Theo offered a shrug. “Well, no. But I daresay it has been rather a lively few weeks. Good entertainment all round.”
Lottie stifled a laugh behind her napkin.
Benedict’s knife halted mid-cut. Slowly, deliberately, he placed it down and turned to face Theo. “So you kissed her beside the hedges,” he said, “with no intention of marrying her?”
“Good heavens, no,” Theo replied calmly. “It was under the wisteria, leaning against a column, if you must know. And truly, if I were expected to marry every woman I’ve kissed, I should be saddled with a rather alarming number of wives by now, and most of them quite cross with one another.”
Benedict leant across the table. “You find this amusing, do you, Langley?”
“I find, sir,” Theo said coolly, lifting his glass once more, “that your sister is more than equal to the task of conducting her own affairs – particularly those which exist solely in the imagination of our assembled company.”
Lady Langley, who had hitherto remained composed behind her crystal goblet, lowered it slowly and addressed the assembly in a tone that required no elevation to command attention. “Regardless of the original nature of this arrangement, there has been a public declaration. There has been a kiss – most indiscreet, in full view of hedges, wisteria, columns, and, more pertinently, half of Mayfair. Society has formed its conclusions. It shall not be persuaded otherwise by belated protests or girlish theatrics. The engagement, whether born of affection or artifice, now bears the stamp of expectation. And Society,” she added, her voice dropping with weighty precision, “has no greater abhorrence than a promise unfulfilled.” She placed her glass upon the tablecloth with quiet finality. “The matter is settled. The wedding shall proceed. You shall marry my son on Thursday morning, Miss Tolliver, whether you should like it or not.”
There was a long silence, and Lady Tolliver, apparently mistaking the pause for assent, gave a radiant nod and lifted her glass as though to toast the match.
Hetty rose, and slowly drew herself to her full height, lifting her chin with all the hauteur of a duchess addressing her inferiors. She looked to Lady Langley with unflinching resolve. “With all due respect, my lady, I should not care to wed any gentleman. Andcertainly not one whom I would sooner run through with my sister’s pistol than take as my lawful husband.”
There was a stunned beat of silence as Lady Langley blinked in shocked outrage, before Nell cried out, “My duck has feet!” and hoisting her napkin creature aloft. It promptly caught fire from the nearest candelabrum and transformed into a blazing comet arching through the air towards the tureen of peas.
What followed was not so much disorder as a magnificent unravelling of civility. Lady Tolliver gave a most impressive shriek. In an effort to rise, she missed her footing and stumbled backwards, directly into the sideboard where the trifle had been arranged. She collapsed amidst the syllabus and sponge, her emerald gown, jewels and all now covered in raspberry cream.
Georgie, with all the grace of a startled fawn, likewise sprang to her feet, sending the tureen of minted peas flying across the table. They struck Mortimer squarely in the face, which appeared to complete whatever spell Georgie had cast. He gave a sound not unlike a strangled heifer and, clutching at his face, flung himself beneath the tablecloth, wailing incoherently.
Lottie seized the nearest water jug and hurled its contents at the flaming napkin, missing it entirely. The water arced through the air and landed with a tremendous splash upon the centrepiece, extinguishing the candles, drowning the lilies and baptising Aunt Belinda’s coiffure.
“Not again!” wailed Aunt Belinda, rising from her seat and clutching at her wig, which, now sodden and askew, bore a distinct resemblance to a startled ferret.
The flaming napkin, having completed its brief but illustrious career atop the table, tumbled to the floor. Theo attempted to stamp it out with one booted foot, though he very nearly set fire to the hem of his coat in the process. Uncle John, in a display of rare initiative, flung his wine upon the blaze, but succeeded only in baptising the curtains, which darkened but, blessedly, did not ignite.
Cousin Edwina, seated beneath the drenched drapery, erupted into a violent fit of coughing just as her turban began to unwind, the layers of silk unspooling like a snake disturbed in its sleep.
Hetty, frozen at the epicentre of the disaster, could do naught but watch as her family dissolved into a tableau of flailing limbs, shrieks of alarm and ill-timed heroics. Her youngest sister was now aloft upon a dining chair, flapping her arms and yelling, “Quack! Quack! The duck is free! The duck is flying!”
The napkin, very much not flying, was now a charred pile of linen ashes beneath Theo’s boots and smouldering trousers. Through it all, Lord Tolliver had remained seated, watching in good cheer as though entirely satisfied with the fruits of his household’s peculiar brand of hospitality.
Lady Langley rose with stately composure and turned to a wide-eyed, hovering footman, “Kindly have the carriage brought round. And the brandy tray.” She paused, then added with an imperious lift of one brow, “At once.”
Aunt Celeste with her gown pristine but her expression positively volcanic, was fanning herself. “This is what comes,” she declared to no one in particular, “of allowing dinner guests to dabble in napkin origami.”
At the lower end of the table, a mound of crushed trifle heaved softly. Lady Tolliver, still swathed in raspberry preserves, pushed herself upright with a custard-slicked hand. “Henrietta Anne Tolliver. You will remove yourself from this dining room at once. Do not address me. Do not meet my eye. And Heaven preserve us both, do not utter a single syllable, lest I forget my breeding and take aim with the soup tureen.” With a glance so glacial it might have silenced a riot, she turned to the nearest footman. “A cloth, if you please. And spirits… brandy, laudanum, or holy water, I care not which. And if another soul in this house sets so much as a serviette alight, I shall summon a priest and have the lot of you exorcised!”
—♥—
Hetty pressed her back against the cool stone of a terrace column, drawing in long breaths, her bosom rising and falling as though she had run the length of Rotten Row in full evening dress and satin slippers.
Though she knew it was childishly petulant to think so, she could not help but feel the grossest injustice had been visited upon her. Thatsheshould be cast as the architect of such disaster, when all she had ever desired was but a modicum of freedom – and, above all, to be spared the interminable march down the matrimonial path – was, quite frankly, more than she could endure. Hadsheset fire to a duck-shaped napkin? Hadsheflung wine upon the curtains? Hadshecollapsed into a trifle like some operatic martyr?
At her side, Theo leant against the balustrade, perfectly untroubled by their unchaperoned state, or indeed by the fact that the evening had descended into unmitigated chaos of familial disgrace. He wasdabbing at a blotch of red wine upon his sleeve with the sort of idleness one might apply to the polishing of a boot or the adjustment of a cravat. “Do you suppose that my valet shall work some miracle upon this?”
Hetty ignored him and crossed her arms, the night air nipping at her bare shoulders, though her ire burnt warmer still. “Tonight was an unmitigated calamity. Your mother looked as though she had bitten into a lemon and found a wasp inside instead. She was very displeased with me.”
Theo did not glance up from his sleeve. “Oh, when is my mother ever not displeased? But she will forgive. Have you forgotten the treacle tart debacle at Lady Dalton’s garden party?”
“The afternoon Cousin Mortimer lost both his front teeth?”
“And his dignity,” Tho mused. “He attempted to challenge the cook to a duel.”
Hetty let out a breath that might have been a laugh if she weren’t quite so furious. “Lady Langley vowed never to forgive such vulgarity.”
