“You’re illogical!” she cried. Then she clapped her hands together. “That means you’re falling in love! Clara, that’s wonderful!”
“I am not in love,” Clara snapped. She had fallen desperately in love once in her adolescence with a man who turned out to be a fortune hunter. It was a horrible memory, and she’d decided then to never be subject to such wild feelings again. Such was her force of will that she had succeeded. She’d never been troubled by love again, except for a love of science.
Lilah, however, completely disdained such discipline. “Of course it doesn’t feel like love to you. You are a creature of deep intellect. Only something momentous could break that. And since you’ve suffered no blow to the brain, the answer is obvious.”
“I am not in love!” Clara repeated.
“Are you sure?” Lilah pressed. “Really, really sure? Because, honestly, how would you know? Have you ever been this irrational before?”
“Yes!” she responded. “Back when I was sixteen.”
Lilah’s brows rose in surprise. “You fell in love.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.” He was clever, he laughed at her jokes. “He wascharming.”
“And?”
“And he was a fortune hunter through and through. Every word he said was a bold-faced lie.” She sniffed. “I came close to running away with him when my mother brought me the evidence.”
“Oh, dear.”
“It was awful.” She tried to block the memory of her mother getting the man to admit that he was courting her for her dowry and that he had no interest in her whatsoever. It didn’t work. She relived every excruciating moment. And when it was done, she looked at her best friend. “So, yes, I know what it is like to be in love.” It felt thoroughly wretched. “And I feel no such thing for Lord Loughton.”
“But you cannot—”
“As for being irrational,” she interrupted, her voice high. “You are the one who is jumping to illogical conclusions.”
Then rather than discuss things further, she grabbed one of the books she’d brought, slammed the pages open, and pretended to read. It was what she always did when she preferred not to be disturbed. She had pretended to read a myriad of tomes throughout her childhood, which had worked until her mother started quizzing her on the contents. Then she began to actually read the books, but at this moment, she’d obviously reverted to pre-pubescence.
Meanwhile, Lilah released a low chuckle. “I’m so happy for you, Clara. I know it’s upsetting now, but really, being in love with a good man is the best thing in the world.”
“You would say that as my brother is a paragon of masculine virtue. He’s titled, generous, and a genuinely good person.” She glanced out at Lord Loughton who had given up whistling in favor of eavesdropping. He was riding practically on top of the door and looking in as if he were trying to read her lips. And when she gaped at his blatantly ill-bred behavior, he winked at her. So she raised her voice and nearly bellowed her next words.
“Lord Loughton, on the other hand, is a… a…” Damnation, even in the height of her fury, she couldn’t lie about him. He wasn’t a lecherous cheat. He was outrageous, but that was her mother’s favorite insult, and she was hardly going to be so prosaic as to use that. “A scoundrel!”
“Really,” Lilah gasped, all too aware that the man was listening in. “How so? Whatexactlyhas he done?”
Kissed her. Just once, but it was a really, really good kiss. He’d also made her laugh, dressed outrageously when they went to Hyde Park, and had a body that would tempt any student of anatomy. But none of that warranted the name “scoundrel.” She resorted to the kind of vague, ignorant response she usually detested.
“I do not require specifics. I know it nonetheless.”
“Well,” her brother shouted from the other side of the carriage. “I require specifics!” Apparently, he’d been listening in.
She had no response, except the general complaint that she was now in a carriage headed north and she did not want to be. So rather than argue, she stared like a grumpy toad down at her book while her mind chewed like an old dog on her feelings. She got nowhere, of course. Feelings were not something that one could dissect into component parts. Feelings had to be experienced and survived. Which is exactly what she planned to do—with no discussion with anyone else—until that blessed moment when she returned to London.
Too bad no one else wanted to fall in with her plans, most especially Lilah.
“You know,” she began, “you could take this time to see if it’s love. Say yes to anything he wants to do—”
Clara’s head shot up in shock at that.
“No, no! Noteverything,” Lilah hastily amended. Then she dropped her voice as she leaned forward. “Agree to anything that is not scandalous. Avoid anything that could get you pregnant. And at the end of the trip, you’ll know if you like his amusements.”
“I don’t want to like his amusements. I have plenty of my own.” She was being petulant. She could hear it in her voice, but she seemed powerless to stop it.
Lilah shot her a look that said, very clearly, exactly everything Clara was thinking. That only a child whined like this, and Clara was no little girl. So Clara lifted her chin and resolved to consider the task.
“He does not like the normal amusements. Or at least not in the normal way.”
