The whole carriage incident would just have to be squished out of existence.

Her parents wouldn't be a problem; they would still be fast asleep, along with the rest of the household. Her father did have a habit of nocturnal wandering, but those wanderings invariably took him from bedroom to study, never to check on his sleeping offspring. Mary wouldn't tell, of course. Martin Frobisher could be threatened into silence; like so many bullies, he was really a coward at heart. As for Percy Ponsonby…One word to his mother, and half of England would know by noon and the other half by tea. On the other hand, if Mary could get to Lucy, and Lucy could get to Percy before Percy spoke to Mrs. Ponsonby…

Letty rocked forward as the coach jolted to a halt. Once again, the door was wrenched unceremoniously open. This time Lord Pinchingdale's intentions were clearly anything but amorous.

"Ready?" he demanded.

Letty didn't answer. All her attention was focused elsewhere, on the first floor of her parents' rented town house, where every single candle of their month's allowance was melting cheerfully away.

"Oh, no." Letty would have liked to say something stronger, but the training of a lifetime restrained her. "They can't be awake."

"Can't they?" Lord Pinchingdale said ironically, offering her his arm in a gesture so courtly it couldn't be anything but a mockery. "I'm sure they always sleep with all the candles lit. So much more conducive to rest."

With an effort, Letty refocused, frowning down at her partner in impropriety. Avoiding the outstretched arm, she felt cautiously for the step with one inadequately shod foot. "You don't need to come in with me. In fact, it would be better if you didn't."

"And forgo the pleasure of sharing the happy news with your parents?"

Letty looked up from the all-absorbing task of trying to place her feet on the proper steps without tripping over the hem of her cloak.

"I can manage this much better on my own."

Lord Pinchingdale took her by the elbow and all but lifted her down the last two steps. "I'm sure you can."

Wrenching her arm out of his grasp, Letty started to say something that began with, "If you would only—"

Geoff silenced her by the simple expedient of dropping the knocker. The sound of iron hitting oak drowned out whatever it was she had been about to say.

No sooner had a sleepy maid wrestled open the door than slippered feet padded rapidly down the stairs. Decked out in a ribboned nightcap, Mrs. Alsworthy took one look at her disheveled daughter, let out a shriek, and sagged against her husband, nearly knocking him down the last few steps.

"Is that my daughter? Oh, tell me the worst!"

Staggering under the impact, Mr. Alsworthy retreated a safe few paces away. "If you must faint, my dear, kindly contrive to do it in the other direction."

"Shouldn't you be asleep?" demanded Letty, taking a step inside. Automatically, she blew out the candles in the sconces on either side of the door. Candles were so dear, and the household finances were precarious as it was.

The silent presence of Lord Pinchingdale, looming behind her like a nightmare in the closet, forcibly reminded Letty that their finances weren't the only thing hanging in the balance. She planted herself firmly in front of him, a gesture that had all the effectiveness of a squirrel trying to block a tree.

"Sleep? Sleep!" Mrs. Alsworthy's beribboned head quivered with indignation.

"Yes, sleep, my dear," murmured Mr. Alsworthy. "It is what one generally does at night."

"How could I sleep with my daughter out wandering goodness only knows where, falling into the hands of rogues and seducers and…and…pirates!"

"What very enterprising pirates they must be," commented Mr. Alsworthy, "to venture so far inland, just to kidnap our daughter. You do see the honor being done to you, don't you, my Letty? If the pirates have come all that way, just for you, it would be a positive discourtesy not to let them kidnap you."

"Speaking of kidnapping," began Letty, "the oddest thing happened tonight…."

"Mr. Alsworthy!" exclaimed Letty's mother. "How can you laugh at such a matter! Although, I must say, I would have thought if a pirate were to kidnap anyone, he would kidnap Mary. She looks quite as I did in my youth, and I'm sure a pirate would have wanted to kidnap me."

"Don't taunt me with lost opportunities, my dear."

"As you can see," interjected Letty firmly, before her parents could be off again, "there were no pirates, and I'm quite safe. There was just a small—"

"But where were you, you impossible child? You cannot possibly imagine the agonies I've suffered! The hours I have paced this floor…"

Mrs. Alsworthy illustrated her statement with a representative turn around the room, which ended abruptly when the flowing end of her nightrobe caught on an uneven piece of flooring, ending her progress with an unfortunate rending noise.

