Page 31

With a tense swallow, he passed the journal to Mr. Travers.

“I marked the page and will leave you to read it at your leisure, but the gist is that farmers who plant infected fields with peas for a season find they recover better than those who leave the field fallow.” Was he really already contemplating forever?

“Your daughter said you’d already left it fallow last year to no avail.

” Lottie was definitely the forever sort.

The sort a man could build a life with. A future with.

A family with. Stop running before you can walk, man! Look before you leap!

“Aye, we did. Blasted blight.” Guy forced himself to focus on her father and not the churning ball of fear spinning out of control in his gut.

“Left it to rest for fourteen months this second time and the damned disease only grew stronger in the ground.” Mr. Travers flipped to the article, clearly interested in a potential solution. “I’ve never grown peas, have you?”

“I was going to, a few years back,” answered Guy truthfully, “but never got around to it.” Because peas needed staking. Protecting from birds. Handpicking. Peas were a handful, just like this man’s effervescent and bewitching daughter. A commitment he hadn’t quite been ready for.

Mr. Travers pulled a face, almost as if he could read Guy’s thoughts “I’ve heard that peas are a lot of work for a short season.

But I’m not afraid of hard work and neither are my boys, so if they get rid of the blasted blight…

” His eyes scanned the charts, taking in the figures and the yields with what seemed to be a promisingly open mind.

“Then maybe it’s worth the faff to fix things.

The things that take the most effort are always the most rewarding in the end. ”

Like a proper all-cards-on-the-table courtship with his aunt’s latest companion.

He was going to have to have a very frank discussion with her, wasn’t he? The baring-the-soul sort. The I-think-you-and-I-might-have-something sort.

Guy was queasy just thinking about it.

“Lord knows nothing else has worked on my bloody blight so far and I’m worried it might spread to the rest of my land.” Mr. Travers’s frustrations dragged Guy out of his panicked reverie and back to their conversation.

Thank goodness, because his epiphany was giving him severe palpitations. As was his next step. Going home and asking this man’s daughter, a woman he had known for only eighteen days and been cordial with for just a week, if she was up for being wooed.

He sucked in a calming breath that did little to make him calm.

Because a week was fast by anyone’s standards to fall a little bit in love.

Perhaps even more than a little bit. “If you turn to the next page, sir, there is another chart that suggests that blight-free fields that are regularly rotated with peas also yield more grain. They also sell well to all the fancy tables in the capital, and for an excellent price too while they are in season. I hear they even stock the things at Fortnum and Mason.”

“The king’s own grocer? Really?” Mr. Travers liked the sound of that, which pleased Guy as he already liked Mr. Travers and wanted him to like him back.

“I bet the seed is expensive though.” He said that with the determined nonchalance of someone who probably couldn’t afford to invest in any after the blow the blight had dealt him this year.

He closed the journal, which confirmed it, and pasted on a brave smile so reminiscent of his daughter’s last night after Guy had rebuffed her, it plucked at his heartstrings.

“I shall give this a proper read later and give it some serious thought. Thank you for taking the trouble to personally deliver this to me, my lord. It was good of you to do so.”

“It was no trouble at all, Mr. Travers. I had business in Maidstone today anyway, so was passing.” If “passing” was the correct term for going four miles out of his way.

“Besides, we farmers should always stick together. Especially with something that affects us all.” Like a golden-haired firebrand that they both adored. Albeit in decidedly different ways.

“Is everything all right, Pa?” Two men approached.

One Guy instantly recognized as the Adonis he had seen her with that day at the market.

Daniel, she’d said his name was. Dan? The other was a few years older but no less handsome than his younger brother.

Both were tall. Both had the same dark blond hair as their sister.

Both were displaying similar wary expressions.

“Of course it is!” Mr. Travers beckoned them over. “This is Lord Wennington, the nephew of the lady our Lottie is working for. He’s come with some ideas for our blight.”

“Today? Today of all days?” Dan’s eyes widened until his brother gave him a firm nudge as he strode forward, hand extended.

