A Lady Betrayed by Nicole Byrd Page B

much as she passed the dishes.
    â€œYour father is a skilled player,” the viscount said. “I merely had a moment of luck.”
    â€œSome moment,” her father contradicted. “You set up that play very patiently, Weller; I give credit where it’s due.” Despite having lost, he seemed in excellent humor; the pleasure of a good match was exhilarating, Maddie thought. She smiled at them both.
    â€œThat play reminds me of a particularly good move in a match I played with a visiting vicar years ago…” her father commented.
    After the meal, her father retired to take his afternoon rest, and Maddie, too full of nervous energy to wish to go up to her room, and not sure she could maintain her stance as a demure young lady, announced that she was going into the garden. There were dark clouds to the west, but at the moment, despite a brisk breeze, the sun still showed its face.
    â€œI shall come, too,” the viscount agreed.
    Inside the flower garden, Maddie put down a rough cloth so that she could kneel and pull weeds from a bed of flowers.
    Lord Weller looked disappointed. “I am overthrown for the company of stray nettles?” he muttered, looking up as if speaking to a chattering sparrow in a tree that overlooked the flower beds. “How the mighty have fallen. That will put me in my place. Obviously, my kisses are of no value if they are rated so low.”
    She laughed. “I must point out, my lord, that this part of the garden can be seen from my father’s window.”
    â€œAh, I see, discretion is a worthy virtue.” He glanced over his shoulder without making the movement obvious. “And where would we not be seen?”
    â€œAt the other end of the beds…”
    â€œSo why do we not move there?”
    â€œWe will,” she told him, her tone calm. “When we have reason—when we have weeded the bed.”
    â€œI see.” To her amusement, he pulled off his gloves and hat and knelt to attack the weeds with a vengeance. “Then I must add my labors to yours, so that we can finish with the infernal weeds more quickly. I have a more agreeable pastime in mind!”
    His weeding was fast if not terribly accurate; she saw a few flowers tossed through the air along with the brambles, but she didn’t scold, too amused and touched to see a peer of the realm apply himself to agricultural chores for the sake of a lady’s favors.
    Her favors.
    Being courted was certainly an agreeable sensation. And the thought of being kissed again—she thought of Felicity’s questions—oh, yes, she liked it exceedingly.
    She quickened her own pace, and soon they did reach the end of the flower bed, and the more private side of the garden, where they were hidden from the house and the view of the windows by the privet hedge and the angle of the building.
    This time, the viscount leaned over her, and she didn’t try to move away. She looked at him instead of down at the ground, and as her fingers brushed a last bunch of unruly greenery, she felt a sudden searing pain.
    â€œOh!” Maddie pulled her hand up, but it was too late. She had touched a stinging nettle, and the plant’s noxious touch had had its usual result.
    â€œWait!” the viscount said. “Don’t touch anything else.”
    She certainly wasn’t going to touch the nettle again, Maddie thought, frowning at him. She had to blink back tears. Amazing that such a small plant could inflict so much pain. She should have been paying more attention, not gazing into the viscount’s dark brown eyes. Really, she was acting like a lovesick girl, and she was too old and sensible for such behavior—or she should be, she scolded herself.
    But while she admonished herself, and tried to blink away the tears—she knew better than to rub her lids and transfer the oil from the plant into her eyes—the viscount was several feet away, bent at the waist and