“Do you remember the way out?” she asked.
“No.”
He hadn’t tried to memorize the route. If anything, he’d done his best not to apply logic and spatial cues to the maze. On the way in, expediency would have meant joining the throngs of merrymakers all the sooner. And on the way out, to exit the labyrinth meant spilling back into the busy street with all its carts and carriages and horses and pedestrians.
Of course, not memorizing the route meant he must now spend more time with Miss Dodd. Whom he was definitely keeping at arm’s length. Or at least elbow length. For his own sake, as much as for hers.
“How was your nap?” she enquired.
“I didn’t have one.”
She slid a glance at him. “Were you watching me?”
“No.”
That was the real reason he’d kept his eyes closed. When they were open and Miss Dodd was in view, Titus could not force his gaze anywhere else. She was like a bright summer day in human form, projecting rainbows and sunshine wherever she went.
Except she was looking a bit more like a spring squall at the moment. A gust of wind, a dash of rain. Her usually smiling face was pensive, and her hand kept tracking back and forth between her reticule and her mouth, as tiny candied orange peel square after tiny candied lemon peel square disappeared from view.
“Did… your time at the follies not go according to plan?”
“No,” she said softly. “Things did not go to plan.”
Titus was sorry he asked, because now that he knew, he felt bad about leaving her to navigate the crowd on her own. And he was angry that he felt bad. He had neither asked nor wished to be in such a position. Having an unplanned dependent was disruption enough. The last thing he needed was to care about her feelings and hopes.
The only solution was to marry her off without delay. Rid himself of temptation.
Of course, he was currently in the act of leading her away from the predetermined location where large quantities of bride-seeking gentlemen had come to congregate. Talk about one’s desires not going to plan.
“Everyone seems to know who you are,” she said.
He was not surprised. “Most have had Debrett’s Peerage drilled into them since birth. And my face is difficult to forget.”
“Why should anyone want to?”
He stared at her sharply. Ever since the accident, no one but his godmother could meet his eye for long. Passers-by blanched and scurried away upon catching sight of him. Even in the House of Lords, his fellow peers kept their focus somewhere above his top hat or over his shoulder rather than on the raised white scars puckering half of Titus’s face.
But Miss Dodd’s warm brown gaze never strayed from meeting his eyes with earnest confusion, as if his countenance was no more remarkable than anyone else’s, and possibly even… tolerable.
“You must be jesting,” he said flatly.
“Oh, your scars?” she said, as if his disfigurement was no more noteworthy than a stray freckle or a charming dimple. “Of course I can see them. But who hasn’t been wounded, visibly or otherwise?”
He glared at her in consternation. Not only was she the first non-medical person to openly acknowledge the damage wrought to his face, she dismissed it as though it meant nothing.
They meant everything.
The scars she could see were only the beginning. His careful layers of well-tailored clothing hid much more. And every line, every welt, every still-tender ache reminded him sharply of all he had lost.
“My disfigurement,” he bit out, “is significantly more real than whatever invisible wounds you imagine that you possess.”
“Is it?” she said softly, then blinked and glanced away.
There. He’d got what he wanted. She was no longer looking at him. His jaw clenched. That was what he wanted. Wasn’t it?
They walked along in uncomfortable silence.
“The flowers were nice,” she offered presently. “Didn’t you think?”
