LADY LARK WHARTON hoped no one had noticed the flush that rose on her cheeks as the Earl of Seaton shot a cheerful—but dismissive—smile in her direction, after making his manners to her grandmother. It didn’t seem to matter that she was seventeen and considered a catch on the Marriage Mart. As far as David Madison was concerned, she was merely his best friend’s little sister. Even worse, he never greeted her as though she were an individual, but only as one of a matching pair. It was always, “How are you two doing today?” Or, “How are you young ladies?” He lumped her together with Lindsey as though they were indistinguishable.
But Lindsey wasn’t in love with him. Lark was.
The earl was the same age as her brother, and Lark was certain, now that Marcus had married again, that Seaton would begin looking for a bride of his own. She intended to be that woman.
Her task would have been a lot easier if Fanny were still alive. In the year Fanny had been her sister-in-law, Lark had spoken to her often about how attractive she found the earl. Fanny had been amused by what she called “your youthful infatuation with my brother.” She’d been certain that fifteen-year-old Lark would forget all about Seaton when she saw how many beaus presented themselves to meet a duke’s sister, once she was finally “out.” Nevertheless, Fanny had promised that, if Lark was still interested in the earl once she turned seventeen, she would help her young sister-in-law gain her brother’s attention.
Fanny had been buried nearly a year before Lark’s seventeenth birthday arrived. Now, if she wanted Seaton to notice her, she was going to have to manage it on her own.
It was far easier to make the decision to try and engage the Earl of Seaton’s feelings than to actually do something about it. First of all, it wasn’t easy to get the distance from her twin to act independently. Grandmama had insisted that they spend several weeks apart each year, but otherwise, she and Lindsey did everything together. Lark loved her sister and hated the thought of any sort of separation. At least, she had before she’d fallen in love with Seaton.
Second, her grandmother kept a close eye on both girls and seemed to be aware every second of every day exactly where they were, what they were doing, and with whom.
Third, Seaton spent a great deal of his spare time with her brother. Arranging to be alone in the same room as her prospective groom when he came to call wasn’t easy. Although, during Marcus’s honeymoon period, surely he would be spending more time with his wife, leaving Seaton at loose ends.
Finally, and most importantly, Lark had no idea how to flirt with someone who still saw her as the child he’d watched grow up under his nose. How did a woman get a man to fall in love with her? How did she let him know she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him?
If Fanny were alive, she would have posed those questions to her. But Fanny wasn’t around, and although Lark had once or twice opened her mouth to ask Josie what she should do, she didn’t know Marcus’s fiancée well enough to confide in her. What if Josie told Marcus that Lark loved his friend? There was no telling what her brother would do. And Lark would be appalled if Seaton learned of her interest in him through her brother.
Worst of all, she found it impossible to discuss the subject with her twin. She could tell that Lindsey suspected she was hiding something, but Lark refused to divulge what was bothering her. The look on Lindsey’s face when she’d refused to reveal her secret had been hard to bear. Lark had almost crumbled and confessed the truth. But the sudden lump in her throat had kept her from speaking at once, and by the time she’d swallowed past the painful thing, Lindsey had already reeled and left the room.
There was no help for it. Lark was simply going to have to manage this quest on her own. And there was no time like the present to begin.
She edged closer to Seaton and overheard him say to his friend Viscount Burton, “Now that Blackthorne is married, I have some business to attend to in Northumberland. I’ll be leaving at the end of the week, taking the early train on Friday. I should be able to make the trip to Berwick-upon-Tweed by rail in a day each way, assuming the train is on schedule. Even presuming another day away for business, I could easily be back in time to join your hunting party next week.”
At the mention of Berwick-upon-Tweed, Lark’s gaze searched the ballroom to locate her friend from school, Stephanie Court, whose family had an estate near that city on the northernmost tip of England. If she needed an excuse to be on that train with Seaton at the end of the week, Stephanie could provide it. Her friend had already told her that her family planned to leave London on Friday as well.
All Lark had to do was tell her grandmother that Stephanie had invited her to travel home with her family, and that she wanted to make this one of her yearly excursions without Lindsey.
Lark felt her stomach twist at the thought of lying to her grandmother. But desperate circumstances required desperate actions. She needed Seaton to notice her before his heart became fixed on some other woman. A day-long train trip each way would give her plenty of time to charm him. And she was sure, even if Stephanie and her family hadn’t yet arrived home when she made the journey, that she could manage to stay as a guest at their estate in Northumberland.
Lark didn’t allow herself to think about all the lies she would have to tell, or the dangers she might encounter by traveling so far by herself. Her entire future was at stake.
