Chapter 11
T heo Winslow was kissing her – and Hetty, to her equal horror and bewilderment, was kissing him back.
More than that, she found herself quite enjoying it, which was utterly preposterous.
Theo was the very boy who had once devoured six plums in rapid succession and been violently indisposed behind the stables.
The same boy who, at the tender age of seven, unveiled himself behind the gardener’s shed with all the pomp and ceremony of a prince revealing a national treasure – though Hetty had been far more captivated, at the time, by the gardener’s new beehive than anything Theo had hidden beneath his trousers.
She had even, and she was dreadfully ashamed to confess it, once harboured a childish fancy for him – a brief and mortifying infatuation common enough to girls before they come to understand that boys are, overall, sticky and insufferable creatures.
Yet now… now he was kissing her, and for one dreadful, delicious instant, Hetty forgot everything: her carefully planned scheme, her reputation, the inevitable true scandal surely brewing amongst the half-dozen matrons who were no doubt peering through the windows at that very moment.
In truth, she forgot they were pr etending at all, for there was nothing false in the press of his mouth against hers, nor any rehearsal in the way his hand tangled into her hair, nor in the quiet sound he made when she leant into him without quite meaning to.
And blast him – blast him a hundred times over – he was far too accomplished a kisser.
This, mind you, was her very first kiss – an occasion that ought, by all reasonable expectation, to have left her a blushing mess, yet it was nothing like the fumbling catastrophe she had spent the last fortnight rehearsing in the privacy of her own mind.
It was thoroughly, maddeningly good – the sort of kiss that sent her knees weak and her spine melting, and if she were honest with herself – which, naturally, she was not entirely – she rather enjoyed the sensation.
It was at that precise, ruinous moment – just as her pulse threatened to assume permanent residence in her throat – that she remembered what a terrible rake he was,and that she ought never, under any circumstances whatsoever, be caught kissing Theodore Winslow.
“Oh! Oh, my stars – is that Miss Tolliver? In the garden? With her betrothed? Unchaperoned, no less?”
Hetty froze as though struck with lightning, while beside her Theo muttered something so decidedly unfit for polite ears that it would have scandalised even the most hardened maiden aunt.
At the top of the terrace steps stood Miss Artemesia Pomeroy, a vision of scandalous delight, fanning herself so violently she might have taken flight. Flanking her was Lord Marchmont, propped against a pillar with all the lazy menace of a cat discovering a nest of unwary sparrows .
“Well,” Marchmont drawled, “this is… spirited. I had rather fancied it might be my privilege to steal a kiss beneath the wisteria, Miss Tolliver – but alas, it appears Lord Langley has once again laid claim to all the spoils.”
Hetty opened her mouth – whether to deliver a cutting retort or a formal declaration of war remained uncertain even to herself – and she rather suspected Theo was moments from earning expulsion from yet another London ball for engaging in fisticuffs.
The matter was swiftly rendered moot by a far more thunderous interruption.
A roar from the hedge rent the night asunder: “Winslow!”
A heartbeat later, a tall figure burst through a flowering archway with all the subtlety of a cavalry charge. His cravat was disarranged, his coat billowing behind him like a standard in full flight and his eyes blazed with the fire of righteous indignation.
“Oh God,” Hetty groaned.
Her elder brother, Benedict Tolliver, was many things: charming, dishevelled and recklessly impetuous among them – but presently, he was none of those. He was the very embodiment of wrath incarnate.
“You damned libertine!” he thundered, storming across the gravel with the momentum of a runaway carriage. “I leave Town but a single month – a month, Winslow! – and return to discover you with your tongue halfway down my sister’s throat!”
Theo, to his considerable credit, did not flinch. He drew himself to his full height, brushed a hand leisurely down the front of his coat and adjusted his cuffs with an ease that bordered on insolence. “A very good evening to you as well, Tolliver. ”
Ben’s eyes flashed. “Do not attempt civility with me, Winslow! I have known you long enough to discern the falseness beneath such polished manners.”
