Titus had never been more grateful for inane small talk. Of course the flowers were nice. These were the largest botanical gardens in England. Four hundred hectares, nearly as grand as Versailles. No one could find fault with something so beautiful.
He was glad she was talking to him again. And angry he’d noticed or cared that she’d stopped.
“I prefer the indoors to the outdoors,” he informed her.
“Is that truly your preference, or merely your custom?”
“Would it be my custom if it wasn’t my preference?”
She lifted a shoulder. “Humans do all sorts of things out of habit that are neither their fondest wish nor in their best interest.”
“Commoners perhaps,” he said, knowing he was coming off as insufferable and priggish, and hopeful his bad behavior would drive the prior wedge back between them. “I, however, am an earl, and need not conform to anyone’s wishes but my own.”
Her expression was infuriatingly close to a smirk. “Is that why you now find yourself guardian to a ward? My presence in your life was your sole and fervent desire?”
He scowled at her.
She burst out laughing. “Oh, I’m just having a bit of fun with you. It’s not every day that a country miss finds herself—ahhh! Haughhh!”
Miss Dodd began to thrash about as if an invisible heavy net had been cast down upon her from the heavens. Her anguished cries of undiluted panic were dry and guttural and terrified.
Titus was totally at a loss as to what was happening. “What is it?”
“Get it off! Get it off me! Get it!” She spun and flailed, swiping at her face and spitting and crying.
He felt utterly helpless in the face of her distress. “Get… what exactly?”
“The spider! The spider! The—” She began to dry heave, still scrubbing at her face and skin and clothing.
He grabbed her by the shoulders. She fought against his grip like a wild thing. He held her still.
“Let me look at you,” he commanded, in the cold, carrying authoritarian voice he used to silence his objectors in Parliament.
She froze, not even breathing, only the glassiness of her panicked eyes betraying the violence with which her heart pumped beneath her bodice.
He inspected her as quickly and as thoroughly as he was able, taking care to turn his face and entire body, not just his eyes, so that she could see him physically scanning her for signs of a spider.
“You stepped into a spider web?” he asked, his voice low and calm.
Tears leaked from her eyes and she nodded miserably.
He ran his hands down her shoulders and arms, conspicuously flinging away absolutely nothing. Any dregs of the web that had brushed against her were now long gone. He cupped her cheeks next. They were splotchy and red. Cold and clammy from tears. Titus wanted to kiss each tear away. He ran the pads of his thumbs over the soft skin instead.
“It’s gone now,” he said quietly. “Do you hear me? There’s no spider. It’s gone.”
She remained solid as a log, then let out a hitching breath, flung her trembling arms tight about his ribs, and sobbed into his cravat.
He let her. And stood there, holding her to him. Patting her back and stroking her hair as if she were a kitten. Or a fragile young woman masquerading as impervious. Perhaps deeply in need of comfort.
At last, she pushed away, wiping her wet cheeks with the back of her hands, her expression abashed. “I’m sorry.”
“It was nothing.”
“It was mortifying for both of us. And a flagrant violation of rule number one: no touching.”
“It’s all right, Miss Dodd.” His fingertips still buzzed from the silkiness of her hair.
She gave him a watery smile. “Surely now, you can first-name me?”
