Chapter Four
“Do you lovehim?”
Clara glared at Lilah in the confines of the coach. They’d left this morning for Scotland and her friend had wasted no time in peppering her with questions. The two men—Aaron and Lord Loughton—were riding postillion, each trotting along opposite sides of the carriage as if they couldn’t bring themselves to even look at the other.
“Your brother is still furious,” Lilah said. “To kiss you like that where everyone could see.”
“We were in the garden in the dark. No one would have noticed if he hadn’t brought attention to us.”
Lilah pursed her lips. “You know that’s not true. He pushed his way through several gawkers.”
“It was a mistake,” Clara muttered. “Obviously.”
“But was it really? You’re no green girl, Clara. You knew the risks and yet did it anyway. That tells me you have tender feelings for the man.”
“Well, of course I like him. I kissed him.” Clara grimaced. “That is to say Iusedto like him. Now he thoroughly disgusts me.”
“That’s just pique.”
“Of course, it’s pique! I do not want to leave London. Ever. And yet here I am.” She gestured disdainfully at the carriage. “On my way to the one place in the world I never wanted to go to.”
“Yes, about that,” Lilah said as she folded her hands in her lap. “Why exactly do you despise Scotland?”
Clara leaned back against the squabs and glared dolefully out the window. It gave her a view of her brother’s unamused expression. That would usually cause her to look the other way, but the opposite window showed her Lord Loughton’s gleeful expression. The man was enjoying himself a great deal more than any man ought to at the beginning of a five-day trip.
“Clara!” her friend huffed. “This is going to be a very long ride if you refuse to talk to me.”
“It’s going to be very long in any event.” Then when Lilah opened her mouth, Clara slashed her hand through the air. “I’m on the shelf, Lilah. I’m too old for anyone to care who I kiss at a party.” That was a ridiculous statement. She was the daughter of an earl. That made her a person of interest. And even if she weren’t, people always gossiped about who kissed whom.
Lilah, of course, wasted no time in pointing that out. “You’re neither naïve nor stupid. So out with it. Why were you kissing him?”
“Because I wanted to!” she huffed. “Because I liked him. Past tense.Liked.”
“And you don’t like him now because…?”
“Because he’s happy about it.” She turned and pointedly glared out the window where he was now whistling as he rode. Blasted man. “He couldn’t be more delighted to be whisking me off to the one place I despise!”
“So you’ve said,” Lilah huffed. “Butwhy?”
Clara measured her answer before she spoke. She knew that the words of a psychic would not have any weight with Lilah, even if the fortune teller had been adamant that Clara would die in Scotland. Lilah indulged Clara’s fascination with the occult. She did not share it. So Clara turned and looked behind them at where the last London buildings were long gone.
“I love London, Lilah. I have built a life I adore there. I go to museum exhibitions. I have friends I see every week and lectures I attend. Aaron even stopped pestering me about bringing a maid with me everywhere. Everything about my life is perfection, especially with all the new servants you’ve trained for me.” They’d gone several weeks now without a single servant quitting or disappearing. “In London, my life is perfection. There is nothing I lack, no entertainment I cannot find. Why would I ever want to leave it?”
“For a change of scenery, perhaps?”
“It is illogical to change to a lesser thing.”
“It is illogical to think that a place you have never been cannot offer something new, something intriguing, something unique to itself.”
“I do not want anything new,” Clara huffed.
“Youlivefor everything new!” Lilah shot back. And Clara was shocked enough at her friend’s raised voice that she straightened in her seat and frowned at her friend.
“You are overwrought,” she finally said. “That’s what happens when one travels.”
“That’s what happens when one’s most sensible and logical friend suddenly turns irrational.”
That was a damning statement. Clara’s best asset was her intelligence, and to call that into question was guaranteed to provoke a fight. She was just rising to the bait, when Lilah’s eyes suddenly widened, and her mouth dropped open on a gasp.
