Page 12 of How to Wed a Courtesan

Confusion gripped her.

His brow was furrowed, his mouth pressed in a hard line. He appeared...angry? Disappointed?

He discreetly shook his head at her.

No.

No?

Lottie remained rooted in place. Had her father rejected Evander’s request for her hand in marriage?

‘Lottie, please go to my study,’ her father said in a stern tone. ‘I’ll speak with you once I’ve shown Lord Murray out.’

She studied Evander one final time, noting the way he stared after her as though he thought never to see her again, and a tender place within her chest split open. The pain of it was excruciating. She clutched her heart, though it did little to soothe the agony, and rushed to the study to collect herself before her father’s return.

Her efforts were in vain. By the time her father joined her fat tears had left spatters on the white muslin of her lap.

He rubbed a hand over his thick hair, still dark despite the occasional threads of silver. ‘Come now, Lottie,’ he said in a soothing tone as a handkerchief appeared in front of her.

She sniffled miserably and accepted the piece of linen. ‘I love him.’

‘How do you even know him?’

‘I met him at a ball when I was in Bedfordshire. And we...’ She winced at her next confession. ‘We have been walking every morning together.’

He father’s brows lifted incredulously. ‘You’ve been sneaking—’

‘No,’ she rushed in. ‘At least we didn’t mean to. The only time I could spare to see him was in the morning, on my walks. I didn’t... It wasn’t meant to be duplicitous. It was entirely innocent.’

Or mostly, at least. Aside from those kisses that had scorched themselves on her mind.

‘And you think this means you know him?’ Her father had never spoken so sternly to her.

‘I do,’ she said with finality. ‘And I love him.’

‘Love.’ Her father’s kind brown eyes filled with sadness. ‘You have known the gentleman for, what? A month?’

Heat scorched her cheeks. ‘Three weeks. But it’s been enough—’

‘You don’t know what love is.’

There was a hardness to his tone that snipped away the end of her argument. She couldn’t stop the tears from welling in her eyes. Astonishment left her mute—that this man, who had always been so tender and considerate, this man who listened so patiently to others problems, should be so resolute now. When her heart was pinioned by his decision.

Her father looked around the small study, lined with shelves of well-handled books. The room was careworn by his constant work, and spotless through Lottie’s housekeeping efforts. But even its familiarity brought no comfort to her now.

He splayed his hand on the surface of his desk. ‘I told him my answer is no.’

A sob erupted from her. ‘How could you?’

‘I’m saving you, Lottie.’

‘Saving me?’ she cried.

Her father moved away from the desk and crouched before her, so he was at eye level with her, the way he’d done when she was a girl. The way he did with parishioners who were in need of counsel.

‘He was going to buy Huntly Manor so we could be near you.’ Her voice had taken on a pleading tone, but she didn’t care. She would get on her knees and beg her father if she had to. ‘Because he knew I didn’t want to move away from Binsey. From you.’

‘You don’t understand how these men of the ton behave.’