Page 19 of Marry in Scandal

“I know. Mrs. Pinkley-Dutton commented today that Lily must be afraid of a little rain, missing two morning rides in a row—and I wanted to hit her!” George said.

“We can’t protect Lily, but we can protect her reputation,” Emm reminded them. The trouble was that neither Rose nor George cared much for their own reputations.

And women must wait.Whoever wrote that didn’t know how very difficult waiting was. Action was so much easier.

• • •

Lily lay half dozing in the dark, waiting for her next opportunity.

Twice more they had stopped to let her relieve herself, and each time, Lily pretended to be more affected by the drug than she was. The third time, as Lily was stuffed back into her prison, she managed to wedge a fold of her cloak between the catch and the hook.

She held her breath, waiting for him to jerk open the lid and pull away the cloth impeding the catch. But nothing happened. He hadn’t noticed.

The coach set off again, swaying and jolting along the road. Eventually Lily worked up the courage to push ever so slightly against the roof of her prison. It lifted.

And again, Nixon noticed nothing. He was taking her helplessness for granted.

Despite the cruel bite of the gag, Lily smiled. She was still trapped in the dark, still bound and gagged, still battling the effects of the drug, but she was no longer locked in. She could push the lid up, and the knowledge gave her a fierce surge of hope.

She just had to wait for the next posting inn or some other chance to escape. The journey to Scotland took several days. An opportunity was bound to arise.

• • •

“I have hearda whisper!” Aunt Agatha announced. There was a short silence. She raised her lorgnette and examined each of them one by one, with unnerving thoroughness. “Well?”

Emm sent a warning glance to Rose and George. “What have you heard, Aunt Agatha? The ton is full of whispers.”

“Where’s the other gel?”

“Lily? She’s indisposed,” Emm said.

“With what?”

“A cold,” said Rose.

“A sprained ankle,” George said at the same time. She glanced at Rose and said, “A coldanda sprained ankle.”

Aunt Agatha gave them both a withering look and rolled her eyes. “I thought as much. What is going on, Emmaline? And don’t prevaricate, for as I said, I hearda whisper.”

Emm sighed, accepting the inevitable. “Lily has gone missing. We think she’s been abducted.”

“Why did you not immediately inform me?” the old lady said crossly.

“We thought the fewer people who knew, the better.”

Aunt Agatha snorted. “I am notpeople! I amfamily! And if one of my family gets herself into trouble—”

“Lily didnot‘get herself into trouble,’” Rose snapped. “She wasabducted! Throughnofault of her own!”

Aunt Agatha gave her a thoughtful look and said in a surprisingly mild voice, “When did she disappear?”

“The same night that duke of yours didn’t turn up at the opera,” George said.

The old lady narrowed her eyes at George, but didn’t rise to the bait. “And who, outside the family, knows she is missing?”

“Nobody. Cal has gone to France because that’s where we think she’s been taken. But he also sent some men to search for her on the Great North Road, in case his information was wrong. But they’re men he’s worked with before, in whose discretion he trusts.”

“Sylvia knows Lily went missing,” said Rose. “And the Mainwarings.”