"There haven't been so many as all that," Whitney protested, but she squirmed in her chair.

"No? What about that trick you played on him on All Soul's-darting out in front of his carriage, shrieking like a banshee, and pretending to be a ghost, terrifying his horses."

Whitney flushed. "He wasn't so very angry. And it isn't as if the carriage was destroyed. It only broke a shaft when it overturned."

"And Paul's leg," Emily pointed out.

"But that mended perfectly," Whitney persisted, her mind already leaping from past debacles to future possibilities. She surged to her feet and began to pace slowly back and forth. "There has to be a way-but short of abducting him, I-" A mischievous smile lit up her dust-streaked face as she swung around so quickly that Emily pressed back into her chair. "Emily, one thing is infinitely clear: Paul does not yet know that he cares for me. Correct?"

"He doesn't care a snap for you is more like it," Emily replied warily.

"Therefore, it would be safe to say that he is unlikely to offer for me without some sort of added incentive. Correct?"

"You couldn't make him offer for you at the point of a gun, and you know it. Besides, you aren't old enough to be betrothed, even if-"

"Under what circumstances," Whitney interrupted triumphantly, "is a gentleman obliged to offer for a lady?"

"I can't think of any. Except of course, if he has compromised her-absolutely not! Whitney, whatever you're planning now, I won't help."

Sighing, Whitney flopped back into her chair, stretching her legs out in front of her. An irreverent giggle escaped her as she considered the sheer audacity of her last idea. "If only I could have pulled it off… you know, loosened the wheel on Paul's carriage so that it would fall off later, and then asked him to drive me somewhere. Then, by the time we walked back, or help arrived, it would be late at night, and he would have to offer for me." Oblivious to Emily's scandalized expression, Whitney continued, "Just think what a wonderful turnabout that would have been on a tired old theme: Young Lady abducts Gentleman and ruins his reputation so that she is forced to marry him to set things aright! What a novel that could have made," she added, rather impressed with her own ingenuity.