But she needed to know the exact train the earl was taking, so she could be on it. “I couldn’t help overhearing that you have travel plans,” Lark said, smiling at Seaton as she tried to calm her galloping heartbeat.
Lark was watching closely, so she saw the barest hint of irritation in Seaton’s green eyes as he turned to acknowledge her, as though a child had interrupted a grown-up conversation.
“My business has already been postponed for far too long. I’ll be catching the seven o’clock train on Friday morning from King’s Cross.” He chucked her under the chin and said, “Will you miss me?”
He seemed to realize what he’d done only a moment after his fingertips touched her chin. It was a gesture more appropriate to a seven-year-old than a seventeen-year-old. He drew his hand back awkwardly and said, “I beg your pardon, Lady Lark.”
Lark wanted to curl up under a rug somewhere and die. She could feel the heat on her cheeks, but running would only compound the problem. She managed a wobbly smile, and looking up at him through a sudden film of embarrassed tears said, “To answer your question, yes, I will miss you.”
Then she turned and marched away, with all the dignity she could muster, to find somewhere to cry in earnest, all the while muttering under her breath, “Damn and blast! Can’t the man see I’m not a child? I’m a grown woman. Just give me seven hours alone with him, and I’ll open his eyes to the truth!”
It was only later that it dawned on her, He knew it was me. She’d never been quite sure that Seaton could tell the difference between her and her sister, because he was careful never to speak to either of them individually. Probably just a lucky guess, she decided, feeling entirely uncharitable toward the man she loved.
Her mind was already working on a plan to get herself on that train with Seaton. She had barely a week to arrange everything. She had to convince her grandmother that she’d gotten an invitation to visit her friend and then pack, all the while keeping both the Courts and her grandmother from finding out the truth. She just had to manage it somehow. This opportunity was too perfect to pass up.
Lark was halfway across the room when she realized that she would need to make arrangements to meet up with Seaton on the train. Otherwise, she might have trouble finding him, especially if he had a private cabin. She didn’t want to have to hunt him down. It was another half hour before her chance came to speak to him again. She managed to “accidentally” step in front of him as he was crossing the room. She looked up as though surprised and said, “Oh, it’s you. It turns out I won’t be missing you after all.”
He raised an inquisitive—and suspicious?—brow. “You won’t?”
She flipped a black curl off her shoulder as nonchalantly as she could. “It turns out I’m traveling on the very same train.”
“You are?”
Lark nodded. She could feel her chin begin to tremble at the recklessness of what she was about to do. With any luck, her brother would be gone on his honeymoon before Seaton had a chance to mention their coincidental plans to take the same train to Berwick-upon-Tweed. “I’ll be traveling with a friend and her family who’ve been visiting in London and are returning home to Northumberland. I’ll be their guest for a little while.”
“Lindsey isn’t traveling with you? I didn’t think one of you went anywhere without the other.”
“Recently, we’ve begun spending time apart each year,” Lark replied breezily. She was surprised that, for the second time, he’d identified her correctly.
Even though she and Lindsey both had distinctive scars on their necks, most gentlemen of their acquaintance couldn’t tell who was who. They kept forgetting which side of whose neck bore which scar. She wondered if Seaton had simply guessed right, again, expecting her to correct him if he’d been wrong.
“I’ll look forward to having tea with you in the dining car at ten,” she said. Before he could say yea or nay, or do more than gape at her, Lark turned and strolled away. She intended to do a lot more than have tea with Seaton. If she had her way, they would spend the better part of the three-hundred-and-fifty-mile trip in each other’s company.
It took her only a breathless minute to find Lindsey and admit, “I need help.”
She started to blurt the truth, but at the last minute realized that if she told the truth—that she would be on her own with Seaton on the train—it was likely her sister would demand details she preferred not to share. Instead she said, “Stephanie invited me to come spend a week with her in Northumberland. I want to go, but they’re leaving Friday morning, and I’m not sure I can talk Grandmama into letting me go on such short notice.”
She saw the pain in her sister’s eyes when she realized Lark hadn’t included her in the visit, but that lasted only a moment before Lindsey said, “I’ll add my entreaties to yours. Surely that will be sufficient. Shall we go to her now?”
“Not now.” Lark didn’t want her grandmother to discover from the Courts, who were present at the wedding breakfast, that she hadn’t actually gotten an invitation to visit. “Grandmama has enough to deal with at the moment. But tonight, after all the guests have gone, I would appreciate your help convincing her to let me go.”
Lark felt lower than one of the fishing worms Seaton had once dangled to frighten her, as Lindsey gave her a hug and said, “Consider it done. You’ll be on your way to Stephanie’s house bright and early Friday morning.”