“You three,” she said, in a marvelously scathing tone. “I’ll have you know that when that tinker’s boy asked me to run off, I was eight years old, as was he. We certainly did not go anywhere.”
She pointed at Setterdown. “I told the story to Lady Clara and she embellished it. She has sore feelings and lashed out.”
“As she might well have,” Setterdown said, sounding affronted. “There was supposed to be a match!”
“The match was all in the dowager’s head,” Lady Viola said, “and not in Lord Baderston’s heart. He and your sister are not at all suited and the dowager did Lady Clara an egregious disservice in convincing her otherwise.”
“How dare—” the dowager sputtered.
Lady Viola ignored the dowager’s outrage. “And you,” Lady Viola said, turning to Chelderberry, “I do not know what brings you here, but you are very foolish to have engaged yourself in such a manner.”
“My cousin is making me go home on account of it,” Chelderberry said sullenly.
“Excellent. We will see you next season in a better frame of mind,” Lady Viola said. Finally, she turned to Mr. Berger. “Naturally, I know whyyouare here. Calling out an insult in the theater was very bad form. I dearly hope you were not ever planning on attempting to join the YBC. That behavior from a gentleman would never be tolerated.”
Mr. Berger shrugged. “It was only a joke.”
“Then you are not the wit you imagine yourself to be,” Lady Viola said.
Gad, she really was marvelous! What fortitude! One might expect the daughter of an earl to be in the carriage fanning herself, if she were anywhere near a duel at all.
A sudden thought occurred to Roland. She had given them all a terrific dressing down, but there were more important questions hanging in the air. “Lady Viola,” he said, “Gretna Green. Let’s get back to that conversation.”
Lady Viola turned to him and touched his face with her soft hand. “Look at you. Your poor eyes. And to think, all of this trouble was for me.”
“Well, what could I do? I have loved you since the first moment I saw you in the park last year.”
“No you haven’t!” the dowager shouted.
“I have felt just the same,” Lady Viola said. “I thought about you all summer long.”
“As did I think about you!” Roland said. “I even began eating an immense amount of ham…so I could mention it when we met again.”
“Did you?” Lady Viola asked, looking very pleased.
“Stop talking about ham!” the dowager said, her tone all irritation.
“I haunted the doors of Almack’s so I could be first on your card.”
“My sisters and I imagined it would be so and then there you were.”
“So we are off to Gretna Green?”
“We can be, assuming you…”
Assuming he? Assuming he what?
Then it came to him.
“Blast, that got away from me,” Roland said. “Lady Viola Bennington, I will love you and be loyal to you all my life if you will consent to be my adorable and treasured wife.”
Roland heard his mother groan. Lady Viola said, “Most happily.”
“Excellent,” Roland said. “I must only dispense with…this particular matter.”
“All of you,” Conbatten said to Setterdown, Chelderberry, and Berger, “either fire into the air and settle this thing or send your seconds to me to request a reappointment when Baderston has his eyesight back.”
The men shuffled and complained and talked amongst themselves. Berger and Chelderberry reluctantly fired in the air. Setterdown threw his chin up. “I am afraid I cannot allow the matter to drop, as it pertains to my sister.”
