“We’re not going as far as all that.” Her cousin lifted a threadbare drape from the window, then dropped it before Lucasta could make out the scenery beyond.
She dared not remove her hands to shift the curtain herself, for the rocking motion of the coach had become rapid and treacherous. They were on a broader thoroughfare now, and the coachman was applying the leather, as Jem would say.
Jem. Oh, why couldn’t it have been he who summoned her? Why did it have to be her infernal cousin? She’d never liked him, on the rare occasions the Lithwicks had been invited to family events.
The Dowager Viscountess Frotheringale, their grandmother, had never got on with Aunt Cornelia. The break was confirmed when Aunt Cornelia stayed in contact with Felicity, Lucasta’s mother, after she’d thrown herself away on a man of foreign birth.
Lucasta’s uncle, upon succeeding to the viscountcy and marrying a delicate woman who shared the dowager’s scruples about class and breeding, had never acknowledged Lucasta even when Aunt Cornelia insisted she be included at family gatherings. Gale, older and male and the obvious heir, had never taken any notice of her either, a state of invisibility to which she profoundly wished she could return.
“How far are we going?” Lucasta asked, hearing the cry of “Hyde Park Gate!”
Her cousin must realize her consent was required, even to marry over the anvil. He could not force her, and he could not hold her captive. She reached for the door as the driver paused to pay the toll, but her cousin’s hand on her arm stopped her.
“We are going to my house outside of town. Aunt Cornelia wanted me to bring you to her in Bath, but with the Season at itspeak, I told her you could scarce be expected to take that much time away from your entertainments.”
“I do not care about entertainments,” Lucasta said. “I do, however, care very much about the benefit concert for the Foundling Hospital, which I am in charge of bringing off. And Aunt Cornelia would never come this far. She dislikes travel.”
“She felt it was time to settle one or two things with you,” her cousin answered. “And she thought that with the Season and all its eligible bachelors, you might be besieged with offers for your hand. Which in fact I find is the case, is it not?”
“Hardly,” Lucasta scoffed. Jem’s offer—nay, that was a needle to the heart. A salve for his aunt’s ire. He’d told her he meant to make no declaration.
“Trevor Pevensey is interested,” Gale said, an edge entering his tone.
“Not in me,” Lucasta replied. “He, or rather his father, seems to think that Aunt Cornelia means to settle some of her property on me. I have tried to persuade him he is misinformed.”
“Have you succeeded?” Gale demanded. “Or has he exacted a promise from you?”
Lucasta lifted her chin. “I have made no promise. If I marry, it shall be where and when I will. I shall not be any man’s means to extract himself from debt.”
A gleam of light from a passing carriage caught in her cousin’s eyes as he turned toward her. “How fortunate I am not in debt,” he said softly. “Would you be persuaded to marry me, Lucasta?”
“I do not see the prospect very likely.” Lucasta chose a strategic reply rather the firm rebuttal that rose to her lips. After all, it was dark within the carriage that still swayed dangerously, though at a steadier pace, and she was beginning to feel the chill. Gale was a near stranger, and he was spiriting her someplaceunknown without her consent. She did not trust him, but it was not wise to anger him, either.
“My friends will be frantic when I do not return,” she realized with a pang of worry. “And the Pevenseys—I cannot image how distraught Cici will be.”
“Clara will tell them,” Gale said.
“Tell them what?”
He turned from her, pulling the curtain away from the window. “Ah—here we are.”
“Where?”
“Why, the house we are to be married from, Lucasta, dear.” Gale’s grin was wide and not at all benevolent. He took her arm as the coach clipped up the gravel drive and swayed to a stop before a tall set of doors. “My home, and yours as well, once you consent to become my wife.”
“I will not consent.” She started for the door as it opened, but the large form of the coachman filled it, holding the lantern as he unfolded the steps. Gale spoke as if he didn’t care who heard his declaration.
“You will consent, my dear,” he said confidently. “You have not heard yet all I can offer you. And all that you stand to lose, dear cousin? How sad it would be to never see your family, or your friends, ever again.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
She was a prisoner, well and truly caught. It mattered little that she was trapped in a gilded cage.
The house, which her cousin referred to as Deer Moor, had been modeled after the neighboring Syon House in its neoclassical design and airy elegance. High-ceilinged rooms with tall windows caught whatever light the cloudy day afforded, and the furnishings dated from the present decade, which was a far cry from the dark Jacobean mass of the Frotheringale seat, not far from Bath.
Lucasta stalked from one drawing room to another, glaring at the large footmen who hovered near each door. They didn’t look like footmen. They looked like pugilists, rowdies that Frotheringale had brought in from the nearest village. As she tried anew to approach an outside door that let onto a formal garden, a large man casually moved in front of it.
“You have orders not to allow me out of doors, I take it?”
