Page 51

“Me too.” Guy was panting too, his broad chest rising and falling as he slid off his horse and patted the stallion’s neck.

Zeus snorted in response and danced on the spot, clearly nowhere near as exhausted from the gallop as the riders were.

“You are some horsewoman, I’ll give you that.

I cannot remember a time when anyone has given me such a run for my money.

There were moments there when you almost had me. ”

“There were moments when you had me too.” Now was one of them. As tired as she was, she still wanted to kiss him until they were more breathless than they already were.

He held out his arms to help her down and it took her last drop of effort not to either collapse in a heap into them or fling herself into them and attach herself to his mouth.

After her scandalous behavior last night, she put some distance between them as soon as her feet hit the ground.

If they were ever going to kiss again, it was his turn to instigate it.

She wasn’t Miss Maybury, after all, and she did have some pride.

“Obviously, I’d have won if I hadn’t overimbibed the cognac. ”

“For the love of God, be gracious in defeat, woman!” He rolled his eyes heavenward. “I haven’t got the energy to argue with you now. It was a tie—and I hate it as much as you do, but I am big enough not to make any excuses about it.”

Lottie poked out her tongue in response to that and Guy chuckled at her petulance as he gathered up both sets of reins to lead the two horses back out of the gates to the water trough.

He was rummaging in his saddlebag by the time she mustered the strength to follow.

“But if I were to make an excuse, madam, I was the one carrying extra weight because I don’t suppose you thought to bring any provisions after your overindulgence last night.

” He tossed her his water flask first and she caught it gratefully, not caring one wit that glugging from it wasn’t ladylike.

That ship had sailed around him too and she was too exhausted to feign any of the expected decorum that had never come naturally to her.

Not that he ever seemed to expect it. Perhaps he liked her as she was?

A thought that made her smile as she took a seat on the low wall that separated the churchyard from the lane.

“What provisions did you bring?”

He responded by chucking an apple at her, so she swapped him the water as he sat beside her while the horses—and they—cooled down.

Guy shined his apple on his thigh before he took a bite.

“I haven’t done that in years.” His dark brows knitted.

“Nine to be precise. I remember because it was just before my twenty-first birthday and poor Bill suffered the last of a series of drubbings.” He smiled at that.

“Although if you were to question him about it he’d say that he had to let me win because he feared for his job otherwise—but it isn’t true.

He just couldn’t stand that I got better than him. ”

“When was the last time you were beaten?”

His nose wrinkled as he considered it. “Probably a decade ago. Bill again and he gloated all the way home with absolutely no fear for his job that day. You?”

“The same. A decade…” Where had all that time gone? Instantly her mind conjured images of home before she had left to study the Four D ’s at Miss P’s school for ladies. She had been much wilder then. “Peter Clifton, the blacksmith’s son, beat me by a head.”

“Ouch,” said Guy with genuine sympathy. “So close and yet so far.”

“Although, in truth, I pulled up a tiny bit at the last minute.” She held her forefinger and thumb apart a quarter of an inch. “And did let him win that day, so I am not sure that it counts.”

“Why on earth did you do that?” As a fellow ridiculously competitive person, it was obvious that such a sacrifice was anathema to him.

“Ah…” She smiled at the vivid recollections of her and Peter climbing haystacks in her father’s fields so they could stare at the sky together.

“Because he was a handsome and mature young buck of fifteen and I was convinced that I was a woman at thirteen and I thought myself in love with him.” And what a twit she had been then.

Womanhood was blossoming but she’d still had the mind of a child.

“It was all very serious, of course, as young love always is and we plighted our troths to one another behind a barn. My first kiss too…” She gave a dramatic sigh that made him smile.

“I felt so grown-up and thought I had found my soulmate, only to have him reject me in the end, because life is cruel, and love is crueler.” It was certainly being cruel to her now.

What had Cupid been thinking to make her poor heart yearn for a forever with a man she likely could never have for longer than this week?

“Why did the idiot reject you?” Guy was genuinely perplexed and she took that as a compliment. “Aside from your infuriating character and problems with cognac, of course.”

Lottie lifted her legs and pointed her toes.

“Because thirteen was also the year of my growth spurt. And trust me, I grew like a beanstalk.” Sadly upward but not outward as her bee-sting breasts had never poked out farther from her flat chest than they had when she was thirteen.

“Peter was able to look me in the eye for our first kiss—but six months later I was at least six inches taller than him, and he took that personally.” But like the twit she had been back then, she had done everything in her power to minimize her height.

Including walking beside him with permanently crouched legs that ended up giving her a backache.

“He left me for a shorter woman. Dilly James, the miller’s daughter.

” She pretended to swipe a tear from her eye.

“She was an acceptably petite five-foot-two. They are married now. She worships the ground he walks on and he happily towers over her while she does. And good luck to them. I am happy for them.”

“I thought hell was supposed to have no fury like a woman scorned, so why are you not bitter?”

In silent tacit agreement, they’d retrieved their horses to amble beside them in the direction of home.

“Because it turned out that that first kiss, which I had believed could not possibly be beaten, was quite a substandard kiss. More a wash than a kiss, so I got over him much too quickly to have been really in love. Thanks a great deal to Edgar Garrick, who knew how to do it properly.”

“You fell in love with a man called Edgar?” Guy seemed appalled by the thought.

Or jealous. The eternal optimist within her hoped he was jealous, because that offered them some potential.

“Ed- gar .” He then put on a comical falsetto which she presumed was supposed to be her.

“‘Kiss me, Ed- gar! Oh, how you make my young heart pound, Ed- gar. I love you more than life itself—Ed- gar. ’” He made a disgusted sound and dropped the falsetto.

“Now there is a name that thoroughly ruins the moment.”

“Firstly, his parents gave him that dreadful name and he went by Ed, which was much more tolerable. Secondly, his wandering eyes made him too unreliable a fellow to waste my time falling in love with. Probably because he practiced his craft at every available opportunity with whichever willing woman came along. He was too charming by half, the floozy, and buzzed from girl to girl like a bumblebee does flowers. But, in my defense, I kissed him before I realized that. And it was memorable enough to render the kisses of the next two gentlemen who came along as bland by comparison.”

“Precisely how many men have you kissed?” Guy’s eyes were looking resolutely ahead but his jaw was clenched, convincing her that he was just a little bit jealous. Although he had nothing to be jealous of as his kiss came at the very top of her rankings.

“Not as many who had wanted to but probably more than I should have.” She shrugged, enjoying his irritation.

Nothing riled a man up more than the competition of other men and, despite the depressing fact that a viscount was unlikely to compete for her in anything other than an affair, it was nice to know that he cared.

“Remember that I am a farmer’s daughter who grew up watching sheep or cows or horses indulge their passions openly without a care in the world, so I am not as easily shocked as most ladies are by the physical.

A few stolen kisses here and there are tame in comparison to what was happening in our farmyard—and it is hardly my fault that I am such a fine specimen of womanhood that men want to kiss me, now, is it?

” She flicked her hair and batted her lashes in the ridiculous way that Miss Maybury always did and his jaw relaxed a little.

“If all these men keep wanting to kiss you, why haven’t you married one of them? Or have Ed- gar ’s talented lips ruined you for all other men?”