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Robyn couldn’t prevent his bark of laughter, which he disguised as a cough by pressing his hand to his mouth and hacking dramatically. “Pardon me. Happens every spring. Must be something in bloom. Think it might be the dogwoods.”

He coughed again, just for effect.

Georgine suddenly found a pillow’s silk fringe utterly fascinating.

Robyn swore her lips twitched as she too wrestled to keep her mirth in check.

“What I mean to say, Miss Thackerly,” Mrs. Wynecott leaned forward and waved a hand up and down toward Georgine. “You are in a state of dishabille, and Mr. Fitzlloyd was practically lying in your lap. Even I, who takes the greatest care not to jump to assumptions, must admit I was taken aback. The scene I came upon smacked of scandalous impropriety.”

She elevated a caterpillar eyebrow. “One might mistake you for…paramours.”

Her last word came forth as a singsong hiss.

Only someone with a tosspot for a brain.

Georgine tilted her head and delivered another of her sweet smiles, something Robyn had learned meant she was about to send a dart to target. “Fama, malum qua non aliud velocius ullum.”

And we have a bullseye.

She had quoted from Virgil’s Aeneid.

Robyn wanted to applaud.

Furrowing her broad forehead, Mrs. Wynecott looked to Robyn, then Georgine, and finally to Miss Twigg as if she weren’t positive if she had just been insulted, but suspected she had been.

Evidently, Mrs. Wynecott did not speak Latin.

“It is a quote from Aeneid by Virgil, Mrs. Wynecott. ‘Rumor—an evil than which no other is more swift.’” Miss Twigg lifted her chin and met her curmudgeon of an employer’s gaze head-on. “It means gossip or hearsay becomes more exaggerated, distorted, or sensational the more it spreads.”

Yes indeed, the mouse had found her squeak—and rather a sharp one, at that.

“I know what it means, Miss Twigg.” Mrs. Wynecott inhaled an affronted breath, her chins quivering in outrage. “I did not come here to be insulted.”

She stood, the epitome of offended snootiness, and pressed her ledger to her chest.

“I regret to inform you, Mr. Fitzlloyd, that St. Winifred’s Charity Garden and Fancy Fair does not have volunteer opportunities for either you or your sister this year.”

Praise God and all the saints.

She leveled a blistering glare at Georgine.

“Nor your houseguest. If that is what you choose to call her.” She gave a disdainful sniff. “Though the evidence suggests something far more improper.”

“My attire reveals far less of my form than does yours, Mrs. Wynecott.” Georgine regarded the infuriated woman unflinchingly. “Perhaps you should have the seams let out—several inches.”

Miss Twigg smiled, but quickly subdued her humor, lest her overbearing employer notice.

All pretense of geniality gone, Mrs. Wynecott pointed and wagged a thick finger between Robyn and Georgine.

“A Christian fundraiser cannot be associated with immoral and dissolute conduct.” She speared Robyn a self-righteous glare. “Have you no thought for your sister’s reputation, sir? To carry on with your mistress under the same roof?”

Devil take it.

Too bloody far.

He shot Georgine a swift glance.

She appeared composed, but he saw the hurt shining in her blue eyes.