“It is Lord Langley now, if we are being proper.”
“Proper!” Ben spat. “Title or no, you do not take liberties with my sister beneath the cloak of night and expect to be met with courtesy!”
Hetty stepped forwards. “Benedict, for Heaven’s sake, lower your voice.”
“I shall do no such thing,” he snapped. “You may be content to dabble in scandal, but I will not stand idly by while Winslow drags your name through the mire! I know all too well the sort of man he is.”
“If you did,” Theo said lightly, “you might choose your words with greater discretion.”
“I speak with all the discretion left to me in the damned garden! For if you are kissing my sister in plain view of half the ton , then either you intend to ruin her utterly, or you have done so already.”
“Perhaps, Benedict,” Hetty said, lifting her chin, “you might entertain the radical notion that I am a willing participant.”
Benedict looked to her, stricken, as if the idea had never once occurred to him. “You cannot mean – ”
Lord Marchmont stepped forwards from the edge of terrace, where he had been standing beside Miss Pomeroy, both bearing the expressions of spectators at a particularly diverting play.
“Now, now,” he interjected, folding his hands behind his back, “this has taken on the air of a Grecian tragedy, albeit with rather more silk and considerably fewer daggers. One cannot but be captivated. Shall we expect pistols at dawn? I ask only so that I might select a suitably splendid waistcoat.”
Hetty observed immediately the tightening of Theo’s jaw and the subtle shift of his stance. He turned deliberately to Marchmont. “Might I suggest you take your wit and your commentary to a more welcome corner of the garden? Or better yet, direct them to the devil himself.”
“And forgo the dramatic conclusion?” Marchmont smiled. “I think not.”
Ben squared his shoulders. “You shall meet me, Winslow. At dawn. I demand satisfaction for my sister’s honour.”
Theo did not so much as blink. “As you wish.”
Miss Pomeroy let out a delighted little squeal, fanning herself with increasing vigour. “Oh, a duel! How romantic!”
Hetty crossed her arms and regarded them all with a calmness that might have silenced a Parliament of Lords.
“Are we quite finished? Unless one of you intends to expire dramatically upon a sword within the next half-minute, I suggest we remember this is Lady Pritchard’s garden – not the final act of some over-wrought gothic novel. ”
Marchmont chuckled. “On the contrary, Miss Tolliver, I find this particular drama most exquisitely penned.”
“Splendid,” Hetty said crisply. “Then you may read about it in The Morning Gazette , as will the rest of the ton . But I have no intention of standing here like some swooning heroine whilst the gentlemen posture and puff themselves into a fine frenzy.” She turned sharply to her brother.
“You may bear the family name, Benedict, but do not presume to command its use. Remember that well before you dispatch any further of my so-called suitors to pistols at dawn.”
Theo looked on as if tempted to smile, until Hetty rounded upon him. “And you, Lord Langley, will refrain from humouring this absurdity out of some misplaced notion of chivalry. Should either of you bleed before breakfast, I shall never forgive either one of you!”
“Well said, my girl,” came a voice from the top of the steps. “Though I must add, should anyone be wounded before breakfast, it will most certainly spoil the marmalade.”
All heads turned to behold Lord Tolliver making his leisurely descent into the garden, his evening coat somewhat disordered and a book tucked beneath one arm, as though he had merely sought a quiet refuge for reading and had been unwittingly waylaid by the evening’s high drama.
“Now then,” he said, coming to a halt betwixt Theo and Ben, who remained locked in mortal glare, “who is duelling whom, and pray tell, is it for something as tedious as honour or something as amusing as goats?”
“It is not amusing, Father,” Ben snapped. “Winslow has kissed Hetty.”
Lord Tolliver blinked. “Well, naturally. They are betrothed.”
“They are what?”
“You were unaware?” Lord Tolliver looked genuinely perplexed. “I believe it was reported in the papers. Or perchance your Mama mentioned it in one of her – ah – rather detailed letters?”
