I AM NOT at all sure,” Eunice said from within Lord Windrow’s carriage, “that we are doing the right thing. Indeed, I am rather sure we are doing the wrong thing. For I did not notice another carriage, did you? Edward must have ridden here, a complication I did not foresee.”
Lord Windrow, seated across one corner of the carriage, his foot braced on the seat opposite, his arms crossed over his chest, regarded her with amused eyes from beneath drooped eyelids.
“My dear Miss Goddard,” he said, “would a man about to race in pursuit of his lady love, whom he feared was being abducted by a black-hearted villain, stop to call out his carriage?”
“You knew, then,” she said, “even when we devised this scheme? But what are they to do now?”
“Ride together on the same horse,” he said. “A means of locomotion that is vastly romantic in theory, deucedly uncomfortable in practice. Hire a carriage. I daresay the Peacock has some rickety old thing that would serve the purpose. It would, however, and beyond all doubt, be deucedly uncomfortable in both theory and practice. Stay where they are until we return for them. That option has the potential for all sorts of comfort. They have at least three clear choices, then, as you can see.”
“We will return for them?” she said. “Soon?”
“Tomorrow morning,” he said, “after we have breakfasted at Norton and taken leave of my mother.”
“But what if there is no carriage for hire?” she asked, frowning.
“Then their choices will be reduced to two,” he said. “There will be less cause for dithering.”
She turned her head to gaze at him.
“You do not really believe they will remain at the Peacock, do you?” she asked. “Edward would be the perfect gentleman, of course, and I daresay there are enough rooms for the two of them. It did not look a crowded place, did it? But even so, Lady Angeline would be ruined. We did not even leave her my maid.”
He smiled lazily.
“I have distinct hopes for Heyward,” he said. “That punch he threw—in front of ladies—hurt like Hades. I can still feel it. I do believe he may not act the gentleman at all tonight. I would not wager upon it, however. He has never been known to set a foot wrong in all of human history to date, and now he has already done it once today. He will either decide that that is quite enough adventure for the next millennium or two, or he will discover in himself a taste for anarchy. One can only hope. As my favorite groom in all the world liked to remark with great wisdom and no originality whatsoever when I was a child, one may lead a horse to water, but one cannot make him drink. And as for your maid, you have need of her yourself. My mother would have a fit of the vapors if you were to arrive unchaperoned, and she would scold me for a month after regaining consciousness. Besides, it may not have escaped your attention that your maid is quite happy to ride up on the box with my coachman and that he is quite happy to have her there. It would have been cruel to them both to have left her behind at the Peacock.”
Eunice sighed.
“I never ought to have agreed to this perfectly mad scheme,” she said. “For Lady Angeline will be ruined whether she comes to Norton unchaperoned later today or returns to Hallings unchaperoned tonight or—heaven forbid—remains at the Peacock until our return tomorrow morning. And I will blame myself for the rest of my life. Whatever was I thinking?”
Lord Windrow reached out and took her hand in his.
“You were thinking of bringing your two friends together in a match made in heaven,” he said, “since they did not seem to possess the good sense to do it for themselves. I was thinking of a way to get you to myself again for a while.”
She looked down at their hands for a moment before curling her fingers about his and sighing again.
“I ought not to encourage you,” she said. “You are a rake.”
“Ah,” he said, “but even Lady Angeline Dudley admits that rakes may sometimes be reformed. It is certainly within the bounds of possibility that I may be one of their number. Not probability, perhaps—she did speak of it rather as if it resembled a Forlorn Hope, did she not? But definitely a possibility.”
“I am the daughter of a Cambridge don,” Eunice said apropos of nothing.
“I daresay,” he said, “he is fiendishly intelligent and bookish.”
“He is,” she agreed.
“Both of which traits he has passed on to you,” he said.
“Yes,” she agreed. “Though perhaps not the fiendishly part.”
He lifted her hand and set the back of it briefly against his lips.
“May intelligent, bookish ladies sometimes be reformed?” he asked her.
She thought about it.
“I suppose it may be within the bounds of possibility,” she said, “even if not of probability.”
“Under what circumstances might it?” he asked.
“I have discovered within myself in the last while,” she said, “a desire to …”
“Yes?” he prompted her when she fell silent.
“To enjoy life,” she said.
“And you cannot enjoy being intelligent and bookish?” he asked.
“I can appreciate both,” she said. “I always have and always will. I certainly have no wish to renounce either. I just want to … to have some fun.”
“Ah.” He returned their hands to the seat between them. “I like the sound of this.”
“Edward and I thought we would suit admirably when we made that agreement four years ago,” she said. “We were and are alike in many ways. But when I saw him again earlier this spring in London after not seeing him for well over a year, I knew immediately that it was impossible, and not only because by then he was the Earl of Heyward and more was expected of him than to marry someone like me. I also knew that he needed someone to brighten his life, to lift the load of duty and responsibility that he shouldered without complaint after his brother died. I could not do that. I cannot be … merry unless someone draws merriment out of me. I have no experience of my own. And then, at the Tresham ball, when you danced with Lady Angeline and Edward and I came to sit at your table during supper, I could see immediately that she admired him and that he was unaccountably concerned about her safety even while he was irritated by her. And I knew that she was just the wife he needed. As I got to know her better, I could see too that he was just the husband for her. She needs steadiness and he needs … joy. And I knew too that I felt a little depressed at the loss of what for four years I had thought I wanted. But I did not want that dream back, or Edward, dearly as I love him. For I realized that I would like some joy too. Or at least a little fun.”
“Have you had fun with me, Eunice?” he asked softly.
She looked sharply at him but let his use of her given name go.
“I have,” she said. “You are fun—intelligent and sharp-minded and witty and irreverent.”
“I sound like a dreadfully dull dog,” he said.
“Oh,” she said, “and you are handsome and … attractive and you kiss well. Not that I have anything with which to compare that kiss, but I would be very surprised if even the most experienced of courtesans would not agree with me. There! Is your vanity satisfied?”
He grinned slowly at her.
“We are here,” he said. “Come and meet my mother. We will warn her, by the way, that she may expect two more guests, though they have been unfortunately delayed at the Peacock by carriage troubles and may well decide to return to Hallings once the carriage is roadworthy again.”