An Unwilling Conquest (Regencies 7)

After one glance at his face, Lucinda remarked, “I do hope you’re not about to tell me there is any impropriety in my seeing my agent alone?”

Harry bit his tongue; he swung to face her, his gaze distinctly cool. As he watched Lucinda’s gaze shifted, going past him.

“After all,” she continued, “he could hardly be considered a danger.”

Harry followed her gaze to the daybed before the windows. He looked back at her, and surprised an expression of uncertainty, mixed with a readily identifiable longing. They were, once again, very much alone; his inclinations, he knew, matched hers. Harry cleared his throat. “I came to persuade you to a drive in the Park.”

“The Park?” Surprised, Lucinda looked up at him. Em had told her Harry rarely drove in the Park during the hours of the fashionable promenades. “Why?”

“Why?” Harry looked down at her, his expression momentarily blank. Then he frowned. “What sort of a ridiculous question is that?” When Lucinda’s gaze turned suspicious, he waved a languid hand. “I merely thought you might be bored and could do with the fresh air. Lady Mickleham’s balls are notoriously crowded.”

“Oh.” Lucinda slowly rose, her eyes searching his face but with no success. “Perhaps a drive would be a good idea.”

“Indubitably.” Harry waved her to the door. “I’ll wait downstairs while you get your coat and bonnet.”

Ten minutes later, Lucinda allowed him to lift her into his curricle, still not at all sure she understood. But he was here—she could see no reason to deny herself his company. Reflecting that after yesterday, when he had driven her all the way from Lester Hall to Audley Street in his curricle, she should have had a surfeit of his dry comments, she blithely settled her skirts and looked forward to a few more.

He didn’t disappoint her.

As they passed through the heavy wrought-iron gates and on into the Park, bowling along the shaded drive, Harry slanted her a glance. “I regret, my dear, that as my horses are very fresh, we won’t be stopping to chat—you’ll have to make do with waves and smiling glances.”

Engaged in looking about her, Lucinda raised her brows. “Indeed? But if we aren’t to chat, why are we here?”

“To see and be seen, of course.” Again Harry diverted his attention from his leader, who was indeed very skittish, to glance her way. “That, I have always understood, is the purpose of the fashionable promenades.”

“Ah.” Lucinda smiled sunnily back at him, not the least perturbed. She was quite content to sit beside him in the sun and watch him tool about the gravel drives, long fingers managing the reins.

He met her gaze, then looked back at his horses. Still smiling, Lucinda looked ahead to where the drive was lined by the barouches and landaus of the matrons of the ton. The afternoon was well advanced; there were many who had reached the Park before them. Harry was forced to rein in his horses as the traffic increased, curricles and phaetons of all descriptions wending their way between the carriages drawn up by the verge. Lady Sefton, holding court in her barouche, waved and nodded; Lucinda noticed that she appeared somewhat startled.

Lady Somercote and Mrs Wyncham likewise greeted her, then Countess Lieven favoured them with a long, dark-eyed stare before inclining her head graciously.

Harry humphed. “She’s so stiff-necked I keep waiting to hear the crack.”

Lucinda smothered a giggle as, rounding the next curve, they came upon Princess Esterhazy. The Princess’s large eyes opened wide, then she beamed and nodded delightedly.

Lucinda smiled back; inwardly, she frowned. After a moment, she asked, “Do you frequently drive ladies in the Park?”

Harry clicked his reins; the curricle shot through a gap between a swan-necked phaeton and another curricle, leaving both the other owners gasping. “Not recently.”

Lucinda narrowed her eyes. “How recently?”

Harry merely shrugged, his gaze fixed on his horses’ ears.

Lucinda regarded him closely. When he offered not a word, she ventured, “Not since Lady Coleby?”

He looked at her then, his green glance filled with dire warning, his lips a severe line. Then he looked back at his horses. After a moment, he said, his tone exceedingly grudging, “She was Millicent Pane then.”

Harry’s memory flitted back through the years; “Millicent Lester” was what he’d been thinking then. His lips twisted wrily; he should have noticed that didn’t sound right. He glanced down at the woman beside him, in blue, as usual, her dark hair framing her pale face in soft curls, the whole enchanting picture framed by the rim of her modish bonnet. “Lucinda Lester” had a certain balance, a certain ring.

His lips curved but, her gaze abstracted, she didn’t see. She was, he noted, looking decidedly pensive.

The drive ahead cleared as they left the area favoured by the ton. Harry reined in and joined the line of carriages waiting to turn back. “Once more through the gauntlet, then I’ll take you home.”

Lucinda shot him a puzzled glance but said nothing, straightening and summoning a smile as they headed back into the fray.

This time, heading in the opposite direction, they saw different faces—many, Lucinda noted, looked surprised. But they were constantly moving; she got no chance to analyse the reactions the sight of them seemed to be provoking. Lady Jersey’s reaction, however, needed no analysis.

Her ladyship was in her barouche, languidly draped over the cushions, when her gimlet gaze fell on Harry’s curricle, a