Page 59

Chapter

THIRTY-ONE

Thanks to all of bloody Granger’s deviousness and postulating, it took almost all of the day and all of Guy’s arsenal to get the rest of the grain merchants to agree not to renege on the deals he had already made with them.

But in the process, he had made a powerful enemy and he knew already that next year’s negotiations weren’t going to be easy as a result.

A looming prospect that would have ground him down usually, but which didn’t seem quite as bad this evening now that he knew he had someone else in his corner who would understand.

Two heads were supposedly always better than one, after all, and in Lottie, he wouldn’t just have a friend and lover—he’d have a clever and resourceful partner in crime. Someone who would love this land, and everything on it, as much as he did.

A thought that made him smile as he handed Zeus over to the waiting Tom in the darkened stable and trudged his way back to the house.

He had long missed dinner, but there was some sort of soiree going on in the drawing room as he snuck past it.

As much as he would have preferred curling up in bed beside his good woman at this late hour, he supposed he owed it to his mother to show face after missing this afternoon’s tedious planned picnic by the river.

Besides, Lottie—his not so much as good but absolutely perfect woman—would be stuck in the drawing room right now too, so the cuddling would have to wait a little while anyway.

But at least they would be in it together.

Who would have predicted that a month ago? For a man who loathed surprises, Lottie had been the biggest surprise of his life. The best surprise too. She was…

Well, everything actually.

Everything and more. Another thought that made him grin like the besotted fool he was suddenly delighted to be.

The idea of just seeing her tonight made him take the stairs two at a time and then clean himself up at record speed.

He even put on cologne as he checked his reflection for the third time in quick succession, wondering if his green silk waistcoat would look better than this burgundy one, while feeling peculiar that he wanted to look his best for her.

And more peculiar still that he had finally found someone he wanted to look his best for.

It was all alien.

The way he felt. The way he thought. The way he yearned. The hurry he was in to see her. Touch her. Taste her.

Talk to her.

Talking was at the top of his suddenly long list of things to do.

For all the confidences they had shared last night as they had lain in each other’s arms, there were so many things still left unsaid.

Important things. Life-changing things. Forever things.

And as much as Guy feared saying them—and perhaps even feeling them—they very definitely had to be said.

Then—hopefully—there were plans to make.

People to tell, a life to create together, and he was impatient to just get on with it all.

Within ten minutes, he strode into the drawing room, his eyes scanning the room for the unconventional ray of sunshine who had made his jaded, shriveled heart beat again and was immediately accosted by the twin horrors of Miss Maybury and Lady Lynette.

“There you are!” Miss Maybury’s arm wound around his like a serpent’s. “Consider yourself press-ganged onto our team for charades as we are one short.”

“What perfect timing as usual, my lord,” gushed Lady Lynette, claiming his other arm. “For all the fun is about to start. Do you like charades?”

As his mother was watching and he was keen to prove to Lottie, wherever she was hiding in the overly crowded room, that he could banish away his storm cloud and have fun sometimes, he gritted his teeth in preparation of lying through them and smiled at his kidnappers.

“Of course.” Even though he would genuinely prefer to flay all the skin from his body and then bathe in acid than spend a moment in either of their company.

They dragged him, giggling, to the front of the room, sandwiching him between them as they all sat, still clinging to him.

Then, to ensure he couldn’t escape their clutches, both ladies leaned against him like proprietorial twin bookends.

Simultaneously pushing their unappealing bosoms into his horrified biceps as they took it in turns to blow flattering smoke up his arse in a battle to outshine one another.

That position made it difficult to turn around to find Lottie, but he still found as many excuses as he could to do so during the game but spied no sight of her anywhere.

At first, he assumed that she must have popped off to visit the retiring room but, not even when he had the floor a half hour later and was forced to mime something cringing to the crowd, could he spot her statuesque, tousled blond head anywhere.

Was she sick and had excused herself? Or had she feigned some malaise to get out of tonight and was already awaiting him in her bedchamber?

Expecting him to somehow know that? Dressed in nothing but that robe again and so ready for him that she would fall on him like she had last night?

New to the whole game of passion fueled by love, Guy honestly didn’t know whether to feel concern for the menace or desire, so had to suffer feeling both in tandem for what felt like eternity.

While simultaneously being repulsed by the overt flirtations of his charade partners.

Torture did not even begin to describe it!

When an interval was declared so everyone could recharge their glasses, he extricated himself from his awful teammates’ clutches as fast as he could. Before he could leave the room, he had no choice but to slow to acknowledge his mother sipping punch by the door with Aunt Almeria.

“Have either of you seen…” He stopped himself from saying Lottie in case they asked a million questions about why he had suddenly dropped that formality. “Miss Travers.” Although if he had anything to do with it, the menace wasn’t going to be a Miss for much longer.

“She’s gone,” said his mother with a grimace.

“Gone where?” He hadn’t expected that answer but immediately it made him worry.

“Is she ill?” Because if she was, then he would need to get the physician here as soon as possible in case her malaise festered and she took a turn for the worse and died.

A prospect that made his poor heart clamber up his throat to choke him.

“No,” was all his mother unhelpfully said through flattened lips.

“Then has something happened to her father or one of her brothers?” Visions of all manner of farmyard accidents scurried through his mind and gave him further palpitations.

“Should I saddle a horse?” Because family should always be there for family and those men were soon to be his. “What the blazes has happened!”

“If you must know…” Now his aunt was grimacing at his loud, panicked tone but whispering as if she were sharing a state secret and forcing him to lean closer to hear her above the hubbub. “I dismissed her.”

