“Well… when you put it like that, you make a short and harmless canter sound thoughtless.” Which had always been Lottie’s main problem, according to her papa. He always nagged her to think about the consequences of her actions before she acted, whereas she tended to dive in headfirst. Worrying, in her humble opinion, solved nothing. It just made you feel miserable and Lottie wasn’t one for misery. “And selfish.”
“That’s because itisselfish!” Portia surged to her feet again, her outraged finger prodding afresh. “What were we supposed to say to Miss Prentice or one of the other teachers if they had wandered in here and asked where you were? Or do you deny that you expected your friends to lie to cover for you?”
“Well… I…” Suddenly, the seemingly necessary feel of thundering hooves beneath her while the wind whipped her hair didn’t feel quite so necessary as keeping her three new friends her friends.
“Forget being ruined, you could have been kidnapped!” Always the most fanciful of the four of them, Kitty’s eyes filled with tears that wounded far worse than all of Portia’s incensed but correct accusations. “You could have been murdered, Lottie!”
“Which as you can all see, I plainly wasn’t.”
“More by luck than judgment.” Georgie stood now too, folding her arms and sounding exactly like Miss Prentice in the full throes of one of her lectures on the FourD’s. Cool, calm, but oh-so-cutting. “But we all make mistakes and the important thing is to learn from them. Promise us that this is a one-off, Lottie. That it was a hideous mistake that you bitterly regret and that you will never do anything thisrecklessorthoughtlessor unbelievablyselfishever again.” Worse, Georgie had Miss P’s disappointed schoolmistress countenance down to aT. It was potent enough to make Lottie wither with shame beneath it.
“Because we are your best friends and we love you…” There was an invisible butter knife loaded with more guilt now hovering in the room that was being spread liberally and, arguably, not unjustly. “… and despite the unfair and untenable position you placed us all in this morning, which could very well have risked our own places in this school, the last thing we would ever wish to see is you squander this wonderful opportunity that you have been given to better yourself. Never mind what your lovely father would have had to say if you ended up getting yourself expelled simply because you couldn’t control your childish urge to ride a horse.”
As self-loathing settled like lead in Lottie’s tummy, Georgie went for the jugular without once raising her voice. “To ensure that we allstaybest friends, we are going to need that promise right this minute, Lottie, or you will leave us no choice but to confess all of our righteous concerns to Miss P about your future safety. For your own good. Isn’t that right, girls?”
“Right!” Portia and Kitty said as one, mirroring Georgie’s folded-arms stance but nowhere near mastering her reasonable tone. All three friends obviously so disappointed in her that she could hardly bear it.
“Then I promise,” said Lottie, hoping it was the truth.
But just in case it wasn’t, and her innate wildness got the better of her again sometime in the future like it always did, she made sure that her fingers were crossed behind her back while she made that solemn promise.
Just in case.
ChapterTWO
MISS PRENTICE’SSCHOOL FOR YOUNG LADIES,21ST AUGUST, 1820…
Don’t let Papa know that I told you—but things here are currently direr than…
Lottie allowed the letter to drop to her chest to stare at her bedchamber ceiling some more. Her youngest brother’s words had haunted her for two entire days and nights and the worry for her menfolk was eating her from the inside.
If the circumstances were different, she would have hotfooted it home as soon as Dan’s missive arrived. To roll up her sleeves and try to help in some way or simply to be there while they all put their heads together to find a solution. But her friend Georgie was getting married today and Lottie was the maid of honor, so she was stuck here in London. Unable to do anything practical and doomed to worry about her family in Kent until somebody came up with a viable way to make the best of this latest calamity to befall them. Ideally a miraculous cure that would turn back time and stop all the early summer rain that had pummeled the Garden of England for most of the summer. Because it had been that which had caused the majority of their barley crop to succumb to the dreaded mildew and die.
