Remmy sighed and leaned back in his seat. “A job well done, that.” He tucked into the cooling food on his plate.
“Remmy?” Tessa whispered.
He didn’t look up, couldn’t see her nestled so close to that fool again. The food settled like bricks in his belly. He’d lost his appetite. He pushed back from the table. “Good day, Miss King, Mr. Tilbury.”
He was out the door and striding across the gravel drive to the stables before he heard her behind him, but he didn’t let it slow him down. He needed asceneto sell some seats. He could ride a horse wearing only his smalls. That would get the tongues wagging.
“Wait! Remmy, slow down!”
He didn’t slow down, but he did turn, marching straight up to her so she had to stop abruptly as they met. Chest to chest, toe to toe.
“Well?” he demanded.
“What was that? In the breakfast room with Miss Carter?”
“Playing Cupid. Or, as Aria calls it, playing Romeo.”
“It was kind of you.” Her bosom rose and fell above her modest bodice. Modest, yes, but even the smallest swell there made him swell, too.
He continued toward the stables.
“What are you doing now?” Shestillfollowed him.
“Not entirely sure. A leisurely gallop across the estate wearing only my smalls, or a day of drunken debauchery at the local tavern? Difficult to choose.”
“Only… Your smalls?” she asked, sounding much too interested.
“Goddamnit woman, you’re going to drive me completely mad.”
“As you are driving me!”
“Good to know I have some small influence over your moods.” He stepped into the shadows of the stables, her footsteps scrambling behind him as he made for Jeopardy’s stall and tugged at his cravat. “Why are you following me?”
“I’ve been thinking about the window seat. What happened last night… It holds me in a trance. I could not sleep.”
Had she touched herself while thinking about him and her in the window seat? Had she slipped those elegant little fingers between her legs and?—
A pillar popped out of the ground and slammed into him.
Bloody hell.
He crumpled like a paper doll but with more cursing, then there she was, fluttering over him, her brow furrowed as she crouched next to him.
“Remmy! There was a pole there!” She brushed his hair off his forehead where a dull pain had begun to pound. “You never were so absent-minded before. Are you injured? You should be more attentive to your surroundings.”
He tested his nose. Hurt like hell but didn’t seem to be broken. He jumped to his feet, brushing her hands away as she rose with him. “You should leave. It will not be good for your reputation to be caught alone with me. What will Tilbunny think?”
“You are more important to me than him.”
Remmy closed his eyes and allowed himself to imagine, for one breath, thatimportantmeant something else, somethingmore. And perhaps it did. She’d enjoyed both their encounters, even if she’d fled from them after. He yanked the cravat off and dropped it to the ground then began to unbutton all his buttons. He shrugged out of his jacket and waistcoat at thesame time. “Don’t you have other things to do than figure me out? Your future is calling, and you must make a decision.”
“I do not like thinking of it!” Her voice, unexpectedly loud, echoed in the rafters.
Cursing, her pulled her into Jeopardy’s stall, patting the horse’s flank to soothe him.
“Thinking of what? Me or your future?” Remmy asked.
“Both.” She growled, sounding like an infuriatingly adorable kitten.
