“Ah, yes. Thank you. I look forward to reading it myself after dinner. On the subject of dinner…” She gestured to the shadowed clock on the mantel. “We are late.” Because frankly, if she spent another minute alone with him in this intimate, darkened room, she wasn’t sure she’d survive it with any dignity left intact. “And you know how your mother and her sister feel about tardiness to the table.”
Lottie spun around to exit, unaware that the dangling hem of her hastily donned petticoat was trapped beneath her shoe. She lurched backward as it twisted taut, tried to steady herself, and failed miserably. Her flailing hands grabbed nothing but air.
With a lunge, he caught her before she met the floor, and somehow that was so much worse than her cranium hitting the carpet. Her semi-reclined position left her not only overwhelmed by his presence but engulfed in it. Her arms clinging to his shoulders, his arms wrapped tight around her ribs, her breasts squashed intimately against him. Faces inches apart. Wide eyes locked. Her positively drowning in his heavenly scent while all manner of improper sensations ricocheted around her body.
Lottie swallowed and so did he, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Something strange was happening to all the air in the room because it felt suddenly heavier and seemed to crackle around them. With anticipation and… excitement. The thrum of his heartbeat against hers, mirroring and matching. Almost as loud. Almost as erratic. The copper in his eyes like fire, molten against his suddenly much darker irises.
Had desire darkened them?
Had it darkened hers too? She had no clue, but it pooled in the most scandalous recesses of her increasingly wanton body regardless.
Were they having a reckless and magical moment?
She sincerely hoped so because she was ripe for it. So ready to be kissed breathless by this vexing conundrum of a man that her nipples puckered against his chest in shameless invitation and she wasn’t the least bit inclined to stop them.
His gaze raked her face until it settled on her mouth. He edged lower until his warm breath whispered over her cheeks while she willed him to close that last inch of distance.
She had the urge to lick her tingling lips. To caress his face and run her fingers through his hair. To arch up and close the gap herself. To be brazen and instigate the kiss she was now convinced they both desperately craved—but didn’t. In case she was reading all his signals wrong in her intoxicated, discombobulated, and ridiculously aroused state.
Finally, the tip of his nose grazed hers, but as her eyelids fluttered closed, in the space of a single heartbeat the moment was gone and he was dragging her upright. As soon as she was horizontal, he briskly stepped away.
“Crisis averted,” he said, looking every which way but at her. “I thought I was going to drop you.”
“Yes…” Her voice was breathy. “Thank you for catching me… and clinging on.” And because the crackling air bursting with promise had now been replaced with an oppressive cloud of awkwardness, Lottie stumbled toward the door, doing her best to fill the mortifying void with the most cringeworthy vomit of words possible. “I do hope your cook will be serving us legumes for dinner. After all that talk about them, I could murder some peas.”
ChapterFIFTEEN
The Traverses’ farmhouse was larger than Guy expected. It was no smallholder’s tied cottage. It was a gentleman’s house. However, from the few missing roof tiles, lack of any servants rushing out to greet him, and the overgrown roses cascading over the porch, it was clear the family money that had once purchased this house and land was long gone. That observation didn’t mean that the place had gone to rack and ruin from mismanagement either, as it was well-kept and homey, the yard neat and tidy. A nearby barn looked to be almost new, and he was surrounded by well-tended fields. This was the home of an obviously hard-working agricultural family and he admired that.
Although he had no idea why he was here. Not really. His only excuse was tenuous at best, but after an almost-kiss, some very real warring doubts, and yet another sleepless night craving her, he’d had to come. Had to see where the vixen came from.
“Can I help you, sir?” The man emerged from the barn, wiping his hands on a rag as he smiled. He was a big bear of a fellow of around his mother’s age. Late fifties, perhaps early sixties, but as fit as a butcher’s dog. Tall and broad with the sun-burnished skin of one who spent most of his time in the fields, a thick mop of graying sandy hair, and what could only be his daughter’s bright blue eyes.
“Mr. Travers?”
“I am indeed. And who might you be?”
“Guy Harrowby, sir.” Not wishing to intimidate while he looked down on her father from Zeus, which for all manner of worrying reasons was not the first impression he wanted to give this man, he dismounted and held out his hand. “Or Wennington. I answer to either.”
Rather than incline his head as many did when they learned of his title, Mr. Travers’s smile only widened in recognition as his enormous work-roughened palm gripped Guy’s. “It’s nice to finally put a face to the name. It’s also an honor to finally meet the man who took on all those bloody grain merchants last year and won. Good work! Made it so much easier for many of the farmers of Kent to get a fair price for their crops.” He pumped Guy’s hand enthusiastically. “We all owe you a debt of gratitude. I should also offer you my condolences as I’m told that you currently have the unfortunate pleasure of my daughter as a houseguest.”
“I do indeed.”
“Please tell me that you’re not here because Lottie’s driven you mad with her willfulness and you’re hopeful that I can use my fatherly influence to make her less so. Because trust me, I’ve tried for three and twenty years so far and nothing’s worked.” He chuckled with obvious affection. “I know I should’ve beaten her as a child, because lord only knows she gave me plenty of reason to—and still does—but I was brought up never to strike a woman and now the whole world is paying for my saintly restraint.”
Mr. Travers feigned exasperation, but his eyes danced with amusement. This was a man who clearly loved his only daughter to distraction and enjoyed the way she was. It also proved where she got her sense of humor from. “What’s the firebrand done this time?”
“Nothing.” Apart from mining under Guy’s skin and most of his defenses and leaving him so conflicted inside that he didn’t know which way was up. “At least nothing recent.” He grinned and Mr. Travers chuckled back. “Although sheisthe reason I am here.”
“I see.” Mr. Travers looked him up and down, his ready smile flattening, suddenly every inch the protective father who knew that his daughter was a prize and who wasn’t going to allow her to settle for a man who didn’t deserve her. “Do I need to sit you on a low chair in my study, loom over you in a menacing fashion, and quiz you about your intentions?”
Maybe.
And maybe not.
Guy still hadn’t made up his mind about that. He had been engaged in a full-scale war between what his sensible, battle-scarred head and his clearly still reckless but equally battle-scarred heart wanted. He’d veered both ways since he had almost kissed her last night. Part of him—the part that terrified him the most—was furious that he hadn’t just said to hell with it all and tasted her mouth.
Because they had both wanted him to.
