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A secret betrothal? Who could have imagined?”

Lucy watched as Meg punctuated her question by taking an enthusiastic bite of a macaroon. The two friends along with Elise were seated around the tea table in the latter’s private sitting room. Vera would, under normal circumstances, have been with them, but Lucy knew at this point that these circumstances were a far cry from normal.

“It’s hardly such a shock, is it?” At nine and twenty, Elise was older than Lucy and Meg, and she’d either witnessed or read about more scandals in her lifetime than either of the other two could conceive of. “There are as many reasons for concealed engagements as there are hairs on your head, I should imagine, Meg. Especially when there is a sizable dowry involved.”

To Lucy’s discomfort, Meg looked very like her brother when she furrowed her brow. It made Lucy all too aware that she had her own secrets at the moment—especially the toe-curling kiss that morning with the man in question. Schooling her thoughts, Lucy put all of her focus on the younger of the Gilford siblings.

“It’s not so much that I cannot believe in hidden betrothals in general,” Meg said with a slight shrug. “I simply can’t believe Vera was in one and didn’t tell any of us about it.”

“When you really think on it,” Lucy said thoughtfully, “we only knew Vera for a month or so. How many of us would reveal all of our past friendships and tendres to new acquaintances so soon into the association? We three have been friends for years, and I daresay there are still things we don’t know about each other.”

Meg frowned. “I’ve told you both about every gentleman I’ve ever thought of in a romantic light. Even Lord Skelton, and that particular fondness does me no credit.”

At the mention of the Earl of Skelton, whose favorite topic of conversation was an update on the diet of every horse in his enormous racing stable, Lucy and Elise both laughed.

“True,” Lucy said with a giggle. “But he is kind, at least, so you shouldn’t feel bad about him.”

“True,” Meg agreed. “But perhaps Vera’s intended—and the fact that she didn’t go about boasting of him implies this—was not a kind person. Maybe she didn’t tell us about him because she intended to break things off with him, so she didn’t think he mattered anymore.”

“It’s also possible that Vera feared that if word got back to her father, he would marry her off to the first impoverished member of the peerage who approached him simply to control her.” Elise cradled her teacup in her hands. She’d once explained to her friends that she did this contrary to every etiquette rule of the tea table because she liked to feel the warmth through the porcelain. Especially when she was nervous.

Was she feeling especially troubled at the moment? Lucy wondered.

Though Meg trustingly believed she knew all of her friends’ secrets, Lucy knew there were some details of her past that Elise hadn’t shared with either of the other two members of their trio. She suspected it was because her friend’s marriage hadn’t been as uncomplicated as they all believed.

Still, that was for Elise to tell them when she was ready—if at all.

“I wish I could ask more questions of Mr. Blackwood,” Lucy said, returning her attention to the matter at hand. “But he did seem to be genuinely troubled by Vera’s abduction. And if he knew anything that might give the authorities some idea of where to find her, I have a feeling he would tell them.”

“Perhaps he’s so devastated because he’s the one responsible for her abduction,” Elise said with a raised brow.

At Meg’s gasp and Lucy’s genuine surprise, their friend was unrepentant. “We’ve already agreed that there are some parents who will stop at nothing to control their children. And we all saw how troubled Vera has been for the past week or so. Maybe she was so upset because of some attempt on Mr. Blackwood’s part to coerce her into marriage with someone of his choosing rather than hers.”

“And the American fiancé is simply an extraneous detail?” Lucy gave the notion some thought. “We did receive the letter from Blackwood’s mistress. Could he have instructed her to chase after us with it with that little story about how much it upset Vera when it arrived?”

“It’s possible, I suppose, and it was staged in such a way that it looked natural.” Meg lifted another watercress sandwich from the table. “They might not have known you and my brother would pay a call, but once you did, he thought to turn your suspicions away from him and onto Christopher Hamilton by sending Lady Fortescue out to you.”

Lucy shook her head. “I was so surprised at learning Lady Fortescue and Mr. Blackwood were in a liaison that it never occurred to me that their performance might be just that—a performance.”

“We don’t know that it was,” Elise reminded her. “It’s just a theory at this point. We can’t even know if the handwriting on the letter is the same as Christopher Hamilton’s because we don’t have anything to compare it to.”

“I shall need to simply sneak into the Blackwood house and search Vera’s bedchamber.”

Now it was Elise who gaped at Meg.

Lucy bit back a smile at the byplay.

“Do not look so surprised,” Meg said, her shrug echoing Elise’s earlier one. “Is Lucy the only one of us who is allowed to be involved in this investigation?”

Looking abashed, Elise said, “No, but we don’t know yet whether Mr. Blackwood is to be trusted. And you could be hurt.”

“And didn’t Lucy and my brother nearly come to danger this morning doing something as simple as driving through Mayfair?”

Wincing, Lucy realized that despite her not telling her friends about what had happened yet, Meg at least had already learned of it.

“I was going to tell you both,” she said hastily, feeling her face flame, though whether it was about being caught in a deception or about the kiss that happened not long after their near collision, she wasn’t sure. “I just hadn’t got to it yet.”

“Well, I have no notion of what you’re both talking about,” Elise said, looking from Lucy to Meg then back to Lucy again. “I take it you and Lord Gilford were set upon while driving in Mayfair?”

Quickly, Lucy recounted what had happened that morning, leaving out the detour to the park and what had happened in the house after their return.

When she mentioned the rock being thrown at them and the moment when Will’s curricle and the anonymous driver’s cab nearly struck one another, Elise covered her mouth with her hand in shock.

“In broad daylight in Mayfair?” she asked with disbelief. “Whoever this is, he is bold, isn’t he?”

Remembering the fear and horror of the moment, Lucy couldn’t contradict her friend. “Whoever it is, he’s comfortable in Mayfair.”

“You think it’s one of us?” Meg asked, startled. “Someone from the upper classes?”

Lucy hesitated. She didn’t know that for certain, but the thought had occurred to her. “Or employed by a member of the upper classes. Think about it. There are far too many servants and guards on the streets of Mayfair—not to mention the wealthy inhabitants themselves—for someone intent on doing harm there to even make it as far as the far borders of the area. But the fact that this person felt comfortable enough to not only try to ram a viscount’s carriage but also throw a large rock at him took either madness or a sense of protection.”

“If it is someone from the ton ,” Elise said, her brown eyes narrowed with determination, “then that will make it that much easier for one of us to bring him down.”

“I hope so,” Lucy said.

Because she wasn’t sure whether she could withstand the sort of scare she’d had earlier. At least not unless she knew that she and whomever she experienced it with would come away unscathed.