Page 45

Chapter

TWENTY-THREE

Guy felt sick.

Physically sick and impotent.

Had the horse thrown her into the water? Juno was too near the deep end not to make him panic that Lottie’s heavy riding habit had sucked her to the bottom of the pond. Was he too late? Had she drowned in the minute it had taken him to catch up?

He was on the cusp of diving in to search for her on the bottom when he heard another sound.

“Psssst!”

Lottie’s grinning face appeared out of the branches of the old weeping willow.

Relief warred with fury as she beckoned him over, giggling before she disappeared back into the canopy as if she was having a whale of a time, and he instantly realized that he’d been had. The menace had staged the whole thing and almost given him a heart attack in the process.

He stalked into the branches, wrestling an invasive one from his neck as he did. He warred between shaking her by the shoulders and hauling her into his arms, so settled for waving his arms like a maniac instead. “What the bloody hell do you think you are doing!”

“Saving you again, of course.” She seemed to find his animated fury hilarious and pointed at him. “Oh my goodness, look at your face, Guy! It’s a picture!”

“You could have killed yourself with that stupid stunt.”

“Oh, stop being daft.” She giggled some more when he loomed, incredulous. “I was in full control at all times, idiot, and thought that you, of all people, would have had the good sense to know it.”

“You are questioning my good sense when you just displayed none!” He stalked closer and growled. “That was the stupidest, most reckless thing I have ever seen.”

“Genius is what it was, and you know it. Juno is a darling. And who knew a horse could act?” That made her chuckle some more.

“I couldn’t have wished for a better accomplice.

Juno should be on the stage, she is so good.

” While he struggled to find the right words to express his outrage, Lottie prodded him in the chest, her lovely cornflower eyes dancing with mischief.

“This is the part where you thank me for my brilliance.”

“I think it’s more the part where I strangle you!

” He raked a hand through his hair as he swallowed past the lump in his throat.

“You scared me half to death, Valkyrie.” And his poor heart had broken temporarily in two in the process when he had thought he had lost her forever.

A truly hideous way to discover that he was more than a little bit in love with this duplicitous, disloyal, and infuriating hellion.

Irrespective of what his sensible head told him, his stupid heart was all the way in.

Somehow, he had to yank it back out. At least a little bit, for self-preservation until all his doubts were gone.

“A small price to pay for escaping the twin clutches of Lady Lynette and Miss Maybury—you are welcome.” She gestured to the secret space encompassing them.

“Thanks to my quick thinking, not only will it take them a little while to find us here, but when they do, you will be able to insist that you have to escort me home because I am in shock.” She wafted the back of one hand to her forehead.

“So shocked that I am having a touch of the vapors and could pass out at any moment.” She swayed comically against the willow’s thick trunk and Guy felt his lips twitching. “Somebody fetch the smelling salts.”

“You, Miss Travers, are a blasted menace.”

“But you like me.” She circled him with a saucy smile on her face. “Admit it.”

“No, I don’t. You knocked me on my arse—twice—threatened to horsewhip me, covered me in hot soup, and almost murdered me with a blasted arrow, and I have known you less than a month!

You, Miss Travers, have rapidly become the bane of my life and I loathe you.

” So much that in just three weeks he was already prepared to jump in front of a bullet for her!

“Is that because I’ve put you to shame with my superior riding skills—even perched on a sidesaddle, I am better on a horse than you will ever be.”

He scoffed despite suspecting it was the truth after that impressive display. “I sincerely doubt that.”

“Care to bet on it? Or are you too scared to go up against me in a challenge?” She stopped circling to put her hands on her hips, one golden brow cocked, blue eyes twinkling, goading him.

Tempting him.

Seducing him into ignoring all the warnings that his head was screaming about the need for caution and diligence before he flung himself fully into the dangerous ravine of love again.

“Set the challenge, time, and the place, Miss Travers, and I’ll make you eat your words.”

