Page 6

Chapter

THREE

Georgie was a beautiful bride. Despite all Lottie’s inner turmoil, made worse after her unfortunate near collision with that insufferably rude, ungrateful, incompetent, but ridiculously handsome horseman in the park this morning, the wedding had been lovely.

Made all the lovelier by its unconventionality.

With no blood relations, the bride had been walked down the aisle by Miss P, which had felt fitting.

It did not matter what you did, and Lottie could personally vouch for this, Miss Prentice always welcomed you back with open arms until you were in a position to leave again.

Once a student of her school, you were also always part of the sisterhood it created.

That was why Georgie’s lack of blood relatives hadn’t mattered today one jot.

Her side of the aisle had been filled with a sea of smiling family made up of past alumni and present students.

Even the first-years, who were all only sixteen, had been invited to the nuptials and the wedding breakfast along with the groom’s young nieces and nephew, giving it all a wonderfully inclusive feel.

The addition of three boisterous children had certainly made the usual matrimonial formalities livelier, even if some of the guests had raised some disapproving eyebrows at so many breaks with tradition.

Now, bellies stuffed thanks to the excellent wedding feast, the amassed guests were milling about and sipping champagne in Miss P’s drawing room, some spilling into the hallway while they all awaited the bride and groom to reappear ready to leave for their honeymoon.

Portia and Kitty were upstairs with Georgie, helping her change to leave and no doubt reliving the best bits of the day.

Lottie hadn’t gone with them. As delighted as she was for the new Captain and Mrs. Kincaid, seeing them disappear on their honeymoon in a shower of rice and rose petals suddenly couldn’t come soon enough.

Maintaining the cheerful facade was exhausting and Lottie couldn’t wait to be able to strip off this constricting silk bridesmaid’s gown, along with its even more constricting undergarments, and be all alone with her worries in her bedchamber.

Dan’s letter had still played in her mind despite her best efforts to do her usual and postpone worrying about tomorrow until tomorrow.

While it was true that worrying was usually a futile pursuit, this problem seemed insurmountable.

Lottie hated feeling impotent, and despite her eventful morning gallop and no matter how hard she had racked her brains, she still hadn’t come up with anything that would help her family through this latest crisis.

In the absence of no better plan and no money to help her papa, she had decided to head home to grieve the demise of this year’s barley crop in the bosom of her family.

It was too late to leave for Kent tonight, but if she caught the early morning post with Portia, whose current employers were spending the summer with family in Gravesend, she’d be back in Aylesford before supper.

Maybe then she’d be able to think of a solution.

“Do you see that lady over there?” Miss P’s sudden whisper beside Lottie’s left ear made her jump.

“Which lady?”

“The old lady sitting on the chair directly to the right of the fireplace.”

There were several ladies who could fit that description but only one looked truly old.

At least eighty by Lottie’s best guess if the snow-white hair and saggy, papery jowls were any gauge.

“The one with the ludicrous foot-high purple ostrich feather stuck in her hair and the expression of complete disapproval on her overpowdered face?” For this octogenarian appeared so displeased with everything and everyone around her she might as well be chewing on a wasp.

“Must you be so literal?”

“I am merely saying aloud what we both see.” Lottie shrugged unrepentantly, watching the curmudgeonly old lady with interest now that she had been pointed out.

Whoever that grande dame was, and there was no doubt from her expensive purple gown, superior demeanor, and commanding posture that she was a fearsome, blue-blooded woman who was not to be trifled with.

She was also clearly one used to being deferred to because those matrons unlucky enough to be seated nearest to her all wore tight smiles and seemed too frightened to speak at all unless spoken to.

As Lottie stared, one brave soul did and was rewarded with a glare from the old dragon that made the misguided speaker instantly wither on the vine.

As always, that pompous superiority rankled. Lottie might not be as opposed to rank and aristocratic status as Portia was, but she never had time for those who were so up themselves, they believed the world revolved around them.

Much like that incompetent but much too attractive idiot had this morning!

It took a special kind of inbred, aristocratic arrogance to blame her entirely for a careless mistake which both of them had had a hand in.