The Travers clan had always counted pennies. They were experts at making do and making the best of things without having to contend with the failure of one entire crop as well. Now the lack of money from the barley, on the back of the failure of half of last year’s wheat crop, guaranteed the upcoming winter months were going to be tough. The thought of her beloved, if irritating, menfolk living hand to mouth, struggling to pay the rent while she lived in sublime comfort here in Mayfair thanks to the ceaseless largesse of Miss P, filled her with guilt. That they were always relieved to have spared her all the trials, tribulations, and hardships of a farming life these last seven years made her feel worse.
Ordinarily, and much to Papa’s chagrin, Lottie would send three- quarters of her wages back home to them to help in some small way. Sometimes he told her off and pressed all the money back into her palm the next time she visited and other times he didn’t because he had needed it. There was no doubt he desperately needed her wages now, but she had none to give him. Thanks to her own headstrong stupidity combined with the rebellious streak of wildness that refused to die within her, she was between jobs.
And, thanks to Dan’s letter, Lottie was presently kicking herself twice as hard for being lured—once again—by the overwhelming pull of a good gallop across the park at dawn, which had enticed her into her former employer’s stable. Especially when she had rather enjoyed her short stint as a governess at his Berkeley Square house, even if the master himself was a complete and utter arse. It might not be her fault that Lord Chadwell’s odious son had tried to blackmail her onto her back before breakfast, but it was very definitely her fault that she had given the libertine the ammunition to blackmail her with in the first place.
If she had thought about the consequences of her actions and not put thinking about them off to tomorrow, she wouldn’t have borrowed Lord Chadwell’s stallion that fateful morning and she wouldn’t have been caught red-handed by his frisky heir trying to return it. She wouldn’t have had to kick that despicable scoundrel hard in the crotch to escape his unwelcome ardor. No matter how much she relished the memory ofthe randy twit rolling around on the floor of the stables in tears afterward as he had clutched his aching, but thankfully freshly flaccid, genitals, the image did nothing to alleviate her current guilt one jot. Because the son had then tattled to the father that she had been riding his horse without permission and Lord Chadwell had dismissed her on the spot for her insubordination.
All in all, it had not been her finest hour and now, thanks to her seemingly unconquerable recklessness, her family was paying for her stupidity while Miss P was charitably paying for her keep.
Again.
Because this was the second time in her career as a governess that Lottie had been dismissed for the want of a good gallop. Although in truth, thanks to her own lack of willpower and wildness, it could very well have been the hundredth. Even after seven years of trying, the need to ride like the wind at the slightest provocation had refused to subside.
Just when, exactly, was she ever going to learn her lesson? Or to put off thinking about tomorrow because she much preferred today?
Furious at herself, she reached for the old pocket watch she kept on the nightstand and almost sighed aloud when it told her that only ten interminable minutes had passed since she had last checked it. It was only a quarter to five and after her second sleepless, anxious night in a row since Dan’s letter had arrived, she was wound as tight as a spring.
Worse, she couldn’t offload all her worries on her three soundly sleeping friends like she normally would. Because this was Georgie’s wedding day, for pity’s sake, and Lottie would not spoil that happiness for anything!
Pretending to be deliriously happy had taken every ounce of her effort last night when they had all gathered here at the school for their final night as four single ladies. In honor of the occasion, Miss P had also put the four friends in their old dormitory, where they had reminisced and laughed until the small hours. All a little tipsy thanks to the two bottles of champagne that Portia had smuggled out of her employer’s well-stocked wine cellar, which she had been adamant he wouldn’t miss. It would have been a truly excellent night, too, if Lottie hadn’t been so consumed withworry and guilt. She would probably confess all to Portia and Kitty once the bride left for her honeymoon, and then maybe that would make her feel better. But until then, she had no choice but to bottle it all up inside and paste on a smile.
Silently, she slipped out of her bed and padded to her own bedchamber to dress. She fully intended to don one of her day dresses before she watched the sunrise in the garden—but the moment she opened her wardrobe door, one of her riding boots fell out. Tempting her like the serpent had tempted Eve to do the unthinkable again.
Except…
