Lady Tolliver sat resplendent and watchful in a gown of emerald which, though not quite fashionable, was certainly eye-catching. Her eyes darted constantly between her eldest daughter and the gentleman she had all but strong-armed into a formal engagement.
When the conversation had reached a particularly discordant lull – Aunt Belinda was attempting to describe the topography of the lake where the swan boat incident had occurred – Lady Tolliver cleared her throat with the sort of authority that could hush Parliament. “Well,” she announced, raising her glass, “I believe now is as good a time as any to share our most joyful news.”
Theo, in the midst of sipping his wine, stilled. Hetty went rigid.
“I have obtained a special license,” Lady Tolliver declared. “The wedding shall take place a week hence, on Thursday!”
“What wedding?” asked Uncle John vaguely, fumbling in his waistcoat pocket for a boiled sweet, which he then examined with deep suspicion before returning to its lint-lined resting place.
Hetty choked on her wine. Theo reached for her glass and substituted it with water before her coughing had subsided.
“My wedding?” Hetty said faintly, at precisely the same moment Theo asked somewhat helplessly, “Whose wedding?”
Lady Tolliver’s smile was benign, but her eyes sparkled with triumph. “Why, yours, of course. There is no sense in delay when thematter is already settled, and a special licence grants us the happy liberty to proceed without further ado. Banns are all very well, but in cases of pressing importance – and let us not feign ignorance of certain columnar circumstances – one must act swiftly. The Archbishop was most obliging.”
Lady Langley gave a slow nod. “A wise course, given the present climate.”
Theo, who had gone rather pale, leant nearer to whisper, “Are we to be married next Thursday?”
Hetty, blinking rapidly, replied, “Apparently so.”
Across from them, Benedict Tolliver – who had spent the better part of the first course scowling over his soup and had already torn his bread roll in half with unnecessary violence – shoved his chair back with such violence that the furniture groaned in protest. “You cannot be serious, Mother.”
“I am always serious,” said Lady Tolliver. “The scandal has reached a fever pitch. I have it on excellent authority that even the fishmonger in Hanover Square has taken to offering knowing bows. When the purveyors of haddock are in possession of your secrets, I should say it is time for swift and decisive action. Do you wish your sister’s offspring to arrive beneath a fog of whispered speculation and disgrace?”
“I am not with child!” Hetty exclaimed, nearly overturning her glass.
“Not yet,” her mother returned crisply, “but one must prepare for these eventualities. The Tolliver name is not so robust that it can survive prolonged scandal and unsanctioned public affection.”
Aunt Celeste Fairfax – who was identical in appearance to Aunt Belinda, though she insisted she was the elder by three minutes and infinitely superior in all other respects – lowered her spoon with exquisite precision and turned a smile of glacial sweetness upon her younger sister and hostess. “My dear,” she began in tones dripping with judgement, “this does seem rather precipitous. A wedding arranged within the week? With a special licence, no less? One might almost suspect haste borne of desperation.”
“Nonsense,” Lady Tolliver replied. “They are betrothed, are they not? They are besotted, and they kissed in a hedge for all the world to see. I daresay vows are the only reasonable next step.”
“It was not in a hedge,” Hetty muttered.
“The hedge was merely adjacent, if the gossip columns are to be believed,” Georgie offered helpfully.
“Yes, well, I ought to have perished in that hedge,” Hetty retorted.
“Must we persist in hedge-based commentary?” Theo said lightly. “Had I known one errant kiss would result in a special licence, I should have taken my chances in the rose garden – or the scullery.”
At this, Aunt Belinda gave a tipsy giggle, while Aunt Celeste tsked and raised a brow.
“This is absurd,” Hetty said suddenly, rising from her seat. “Mama, Lady Langley, I must speak plainly. There is no engagement. There has never been an engagement.I merely wished for a touch of scandal – sufficient to remove myself from the marriage mart’s tiresome parade.”
There was a delicate clatter as someone set down a spoon.
“You are not engaged?” Aunt Belinda inquired faintly.
“You mean to say,” said Cousin Edwina, adjusting her turban with tragic solemnity, “that this entire household has been living beneath an illusion?”
Lady Tolliver straightened as though bracing against cannon fire. “There most certainly is an engagement.”
“I suppose there was an engagement, Mama,” Hetty said with a sigh, resuming her seat. “But it was a temporary understanding only – a contrivance, agreed upon by Lord Langley and myself, and never intended to reach the altar. We had planned to dissolve the matter quietly before the end of the Season.”
Lady Tolliver’s hand went, somewhat theatrically, to her throat. “You might have warned me,” she whispered, as though Hetty had snatched the pearls from her very neck.
Uncle Alfred, who had thus far been enjoying his pudding in oblivious silence, looked up in vague alarm. “What’s this? No engagement?”