He had been so obnoxious and insufferable a fellow despite her risking her neck to retrieve his bolted horse, she had thoroughly enjoyed knocking him down a peg or two as a reward.

Had given him both barrels, in actual fact.

Because having the excuse to righteously shout at someone rather than curse the ethereal and silent forces of fate had felt cathartic at a time when her emotions were all over the place.

It had also, in a strange sort of way, provided her with a welcome distraction from the other problem that refused to be ignored.

She only had to picture that ridiculously chiseled jaw of his dropping in shock that someone so obviously far beneath him had the temerity to call him a rude oaf, and it made her smile.

Because he had been a rude oaf. An unspeakably rude and ungrateful oaf, and she had probably done him a greater service in telling him than she had in returning his poor horse.

The arrogant fool did have excellent taste in horses though, despite his inability to control them; she had to give him that.

That high-strung Arabian had been one of the finest and fastest specimens she had ever seen.

It would make an exceptional racehorse or a racing stud.

Not that she suspected his useless owner realized his animal’s full potential.

That jumped-up, pompous, and rude oaf had probably only bought that horse because the Arabian’s whiskey-colored coat had perfectly matched his stunned, blinking eyes.

“That is Lady Almeria Winthrop.” Miss P dragged Lottie’s thoughts reluctantly back to the rude old lady they were discussing instead.

One of the first-year students who had been tasked with handing out glasses of sherry ventured too close to the battle-axe and was unceremoniously shooed away with a snarl, prompting Lottie to once again say exactly what she saw.

“Well, lady or not, she reminds me a bit of a grumpy terrier we used to have on the farm years ago, who hated everyone and everything. Although I cannot help but wonder what has got her dander up here? Doesn’t she realize this is a wedding?

A time for joyousness and celebration? She couldn’t radiate more displeasure if she tried.

Who wasted an invitation on the ungrateful witch? ”

In line with the Four D ’s, which she upheld with every fiber of her being, Miss P discreetly ignored all those literal observations, but Lottie could not help smiling at the fact she didn’t disagree with any of them. “She is also the Dowager Viscountess of Frinton.”

“So?” asked Lottie with another shrug. “Being a dowager viscountess doesn’t excuse her atrocious behavior.” Once again, an image of the outraged horseman from earlier skittered across her mind, making her wonder if he possessed a title too. It would explain a lot if he did.

Except he hadn’t possessed the physique of a member of the aristocracy.

Aristocratic males weren’t usually so… imposing.

They rarely possessed such broad shoulders or so many obvious muscles.

When you grew up in a house full of men, you knew the difference between real muscles and padding, and despite his thoroughly unpleasant manner, he had filled his coat very well.

“So.” Miss P nudged her, forcing Lottie’s mind away from the rude oaf and back onto the rude battle-axe. “I have just discovered that Lady Frinton is in the market for a lady’s companion, so I have told her I happen to have just the candidate ready to go already.”

“Oh, you cannot be serious!” Making no attempt to hide her disbelief, Lottie sighed at her mentor. “You only have to look at her to see that she will eat poor Kitty alive.” Like Lottie, her friend Kitty was again in between jobs and living temporarily back at the school on Miss P’s charity.

Kitty had been dismissed from her latest position as a lady’s companion for gross neglect of her duties—for the fifth time.

Because for Kitty, daydreaming wasn’t so much a pastime but a full-time occupation.

At least Lottie could suppress the urge to ride an illicit horse for weeks on end before she succumbed to it, and even when she did, she never ever rode one during working hours.

Kitty couldn’t go more than a day without her mind flitting to the fanciful pastures of her imagination, usually during working hours.

“That sour-faced old matriarch will gobble up kind, gentle Kitty like a canapé.” Lottie snapped her teeth shut to emphasize that point. “It will be like sending a lamb to the slaughter.”

“Oh, I know that,” said Miss Prentice, yanking Lottie by the elbow. “Kitty wouldn’t last five minutes with a gorgon like Lady Frinton. That is why I am going to introduce you to her, dear.”