The footman fell into step a respectful distance behind as she descended the wooden stairs and crossed the green, the spring sun warm upon her skin.
The ladies’ tent stood beyond the refreshment marquees, discreetly screened by trellis and hedge.
Lottie halted at the entrance and turned to the footman with her most helpless expression. “I should be grateful if you would now summon the Morleigh maid. One never knows how dire such feminine matters may become.”
The young man coloured to the roots of his hair. “Yes, miss. At once.”
Lottie watched him flee. “Men,” she murmured.
Chapter 7
Jasper Deverell excused himself from the Langley box with the sort of smooth, offhanded elegance that had delivered him into trouble more times than he could remember. “I believe I shall stretch my legs,” he said, adjusting his gloves. “Perhaps locate another drink, or place a wager. I have not lost enough coin today to satisfy the gods of folly.”
Lord Langley, ever the reformed rake, narrowed his gaze with suspicion. “You are not, I trust, intending to follow Miss Tolliver?”
“Certainly not,” Jasper replied, with a countenance of such wounded innocence it would have fooled anyone but Langley. “I’ve no interest in ladies’ tents or whatever mysterious rituals occur therein.”
“I know that look, Deverell.”
“What look?”
“The one you wear when you are about to behave like a complete ass.”
Jasper smiled pleasantly. “My dear fellow, that describes a regrettable number of my expressions.”
Langley leant back in his chair and muttered something that sounded a great deal like, “God preserve me from Tollivers and Deverells alike,” but waved him off, nevertheless.
Jasper descended from the box, walking at first with all the idle grace of a gentleman with nowhere in particular to be, but as soon as he was clear of the crowd, his pace lengthened considerably.
Miss Tolliver was crossing the green with the composure of a duchess and the confidence of a cavalry officer. Having seen her striding, he found himself unable to look away. Her riding habit was deep blue, perfectly fitted and flaring over her hips. Her parasol dangled from one gloved hand, twirling lazily between her fingers, and her little hat sat at a devil-may-care angle upon her dark hair. The gleam of her black boots had caught his attention earlier—had, in fact, refused to relinquish it—and now his mind betrayed him entirely by wondering, with increasing and wholly improper insistence, how far they climbed beneath the fall of her skirts. He ought not to think of such things, but he could think of nothing else.
He was not alone in his observation. A pair of young cavalry officers—boys, scarcely out of the schoolroom—had turned to stare after her with an eagerness so transparent it bordered on the indecent. A cluster of older gentlemen by the betting boards paused mid-conversation, their quizzing glasses lifting in near unison. One man—no gentleman at all, by the look of him—had the audacity to whistle beneath his breath. Jasper felt, with sudden clarity, that he might like to break something.
Miss Tolliver was unaffected. She moved as though the gaze of half the assembly were no more than sunlight upon her skin. She simply lifted her chin, as though such admiration were her natural due—and perhaps, damn her, it was.
And out of all gentlemen assembled at the meeting, and all the men admiring her, it washeshe had summoned.
Jasper followed her at a distance that might, to a charitable observer, be called respectable. There was nothing respectable, however, in the direction of his thoughts. T The cut of that infernal jacket. The neat row of buttons he longed to unfasten one by one. The curve of her thigh beneath those skirts. Catching her wrist and turning her before she reached the safety of the tent. Pressing her against the canvas where no one might see, but where the risk of being seen would make it all the more thrilling.
He cleared his throat and adjusted his cravat futilely.
Lottie followed the narrow path that wound discreetly behind the ladies’ tent, a route no doubt intended for maids, porters, and other quiet functionaries of a race meeting. It was shaded and still, screened from the clamour of the course by a well-clipped hedge and the mellow stone of a garden wall beyond. A few birds chattered high in the branches, but otherwise, the place lay pleasantly deserted.
She walked swiftly, her parasol still in hand, though she no longer had any real need of it. Her pulse beat rather faster than her pace required. Why she had silently bade Mr Deverell to follow her, she could not have said. Or rather—she could, but the truth of it sat somewhere just beyond the reach of her own acknowledgement, and she was not yet inclined to examine it too closely. What shedidknow was that Theo’s voice had been echoing in her mind all morning. Her sisters. Her reputation. The endless, suffocating arithmetic of it all.
It should be said, dear reader, that Miss Charlotte Tolliver was exceedingly tired of being managed. Her subconscious decision was one that reveals a peculiar perversity in human nature: tell a creature often enough that it is wild and bad, it may, in time, consider the notion to be true. Indeed, if she must be thought a girl of impulse and barely contained impropriety, then she might take some small satisfaction in fulfilling such a role.If you insist I am wicked, then wicked I shall be.
It was, naturally, an unwise choice to pursue or be pursued by one of Theo’s closest friends—but that, of course, was the entire point.
When she heard footsteps behind her, she slowed. “I had begun to suspect you had lost your courage, Mr Deverell.”
She heard a soft laugh. “And I had begun to suspect you meant only to torment me. A most uncharitable amusement, Miss Tolliver— leading a man by the nose through half the grounds.”
Lottie turned to find him standing a pace or two away. He looked disreputable in the way only well-bred men could, with his coat a touch rumpled, hair windblown, and his mouth drawn in that not-quite-smile that never boded well for any lady’s virtue.
“I should like to think,” she said, lifting one brow, “that I possess better occupations than trifling with gentlemen who cannot follow the simplest of instructions.”
“Oh, I followed your instructions,” he said, his voice dipping to a lower register. “Most faithfully. Though any man might be forgiven for questioning whether the prize at the end justifies the trouble.”
