“I must do so.” Her eyes were wide and beseeching. “It is my only opportunity to bid goodbye to Aunt Stapleton.”
Goodbye. The thing she’d wanted to say to her parents, and had not been able.
Well, shite. There would be no talking Miss Dodd out of it. He glanced over her shoulder at Buttons, who hovered a discreet ten or twelve feet behind them, eyes lowered respectfully. As ordered, the maid stayed close enough to provide chaperonage, yet not so close as to interrupt her employer’s conversation or activities.
Perhaps now Titus wanted her to interrupt. Perhaps he wanted Buttons to be the one to escort Miss Dodd to the damnable tart-and-pie competition, so that Titus needn’t spend a single additional second in the torturous hustle and bustle of the surging Marrywell crowds.
But he couldn’t abandon Miss Dodd. She’d been left alone too much already.
“Very well,” he forced himself to say. “We’ll go. Briefly. Long enough to say goodbye.”
At least they needn’t walk far. The tart-and-pie competition was held in the botanical gardens, just outside the entrance to the hedgerow labyrinth, on the same raised wooden dais where the May Day king and queen were crowned every year.
A long sideboard had been placed atop the dais, upon which stood several fresh, steaming trays. Behind each was the person who had baked the tarts and pies. Some chefs wore smug expressions. Others displayed almost comical nervousness.
That was, it might have been comical if Titus himself weren’t actively trying to tamp down each of his own frayed nerves.
So many spectators filled the grass, it was worse than being on a dance floor. Shoulders banged into shoulders, elbows to elbows, hips to hips. He took a bonnet to the chin no less than three times before finally spying the tell-tale trio of ostrich feathers indicating Lady Stapleton’s position in the melee.
He intended to drag Miss Dodd over there posthaste so that she could say her goodbyes and they could put this bloody festival behind them. But every step toward Lady Stapleton brought him within shouting distance of other Londoners who recognized him as the Earl of Gilbourne. Each tried to intercept his path so as to exchange a public greeting.
Titus hated small talk on a good day. Loud unsolicited greetings forced upon him so that the greeter could be seen conversing with an earl were even more offensive. He flexed his fingers and prepared to send them all to the devil, when—
“Do you really know all these people?” Miss Dodd asked in wonder.
He cut a sharp glance at her awed face. “No. I’m simply difficult to mistake for someone else.”
But that wasn’t the entire truth, was it? He did recognize a handful of the young bucks vying for his attention. Most were sons of the peers Titus worked with in the House of Lords. In fact… maybe they weren’t angling for Titus’s attention, after all. Perhaps it was the fresh-faced beauty at his side that had captivated them all at first sight.
The beauty he was supposed to be marrying off to a gentleman just like these.
With an aggrieved sigh, Titus forced himself to make the introductions between Miss Dodd and the various lords and dandies.
“Oh! Quite pleased to meet you!” she exclaimed every time, and somehow seemed to mean it.
Each of the fine gentlemen made a worse impression on Titus than the last. Their calculated compliments and grating chuckles and perfectly smooth faces. He wanted to fling them all away from Miss Dodd by smashing his fist into their patrician noses. But he locked his emotion inside and watched in cold, unfeeling detachment as she effortlessly charmed the whiskers off each new gentleman in turn.
It killed him inside.
Standing there in silence, giving tacit approval to each flowery flirtation… Damn it all, he should have stayed back at the tree and kept his eyes closed tight until the end of the week-long festival.
“My beautiful, delightful Miss Dodd,” began a dandy as he bowed low over her hand, spangles swaying in the breeze.
Titus narrowly avoided tossing his beautiful, delightful Miss Dodd over his shoulder and stomping through the crowd. She wasn’t the dandy’s anything. For the next three weeks, she belonged to Titus. She was his ward, his—
His nothing. Titus did not own Miss Dodd, or her affections. He was supposed to actively be encouraging a match between her and literally anyone who wished to take her off his hands.
Hands that itched to reach for her and drag her away from this crowd, so Titus could once again have her to himself all over again.
But it wouldn’t unfold like this. She didn’t stare up at him with the same blushing cheeks, or giggle behind her gloved hand like she was doing at the inane attempts of poetry bubbling from the dandy’s mouth like froth from a rabid dog.
Titus would never spout ridiculous romantic drivel. In part, because he looked every bit the monster on the outside as he was on the inside. Of course Miss Dodd wouldn’t fawn at him like he’d hung the moon. He looked like the werewolf who howled beneath it.
“Ugh,” came an openly disgusted female voice. “Of course you wouldn’t have the good breeding to recognize none of us wanted to see your face here.”
Titus turned, every muscle stiff, to see last year’s diamond, Miss Bernice Charlton.
But she wasn’t referring to Titus. Her sneer was aimed directly at Miss Dodd.
