Theo 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 pretending 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 theton, 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 weexpect 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.”
