Free Bared to the Viscount (The Rites of May Book 1) by Lara Archer Page B

though he were an annoyance, a pestering mayfly.
    Did she truly no longer see in him what she had seen in him when they were younger? Back then they’d been partners in all their adventures, and she’d trusted him implicitly to be as wild and brave and strong as she was.
    Well, the years had passed for her, too. Perhaps she only saw the surface of him now—the civilized, privileged surface of a viscount who no longer climbed oak trees or wished to be a pirate. A gentleman , with all the qualities that term implied. And perhaps she had no respect for that, no reason to take him seriously.
    A sudden wish to be back in the army swept over him. Back where the world was under his command. Where everyone knew his strength and skill and courage, and where he was unquestionably useful .
    Where he knew from one minute to the next precisely what he wanted.
    Where no little spinsters in plain brown frocks could turn his world upside-down with an erotic encounter in the woods, then ignore him completely.
    Miss Lawton tapped at him yet again, like a damned woodpecker. “My lord,” she said, “I hope you are also planning to join the dancing in the evening. We have so few noblemen who attend our assemblies here, and I very much want to dance. Since I have not been to London yet, I’ve had few opportunities.”
    Ah, that was a well-aimed volley. No, Miss Lawton had not been to London yet. Lord Lawton had not let her have her Season, precisely because he fully expected her to become a viscountess right here at home.
    Damn this whole situation.
    If no marriage proposal was forthcoming, John would be committing a grievous offense against her family. And he would bring shame to his own father’s memory.
    Damn and damn and damn again.
    Warring impulses pulled his insides in contrary directions, aching like a bruise. He wanted Mary, but Mary didn’t want him—she was making that clearer every day. And duty demanded that he do what everyone else was waiting for, and take Miss Lawton as his bride.
    Maybe it would just be easier to let Mary have her way, forgot anything that happened between them, go forward with his father’s plan for him, and marry Miss Lawton and be done with it. That strategy would certainly be easier on his pride than following Mary about like a spaniel.
    After all, Mary had told him repeatedly that she wanted him to keep his promise to his father. And Miss Lawton could not be giving him clearer signals she was ready to say yes to his proposal.
    Maybe he should just stiffen his spine and go through with the plan.
    It would be the wise and sensible thing to do.
    The honorable thing.
    The best salve for his wounded pride.
    But the thought made him more heavy-hearted than he’d ever felt in his life.
     

 
     
    Chapter Seven
     
     
    Mary was not given to superstitions. But May Day morning dawned so bright and clear, the nighttime mists vanishing from the field and woods almost the moment the first rays peered over the horizon, it was hard to resist the lure of the old stories.
    Long ago, the pagan Britons believed spirits inhabited the trees and meadows here, and that on this loveliest day of spring a maiden would spy her true love if she went out in the morning to gather flowers.
    Certainly, this morning felt a thousand times better than yesterday, when she’d felt so stiff and wooden and utterly unlovable as she perched up on that ladder like some scrawny old workman while John flirted right under her nose with the gloriously beautiful Annabel Lawton.
    She’d seen their hands brush together when he offered to carry Annabel’s ribbons for her. She’d seen the startled look on his face, the hint of a blush that stole over his cheeks, the alert awareness in his eyes. Of course he reacted to Annabel like that. Any man would have.
    The world was settling back into its right dimensions again, after that morning with the blackberries knocked it all temporarily out of whack. Lust made John do what he’d done up on