She shook her head, the light of battle in her eyes, and that made him wish it was dawn already. “We shall start together.”
“Then you have a deal,” he said, holding out his hand. She took it and shook it and then something peculiar happened and he could not bring himself to let go.Kiss her,said the screaming voice in his head.Kiss her and to hell with it all.
“Yoo-hoo!” He groaned aloud at the sound of Lady Lynette in the distance. “Lord Wennington, where are you? Is anyone injured?”
Hands still interlocked, and doubtless blissfully unaware of the effect that she was having on him, Lottie twisted into his arms as if they were dancing, gazed up at him, and grinned. “Let’s see if you are a better actor than a horse, shall we?” Then she pretended to collapse into a standing faint against him.
“We are not going to pretend that you are overcome. It is a childish thing to do.”
“Oh, for pity’s sake, put away your storm cloud for a few minutes andhave some fun, Guy. If I am not overcome, then we will have to continue the ride and—unless you beat me tomorrow—I have no obligation to save you from those two scheming sycophants. You will have to fend them off yourself because I am too shaken to continue.” She feigned a faint again. “And you will be left all alone with them.”
“Yoo-hoo! Lord Wennington!” Lady Lynette’s feet, and several others, were now scurrying up the path toward their private sanctuary. “I am worried sick about you!”
“Not as worried as I am!” It was Miss Maybury’s voice that sealed the deal.
“Very well—play the damsel in distress if you think that you can be convincing.” It certainly wasn’t a role that suited her. “I shall plead affronted ignorance if you fail.”
Her response was a grin so infectious he chuckled and allowed her to tug him out of the shroud of the willow, where she swooned into her character. Then, bizarrely, enjoying himself immensely, Guy maneuvered her along the little path down the side of the pond while she did her best to be a deadweight in his arms.
“Miss Travers is in shock!” he shouted to nobody in particular as they came into view. “Does anyone have any smelling salts?”
“Not on me.” Lady Connaughlty patted her riding habit to check. “But I have some back at the house.”
“What about some water?” That came from the levelheaded Miss Yates. “A splash on her temples might revive her.”
“What an excellent idea!” Guy couldn’t resist one small act of petty revenge for the way Lottie had scared him half to death. Suppressing a smile, he solicitously deposited her limp and lifeless body on the soft bank, leaned over it to use both hands to scoop up as much of the chilly pond water as he could. Then chucked the whole lot in the vixen’s face.
ChapterTWENTY-FOUR
“But what made Juno rear?” His aunt Almeria, typically, wanted to know every detail and was interrogating Lottie like a Bow Street Runner. “She’s normally such a calm horse, isn’t she, Guy?”
It was only the four of them in the drawing room now since his mother had shooed all the rest of the guests out as soon as he had helped the still comically limp Lottie in. She had assumed that the menace had needed peace and quiet while she sipped a cup of tea laced with fortifying brandy in case she required the urgent attention of the physician.
“She is.” Rather than embellish or assist the Valkyrie’s lies, Guy decided it was more fun to watch her scrabble around herself now that the brandy had miraculously fortified her in record time. He helped himself to one of the jam tarts from the tea tray and took it to the fireplace at the back of the room so that he could watch her squirm from the best angle. She hadn’t anticipated the Spanish Inquisition and that, in turn, made the situation all the more hilarious.
“Something specific must have spooked her.” His aunt stared at Lottie expectantly, thwarting the menace’s attempt to escape for “the little lie-down” she had claimed to need.
“I think it was the melee,” she said, twiddling her fingers as she stood on the rug in the center of the room, her hair still wet from the pondwater he had doused her in and the back of her dress stained with mud and grass. “The horses were all bunched together and one must have stepped too close.” She shrugged, clearly uncomfortable with this aspect of her genius plan. “Then she ran.”
“And you couldn’t control her?” Aunt Almeria picked up her quizzing glasses to stare through, a sure sign she smelled something was off. “You—the Infamous Galloping Governess of Hyde Park?”
Infamous Galloping Governess of Hyde Park?How funny and fitting was that? And how typical that Aunt Almeria would know all Lottie’s dark secrets too, then not care about them. She’d always had a penchant for the unconventional and this breeches-wearing bundle of energy of a galloping governess was certainly that.
“You found Juno more of a handful than Lord Chadwell’s enormous Thoroughbred stallion?” His aunt was like a dog with a bone.
Lottie blinked. “Well… Er…” Then she did the oddest thing. She put her hand behind her back and crossed her fingers. “Normally, I would have managed it, my lady, but I was on a sidesaddle and I’m afraid the Infamous Galloping Governess has never ridden one of those.” Suddenly, she was animated and not squirming at all. “For the first two hundred yards it really was touch-and-go that I might get thrown, but I managed to shift position slightly and cling on until Juno calmed down. And that was that, really.” The fingers uncrossed and the hand dropped to her side.
“Then how did you end up on the ground in a faint if you weren’t thrown, gal?” Sometimes, Guy adored his aunt Almeria. “That is how Guy found you, isn’t it?”
He nodded as his aunt’s quizzing glasses turned to him, taking more pleasure out of the Valkyrie’s discomfort than was gentlemanly and not caring one jot. She had scared him witless with this lie and then had acted like a tragic Greek heroine all the way home after making him her accomplice, so she had this coming. Itwasfun to witness. The best fun he’d had in forever. “Indeed, aunt. She was as limp as week-old lettuce by the time I caught up with her and discovered her spread-eagled on theground.”Get yourself out of that, Lottie Travers!She wasn’t the only one who could spin a yarn. “For a moment, I thought she was dead. But when I crouched down to check for a pulse, she moaned. Thank goodness, as I have no idea—”
“What did she moan?” asked his aunt, interrupting and inadvertently giving him one of the best early birthday gifts ever as Lottie shot him surreptitious daggers over her shoulder, warning him not to gild the gaudy lily further.
Guy paused while he wondered what the headstrong hellion would hate hearing the most. “It was a fretful and frightening moment, as I am sure you can appreciate, so I do not remember what she said verbatim—but it was something along the lines of ‘Lord Wennington, you are my hero.’” He shoved the jam tart into his mouth whole to stop the laughter from escaping.
“So youwerethrown, Miss Travers?” His mother stared at her with concern. “Perhaps I should send for the physician because if you had a concussion rather than a faint, that could be dangerous.”
“I wasn’t thrown.” Lottie’s hand went behind her back again and her fingers crossed. “But itwasa close-run thing and I genuinely feared for my life. Even with my superior skills on horseback, a panicked, bolting horse is a challenge.” Her explanation and earnest expression were doubtless for his wily aunt’s benefit. “However, after I managed to pull Juno up and climbed off her, it all rather caught up with me. I felt dizzy and sat down and then… I must have passed out. Probably because I didn’t eat breakfast.”
