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‘Lillian! Lillian, my love!’
Let me tell you, when that shout came from behind me, it was the last thing I expected. I still could hardly believe it when a moment later, Morton Marmeduke Fitzgerald stumbled around the corner, huffing and puffing on his short legs. He was the most unlikely guardian angel I had ever set eyes on, and the first suitor ever in my life I was actually glad to see.
Lord Dalgliesh apparently was just as surprised to see Mr Fitzgerald as I was. Good.
‘Morton!’ Tearing myself out of Lord Dalgliesh’s loosened grip, I hurled myself at Mr Fitzgerald, crushing him against me. ‘I’m so happy to see you!’
‘Um…you are?’
‘Yes, of course, my dear!’
Morton blinked. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course, silly! We just got engaged, remember?’ Half-turning, I threw a very significant look at Lord Dalgliesh. ‘I’m so happy! Morton is such a good man, and important, too. There would be such an outcry if anything were to happen to him.’
‘Indeed?’ Lord Dalgliesh sized me up for a moment - then his gaze slid to Mr Fitzgerald, and he gave a ‘Well, you can’t judge a book by its cover’-shrug. His eyes found mine again, and they were steel-blue slits. ‘I’ll take your word for it, Miss Linton. Although I think, of the two of you, you are far more important.’
Half-turning, he gave a sharp nod. ‘Until we meet again, Miss Linton.’
And he strode away into the darkness.
‘Who was that, darling?’ Mr Morton asked, beaming up at me.
‘No one of consequence,’ I lied. ‘Shall we go inside?’
‘Yes! Wait until everybody hears the news! They’ll all be so excited! Especially your aunt!’
I shuddered. ‘Oh yes, I’ll bet she’ll be.’
Taking a deep breath, I let myself be led back into the house of Lady Abercrombie. Now I had two big problems facing me. Namely, in rising order of importance:
How was I going to get away from this party alive without Dalgliesh getting his hands on me?
And, much more importantly:
How the hell was I going to get rid of my new fiancé?
*~*~**~*~*
I could describe the reaction with which my aunt greeted the announcement of our engagement when I and Morton - or Morty, as he asked me to call him - came back into the ballroom. I definitely could. However, I don’t really want to. If you had been hurled into the darkest pit of hell with gleeful harpies cackling above, you wouldn’t be particularly eager to talk about it either, trust me.
Suffice it to say that it took her only three minutes and twenty-seven seconds to spread the news through the whole ballroom, and when she was done, she sat happily in the middle of a circle of congratulatory well-wishers, as if she were the happy bride-to-be, smiling at everybody, while in her head counting the social and monetary advantage this would bring. To judge by the breadth of her smile, they both were considerable.
‘Lillian, my love! Shall we dance?’
I tried to manage a smile at the man I refused to think of as my future husband. ‘Um…of course, err…Morty. I’d be delighted to.’
When hell freezes over!
He pulled me onto the dance floor, and I let him. The dance began. Half-heartedly, I tried to smash his feet, but I hadn’t really counted on it working. His feet appeared to be nearly as hard as Mr Ambrose’s head. He would be nearly impossible to get rid of.
And do you know what the worst of it was?
Part of me liked Morty!
He seemed to be - wonder of wonders - a decent man, a nice man even, who cared about his tenants and just wanted to live a quiet life in the country. If I had to pick a man with whom to spend a nice, quiet evening and discuss the benefits of sheep dung as crop fertiliser, I would probably have picked him. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to stab him in a dark alley with my parasol rather than marrying him!
After three more dances, tradition demanded that the happy couple - thank God! - split up to dance with other people. I lost sight of Morty, but I always took care to stay in the centre of the crowd, far away from any dark corners. Once or twice I spotted Lord Dalgliesh, and from the way he looked at me I could tell he had not given up.
