For all the confidences they had shared last night as they had lain in each other’s arms, there were so many things still left unsaid. Important things. Life-changing things. Forever things. And as much as Guy feared saying them—and perhaps even feeling them—they very definitely had to be said. Then—hopefully—there were plans to make. People to tell, a life to create together, and he was impatient to just get on with it all.
Within ten minutes, he strode into the drawing room, his eyes scanning the room for the unconventional ray of sunshine who had made his jaded, shriveled heart beat again and was immediately accosted by the twin horrors of Miss Maybury and Lady Lynette.
“There you are!” Miss Maybury’s arm wound around his like a serpent’s. “Consider yourself press-ganged onto our team for charades as we are one short.”
“What perfect timing as usual, my lord,” gushed Lady Lynette, claiming his other arm. “For all the fun is about to start. Do you like charades?”
As his mother was watching and he was keen to prove to Lottie, wherever she was hiding in the overly crowded room, that he could banish away his storm cloud and have fun sometimes, he gritted his teeth in preparation of lying through them and smiled at his kidnappers. “Of course.” Even though he would genuinely prefer to flay all the skin from his body and then bathe in acid than spend a moment in either of their company.
They dragged him, giggling, to the front of the room, sandwiching him between them as they all sat, still clinging to him. Then, to ensure he couldn’t escape their clutches, both ladies leaned against him like proprietorial twin bookends. Simultaneously pushing their unappealing bosoms into his horrified biceps as they took it in turns to blow flattering smoke up his arse in a battle to outshine one another.
That position made it difficult to turn around to find Lottie, but he still found as many excuses as he could to do so during the game but spied no sight of her anywhere. At first, he assumed that she must have popped off to visit the retiring room but, not even when he had the floor a half hour later and was forced to mime something cringing to the crowd, could he spot her statuesque, tousled blond head anywhere.
Was she sick and had excused herself? Or had she feigned some malaise to get out of tonight and was already awaiting him in her bedchamber? Expecting him to somehow know that? Dressed in nothing but that robe again and so ready for him that she would fall on him like she had last night? New to the whole game of passion fueled by love, Guy honestly didn’t know whether to feel concern for the menace or desire, so had to suffer feeling both in tandem for what felt like eternity. While simultaneously being repulsed by the overt flirtations of his charade partners.
Torture did not even begin to describe it!
When an interval was declared so everyone could recharge their glasses, he extricated himself from his awful teammates’ clutches as fast as he could. Before he could leave the room, he had no choice but to slow to acknowledge his mother sipping punch by the door with Aunt Almeria.
“Have either of you seen…” He stopped himself from saying Lottie in case they asked a million questions about why he had suddenly dropped that formality. “Miss Travers.” Although if he had anything to do with it, the menace wasn’t going to be aMissfor much longer.
“She’s gone,” said his mother with a grimace.
“Gone where?” He hadn’t expected that answer but immediately it made him worry. “Is she ill?” Because if she was, then he would need to get the physician here as soon as possible in case her malaise festered and she took a turn for the worse and died. A prospect that made his poor heart clamber up his throat to choke him.
“No,” was all his mother unhelpfully said through flattened lips.
“Then has something happened to her father or one of her brothers?” Visions of all manner of farmyard accidents scurried through his mind and gave him further palpitations. “Should I saddle a horse?” Because family should always be there for family and those men were soon to be his. “What the blazes has happened!”
“If you must know…” Now his aunt was grimacing at his loud, panicked tone but whispering as if she were sharing a state secret and forcing him to lean closer to hear her above the hubbub. “I dismissed her.”
“What!” Guy did not bother whispering that. “You…dismissed her!” Had the world—or his aunt—gone stark-staring mad? “Why the blazes did you do that?”
“Unbecoming and improper behavior.” That curt but also hushed comment came from his mother.
“Scandalous behavior,” added his aunt, pulling an outraged face. “So she had to go. Straightaway. She left this morning.”
“And good riddance!” said his mother as Guy’s head began to spin. Then she whacked his arm with the back of her hand. “And shame on you too, Guy Harrowby! For you are not without blame in this unseemly debacle!”
“Unseemly debacle?” A nerve ticked in his cheek as his temper began to rise. He would have allowed the top of his head to explode but he didn’t want to cause a scene. Several guests were already staring and,instinctively, being a spectacle made him queasy. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“That you were seen, you stupid idiot!” His mother’s hushed hiss was angry. Her eyes incensed as she grabbed his sleeve and yanked him into the privacy of the hallway. “Sneaking out of her bedchamber this morning!”
“I most certainly did not.” Denial seemed like the most gentlemanly way to defend Lottie’s honor despite all the ungentlemanly things he had done to her in that bedchamber. “Somebody malicious has told an outrageous lie and you have punished an innocent woman on the back of it. How dare you!”Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god! Why hadn’t he been more careful when it was his job to protect her?
His aunt rolled her eyes as she closed the door on the drawing room and all the gawping faces therein. “We dared because another witness saw the pair of you kissing behind the stables, so I think it is fairly safe to say that that horse has well and truly bolted. Never mind that we’d all have to be blind not to see the covetous way you looked at her last night, so excuse us for not believing that self-righteous rot, nephew.” Then she prodded him with a bony finger. “How dareyoucopulate with my companion when I finally found one that showed promise! Couldn’t you dip your nib in another inkwell if you urgently needed towrite?”
Nibs!
Copulating!
How dare they denigrate the beauty of what he and Lottie had shared as some sort of itch that had needed to be scratched! As if any blastedinkwellwould have done!
He didn’t care that his aunt was a frail old lady and rounded on her, his own finger jabbing the air between them. “Keep your filthy insinuations—”
His mother yanked him back to face her. “Whether you did or you didn’twritewith Miss Travers is a rather moot point at this stage. Especially when we both know that you did.” His mother’s finger made contact with his breastbone, and he grabbed it, more furious at her than he had ever been in his life. She snatched it away and wagged it. “A complaintwas raised, and with you conspicuously absent from your own birthday party yet again, I had no choice but to deal with it in the manner I deemed most appropriate!”
“And the most appropriate way you deemed was to punish Lottie rather than me?” Guy had never come this close to strangling his meddling mother in his life. And poor Lottie…
