arah sighed, torn between amusement and embarrassment that Lord Hugh was about to witness a classic Pleinsworth spat.

“For the love of— Frances!” Elizabeth glared at her younger sister as if she might take her head off. “It hasn’t been more than five minutes since we switched places!”

Frances gave a helpless shrug. “But I’m bored.”

Sarah stole a glace at Hugh. He seemed to be trying not to laugh. Which she supposed was the best she could hope for.

“Can’t we do something?” Frances pleaded.

“I am,” Elizabeth ground out, holding up her book.

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Oh, no!” Harriet cried out.

“I knew you were going to spill the ink!” Elizabeth yelled. Then she let out a shriek, “Don’t get it on me!”

“Stop moving so much!”

“I can help!” Frances said excitedly, leaping into the fray.

Sarah was just about to intervene when Lord Hugh reached forward, grabbed Frances by the collar, and hauled her across the carriage, where he deposited her unceremoniously onto Sarah’s lap.

It was rather magnificent, really.

Frances gaped.

“You should stay out of it,” he advised.

Sarah, meanwhile, was dealing with an elbow to her lungs. “I can’t breathe,” she gasped.

Frances adjusted her position. “Better?” she asked brightly.

Sarah’s reply was a huge gulp of air. Somehow she managed to twist her head to the side so that she was facing Lord Hugh. “I would compliment you on a superior extrication except that I seem to have lost all feeling in my legs.”

“Well, at least you’re breathing now,” he said.

And then—heaven help her—she started to laugh. There was something so ludicrous about being complimented for breathing. Or maybe it was just that one had to laugh when the best thing about one’s situation was that one was still breathing.

And so she did. She laughed. She laughed so hard and so long that Frances slid right off her lap to the floor. And then she kept on laughing until the tears were running down her face, and Elizabeth and Harriet stopped their bickering and stared, astounded.

“What’s wrong with Sarah?” Elizabeth asked.

“It was something about having trouble breathing,” Frances said from the floor.

Sarah let out a little shriek of laughter at that, then clutched her chest, gasping, “Can’t breathe. Laughing too hard.”

Like all good laughter, it was contagious, and before long the whole carriage was giggling, even Lord Hugh, whom Sarah could never have imagined laughing like that. Oh, he smirked, and occasionally he chuckled, but right then, as the Pleinsworth carriage rolled south toward Thrapstone, he was as undone as the rest of them.

It was a glorious moment.

“Oh my,” Sarah finally managed to say.

“I don’t even know what we’re laughing about,” Elizabeth said, still grinning from ear to ear.

Sarah finished wiping the tears from her eyes and tried to explain. “It was— He said— oh, never mind, it would never be as funny in the retelling.”

“I’ve got the ink cleaned up, at least,” Harriet said. She pulled a sheepish face. “Well, except for my hands.”

Sarah looked over and winced. Only one of Harriet’s fingers seemed to have been spared.

“You look as if you’ve got the plague,” Elizabeth said.

“No, I think that’s on your neck,” Harriet replied, taking no offense whatsoever. “Frances, you should get off the floor.”

Frances looked up at Elizabeth, who had slid back into the seat by the window. Elizabeth sighed and moved to the center.

“I’m just going to get bored again,” Frances said as soon as she was settled.

“No, you’re not,” Hugh said firmly.

Sarah turned to look at him, amused and impressed. It took a brave man to take on the Pleinsworth girls.

“We shall find something to do,” he announced.

She waited for him to realize that could never be enough of an answer. Apparently her sisters were doing the same, for at least ten seconds passed before Elizabeth asked him, “Have you any suggestions?”

“He’s brilliant with numbers,” Frances said. “He can multiply monstrously huge sums in his head. I’ve seen him do it.”

“I can’t imagine you will find it entertaining to quiz me at maths for nine hours,” he said.

“No, but it might be entertaining for the next ten minutes,” Sarah said, and she meant every word. How was it possible that she did not know this about him? She knew that he was very clever; Daniel and Marcus had both said so. She also knew that he had been considered unbeatable at cards. After all that had happened, there was no way she could not know that.

“How monstrously huge?” she asked, because truly, she wanted to know.

“At least four digits,” Frances said. “That’s what he did at the wedding breakfast. It was brilliant.”

Sarah peered over at Hugh. He seemed to be blushing. Well, maybe just a little bit. Or maybe not. Maybe she just wanted him to be blushing. There was something quite appealing about the notion.

