One went in a circle, period. One did not charge through the center, kicking dust about and frightening the other horses, but this gentleman behaved as if his was the only carriage there, seemingly unaware of the dirt flying out from behind his bright red wheels, and without any thought for the equipages behind him, or the disgruntled drivers shaking their fists in his wake.
“Dear God!” Phee gasped as he tore past a terrified pony pulling a pair of scandalized ladies in a low phaeton. “He’ll overset his carriage, and break his fool of a neck!”
“His, or someone else’s!” Lady Fosberry echoed.
Just then, the gentleman, who seemed to have at last realized the chaos he was causing, jerked his phaeton to the left in an attempt to stop, but he miscalculated the turn, and came up hard against the low railing surrounding the Ring.
A screech rent the air and the half-dozen young ladies who’d been strolling down the adjacent pathway scattered like a flock of birds.
“What can he be thinking, driving so dangerously? Lyman, can’t you do something?” Lady Fosberry turned to her driver in alarm.
By then, Lyman was already attempting to move out of the way, but there was no place for him to go. The Ring was sochoked with carriages he had no room to shift away. All he could do was maneuver their carriage so if the phaeton struck them, it would hit the back of the equipage, rather than the side. “Hang on, ladies!”
“Lord Gilbert, my dear boy, just stay where you are!” Lady Fosberry held her hands out in front of her, but alas, Lord Gilbert had lost all control over his horses. Their eyes rolled in their heads as they broke away from the railing with such force he was thrown backward in his seat.
There was no chance of his regaining control of them— no stopping the inevitable collision. “Quickly, my lady.” Phee braced herself against Lady Fosberry, and with all her might, began shoving her toward the carriage door. If they could make it over the fence before the phaeton struck, they’d be safe.
“I can’t— no, Euphemia! I can’t?—”
“Yes, you can!” With a strength born of panic, she wrenched Lady Fosberry out of her seat, and somehow between coaxing, pushing, and shoving, she got her halfway over the side of the carriage door. “There, now over the fence— no, don’t look down! Yes, that’s it, my lady!”
Lady Fosberry let out a terrified shriek, but she managed to scramble over the fence, and an instant later she dropped down onto the dirt pathway on the other side.
Oh, thank goodness!
Phee crawled across the seat, ready to hurl herself out of the carriage after Lady Fosberry, but just as she’d clambered to her knees, one of the runaway horses broke loose. Beneath her, the carriage gave a heart-stopping lurch. The entire frame shuddered around her, tossing her backward against the seat.
The horse attempted to bolt, but his reins were hopelessly tangled with the others. He was trapped, and in an increasing panic, he lurched into the gap between the carriage and the fence, his hooves clawing the air, cutting off her only route tosafety. If she attempted to escape from the other door, she’d almost certainly be trampled.
It was too late to move, too late to jump, too late to even catch her breath.
There was no place for her to go, nothing for her to do but retreat to the far side of the carriage, squeeze her eyes shut, and brace for what was to come.
Chapter
Two
Harriett was furious with him, and she wasn’t taking any pains to hide it.
“Come now, Harriett. You’ve hardly said a word to me since we left Hereford. You keep insisting that you’re old enough to make your own decisions, but you’re behaving like a child having a tantrum.” Then again, not many children had the fortitude to maintain an icy silence for three days running.
“There doesn’t seem much point in speaking when no one is listening to me.”
She lifted one shoulder in a shrug, but a telltale sniff and the wobbling of her chin gave her away. She was a breath away from a fresh bout of tears, and once they started to fall… well, it would be all over for him.
He couldn’t bear to see Harriett cry. Even as a boy, he’d gone to ridiculous lengths to stop her tears and look where that had landed him. The powerful, wealthy Earl of Fairmont, brought low by the little bit of a sister whose curls he’d once brushed every morning, and whose shoes he’d once tied.
“Ihavebeen listening to you.” The trouble wasn’t a lack of attention on his part. If only it was so simple. But alas,attempting to reason with a young lady who’d taken an intense, and inexplicable dislike to a perfectly unobjectionable suitor was a great deal more complicated than that.
“I do beg your pardon, James, but if you’d been listening to me, we wouldn’t be meeting Lord Farthingale this afternoon, and yet here we are.” She waved a hand at their surroundings. “Nothing indicates an impending courtship quite as clearly as appearing together in Hyde Park during the fashionable hour.”
“It’s a ride around the Serpentine, Harriett, not a betrothal.” There was no sign of Farthingale, at any rate. He’d been meant to meet them at the Columbia Gate, and he was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps Harriett succeeded in frightening him off when he’d come to visit them in Hereford.
It was nearing the end of the fashionable hour, but a glance ahead revealed only a pair of ladies in a sleek phaeton coming their way. They began whispering as soon as they caught sight of Harriett, and she quickly averted her gaze from their curious faces.
Damn it. He’d hoped to spare her this very thing. A betrothal to Farthingale would have made a second season unnecessary, but now Harriett was at the mercy of the smirkington.
Harriett said nothing, but only let out a sigh as they passed through the Columbia Gate and turned onto North Carriage Drive. Neither of them spoke as they continued through the park toward the Serpentine, where they could glimpse the pale rays of spring sunlight glittering on the water.
