“She did,” Theo agreed, with a mournful shake of his head. “And then forgave him three days hence, upon receipt of an apology rendered entirely in rhymed couplets.”
That won Hetty’s laugh, though she pressed a gloved hand to her mouth. “How is it that you remain so unshaken by all this? Everyone is positively livid, and yet you appear as though it were nothing more than a disarranged bouquet at a country fête.”
“Because itwasnothing more than that,” Theo said with a negligent lift of one brow. “A few sentiments bruised, a puddingupended and the merest hint of ruination. Really, I have witnessed worse on a Tuesday.”
“You might at least pretend to be appalled.”
“My dear Miss Tolliver,” he said, settling more comfortably against the column. “I assure you – I have never been more appallingly entertained in all my life.”
Hetty turned her face to the garden, lips pressed tightly, though a smile fought its way through all the same. “You may treat it as a jest, Theo, but I shall be banished. Mama will pack me off to Wiltshire to live out my days with Papa’s awful sister, Aunt Agnes, and her revolting geese, never to speak my name again except in shame.”
Theo considered this a moment. “And is that not precisely what you wished for?”
“Well, yes, I suppose,” she said with a huff, folding her arms tightly across her bodice. “But must you be so insufferably correct? Does it bring you great joy, being right at all times?”
“Yes, I daresay it does.”
She huffed again, this time more forcefully, as though it might expel the entire conversation from her chest. “Still… you need not make such light of it. This is not some parlour amusement. It is my life.”
“I am making light of it,” he said, gentler now as he pushed away from the column to stand closer to her. “Because if I do not, I must contend with the rather sobering reality that I am now expected to marry a woman who would sooner shoot me than take my name.”
“I said no such thing.”
He cocked his head. “I believe the exact phrasing was‘run through with my sister’s pistol’which, I must say, left little room for ambiguity.”
“You are misquoting me entirely.”
“Am I? Perhaps it was a gentle bayonetting you intended instead. Or were you merely threatening a graze to the shoulder?”
“I was making a point.”
“Well,” he said lightly, stepping closer still, “I must admit it was most effectively made. I have not felt so thoroughly threatened since Aunt Honoria attempted to teach me the quadrille.”
Had she not been so very vexed, Hetty might have laughed. As it was, she bit the inside of her cheek and resolved to show no mercy at the next opportunity. She let out a long, weary breath. “I truly did not intend for any of this to transpire.”
“I am well aware,” said Theo with a lopsided smile. “You merely sought to scandalise your mama and repel a few tedious suitors. It was a dreadful plan, of course.”
“Disastrous.”
“Abominable.”
“Morally questionable.”
“Oh, indubitably,” Theo agreed, still grinning. “Yet, I confess – I have rather enjoyed myself.”
She looked at him then and was struck cold for reasons entirely unrelated to the chill in the evening air: for all his irreverence and levity, he had remained, unshaken, unmoved, and very much by her side. He had not fled the drawing room, nor the dining table, nor the blaze of her disgrace. He had stood beside her through flamingducks, airborne trifle, and a hail of minted peas, as constant as the North Star, as she always knew he was.
Theo, ever the dramatist, extended his arm with a gallant sweep. “Come, Miss Tolliver. Let us return to the scene of the crime before someone takes it into their head to set the pianoforte alight.”
Hetty hesitated. “Or…”
“Or?”
“Or we might climb the garden wall and make for Scotland.”
He pretended to consider. “A tempting proposal. But I fear your mother would pursue us all the way to Gretna with a special license in one hand and a flaming duck in the other.”
She laughed and then blinked. “I… Good heavens, who said anything about Gretna Green?”