But then she caught something else in his expression. She didn’t know how to describe it, except that she suddenly knew...

“You can do more than four digits,” she said with wonder.

“It is a talent,” he said, “that has brought me as much trouble as it has benefit.”

“May I quiz you?” Sarah asked, trying to keep some of the eagerness out of her voice.

He leaned toward her with a bit of smirk. “Only if I can quiz you.”

“Spoilsport.”

“I might call you the same.”

“Later,” she said firmly. “You are going to show me later.” She was fascinated by this newly revealed talent of Lord Hugh’s. Surely he wouldn’t mind one little equation. He’d done it for Frances.

“We can read one of my plays,” Harriet suggested. She started rifling through the stack of papers on her lap. “I have the one I started just last night. You know, the one with the heroine who is not too pink—”

“And not too green!” Frances and Elizabeth finished excitedly.

“Oh,” Sarah said with great dismay. “Oh oh oh oh. No.”

Lord Hugh turned to her with some amusement. “Not too pink or green?” he murmured.

“It is a description of me, I’m afraid.”

“I... see.”

She gave him a look. “Laugh. You know you want to.”

“She is also not too fat or thin,” Frances said helpfully.

“It’s not actually Sarah,” Harriet explained. “Just a character I’ve modeled upon her.”

“Quite closely,” Elizabeth added. With a grin.

“Here you are,” Harriet said, holding a small stack of papers across the carriage. “I have only one copy, so you’ll have to share.”

“Does this masterpiece have a name?” Hugh inquired.

“Not yet,” Harriet replied. “I’ve found that I often must complete a play before I know what to call it. But it will be something terribly romantic. It’s a love story.” She paused, her mouth twisting in thought. “Although I’m not sure it will have a happy ending.”

“This is a romance?” Lord Hugh said with a dubious quirk of his brow. “And I’m meant to be the hero?”

“We can’t really use Frances,” Harriet said with no sarcasm whatsoever. “And I’ve only got the one copy, so if Sarah is the heroine you’ve got to be the hero, since you’re sitting next to her.”

He looked down. “My name is Rudolfo?”

Sarah nearly spit out a laugh.

“You’re Spanish,” Harriet said. “But your mother was English, so you speak it perfectly.”

“Do I have an accent?”

“Of course.”

“Can’t imagine why I asked,” he murmured. And then, to Sarah: “Oh, look. Your name is Woman.”

“Typecast again,” Sarah quipped.

“I hadn’t thought of a proper name yet,” Harriet explained, “but I didn’t want to hold up the entire manuscript. It could take me weeks to think of the right name. And by then I might have forgotten all of my ideas.”

“The creative process is a peculiar thing, indeed,” Lord Hugh murmured.

Sarah had been reading ahead while Harriet was speaking, and she was developing serious misgivings. “I’m not certain this is a good idea,” she said, tugging the second page out of the pile so she could read further.

No, it definitely wasn’t a good idea.

“Reading in a moving carriage is always a risk,” Sarah said quickly. “Especially riding backwards.”

“You never get sick,” Elizabeth reminded her.

Sarah looked ahead to page three. “I might.”

“You don’t have to actually do the things in the play,” Harriet said. “This isn’t a true performance. It’s just a reading.”

“Should I be reading ahead?” Lord Hugh asked Sarah.

Wordlessly, she handed him page two.

“Oh.”

And page three.

“Oh.”

“Harriet, we cannot do this,” Sarah said firmly.

“Oh, please,” Harriet pleaded. “It would be so helpful. That’s the problem with writing plays. One needs to hear the words said aloud.”

“You know that I have never been good at acting out your plays,” Sarah said.

Lord Hugh looked at her quizzically. “Really?”

Something about his expression did not sit well with her. “What does that mean?”

He gave a little shrug. “Just that you’re very dramatic.”

“Dramatic?” She did not like the way that sounded.

“Oh, come now,” he said, with far more condescension than was healthy in a closed carriage, “surely you don’t see yourself as quiet and meek.”

“No, but I don’t know that I’d go so far as dramatic.”

He looked at her for a moment, then said, “You do enjoy making pronouncements.”

“It’s true, Sarah,” Harriet put in. “You do.”

Sarah whipped her head around and fixed such a look onto her sister’s face that it was a wonder she didn’t wither on the spot.

“I’m not reading this,” she said, clamping her mouth shut.

“It’s just a kiss,” Harriet exclaimed.

Just a kiss?