She pointed at the church spire way off in the distance. “What about a good old-fashioned steeplechase? Tomorrow. I’ll meet you in the stable yard at dawn and commiserate in it once we’re done because I shall be victorious.”

“And the stakes?” His heart was racing again—but in a different way. With anticipation and excitement and, heaven help him, a healthy dollop of lust. Trust her to suggest a steeplechase. “What are we competing for, Miss Travers?”

She shrugged. “If you win, I will form a constant shield between you and the hordes. Turn myself into Miss Maybury’s and Lady Lynette’s annoying shadow, intercepting and thwarting every attempt they make to get near you, just like a good chaperone should.

But…” She prodded his chest again. “If I win, you have to forgive me for not telling you about the surprise. And you have to start calling me Lottie again.”

Whichever way he looked at it, Guy would win, because something powerful within, perhaps even a combination of his head and his heart, told him that he had to forgive her. “Do you expect a head start because you are a woman?”

“Absolutely not. Do you require one? I would be prepared to give you an entire minute—to give you a fighting chance. You are heavier, after all.” She looked him up and down with mock disdain as she circled him again and somehow, he felt her eyes on his back. His shoulders. His arse. “And older.”

“Don’t be daft.” He adored her cheek and her confidence.

And the irreverent, playfully insulting way that she talked to him.

He adored those characteristics so much more than he could all the fawning nonsense he had been subjected to by the blasted debutantes in the last few days.

“Even if I start a minute later, I shall still leave you standing.” All this sparring felt like flirting.

Foreplay even, and God help him, but he liked it.

She shook her head, the light of battle in her eyes, and that made him wish it was dawn already. “We shall start together.”

“Then you have a deal,” he said, holding out his hand. She took it and shook it and then something peculiar happened and he could not bring himself to let go. Kiss her, said the screaming voice in his head. Kiss her and to hell with it all .

“Yoo-hoo!” He groaned aloud at the sound of Lady Lynette in the distance. “Lord Wennington, where are you? Is anyone injured?”

Hands still interlocked, and doubtless blissfully unaware of the effect that she was having on him, Lottie twisted into his arms as if they were dancing, gazed up at him, and grinned.

“Let’s see if you are a better actor than a horse, shall we?

” Then she pretended to collapse into a standing faint against him.

“We are not going to pretend that you are overcome. It is a childish thing to do.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake, put away your storm cloud for a few minutes and have some fun, Guy.

If I am not overcome, then we will have to continue the ride and—unless you beat me tomorrow—I have no obligation to save you from those two scheming sycophants.

You will have to fend them off yourself because I am too shaken to continue.

” She feigned a faint again. “And you will be left all alone with them.”

“Yoo-hoo! Lord Wennington!” Lady Lynette’s feet, and several others, were now scurrying up the path toward their private sanctuary. “I am worried sick about you!”

“Not as worried as I am!” It was Miss Maybury’s voice that sealed the deal.

“Very well—play the damsel in distress if you think that you can be convincing.” It certainly wasn’t a role that suited her. “I shall plead affronted ignorance if you fail.”

Her response was a grin so infectious he chuckled and allowed her to tug him out of the shroud of the willow, where she swooned into her character.

Then, bizarrely, enjoying himself immensely, Guy maneuvered her along the little path down the side of the pond while she did her best to be a deadweight in his arms.

“Miss Travers is in shock!” he shouted to nobody in particular as they came into view. “Does anyone have any smelling salts?”

“Not on me.” Lady Connaughlty patted her riding habit to check. “But I have some back at the house.”

“What about some water?” That came from the levelheaded Miss Yates. “A splash on her temples might revive her.”

“What an excellent idea!” Guy couldn’t resist one small act of petty revenge for the way Lottie had scared him half to death.

Suppressing a smile, he solicitously deposited her limp and lifeless body on the soft bank, leaned over it to use both hands to scoop up as much of the chilly pond water as he could.

Then chucked the whole lot in the vixen’s face.