“Pleased to meet you, my lord. I’m Stephen. Lottie’s eldest brother.” Like his father, there was a protective edge to that statement. “My sister has told us all about you.”

“Then I dread to think what she has said.” If they were a close family, they might even know everything, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Yet . Any more than he was sure how he felt about her yet either.

Could I really already be in love with the minx? This fast? This thoroughly?

The very idea made his head spin and his heart…

His poor, bludgeoned, guarded heart… was singing.

God help him!

“She said nothing too bad,” said Daniel, stepping forward to shake his hand too.

“I’m Dan and I beg of you not to judge all of the Travers clan by my troublesome sister’s horrendous example.

I’m sorry she covered you in soup, got you attacked by a goose, and threatened to horsewhip you. ” Clearly she had told them everything.

“She threatened what?” At his father’s outrage, Dan winced at Guy. “I forgot that Lottie swore me to secrecy about that part; don’t tell her I did or she’ll likely horsewhip me too.”

“If my daughter threatened to horsewhip you, my lord, then—”

“It’s Guy, Mr. Travers.” If he was going to be courting his daughter, and wanted this man’s approval to do it, then “my lord” didn’t feel right.

“I’ve always been more a farmer than a viscount and while she did once threaten me with her whip, I can assure you that I deserved it.

I was most ungentlemanly to her that day and—”

“Then maybe you did deserve it.” Suddenly, Stephen’s face was like thunder as he obviously didn’t know the whole story and had assumed “ungentlemanly” was a politer way of saying he’d taken a liberty. Which he hadn’t—but he wanted to.

Really wanted to.

“We collided while riding in Hyde Park one morning.” He supposed honesty was the best policy with her menfolk from the outset.

“We were both going too fast, both weren’t looking where we were going, and when we almost ran into each other, our stallions got spooked.

Zeus here…” He shook the reins in his fist. “Threw me off, then bolted. She gave chase and managed to catch him, which was no mean feat, I can tell you, with this unpredictable brute. She brought him back and instead of saying thank you, I told her off for reckless riding. Things deteriorated from there. It wasn’t my finest hour. ”

“Nor hers, by the sounds of it. She’s always been hotheaded and always rides like the devil is on her tail.” Her oldest brother’s wry smile told Guy that he was now suitably appeased. However, the story hadn’t done the same for the father, who glared at Dan.

“What was she doing on a blasted stallion? She’s been borrowing horses without permission again, hasn’t she?

” When Dan winced again, the older man shook his head.

“Is that why she’s now a lady’s companion and not a governess?

She got herself dismissed again, didn’t she?

” He pointed an accusing finger at his youngest son.

“And she told you not to tell me! Because you two have always been as thick as thieves.” Mr. Travers was so agitated he was turning purple.

“Why does that girl never think of the consequences of her actions? She’ll be getting a piece of my mind when I see her. ”

“There’s a bit more to it this time, Pa,” said Dan with a pointed look at first his father and then his brother, who had obviously also been kept in the dark. “So what happened wasn’t entirely Lottie’s fault.”

“Still—”

Before Mr. Travers continued to rant, his eldest son intervened with a warning glance at his father that stated that this wasn’t the time or the place. “Your horse is an Arabian, isn’t it?”

“He is.”

He stepped forward to stroke Zeus’s neck.

“I’ll bet Lottie loves him. She’s always had a soft spot for Arabians.

We used to have a neighbor who bred them.

” He gestured north with his head. “She was there all the time as a girl, constantly dropping by his stables just to spend time with them.” Guy smiled because he could imagine her doing just that.

“She was there so often he ended up putting her to work just to get her out from under his grooms’ feet. ”

“Took advantage of her passion for his mounts, more like, and never paid her a penny for all the hours of work she did for him, the skinflint.” Now Mr. Travers was aggrieved about something done to his daughter rather than what she had done.