Frances’s eyes opened nearly as wide as her mouth. “You want Sarah to kiss Lord Hugh?”

Just a kiss. It could never be just a kiss. Not with him.

“They wouldn’t actually do the kiss,” Harriet said.

“Does one do a kiss?” Elizabeth asked.

“No,” Sarah bit off. “One does not.”

“We wouldn’t tell anyone,” Harriet tried.

“This is highly inappropriate,” Sarah said in a tight voice. She turned to Lord Hugh, who had not uttered a word for some time. “Surely you agree with me.”

“I surely do,” he said, his words strangely clipped.

“There. You see, we are not reading this.” Sarah thrust the pages back at Harriet, who retrieved them with great reluctance.

“Would you do it if Frances read the part of Rudolfo?” Harriet asked in a small voice.

“You just said—”

“I know, but I really want to hear it aloud.”

Sarah crossed her arms. “We are not reading the play, and that is final.”

“But—”

“I said no,” Sarah exploded, feeling the last remnants of her control snapping in two. “I am not kissing Lord Hugh. Not here. Not now. Not ever!”

An appalled silence fell across the carriage.

“I beg your pardon,” Sarah muttered. She could feel a flush rising from the throat to the tip of her head. She waited for Lord Hugh to say something horribly clever and cutting, but he did not utter a word. Neither did Harriet. Or Elizabeth or Frances.

Finally Elizabeth made an awkward noise with her throat and said, “I’ll just read my book, then.”

Harriet reshuffled her papers.

Even Frances turned to the window and looked out without a word about boredom.

Of Lord Hugh, Sarah did not know. She could not bring herself to look at him. Her outburst had been ugly, the insult unforgivable. Of course they weren’t going to kiss in the carriage. They wouldn’t have kissed even if they’d been performing the play in a drawing room. Like Harriet had said, there would have been some sort of narration, or perhaps they would have leaned in (but kept a respectable six inches apart) and kissed air.

But she was already so aware of him, in ways that confused as much as they infuriated. Just reading ahead that their characters would kiss...

It had been too much.

The journey continued in silence. Frances eventually fell asleep. Harriet stared into space. Elizabeth kept reading, although every now and then she’d look up, her eyes flicking from Sarah to Hugh and back again. After an hour, Sarah thought that Lord Hugh might have fallen asleep, too; he had not moved even once since they’d gone silent, and she could not imagine it was comfortable for his leg to remain in the same position for so long.

But when she chanced a peek, he was awake. The only sign that he saw her looking at him was a tiny change in his eyes.

He did not say anything.

Nor did she.

Finally she felt the wheels of the carriage slowing, and when she peered out the window she saw that they were approaching an inn with a cheery little sign that said, The Rose and Crown, est. 1612.

“Frances,” she said, glad to have a logical reason to speak. “Frances, it’s time to wake up. We’re here.”

Frances blinked groggily and leaned on Elizabeth, who did not utter a complaint.

“Frances, are you hungry?” Sarah persisted. She leaned forward and jostled her knee. The carriage had come to a complete stop, and all Sarah could think about was escape. She had been trying so hard to keep still, to keep quiet. It felt as if she hadn’t drawn a breath in hours.

“Oh,” Frances finally said with a yawn. “Did I fall asleep?”

Sarah nodded.

“I’m hungry,” Frances said.

“You should have remembered the biscuits,” Harriet said.

Sarah would have scolded her for such a petty comment except that it was a relief to hear something so perfectly normal.

“I didn’t know I was supposed to bring the biscuits,” Frances whined, coming to her feet. She was small for her age and could stand in the carriage without crouching.

The door to the carriage swung open, and Lord Hugh took his cane and stepped out without a word.

“You did know,” Elizabeth said. “I told you.”

Sarah moved toward the door.

“You’re stepping on my cloak!” Frances howled.

Sarah looked out. Lord Hugh was holding up his hand to help her down.

“I’m not stepping on anything.”

Sarah took his hand. She didn’t know what else she could possibly do.

“Get off my— Oh!”

There was a shriek, and then someone stumbled hard into Sarah. She lurched forward, her free hand swinging wildly for balance, but to no avail. She fell, first onto the step, and then onto the hard ground, taking Lord Hugh down with her.

She let out a cry as a splinter of pain shot through her ankle. Calm down, she told herself, it’s just the surprise. It was like stubbing one’s toe. It hurt like the dickens for one second, and then you realized it was the surprise more than anything.

So she held her breath and waited for the pain to subside.

It didn’t.