He would soon wear a very different expression.
Trem raised his voice to the crowd.
“I am sorry to report that there has been an egregious mistake in our lovely garden this evening, ladies and gentlemen.”
Another murmur ran through the crowd; this time it was one of confusion, rather than surprise.
“Lady Henrietta cannot be engaged to Lord Hartley—because she is engaged to me.”
The crowd gasped. Hartley spluttered beside him.
For a moment, the entire ballroom was silent. No one seemed to know what to say. And then, he heard a set of clapping hands and a cheer that sounded remarkably like Montaigne’s. More clapping followed until the crowd roared.
“Thank you for indulging our little theatrical. Such farces are common in Arcadia,” he yelled, hoping he could further confuse the crowd as to the seriousness of Hartley’s proclamation.
Trem bowed to the onlookers, which only made them clap all the more.
He felt rather than saw Hartley storm off the stage. He wished he could kiss Henrietta, but he had to settle for merely looking her in the face. She looked pale but happy. Her broad smile told the world that he had the right of it.
“And now,” he yelled over the crowd, “I urge you to follow our generous hostess’s merry satyrs into supper.”
The crowd laughed and began to move towards the banquet hall.
Trem helped Henrietta down from the stage. He was about to speak to her—to curse Hartley—when he felt a firm hand wrench his elbow.
“What in the devil was that?”
John. His best friend had a stricken look on his face.
“What it looked like,” Trem retorted, “I am engaged to your sister.”
Leith and Montaigne sidled up near Henrietta. Montaigne looked amused, but Leith appeared almost as stricken as John.
“Do you want to explain that amateur drama, Trem?” Leith spat out, as if it were his sister that he had just announced his engagement to.
“It is a simple affair,” Trem said. “Hartley was confused. He and Lady Henrietta had a conversation this afternoon that he took as her agreement to marry him. But she just accepted my suit on the balcony.”
“Confused? Can a man be that confused, Trem?” Leith questioned, his eyes bulging.
“Hopeful, maybe,” Montaigne chimed in. “He has been after Henrietta all season. Bloody embarrassing for him, I’d say.”
“Oh, would you?” Leith retorted, looking at Montaigne like he was cracked.
“Why would the Earl of Hartley think he was engaged to Henrietta?” John spat. “Henrietta? Would you like to grace us with an explanation?”
Trem resisted the urge to tell John to ease his questioning. But he didn’t want the man to become irate at such a delicate juncture.
“It is as Trem says,” Henrietta said, her voice much fainter than usual. “Hartley must have been confused. He did ask me to marry him—very recently. I said no. But gentlemen—you know how they can be—sometimes—they won’t take no for an answer. He must have thought I was being coy.”
Trem saw the tension ease in John’s face. Then another cloud appeared.
“But—but—” John stammered. “You two—since when?”
Now that he had absorbed the true import of what had just passed up on Lady Worthington’s stage, John seemed almost beyond words. Trem did not think he had ever seen his friend so stunned. And that was saying something. He had once seen him knocked clean off his horse by a low-hanging branch. He had seen him discover that a high-class courtesan he had just bedded was, in fact, his cousin (long story). And he had once seen him sit on a chamber pot with a live frog in it (even longer story). But on none of these occasions had John looked as stunned as he did now.
“You…and…my…sister?” John repeated.
These words gained the attention of the other guests milling into the ballroom. One group not only noticed their little enclave but drifted over the join them. Bollocks, Trem cursed to himself. Now, if he was murdered, there would be spectators. The group was comprised of three men and two women—a group of aristocrats who were like wallpaper to Trem. They were at all the events of the season that he attended and yet he never spoke to them. The Viscount and Viscountess of Brightley, the Earl and Countess of Something-He-Always-Struggled-to-Remember, and the Honorable Mr. Sutton, the Earl of What-Have-You’s youngest son.
