Simply Unforgettable

“Oh, do be quiet,” the viscountess said. “You are being quite deliberately obtuse, Lucius. You know very well that Portia has been expecting a marriage offer from you every day for the past month and more. We have all expected it.”

“Then you have all been wrong,” he said. “I promised to choose a bride this spring, not Portia Hunt.”

Amy clapped her hands.

“I am glad, Luce,” Caroline said. “I have not liked Portia’s attitude this spring. I have not liked her.”

“And you believe Miss Allard is a suitable choice?” his mother asked, frowning.

“I cannot see why not,” he said, “except that she has refused me more than once.”

“What?” That was Emily.

“Is she mad?” That was Margaret.

Tait grimaced.

“Oh, no, Luce,” Amy said. “No! She would not do that.”

“Oh, do be quiet, all of you,” Lady Sinclair said. “You will be waking your grandfather.”

“He is still sleeping?” Lucius asked.

“He has overtaxed his strength, I am afraid,” his mother said. “He is not at all the thing today. And now this. He will be very upset, Lucius. He has had his heart set on your marrying Portia. Are you sure you did not act with more than usual impulsiveness this afternoon? Perhaps if you were to call at Berkeley Square and apologize—”

“I’ll not do it,” Lucius said. “And while I am standing here talking, I am wasting valuable time. Pardon me, but I have to change my clothes. My curricle should be at the door within half an hour.”

“Where are you going?” His mother looked pained.

“After Frances, of course,” he said, heading for the next flight of stairs. “Where else?”

Amy, he could hear, whooped with delight before being shushed by their mother.

Frances was aching in every limb. It was impossible to find a comfortable position on the hard seat of the carriage. And whenever she did think that perhaps she had found one, the vehicle was sure to bounce over a hard rut or else jar through a pothole and she was reminded that if the carriage had ever been well sprung it was no longer so.

Even so she found herself near to dozing as evening approached. Soon it would be dusk and they would be forced to stop, she knew. She had refused her great-aunts’ offer of a maid to accompany her for respectability. She did not mind being alone. They would not stop at a busy or fashionable posting inn, and her serviceable clothes would prevent her hosts and fellow guests from being too scandalized.

Tomorrow she would be back at the school. There would be little rest, of course. She would have to find out exactly what the temporary teacher had been doing with her classes and she would have to prepare to take over the next day. It would not be easy. She had never before taken even as much as a day off work. But she welcomed the thought of being busy again.

And every passing day would push the glorious wonder of last evening’s concert and the terrible moment of saying a final good-bye to Lucius farther and farther back in memory until finally a whole day would pass when she would not think of either the height or the depth of emotion the last week had brought her.

She was dreaming of being inside a block of snow hiding from Charles. She was dreaming that she was singing and holding a high note when a snowball collided with her mouth and she saw Lucius grinning broadly and applauding with enthusiasm. She was dreaming that the senior madrigal choir was singing for Lord Heath but everyone was flat and singing at a different tempo while she flapped her arms in an ineffectual attempt to restore order.

She dreamed a dozen other meaningless, disjointed, vivid dreams before starting awake as the carriage swayed and tipped, seemingly out of control.

Frances grabbed for the worn leather strap above her head and waited for disaster to strike. There were the sounds of thundering hooves and yelling voices, and then horses came into view—traveling in the same direction as her own carriage was taking. They were pulling a gentleman’s curricle, Frances could see, her eyes widening in indignation. A curricle on the road to Bath? And traveling at such a breakneck speed? It was thundering past on what seemed to be a particularly narrow stretch of road. What if there was something coming the other way?

She pressed her face to the window and peered up at the driver on his high perch. He was very smartly clad in a long buff riding coat with several capes and a tall hat set at a slight angle.

Frances, eyes wide as saucers, was not quite sure she recognized him. He was up high and almost past her line of vision. But the groom up behind him was neither. He was looking utterly contemptuous and yelling something, presumably at Thomas, that she mercifully could not hear. Just the expression on his face told her that it was not complimentary, though.

She had not been mistaken, then. If the man was Peters, the driver was certain to be Viscount Sinclair.

Why was she somehow not surprised?

She leaned back in her seat after the light vehicle was past. She closed her eyes, caught between fury and a totally inappropriate hilarity.

He talked about banishing the word pleasant from the English language. But it seemed that he had already totally obliterated the word good-bye from his own personal vocabulary.

She did not relinquish her hold on the strap. When Thomas pulled the carriage to an abrupt halt she was ready