Anne's suggestion does sound as though it has potential.

Anne is wise.

I have to say that I hate characters being humiliated for any reason. I'd suggest that no one find them

Well, the humiliation would largely be in Lucy's mind--in the eyes of all of the potential witnesses except Portia, her actions really aren't a problem as long as she and James intend to get married.

As far as Lucy knows, she's not discovered, but one of the cousins catches her but doesn't interrupt, instead going to the others and telling them what she's seen and heard.

I'd have to rework some of the logistics--maybe lose the heavy, creaky door, for example--but this has potential. The interpersonal dynamics among the cousins are such that any one of them who saw her would probably confront her first rather than telling the others, but I do like the idea. Especially if it's Julius.

Julius, though, might confront him with it, rather than her.

Hmm. I could probably work the logistics such that he wouldn't have the chance to confront James before the end of the evening, but could easily confront Lucy, because as family members they're staying at the same place.

If Lucy suffers a major embarassment, even if it's all in her head, it'll color her developing relationship with James - don't know what you've got planned, but is that okay? It's also a question of how major an event you want this to be. Will it throw things off kilter?

Just some thoughts. I think you've gotten some pretty good advice already.

Well, they need some roadblocks--they're really quite well-matched, if I do say so myself, and if they realize it too soon, it'll throw the pacing of the story off, since I'm bucking recent romance tradition by not throwing some random enemy into the last forty pages to kidnap Lucy so he can murder James or something lame like that.

throwing some random enemy into the last forty pages to kidnap Lucy so he can murder James or something lame like that

Gah.

Then it sounds like you want to go for maximum trauma!

Do you know, I rather like option #3?

First off, it sounds as if Lucy is rather short on friends, and females to love and trust generally; if Cordelia is a bit of an airhead, while she might well keep their secret, would either James or Lucy have reason to know or believe that? They'd be on tenterhooks everytime she opened her mouth.

So in my head, it gives a nice unifying touch (everytime the girl opens her mouth, in front of Lucy and James, their tums do flipflops) without being tense enough to frell things up too early in the story, plus you get the benefit of giving Lucy someone she can trust who isn't the guy who is essentially buying her out of poverty.

Your romantic regency mileage etc....

edit: otoh - you want maximum trauma, I'd have the bitchy chick find them.)

throwing some random enemy into the last forty pages to kidnap Lucy so he can murder James or something lame like that

Gah.

I know! I mean, where are all these ordinary upper-class 19th century Brits picking up all these Mortal Enemies? There's a time and a place for intrigue and murder (says the woman who just finished a re-read of Kushiel's Dart and loved every page), but not when it's awkwardly shoehorned in to the ending of what for 275 pages was a perfectly peaceable sexy comedy of manners.

Thanks for the input, everyone. I'm still not 100% sure where I'm going to go, but I've got sixteen pages of longhand from the last week that need to be entered, so I'm going to do that and hope the answer comes as I revisit what I've just written.