“Let her brush them down, feed them, and even asked her to muck out their stalls but never let her ride one of them. What sort of person does that? When he would have known it would have meant the world to my little girl.”

“That was his problem.” Stephen rolled his eyes.

“He knew she was a better rider than anyone in the county and he wanted to believe he was so he didn’t want to be shown up.

” He turned to Guy with a wry smile. “But don’t you dare tell her I said that as it’ll go to her big head and I’ll only deny it. ”

“She knows she rides better than anyone already, idiot.” Dan laughed at his brother.

“I’ve lost count of how many times she’s beaten you at a steeplechase.

That’s why none of us bet on your races anymore.

It’s pointless. We all know Lottie will win.

Even if she was on the back of a cumbersome cart horse with a limp, she’d get the best out of the animal and find a way to finish first. Our sister has always had a unique bond with horses, almost as if she can speak horse.

For goodness only knows they respond to her in ways they don’t with anyone else. ”

“She’d make a better horse trainer than she makes a well-behaved governess, that is for certain.” Mr. Travers huffed, still not over his initial annoyance. “Please tell me she has your permission to be riding Blodwyn?”

“She does.” Although now that he knew her better, Guy had to admit that Blodwyn wasn’t really the horse for her when Juno had suited her more.

He would tell her that when he got home too.

Offering up Juno would guarantee him one of her most dazzling smiles and might go some way toward convincing her to give him a go.

“Then what bad thing has she done to bring you here?” It was Stephen who asked it, but Dan leaned in to nod as if he too expected the worst.

“A good thing!” Their father waved the journal. “A potential solution to our blight problem. Peas, of all things. Who knew?” Mr. Travers explained what the article said, likely only out of politeness now that he realized the cost was prohibitive, and Guy embellished it for all he was worth.

“Anyway, I thought it might be worth a try.” Now that they had thoroughly exhausted the topic of legumes, and the sun was inching ever closer to the horizon, Guy shrugged and decided that he had likely outstayed his welcome.

He really wanted to help further, and at least buy them the seed that they would doubtless struggle to afford or loan them the money plus some extra to tide them over, but knew these men wouldn’t allow it.

Guy empathized. It took one to know one, and nobody knew how important, yet fragile, a man’s pride was better than he did.

“If you do and it works, let me know. It was nice to meet you all.”

They said their goodbyes and walked him to the lane.

He was about to mount Zeus when he had an idea.

“You know… I’ve a feeling I have a couple of sacks of old seed peas in a barn somewhere.

” A lie. “So old, I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t grow, but a few might germinate and so you’re welcome to them if you want to conduct an experiment.

They’re doing nothing in my barn apart from slowly rotting, so someone might as well make use of them. ”

The two sons instantly looked to their father, their interest clearly piqued, but the older man shook his head and squared his shoulders. “I won’t take them for free but I’ll pay you a fair price for them.”

“I think a fair price for old seed that might not grow is nothing, Mr. Travers.” A response that made the patriarch of the family set his stubborn jaw.

So Guy scratched his as if weighing up his options.

“But if it does, seeing as it’s technically my seed, although arguably all your land, your labor, and you’d have to find the market to sell it, I’d be happy to take…

five percent of your profits once you have it as compensation.

” He deliberately went in low because he had a feeling Mr. Travers would insist on increasing the percentage to save face.

He didn’t disappoint.

“Ten percent. I won’t take it off your hands for less.”

“Ten it is, then.” Guy stuck out his hand and they shook on the deal. “I’ll get one of my lads to deliver it.” Just as soon as he bought it. “Have a good evening, gentlemen.”

“We won’t be having as good an evening as you.” Dan’s comment earned him another dig in the ribs from his older brother and he winced again. “Assuming you are doing something good, that is. But whatever you are doing… um… I hope it goes well for you.”

“So do I.” Especially as what he was doing involved plighting his tentative troth to Dan’s baby sister. “And I hope I see you all soon.” Where, no doubt, if tonight went really well, they’d all want to loom over him and quiz him on his intentions.