“What!” Guy did not bother whispering that. “You… dismissed her !” Had the world—or his aunt—gone stark-staring mad? “Why the blazes did you do that?”

“Unbecoming and improper behavior.” That curt but also hushed comment came from his mother.

“Scandalous behavior,” added his aunt, pulling an outraged face. “So she had to go. Straightaway. She left this morning.”

“And good riddance!” said his mother as Guy’s head began to spin. Then she whacked his arm with the back of her hand. “And shame on you too, Guy Harrowby! For you are not without blame in this unseemly debacle!”

“Unseemly debacle?” A nerve ticked in his cheek as his temper began to rise. He would have allowed the top of his head to explode but he didn’t want to cause a scene. Several guests were already staring and, instinctively, being a spectacle made him queasy. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“That you were seen, you stupid idiot!” His mother’s hushed hiss was angry. Her eyes incensed as she grabbed his sleeve and yanked him into the privacy of the hallway. “Sneaking out of her bedchamber this morning!”

“I most certainly did not.” Denial seemed like the most gentlemanly way to defend Lottie’s honor despite all the ungentlemanly things he had done to her in that bedchamber.

“Somebody malicious has told an outrageous lie and you have punished an innocent woman on the back of it. How dare you!” Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!

Why hadn’t he been more careful when it was his job to protect her?

His aunt rolled her eyes as she closed the door on the drawing room and all the gawping faces therein.

“We dared because another witness saw the pair of you kissing behind the stables, so I think it is fairly safe to say that that horse has well and truly bolted. Never mind that we’d all have to be blind not to see the covetous way you looked at her last night, so excuse us for not believing that self-righteous rot, nephew.

” Then she prodded him with a bony finger.

“How dare you copulate with my companion when I finally found one that showed promise! Couldn’t you dip your nib in another inkwell if you urgently needed to write ? ”

Nibs!

Copulating!

How dare they denigrate the beauty of what he and Lottie had shared as some sort of itch that had needed to be scratched! As if any blasted inkwell would have done!

He didn’t care that his aunt was a frail old lady and rounded on her, his own finger jabbing the air between them. “Keep your filthy insinuations—”

His mother yanked him back to face her. “Whether you did or you didn’t write with Miss Travers is a rather moot point at this stage.

Especially when we both know that you did.

” His mother’s finger made contact with his breastbone, and he grabbed it, more furious at her than he had ever been in his life.

She snatched it away and wagged it. “A complaint was raised, and with you conspicuously absent from your own birthday party yet again, I had no choice but to deal with it in the manner I deemed most appropriate!”

“And the most appropriate way you deemed was to punish Lottie rather than me?” Guy had never come this close to strangling his meddling mother in his life. And poor Lottie…

Oh, good God! Poor Lottie!

And he hadn’t been here to defend her.

“How could you be so callous?” Emotion choked his throat as he struggled to understand it all. His mother was a lot of exasperating things, but cruel wasn’t usually one of them. “How could you be so unfair? And how bloody dare you!”

She bristled at that. “There are impressionable young ladies here!” She pointed a finger back at the drawing room. “From some of the best families in society and one of us had to think about this family’s reputation!”

“And the best way you could think to do that was to publicly humiliate her?”

His aunt prodded him again. “Travers wasn’t publicly humiliated!

It was all done on the quiet, so kindly keep your voice down or everyone in there will know!

Thankfully, only Miss Maybury and Lady Lynette are aware of your scandalous and inappropriate indiscretion, and they came straight to us with it, which was jolly decent of them.

They even promised to take the secret to their graves so long as that temptress was removed from these premises with all haste. ”

Instantly, things slotted into place. Because of course only those two, of all the young ladies present, were despicable enough and desperate enough to sink so low.

“ They insisted she be removed?”

His mother and aunt nodded in unison.

Jaws set. Noses in the air.

Unrepentant.

“You put the demands of two sycophantic, thwarted, scheming, abhorrent social climbers over Lottie’s feelings?”

“Of course we did,” said his aunt. “Lady Lynette’s father is an earl, after all, and bloodlines matter.”

“We did it for your own good, Guy.” His mother had the gall to stroke his arm as if she loved him. “Once you’ve calmed down, you will realize that and thank us.”

That was when the red mist descended.

The exact moment that nothing else mattered one damn over his perfect, beautiful, wronged soulmate.

Guy barged back into the drawing room and, oblivious to the wide eyes and gasps from his mother’s awful houseguests, marched through the throng to the two worst who had wronged his woman. “How dare you!”

While Miss Maybury acted all innocent, the pompous Lady Lynette shrugged and stuck out her arrogant chin. “I dared because that brazen upstart needed to be put back in her place!”

“Lottie’s place is next to me, damn it!” He pointed to the empty space beside him, sick to his stomach at how humiliated she must be feeling right now.

“Whereas yours is as far away from me as is humanly possible!” He was aware that he was shouting.

Aware that his arms were waving uncontrollably in the air, but he couldn’t stop.

“Pack your bags, the pair of you, and get out of my house!” Then as an addendum, he bellowed, “And if anyone is brazen here, it is you two, who, for the record, are not worthy enough to lick her boots!”

He spun on his heel and stalked back through the crowd and, with a visceral growl, straight past his mother in the hallway.

She grabbed his sleeve as he reached the front door. “Where are you going?”

He snatched it away. “To fetch back the woman that I love! And if you don’t like that, Mother, then you can pack your bloody bags too!”

He then took great pleasure in slamming the door in her face.