"Very well," she said listlessly. "But I have to change my dress,"
"Of course, I'll wait for you." Denis bowed, trying to conceal the flash of relief in his eyes. There had been a moment there when he thought she was going to refuse. And he had no wish to turn up empty-handed on Finchley Common. Sir Jasper was not a person to present with failure.
Hugo was coming up the stairs from the hall as Chloe came out of the drawing room. "Is that DeLacy's curricle at the door?" He asked the question with the casual curiosity he'd managed to perfect.
Chloe flushed slightly. "Yes, he's in the drawing room. We're going for a drive, so I have to change my dress."
"I see." Hugo frowned, remembering his cousin's advice. "You might wish to inform the young man that I expect him to request my permission before paying his addresses to my ward."
"Why should you imagine he's doing that'" Her flush deepened.
Hugo decided it was time to take the bull by the horns. "If he is not, lass, then I would certainly like to know what the devil's going on," he said sharply. "Either you bring DeLacy to the point, or I must. This shilly-shallying cannot continue… not if you intend to remain a member of Society. There's too much talk already, and I'll not stand by while you compromise your reputation with an intense flirtation that is going nowhere. Is that understood?"
He really wanted her to marry Denis DeLacy. It had never been said so openly before, but there was no way of misconstruing such an ultimatum. She'd hung on to the belief that Hugo loved her although he wouldn't
acknowledge it because of his irrelevant scruples. She'd thought she could overcome the scruples as she'd overcome everything else. Now the fight went out of her.
"I imagine Denis will wish to speak with you after our drive," she said with careful deliberation.
"I see. Well, you may assure him he won't meet with undue opposition, lass."
He pinched her cheek and offered an affectionate smile before continuing on his way along the corridor, his heart heavy. But at least the long agony of this frustrating love affair was about to come to a close. He'd have only a few more months of endurance until he walked her up the aisle and handed her over to a man of her own kind with whom she'd live and love and have babies…
Chloe stifled a sob of frustration and misery and ran up the stairs to her bedchamber. How could Hugo not feel the way she did?
But she knew how. She was too young and she was his ward. And now that even their constrained lovemak-ing had ceased, he had no occasion to see her in any other light. He didn't care for her in that way anymore, and without that, what was there to build on?
Why had she ever insisted on this insane London scheme? Blinking back tears, she changed into her driving dress, then splashed cold water on her face from the ewer on the dresser. But she hadn't known she was in love with Hugo Lattimer then. She'd been so immersed in her plans for the future and the excitement of the present that she hadn't stopped to analyze her feelings. And now it was all dust and ashes.
So she would marry Denis DeLacy. It would be no worse a fate than any other, since she couldn't have the only future that mattered.
She crammed a velvet bonnet on her head and adjusted the plume. It was not a hat she liked-it was too
small and insignificant-but Hugo had selected it with customary firmness. Soon he'd have no say in her wardrobe, or any other aspect of her life. She swallowed, trying vainly to dislodge the lump in her throat.
She went back to the drawing room. Denis was so relieved at getting her out of the house and into the curricle that he failed to observe her unusual pallor or her absentminded responses to his attempts at conversation.
He drove fast through the fashionable streets. Absorbed in her unhappy thoughts, Chloe didn't notice at first how intently he was driving, or how he was pushing his horses. Only when they narrowly missed an oncoming coach on the approach to Primrose Hill did she jerk back to full awareness.
"Your horses are sweating," she said in surprise. It was a cardinal sin for any halfway competent whip. She glanced at him and saw the set of his jaw, the tightness of his mouth.
"What's the matter?"
He looked fully at her, and there was a light in his eye that sent a shiver of alarm through her. "Nothing, why should there be? Aren't you enjoying the drive?"
"It's colder than I thought it would be," she said, trying to sound her usual self. "It's very bad for your horses to push them so hard."
"They're my horses. I'll be the judge," he said coldly. One of the pair stumbled in a pothole. His whip curled and snapped, catching the animal's ear.
"Don't do that!" Chloe exclaimed even while she was trying to recover from the extraordinary coldness of his tone. "It wasn't his fault. If you drove with more care, he wouldn't have stumbled."
Suddenly she knew that something was very wrong. But for the life of her she couldn't imagine what. Except that Denis didn't look like the man she thought she
knew and that strange, predatory light was in his eye again.
"Stop the curricle," she demanded. "I want to get out." They were almost on Finchley Common and there was little traffic on the filthy road and no pedestrians, but she knew with absolute certainty that she didn't want to travel another inch in Denis DeLacy's curricle.
He didn't respond, except to crack the whip again so his horses surged forward onto the common with a final spurt.
The wind whipped across the snowy heath, bending the gnarled, leaf-bare trees and whistling through the sere brown bracken. The rutted road wound ahead, ice glittering in the hard, dry ridges, cracking under the pounding hooves.
Chloe shivered, dreadful apprehension prickling her scalp, lifting the fine hair on her arms. Then she saw the post-chaise up ahead, pulled to the side of the road under a stand of trees. A postilion, muffled to the ears in his cloak, stood beside the leaders.
The last time she'd seen a post-chaise waiting in such sinister fashion had been on the road to Manchester with Crispin. But on that occasion she'd been riding a swift horse and had her escape in her own hands.
"What's happening?" Her voice was barely a whisper as the nameless dread crept up her spine. "Hell and the devil, Denis, what's happening?"
Without answering, he drew rein as the curricle came abreast of the chaise. The horses panted and wheezed, sweat glistening on their glossy necks. Denis leapt down just as the postilion jumped into the curricle in his place.
Chloe struggled as Denis hauled her to the ground, but she was no match for his strength. Though she kicked and punched with the blind force of desperation, he lifted her off the ground and bundled her into the chaise as the door swung open.
She fell to her hands and knees on the floor as Denis leapt in behind her. A whip cracked and the vehicle surged forward with a violent jolt that sent her sprawling again as she struggled upright. Someone laughed. It was a familiar laugh.
Pushing backward, she righted herself so that she was kneeling. She looked up at the three men, two of whom were regarding her with varying degrees of amusement. Denis, on the other hand, bore the satisfied, slightly smug air of a man who has accomplished a singularly demanding task. What in the name of all that was good connected Denis to Jasper?