“This is the last round!” hollered his mother for the benefit of anyone who had lost track of this tedious game. “And it is still neck and neck.”
Being the last round, the two team captains stepped forward. Lady Lynette was one of them and, for reasons best known to his mother, Lottie was the other. A decision that had made the awful Lady Lynette dislike her opponent all the more and which he wouldn’t have put past his dear mama to have made for her own amusement.
“Oh, for the love of God, can we get this over with?” Aunt Almeria practically screamed. “I’m bored stiff and want my tea.”
Some words were had between his mama and the team captains andthen his mother shouted to him again. “To speed things up, the ladies are going to shoot all their arrows at once rather than alternating.”
Guy could not care less but nodded with what he hoped was enthusiasm while Lady Lynette positioned herself. As it wasn’t her team’s turn to go first, he could only imagine she had done it to put Lottie in her place. Lady Lynette clearly considered herself Lottie’s superior, which was laughable really when the Valkyrie superseded her in every possible way. Looks aside, although it went without saying that Lottie was the most beautiful woman present, she was also cleverer, humbler, and much more interesting. It was too bad that she had proved herself so untrustworthy, however, as she’d be quite the catch otherwise.
Lady Lynette fired off her five remaining arrows in quick succession. All hit the target and all gave her a decent enough score that she gloated. Lottie would need to match her on four and score a bull’s-eye with the fifth to beat her and, despite how disappointed he was in her, Guy found himself rooting for her regardless. In case she noticed, he pretended to tot up the score while she prepared herself. Watching her elegant, lithe rider’s body take her stance through hooded eyes instead.
“That girl has severe delusions of grandeur.” He had been so engrossed in staring at Lottie that he hadn’t noticed Lady Lynette’s approach. “I shall take great pleasure in knocking her down a peg or two in defeat.”
Guy let his expression show how much he disapproved of that petty statement. “I happen to like Miss Travers.” A lie because he was pretty certain he loved her. At least enough that just looking at her now hurt.
“Perhaps you are not as good a judge of character as I.” Lady Lynette patted her ringlets. Tight, stiff, artificial curls that were no match for Lottie’s natural, tousled locks. “But your generosity of spirit to your aunt’s companion does you credit. One should always be kind to the servants.”
Guy felt his teeth gnash but swallowed any sort of pithy response lest Lady Lynette work out that he was compelled to defend her honor because Lottie meant something to him. But he did take great pleasure in watching Lottie’s first arrow hit the bull’s-eye. “Now Miss Travers only has to match your last four shots to win.”
“Hmm.” The tight disdain pulling at Lady Lynette’s features made her look ugly as Lottie’s second arrow did indeed match. Proof, he supposed, that beauty was only skin deep as her rancid interior was poking through. “We’ll see.” Then she forced a smile. “If you don’t mind, I would rather not waste this precious time that we finally have alone talking about her. Why don’t we talk about you?”
“Me?”He did not mean to sound incredulous, but thus far, all he had ever heard this pompous deb talk about was herself. “I’d rather not. I am not the least bit interesting.”
“Au contraire,my dear Lord Wennington, for I find you fascinating.” To his horror, she brushed her hand down his arm, lingering as her index finger caressed the back of his hand. “Fascinating enough that I have quite forgotten all about the other two suitors who are vying for me back in town.”
Guy’s pulse ratcheted several notches in panic but before he found a polite way to sidestep Lady Lynette’s obvious advances, an arrow whooshed past and thudded into the target with such force it shocked them both. It was all the excuse he needed to briskly put some distance between them as he glanced Lottie’s way. She was so outrageously nonchalant as she met his eyes, it was plain to him that she had done it on purpose.
While he hoped, pathetically, that she had done so out of jealousy, he was grateful for the timely intervention even if she hadn’t. “Well done, Miss Travers,” he said while noting down her score. “Two more like that and she’ll be victorious.” Another arrow whooshed past and he enjoyed correcting himself. “Make that one.Thisis the decisive shot.” Guy had hoped he had made it plain that he was on Team Lottie, and he was in more ways than one, but Lady Lynette had skin as thick as an elephant.
She closed the distance and touched his sleeve again. “I just want you to know, that if you were to throw your hat into the ring, I wouldn’t be averse to your suit, my lord.”
“I… er…” From fifty yards away, Miss Maybury’s braying laugh startled him again and he jumped. “Bloody hell!” But as his head whippedaround to the noise it became clear that she had also startled Lottie, who screamed. He had no idea why until he saw it. Whizzing directly toward him at speed.
Guy threw himself backward as the arrow whistled mere inches above his head, so close it was a wonder it didn’t part his hair before he landed with a thud on his arse. Airborne and winded for the second time thanks to Lottie—but this time in front of an audience.
ChapterTWENTY-ONE
With hindsight, especially after almost shooting him, asking Guy about Hercules’s progress over dinner last night hadn’t been her best idea. At the time, she had brought up the horse as a way to offer yet another olive branch to break his resolute stony silence toward her.
A silence that had only loomed louder and angrier since the unfortunate incident with the arrow. An incident which, of course, he had refused to allow her to apologize for.
She endured it through the soup course and all through the fish, which had been exceedingly awkward when she had been seated next to him for some reason, much to Miss Maybury’s and Lady Lynette’s chagrin. But when the main course arrived and he seemed intent to go without potatoes rather than ask her to pass them to him, she used the excuse of Hercules to break the deadlock.
That it had backfired spectacularly had kept her awake all night. But how was she to know that the mere mention of his horse would turn, so quickly, to his love of them (thanks to his aunt) and his large collection of them (thanks to his mother)? And then, before she could say anything to stop it, a planned invasion of the sanctuary of his stable by the seven fawning debutantes who insisted on going out riding with him today.
In a little over an hour, all thanks to Lottie, Guy would have to spendthe rest of this glorious sunny morning keeping pace with the simpering Miss Maybury and the wittering Lady Lynette. Miss Yates, who Lottie rather liked, and the giggling Lady Alice, who was rapidly proving herself to be the oddest of the bunch thanks to her obsession with the ancient Egyptians and mummification in particular. The two Harper sisters were also coming, after significant pressure from their mother, so that they could show him their superior skills as horsewomen. As was Miss Horatia Babbage, who couldn’t be more than seventeen and who so far hadn’t said boo to a goose but whose father had bullied her into coming.
Of course, as it would be considered highly improper for a single gentleman to ride alone with so many single ladies, the dreadful mothers of Lady Lynette and Miss Maybury were tagging along as the chaperones. Because obviously they had been such exemplary chaperones so far to their shameless daughters.
In short, Lottie had inquired about Hercules and then sent him his worst nightmare all wrapped up in a bow.
“You’re a brave woman to show your face here,” said Bill with a frown as she stepped into the stable yard. “He’s been cursing you all morning.”
“I can’t say I blame him—I’d prefer a plague of locusts over his admirers any day. In my defense, it wasn’t intentional, and I have come here to apologize before I take Blodwyn out. Where is he?”
“Fetching Zeus. We’ve got Hercules calm and in with his mother already.” He jerked his head toward the training paddock where both Arabians were basking in the sun. “Once his father is there, we’re going to try to saddle the three of them all together.”
“Do you think Hercules is ready for that?”
