him if he’d asked, if it ensured that he lent her a horse. Would have probably kissed him even without the promise of a horse, truth be told, because he had been rather handsome despite his lack of cleverness and there really was no harm in kissing—so long as nobody else found out. “Yes—but—” Her three friends gasped in unison.
While Georgie’s and Kitty’s jaws dropped in shock, Portia’s finger jabbed before Lottie could finish her sentence.
“I knew it!” Portia sank to Lottie’s unoccupied mattress, squashing the pillow corpse as she put two and two together and made six hundred and fifty-six. “Oh, good heavens above. You actuallydidsneak out in the small hours for a clandestine meeting with a boy! What were you thinking?” Scandalized eyes locked with hers with touching, friendly anguish,reminding her so much of the supportive bond she had once shared with her mother. “Have you been…ruinednow, Lottie?”
The other two gasped again at the ramifications of that possibility, and this time Lottie couldn’t help but roll her eyes at their ridiculous overreaction.
“Of course I haven’t been ruined! I am not an idiot, girls! I have no intentions of rolling around in the hay with Albert.” At their further gasp at that unladylike retort, she realized that her new friends had lived much more sheltered lives than she had, confirming that Miss P’s comment about Lottie’s “wildness” did perhaps hold more merit here in polite society than she had originally feared. “Nor do I intend to.” Which was also sort of the truth. Handsome Albert might get a stray kiss here and there in the future, especially if he kept lending her horses like he had today—if she was ever silly enough to do that again—but she did have some standards. That meant that Lottie was resolute that while a kiss was just a kiss, she would reserve any sort of hay rolling only for someone special. “I like Albert—but I don’tlikehim in that way!” Only true love could convince her to lift her skirts and she knew herself well enough to know that a man needed to be more than just handsome to touch her heart. He had to be…perfect.
“Then why risk your reputation for him in the first place?” Kitty’s question was a fair one. “Why flirt with him and then sneak out to meet him at a wholly inappropriate hour unchaperoned?”
“Because he has unfettered access to a stable full of horses and I’ve missed riding mine.” A truth which, even to Lottie’s own ears, sounded mercenary as she blurted it. “I flirted outrageously with him so that I could borrow one this morning. That is all.” Another benefit of growing up in a house full of men was Lottie knew how their minds worked. A pretty face, some batting lashes, and the opportunity to feel attractive and impressive were all most men needed to be twisted around a woman’s finger.
Was it wrong to use that weapon against one if he was daft enough to be so easily manipulated?
Probably. But…
“You’ve been outriding?” Portia said it with more incredulity than she had said “ruined.”
“Yes.” Lottie offered a weak smile, hoping they would understand that her motives weren’t actually malicious—more medicinal. “I really needed the wind in my hair.” So much she physically ached.
“I see,” said Portia in a clipped tone that suggested she really didn’t see at all. “You’ve made usallworried sick since dawn.” She pointed at the exposed pillow corpse in disgust. “And you’ve lied to us all too.”
“I have never lied to you and I resent the implication!” Although the guilt at the string of whoppers she had just told Miss P with crossed fingers called her a hypocrite. “All I am guilty of is sneaking out for an hour to ride around the park for the sake of my sanity, and that is hardly a crime.”
“In a court of law, a lie by omission is still a lie, but that is by the by. I personally think that it is a crime that you willfully betrayed our trust in disappearing without any prior words of explanation, and you abused our friendship by preventing us from raising an alarm because we didn’t want to getyouinto any trouble.” Portia’s eyes narrowed. “And you forced us to do all that because youmissedriding your horse?”
