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“Of course I haven’t been ruined! I am not an idiot, girls!

I have no intentions of rolling around in the hay with Albert.

” At their further gasp at that unladylike retort, she realized that her new friends had lived much more sheltered lives than she had, confirming that Miss P’s comment about Lottie’s “wildness” did perhaps hold more merit here in polite society than she had originally feared.

“Nor do I intend to.” Which was also sort of the truth.

Handsome Albert might get a stray kiss here and there in the future, especially if he kept lending her horses like he had today—if she was ever silly enough to do that again—but she did have some standards.

That meant that Lottie was resolute that while a kiss was just a kiss, she would reserve any sort of hay rolling only for someone special.

“I like Albert—but I don’t like him in that way!

” Only true love could convince her to lift her skirts and she knew herself well enough to know that a man needed to be more than just handsome to touch her heart. He had to be… perfect .

“Then why risk your reputation for him in the first place?” Kitty’s question was a fair one. “Why flirt with him and then sneak out to meet him at a wholly inappropriate hour unchaperoned?”

“Because he has unfettered access to a stable full of horses and I’ve missed riding mine.

” A truth which, even to Lottie’s own ears, sounded mercenary as she blurted it.

“I flirted outrageously with him so that I could borrow one this morning. That is all.” Another benefit of growing up in a house full of men was Lottie knew how their minds worked.

A pretty face, some batting lashes, and the opportunity to feel attractive and impressive were all most men needed to be twisted around a woman’s finger.

Was it wrong to use that weapon against one if he was daft enough to be so easily manipulated?

Probably. But…

“You’ve been out riding ?” Portia said it with more incredulity than she had said “ruined.”

“Yes.” Lottie offered a weak smile, hoping they would understand that her motives weren’t actually malicious—more medicinal. “I really needed the wind in my hair.” So much she physically ached.

“I see,” said Portia in a clipped tone that suggested she really didn’t see at all. “You’ve made us all worried sick since dawn.” She pointed at the exposed pillow corpse in disgust. “And you’ve lied to us all too.”

“I have never lied to you and I resent the implication!” Although the guilt at the string of whoppers she had just told Miss P with crossed fingers called her a hypocrite. “All I am guilty of is sneaking out for an hour to ride around the park for the sake of my sanity, and that is hardly a crime.”

“In a court of law, a lie by omission is still a lie, but that is by the by. I personally think that it is a crime that you willfully betrayed our trust in disappearing without any prior words of explanation, and you abused our friendship by preventing us from raising an alarm because we didn’t want to get you into any trouble.

” Portia’s eyes narrowed. “And you forced us to do all that because you missed riding your horse?”

“Well… when you put it like that, you make a short and harmless canter sound thoughtless.” Which had always been Lottie’s main problem, according to her papa.

He always nagged her to think about the consequences of her actions before she acted, whereas she tended to dive in headfirst. Worrying, in her humble opinion, solved nothing.

It just made you feel miserable and Lottie wasn’t one for misery. “And selfish.”

“That’s because it is selfish!” Portia surged to her feet again, her outraged finger prodding afresh.

“What were we supposed to say to Miss Prentice or one of the other teachers if they had wandered in here and asked where you were? Or do you deny that you expected your friends to lie to cover for you?”

“Well… I…” Suddenly, the seemingly necessary feel of thundering hooves beneath her while the wind whipped her hair didn’t feel quite so necessary as keeping her three new friends her friends.

“Forget being ruined, you could have been kidnapped!” Always the most fanciful of the four of them, Kitty’s eyes filled with tears that wounded far worse than all of Portia’s incensed but correct accusations. “You could have been murdered, Lottie!”

“Which as you can all see, I plainly wasn’t.”

“More by luck than judgment.” Georgie stood now too, folding her arms and sounding exactly like Miss Prentice in the full throes of one of her lectures on the Four D ’s.

Cool, calm, but oh-so-cutting. “But we all make mistakes and the important thing is to learn from them. Promise us that this is a one-off, Lottie. That it was a hideous mistake that you bitterly regret and that you will never do anything this reckless or thoughtless or unbelievably selfish ever again.” Worse, Georgie had Miss P’s disappointed schoolmistress countenance down to a T .

It was potent enough to make Lottie wither with shame beneath it.

“Because we are your best friends and we love you…” There was an invisible butter knife loaded with more guilt now hovering in the room that was being spread liberally and, arguably, not unjustly.

“… and despite the unfair and untenable position you placed us all in this morning, which could very well have risked our own places in this school, the last thing we would ever wish to see is you squander this wonderful opportunity that you have been given to better yourself. Never mind what your lovely father would have had to say if you ended up getting yourself expelled simply because you couldn’t control your childish urge to ride a horse. ”

As self-loathing settled like lead in Lottie’s tummy, Georgie went for the jugular without once raising her voice.

“To ensure that we all stay best friends, we are going to need that promise right this minute, Lottie, or you will leave us no choice but to confess all of our righteous concerns to Miss P about your future safety. For your own good. Isn’t that right, girls? ”

“Right!” Portia and Kitty said as one, mirroring Georgie’s folded-arms stance but nowhere near mastering her reasonable tone. All three friends obviously so disappointed in her that she could hardly bear it.

“Then I promise,” said Lottie, hoping it was the truth.

But just in case it wasn’t, and her innate wildness got the better of her again sometime in the future like it always did, she made sure that her fingers were crossed behind her back while she made that solemn promise.

Just in case.