Page 33

Her toes curled some more at that horrified greeting.

“Good evening, my lord.” She bobbed one of her usual lackluster curtsies.

There was nothing for it but to brazen it out, be her usual self, and pretend nothing had happened.

“You have arrived just in the nick of time to change quickly before dinner.” She pointed at the clock, which now read just two minutes to eight.

“Very quickly unless you want to suffer the wrath of both your mother and Lady Frinton.” She had to keep him away from the dining room at all costs, so used a sweep of her arms to shepherd him toward the stairs.

He edged toward her like a man who did not want to be within ten miles of her. “Um… before I change, can we… er… talk about what happened last night?”

“Last night?” A hot blush crept up her neck as she willed the ground to open and swallow her whole.

“I cannot think of anything that happened last night that would require a conversation, my lord. Has something happened?” She was clutching at straws now, even though her face was already burning crimson.

His dark brows furrowed, doubtless until he realized what a gift she was trying to hand him on a plate.

“Miss Travers, I…” Now he looked to be in actual pain, which was exactly how she was feeling as she contemplated throwing herself out of a window and running, screaming in mortification, toward those hills.

And would have, too, if there had been a window handy. “I… um…”

“Please, my lord!” She was mortified enough that she might even run out the front door and not stop until she hit the White Cliffs of Dover. “It really doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me.” He grabbed her elbow and spirited her away from the staircase to the secluded alcove beneath it.

He sucked in an audible breath and stared at her.

“The thing is, Miss Travers… Lottie…” He raked a hand through his hair.

“The thing is…” He scrunched his eyes closed and she seriously thought about bolting.

As if he sensed that, his hand slipped down to her hand and gripped it tight as he stared deep into her eyes with the maniacal look of a man who was dreading saying what he wanted to say almost as much as she dreaded hearing it.

“I must go… Lady Frinton needs me.” She tried to tug her hand away and he held on tight. “My lord, I…”

“Guy… it’s Guy, and I…” His eyes locked with hers and she wasn’t sure which of them looked more uncomfortable. “I… um… er… oh, to hell with it!” Before she knew what was happening, he dipped his head and pressed his mouth to hers.

His lips were gentle at first, but as she sighed against them, he snaked an arm around her waist and hauled her closer, and she clean forgot all else.

Lottie had been kissed many times before, but never like this.

This kiss was something special. Intense and complex like the man bestowing it and almost impossible to decipher all in one go.

Desire meshed with tenderness. Haste mixed with restraint.

Longing laced with wonder. Reverence. Impatience.

Triumph and surrender. Almost as if he had been holding everything back for as long as he could but the dam had broken.

Her own flimsy dam had disintegrated the second their mouths met, so she welcomed everything, looping one arm around his neck while her other hand gripped his lapel. In case he did not get the message from that, she kissed him back with equal fervor until she was drunk on him.

She even moaned her appreciation when his hands went on a mission to explore her body.

Parting her lips so that they could deepen the kiss as his palms wandered possessively up her back and then all the way down again.

He tugged her hips flush to his as his tongue tasted hers.

Letting her feel his desire hard against her pelvis before he filled his palms with her bottom and groaned his approval.

“All I’ve done is think of doing this to you since yesterday.

” Heady words that were music to her ears and sheer torture for her body.

“I should have done this then, Lottie. I wanted to.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to return the sentiment, but his mouth was on hers again and she didn’t want that to stop. So instead, she arched against him and buried her fingers in his hair, anchoring his lips in place as she thoroughly kissed him back.

“Lottie, we’re—” They jumped apart at Longbottom’s voice and he blinked at them in shock. It was obvious he had seen everything. “My apologies, my lord.”

“Is that finally my son?” Lady Wennington suddenly rushed into the hallway, and like a stampede behind her, so too came all the impatient guests. The young ladies pushing each other out of the way in their eagerness to make that all-important first impression.

He looked to Lottie. Either stunned from the intensity of their kiss or stunned by the crowd coming toward them. “What’s happening?” He sounded panicked. Looked panicked.

“What’s happening?” Unaware of the intense, passionate moment that had just been interrupted, his mother enveloped him in a hug. “Why it’s the party I’ve been planning for you for your birthday of course, darling! Surprise!”

Lottie got pushed by the wayside as the guests swarmed him and he was dragged into the drawing room.

He glanced back, only briefly, the panic in his expression replaced by one of pleading.

As if he was expecting her to somehow save him.

Which of course she couldn’t, not now, despite being desperate to.

Someone closed the door, trapping him inside, and the bile rose in her mouth.

Alone in the hallway, she stumbled to the staircase and groped for a step to sit on.

Her head spinning, both from the residual power of their kiss and from the overwhelming realization that what was happening in that room was all wrong and she had helped fling him to the wolves.

There was a cacophony of noise from behind the door and she just knew he would hate that.

Hate the intrusion into his privacy and being blindsided by so many strangers.

She had no clue how long she sat there wondering how to rescue him.

She was so lost in conflicting thoughts it could have been one minute and it could have been a hundred.

But the muffled voices suddenly increased momentarily in volume, so her head whipped to the door and there he was.

As white as a sheet and so furious she could feel the intensity of his anger coming off him in waves.

Anger that seemed wholly focused on her.

“Guy, I—”

“How could you!” He spat the words, his stormy, dark eyes a world of pain. “How could you do that to me?”

She jumped to her feet and rushed to him, arms outstretched because she needed to comfort him. “I didn’t have a choice. I—”

He swerved away from her a touch before he swiveled to face her, arms raised in frustration before slamming both fists to his sides. “You have a bloody tongue in your head! One you use often enough, madam, and for lesser crimes than this!”

“I wanted to tell you.” She reached out to touch him and he stared at her hand as if it were a cobra before he pivoted to stalk up the stairs, forcing her to follow.

“Please, Guy… Hear me out. I wanted to tell you but—” He stopped dead as she caught his arm and she almost slammed into him as he twisted.

“But you didn’t, did you?” For a moment, he allowed all his vulnerabilities to show in his expression, until he yanked his sleeve from her grip.

“When you knew I would loathe that…” He grimaced as he flapped his hand toward the noisy houseguests.

“With every fiber of my being. I let you in and this—” He couldn’t even finish that sentence, his emotions were so raw.

“I wanted to tell you but… you have to understand… it wasn’t my place to. Your mother wanted to surprise you and I had no choice—”

“Don’t you dare try to excuse this!” He wagged an accusatory finger at her.

“Do not dare attempt to deny your part in this when you were one of the perpetrators of this vile… cruel… humiliating… Urgggh! ” On that guttural grunt, he was off again.

“You are a liar, Miss Travers .” Somehow the pointed use of her surname again cut more deeply than him calling her a liar.

“According to my mother and my aunt, you weren’t just complicit—you were the linchpin.

They apparently couldn’t have pulled any of this off without you.

” His tone was laced with bitterness now. Betrayal.

Hurt.

That shamed her the most.

“That’s not entirely—”

He spun around again and regarded her with complete disgust. “Then you deny sending out all the invitations, do you? Riding practically every single day to Maidstone to collect the replies? Of hiding every single one of those awful people down there in bedrooms in my house?” He shook his head and backed up the stairs.

“And I thought you were…” He growled and his features hardened.

“Just get out of my sight, Miss Travers. For I cannot bear to look at you.”

“But—”

“And stay out of it until you leave, or I’ll have you removed from my house.”