“I do not read the newspapers,” said Ben stiffly. “And the last correspondence I received from Mama consisted of no less than twelve pages devoted to a pigeon infestation and a recipe for plum preserves.”
“Ah.” Lord Tolliver gave a sympathetic nod. “Then yes, you’ve missed rather a bit.”
Ben turned sharply to his sister. “Hetty. Is it true? You are engaged? To him?”
“I am,” Hetty answered coolly. “Though if you persist in bellowing like a fishmonger at Billingsgate, I shall be forced to call off the entire affair on the grounds of sheer embarrassment.”
Ben opened his mouth, likely to resume his righteous bellowing, but Lord Tolliver raised a placating hand.
“Now, now, let us not enlarge the spectacle beyond what is already quite sufficient. The engagement is perfectly proper. Lord Langley is neither lunatic nor notorious libertine – well, no more so than is currently fashionable. And, to my relief, he has yet to burden me with unsolicited opinions on naval strategy, which is more than I can say for your fellow with the sideburns, Hetty.”
“She did not have fellow with sideburns!” Ben barked.
“Not one you were aware of,” Lord Tolliver mused. “But, as ever, that is scarcely the point.”
Ben clenched his jaw, turning upon Theo once more. “You may style yourself Langley now, but I have known you since you were scarcely out of knee breeches, Winslow… And I know your sort! Should you have compromised her – ”
“I would marry her a hundred times over before dishonouring her,” Theo snapped .
A silence descended upon the garden, so complete that even Miss Pomeroy ceased her fluttering fan, mouth slightly open in breathless rapture.
Hetty sighed and rubbed her temples. “Wonderful. Now everyone is being noble. Might we retire indoors before someone begins reciting Byron or, Heaven forbid, firing pistols into the shrubbery?”
Lord Tolliver nodded. “Excellent suggestion my dear. I have always found pistol fire quite disagreeable to wisteria.”
With that, the party retreated indoors as though they had merely taken a leisurely turn about the garden, and not, in truth, narrowly averted the spectacle of a duel at dawn.
One could always count on Society to preserve an air of composed decorum in the face of impending scandal.
Miss Pomeroy, resuming her fan with a flutter, looked positively ready to swoon from romantic satisfaction.
Marchmont lingered, of course, his smile sharpened to a knowing edge, as if the entire scene had been contrived solely for his entertainment.
Benedict strode ahead, muttering darkly beneath his breath, stiff with the indignation of a brother entirely too late to intervene.
As for Hetty, she walked beside Theo with chin held high and spine as straight as the stiffest stays, as though such impeccable posture might silence the rather distracting recollection of his mouth upon hers.
By all rights, she ought to be mortified, or at the very least, incensed.
Instead, she found herself possessed of an altogether intolerable sense of uncertainty and suspended disbelief, which was proving far more vexing than any scandal .
Why, in the name of all that was rational, had Theo kissed her?
Such liberty was decidedly absent from the terms of their arrangement.
Had she, unwittingly or otherwise, betrayed some imperceptible cue that might have encouraged him?
Had she smiled too fondly? Tilted her chin just so?
Or was it simply that Theo, with all the practiced ease of a seasoned player, had acted on the time-honoured impulse to kiss whichever lady occupied his thoughts most persistently?
Or more troubling, was it possible that he was playing the part with such exquisite skill that even he no longer quite distinguished performance from passion?
Three weeks, she reminded herself grimly.
Three weeks of this masquerade – of carefully contrived appearances in the Park, smiles artfully fashioned to appear besotted, and stolen glances designed to suggest affection rather than impatience, and, Heaven preserve her, three more weeks of the painstaking avoidance of any further kisses from Theodore Winslow.
At the conclusion of those three weeks, she would be properly, publicly, and irreversibly ruined, which, she reminded herself with some desperation, had always been the plan.
Even so, a most un-Hetty-like flutter of doubt stirred within her breast, and she could not help but wonder – somewhat hysterically – what exactly, she had set in motion.