“You should have known that I wouldn’t have allowed that! Or that I would not accept that.” He jabbed the air with his incensed finger some more. “You should have had more faith in me and stayed!”
“Should I? Why?”
“Because!” He threw up his sticky palms. “Because…” He glanced around the shop and winced at all the gawping faces staring back, dropping his voice a little as if that would somehow give them more privacyafter he had already created the most almighty public scene. And he had made an equally public fool of himself.
For her.
Despite that being his worst nightmare.
How romantic!
“Because you knew how I felt about you, woman!”
“I have no earthly idea how you feel about me, actually. Absolutely nothing was said.”
He went to argue, paused, and then shouted some more. “You knew I wanted to talk to you before I left!”
“About ‘this,’ as I recall it. ‘This.’” Lottie stood and folded her arms in case she was tempted to fling them around his neck and thank him for coming, which would not do at all until all her hopes were properly confirmed. “Whatever ‘this’ was supposed to mean.”
“Well, by ‘this’…” He flapped an awkward hand between them again, his voice rising. “I obviously meant that I wanted to talk about us!” The hand rotated ahead. “Going forward. And I wanted to show you around the estate properly. And you bloody well knew that I wanted you to help me train Hercules!”
“And he bought your family all those peas,” said a grinning Kitty, butting in.
“Yes, I did.” His angry, ice cream–covered finger jabbed again. “I bought your family blasted—” He stopped shouting for a moment and winced again, remembering that that was yet another thing he had neglected to mention to her in the last few days. He raked a hand through his hair, oblivious that he was coating it in icing and melted ice cream, and sucked in a calming breath. “Lottie… I—”
It was at the precise moment that the constable charged in.
“Is this the rude gentleman that you would like me to remove?” The constable looked first to the waiters and then to her.
How steam didn’t shoot out of Guy’s ears was a miracle. “I am not a rude gentleman, I am her fiancé! And I’d like to see you try and remove me!”
“Is he?” The constable frowned at Lottie.
“Not that I am aware,” she replied as a giggle threatened to escape. Before it did, Guy’s temper snapped.
“If you think that you can just ruin me for all other women and not marry me, Lottie Travers, you have another bloody think coming! We are getting married, Valkyrie, and that is that!” Noticing that his arms were flailing, he folded them and glared.
“Give me one good reason why.”
His brows knitted into one dark, solid line and he threw up his palms again. “Because I bloody love you, don’t I.” Most of her insides melted on the spot as both Kitty and Portia sighed beside her. “And you love me too, don’t you?”
She wanted to say yes but Miss P’s words of caution still echoed in her ears. She could not make him do something that he would ultimately regret. She would not be able to bear that. “Your mother does not approve of me.”
He walked toward her and took her hand. His stormy eyes intense. Vulnerable. His thumb caressing the sensitive flesh of her palm and instantly setting her nerves dancing. “Do you love me, Lottie?”
“I am a companion and you are a viscount and—”
“For the love of God, woman, just answer the question.”
Should she be honest or should she, like Miss P had with her marquess, set him free of all the obligation he felt so that she wouldn’t have to be that obstacle between him and his family? “I don’t know.”
He grabbed her arms from where she had hidden them behind her back. “Say that again where I can see that your fingers are uncrossed, because I know you cannot lie if they aren’t.”
“She loves you.” Kitty interrupted again. “Stop trying to be noble and just tell him the truth, Lottie.” Then as an aside to Guy, her incorrigible friend said, “She’s been in bits since yesterday. Absolutely heartbroken. In all the years I have known her, I have never seen Lottie so besotted by a man.”
“Me neither,” added Portia begrudgingly. “But I’ll make sure you’re the first to the guillotine if you break my friend’s heart!”
“Oh, do shut up, Portia,” said Kitty, dragging her away. “You are ruining the most perfect romantic moment.”