"That would all be very affecting," put in Mr. Alsworthy, as his wife clucked over her ruined peignoir, "if you hadn't awakened a mere ten minutes past."

"Ten minutes? Ten minutes!" Mrs. Alsworthy looked up indignantly from her abused hem. "You cannot reckon how time moves within a mother's heart."

"A curious sort of mathematics, to be sure."

"If you would pardon the interruption…"

Geoff neatly sidestepped Letty and strode into the room. Being forced to marry the wrong woman was bad enough; being tortured with a Punch and Judy show in the intermission was more than a man could be expected to bear.

Mrs. Alsworthy shrieked and affected to swoon, and even Mr. Alsworthy momentarily abandoned his customary pose of indolence.

"There, my dear," said Mr. Alsworthy, "is your pirate."

"Don't be absurd, Mr. Alsworthy!" exclaimed Mrs. Alsworthy, taking a step forward to attain a closer look, just in case. "That's not a pirate; that's Lord Pinchingdale. Lord Pinchingdale? Whatever are you doing here?"

Lord Pinchingdale was beginning to seriously consider a career on the high seas.

"I should think that much is clear," replied Mr. Alsworthy, before either Geoff or Letty could say anything at all.

"Why must you always be so provoking?" protested his much put-upon wife. "Saying things are clear when they're not the least bit clear at all. Why, they're as muddy as…as…"

"A pirate's conscience," put in Mr. Alsworthy, enjoying himself hugely.

"Pirates, pirates…what have we to do with pirates?"

"You brought them up."

"I most certainly did not!"

"As fascinating as this is, can we return to the matter at hand?" Geoff's voice cracked through the small foyer, lashing both the Alsworthys into silence. "I have come to request your daughter's hand in marriage."

Chapter Four

The idea of their being married was absurd.

Letty would have said so had she been able to get a word in edgewise, but her mother pipped her to the post. Mrs. Alsworthy clapped her plump hands together. "Dearest Mary will be so pleased!"

"Your daughter Laetitia's hand in marriage," Lord Pinchingdale specified tersely.

"This is quite unnecessary!" protested Letty in her loudest voice.

No one else paid the slightest bit of attention to her.

"Ah." Mr. Alsworthy's heavily pouched eyes moved from his bedraggled daughter to the irate viscount. "Not at all what I expected, but an interesting twist. A very interesting twist, indeed."

"I don't understand." Mrs. Alsworthy wrung her hands in her effort at cogitation. "You wish to marry Letty?"

"No, he doesn't," put in Letty.

"'Wish' might not be exactly the right verb, but it will do for lack of a better. I believe our daughter is compromised, my dear," explained Mr. Alsworthy mildly. "You should be very proud."

Mrs. Alsworthy flung herself at her daughter with a delighted squeal that made the crystals in the chandelier quiver.

"My dearest daughter! My very dearest daughter!"

"Mmmph," said Letty, whose head was buried beneath her mother's ruffles.

"Oh, so many things to do!" Mrs. Alsworthy clutched her new favorite daughter to her beribboned bosom. "The wedding clothes…the guest list…an announcement in the Morning Times…Oh, it is too much happiness!"

"Mother…" Letty fought her way free of the clinging ruffles.

The movement was a mistake, since it brought her into full view of Lord Pinchingdale's face, stiff with revulsion. It was enough to make her wish herself into indentured servitude in the farthest antipodes. She wasn't quite sure whether they had indentured servants in the farthest antipodes, or even quite where the farthest antipodes were, but she was sure they must need servants.

Letty fought a craven urge to hide in her mother's bosom. It might not be the antipodes, but at least it was there.

Mrs. Alsworthy released Letty long enough to grasp her by both shoulders and hold her at arm's length. "My daughter." She sighed on a wave of maternal pride. "A viscountess!"

With a strength borne of ambition, she wrenched Letty around to face the silent men. "Viscountess Pinchingdale! Doesn't it sound well?"

"My dear"—Mr. Alsworthy's voice filled the uncomfortable silence—"before you exclaim any further, be so kind as to give the rest of us a moment to adjust to our extreme rapture."

"All this rapture," managed Letty, wriggling out of her mother's grasp, "is decidedly premature."

Mrs. Alsworthy, with the word "viscountess" ringing in her ears, was incapable of hearing any others. She brushed off both her daughter's and husband's demurrals with equal inattention. Both hands extended, she advanced on Geoff. "You must think of me as a mother now, my dear boy."