Christiana blinked. “It is not like one of your novels.”

“It is,” Lisa insisted. “George was the evil villain, you are the beautiful heroine, and Richard is the brave hero who loves and rescues you.”

“There is no love,” Christiana said firmly.

“Of course there is. Why else would he marry you?”

“Because he’s a good man who doesn’t wish to see us pay for his brother’s sins.”

“Oh, he’s so good,” Lisa gasped. “You have to love him, Chrissy.”

“For heaven’s sake, Lisa,” Suzette said with exasperation. “He is saving himself from scandal too.”

“Men do not really suffer from scandal,” Lisa said grimly. “It is only the female who does. Why, when word got out that Lord Mortis had assaulted and deflowered Penelope Pureheart, the scandal barely touched him. He was still welcomed into the finest homes and free to go to his club. It was Penelope who was banished to the wilds of—”

“Lisa, that is fiction,” Suzette interrupted impatiently.

“If I were to tell someone the tale Christiana just told me they would probably think it fiction too. I— Oh!” she interrupted herself, eyes going wide. “I could write it!”

“No,” Christiana and Suzette said as one, both equally horrified. It was Suzette who pointed out, “Someone might realize it is about Christiana and Richard and—”

“Oh, I would change the names,” she said with irritation. “Never fear. It will be fine.”

Christiana opened her mouth to protest further, but paused as the carriage slowed. A glance out the window showed that they were winding up a driveway toward a large house. She recognized it at once as Radnor.

“We are here,” Suzette murmured, peering out the window on the opposite side of the carriage.

“Thank God,” Christiana muttered, and then turned to Lisa. “You are not to write a word of this ever. Do you understand?”

“Oh, very well,” Lisa said resentfully. “But it would have made a wonderful love story.”

“It is not a love story,” she insisted.

“It will be,” Lisa assured her solemnly. “Trust me Chrissy. He is your hero, you will love him.”

Christiana rolled her eyes and opened the carriage door, leaping out before it had even come to a complete halt. The last thing she needed was Lisa’s drivel about her falling in love with Richard. She had no desire to have her heart broken all over again. She’d been through that with Dicky-George already and it hadn’t been pleasant. But she feared it would be a thousand times worse if she were foolish enough to fall in love with Richard, and the most depressing thing about that was she feared she was already halfway there.

“Christiana! What the devil are you doing leaping out of the carriage before it’s stopped?” Richard demanded, doing the same thing himself from Daniel ’s carriage to stride forward and berate her. “You could have been hurt.”

“I wasn’t though,” she said quickly, and then held out the letter and added, “Besides, this is important.”