"I'm sure you could have done," James replied, "but it wouldn't have been nearly as entertaining."
"Well, Penelope wants to know where you've been," Blake said testily. "She wants to throw a fete in your honor, Riverdale."
"But I thought she was planning on leaving in two days," Caroline said.
"She was," he snapped, "but now that our dear friend James is here she's decided to extend her stay. Says it isn't every day we've a marquis in residence."
"She's married to a bloody earl," James said. "What does she care?"
"She doesn't," Blake replied. "She just wants to marry the lot of us off."
"To whom?"
"Preferably to each other."
"All three of us?" Caroline looked from man to man. "Isn't that illegal?"
James laughed. Blake just shot her the most contemptuous of stares. Then he said, "We've got to get rid of her."
Caroline crossed her arms. "I refuse to do anything mean to your sister. She is a kind and gentile person."
"Ha!" Blake barked. "Gentle, my foot. She is the most determined, interfering woman of my acquaintance, except, perhaps, for you."
Caroline stuck out her tongue.
Blake ignored her. "We need to find a way to get her to go back to London."
"It should be easy to fake a message from her husband," James said.
Blake shook his head. "Not nearly as easy as you'd think. He's in the Caribbean."
Caroline felt a pang of heartsickness. He'd once described her eyes as the color of water in the tropics. It was a memory she'd have to carry with her the rest of her days, as it was becoming increasingly obvious that she wouldn't have the man.
"Well, then," James said, "what about a note from her housekeeper or butler? Something saying the house burned down."
"That is too cruel," Caroline said. "She would be beside herself with worry."
"That's the point," Blake put in. "We want her worried enough to leave."
"Couldn't you allude to a flood?" she asked. "It's ever so much less worrisome than a fire."
"While we're at it," James said, "why not throw in a rodent infestation?"
"Then she'll never leave!" Caroline exclaimed. "Who'd want to go home to a rat?"
"Many women of my acquaintance do," Blake said dryly.
"That's a terrible thing to say!"
"But true," James agreed.
Nobody said anything for a few moments, and then Caroline suggested, "I suppose we could just go on as we have been. It hasn't been so bad here in the bathroom now that Blake has taken to bringing me reading material. Although I would appre ciate it if we could work out new arrangements regarding our meals."
"May I remind you," Blake said, "that in two weeks Riverdale and I will be launching our attack on Prewitt?"
"Attack?" Caroline exclaimed, clearly horrified.
"Attack, arrest," James said with a wave of his hand, "it all amounts to the same thing."
"Whatever the case," Blake said loudly, trying to regain their attention, "the last thing we need is the presence of my sister." He turned to Caroline. "I couldn't care less if you spend the next two weeks chained to my washbasin, but-"
"How hospitable of you," she muttered.
He ignored her. "I'll be damned if Prewitt slips through my fingers due to my sister's misplaced desire to see me married."
"I don't like the idea of playing a cruel prank on Penelope," Caroline said, "but I'm sure if the three of us put our heads together we can devise some sort of acceptable plan."
"I have a feeling that your definition of 'acceptable' and mine are vastly different," Blake commented.
Caroline scowled at him, then turned to James and smiled. "What do you think, James?"
He shrugged, looking more interested in the way Blake was glaring at the both of them than he was in her words.
But that was before they heard someone banging at the door.
They froze.
"Blake! Blake! Who are you talking to?"
Penelope.
Blake started motioning frantically toward the door to the side stairs while James pushed Caroline out. As soon as the door clicked behind her, Blake opened the bathroom door, and, with an utterly bland expression on his face, said, "Yes?"
Penelope peered in, her eyes darting from corner to corner. "What's going on?"
Blake blinked. "I beg your pardon?"
"Who were you talking to?"
James stepped out from behind a dressing screen. "Me."
Penelope's lips parted in surprise. "What are you doing here? I didn't realize you were back."
He leaned against the wall as if it were the most natural thing in the world for him to be in Blake's bathroom. "I returned about ten minutes ago."
"We had a few matters to discuss," Blake added.
"In the washing room?"
"Brings back memories of Eton and all that," James said with a devastating smile.
"Really?" Penelope did not sound convinced.
"No one had any privacy there, you know," Blake said. "It was really quite barbaric."
Penelope pointed to the pile of blankets on the floor. "What are those doing here?"
"What?" Blake asked, stalling for time.
"The blankets."
He blinked. "Those? I have no idea."
"You have a pile of blankets and pillows on the floor, of your washing room and you don't know why?"
"I suppose Perriwick might have left them there. Maybe he meant to have them cleaned."
Penelope scowled. "Blake, you're an abominable liar."
"Actually, I'm a rather good liar. I'm just a touch out of practice."
"Then you do admit you're lying to me?" "I don't think I admitted any such thing."
He turned to James with a guileless expression. "Did I, Riverdale?"
"I don't think so. What do you think, Penelope?" "I think," Penelope growled,
"that neither of you
is leaving this room until you tell me what is going on."
Caroline listened to the conversation through the door, holding her breath as Penelope grilled the two gentlemen with the skill of an executioner.
Caroline let out a silent sigh and sat down. The way things sounded in the bathroom, she might be stuck in the stairwell for hours. Penelope certainly exhibited no signs of giving up her interrogation.
Time to look on the bright side, she decided, dismissing the fact that it was dark as pitch in the stairwell. She might be trapped in the most bizarre of situations, but it was stiii heads and tails above being stuck with the Prewitts. Good heavens, if she hadn't run off, she'd probably be a Prewitt herself by now.
What a hideous thought.
But not nearly as hideous as what happened next. Maybe she'd stirred up some dust when she sat down, maybe the gods were simply aligned against her, but her nose began to tickle.
Then it began to itch.
She jammed the side of her index finger up against her nostrils, but it was to no avail. Tickle, itch, tickle, itch. Ah...Ah...Ah... AH-CHOO!
"What was that?" Penelope demanded.
"What was what?" Blake replied at the very same moment James began to sneeze uncontrollably.
"Stop that ridiculous act," Penelope snapped at James. "I heard a female sneeze, and I heard it distinctly."
James started sneezing at a higher pitch.
"Cease!" Penelope ordered, striding toward the door to the stairs.
Blake and James made a mad dash toward her, but they were too late. Penelope had already wrenched the door open.
And there, on the landing, sat Caroline, hunched over, her entire body wracked by sneezes.
Chapter 19