“It is folly.”
“It is none of your concern. And speaking of meddling?—”
The door opened.
Both she and Peregrine turned sharply to see a figure standing in the doorway.
“Oh, Mr Mainwaring,” Viola said breathlessly, a hand fluttering to her throat. “You startled me.”
“I wondered where you had gone,” Mainwaring said, leaving the door ajar as he cast Peregrine a suspicious look. “Intermission is about to begin.”
He stepped closer to Viola. “Is this gentleman troubling you? If so, you need only say the word, and I shall see him removed.”
“Removed?” Peregrine echoed sharply. “My dear sir, I have no notion who you are?—”
“My name is Mainwaring. Theophilius Fergus Mainwaring,” he declared. “And what I want is for you to unhand Lady Viola, as she clearly does not wish for your company.”
“Not at all, Mr Mainwaring,” Viola began, but Peregrine cut in.
“I beg your pardon,” he said stiffly. “I am not assaulting Lady Viola to warrant such rudeness. I do not suffer insults lightly.”
Mainwaring ignored him. He seized Viola’s arm and tugged her toward him. “Come away with me, Lady Viola.”
“Hands off, Mainwaring,” Peregrine snapped, grasping her other arm and pulling her back.
Viola found herself literally torn between the two men, with each of them pulling on an arm.
None of them had noticed that intermission had begun, that the door now stood wide open, and that they had gained a very attentive audience, one that appeared far more engaged by this spectacle than by the concert itself.
“I shall call you out in earnest,” Peregrine hissed.
“It would be my pleasure,” Mainwaring retorted, “once you release Lady Viola.”
“I shall do so once you release her first.”
“Now, see here?—”
“Both of you,” a cold voice cut in, “will release Lady Viola at once.”
All heads turned.
Sebastian stood in the doorway, his expression hard and furious.
“You again,” Mainwaring muttered.
“And what claim do you have upon her?” Peregrine demanded.
“Clearly more than either of you,” Sebastian stepped toward them.
Mainwaring scowled. “And why is that?”
There was a brief, charged pause. Sebastian’s gaze, had it been an actual sword, would have slain him on the spot.
“Lady Viola is my wife.”
A murmur rippled through the room.
Viola gasped. Oh dear, oh dear! This hadn’t been planned at all. What now? She looked from one face to another. Sebastian’sfurious one, Mainwaring’s bewildered one, and Peregrine’s slack-jawed one.
