Page 46 of Death at the Dower House
Christopher glanced at me. “I’m sure they did that, too. But someone probably thought it would be a clever idea to challenge him to make a choice between them, and that wouldn’t have gone over well.”
Clearly not.
“But Lady Laetitia was in the past, surely,” Tom said, “and Johanna was the new blood.”
“I got the impression that Lady Laetitia didn’t want to be in the past,” I told him. “When she and her brother arrived yesterday, she greeted St George like she thought she had a current claim on him.”
“Or at least like she wanted the rest of us to think she did,” Christopher added.
I glanced at him. “Just Johanna, surely?” Why would she care what the rest of us thought?
“Johanna and you,” Christopher said. “I doubt she considered Constance to be proper competition.”
“But she thought I was? Who would considermeas competition for St George’s title and fortune?”
“Anyone who’s heard him call you Darling, I imagine,” Christopher said.
I shook my head. “Don’t be ridiculous, Christopher. It’s my name.”
In a manner of speaking, anyway. What it is, is an Anglicization of my German surname of Schatz, since 1914 wasn’t a good time to arrive in England with a German surname.
“Besides,” I added, “surely everyone can tell that he just uses it because he knows it irritates me.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Christopher answered. “And you must know that you’re not helping your case when you behave as you did on that particular occasion.”
“What do you mean? How did I behave?”
Tom looked interested in the answer, too. I most definitely was, because as far as I could recall, I had behaved in a perfectly rational manner.
“You stalked across the floor to him, snatched his handkerchief out of his pocket, and used it to wipe her lipstick off his mouth.”
“I did not!”
“Did so,” Christopher said.
I eyed him, since there was some truth to what he said. He had the movements right, if not the implications of them. “I may have crossed the floor and reminded him that he had a pocket square on his person and lipstick on his face. I won’t say I didn’t. I may even have taken said pocket square out of his pocket and used it on him. I did not, however, do it in what you make sound like a very possessive manner. I do not feel possessive towards St George.”
Christopher arched his brows.
“I don’t! What she did was inappropriate. Completely and utterly appalling. To subject us to it—to subjecthimto it!—was inexcusable, especially in front of us all. She didn’t even wait for permission, just waded right in! What if he didn’t want to kiss her? Just because he’s a man doesn’t mean that kind of thing is acceptable! And aside from that, he looked ridiculous.”
“I’m not arguing,” Christopher answered. “I’m simply pointing out that someone who doesn’t know you well could misconstrue something like that as jealousy on your part.”
“Eurgh!”
“And then, when he abandoned Johanna in the middle of the dance floor to remove you from Marsden—”
“He didn’t abandon her,” I said. She hadn’t allowed him to.
“He stopped dancing with her to approach you. Specifically, to take you away from what might look like a romantic tête-à-tête with Marsden in the corner of the sofa…”
“Romantic?” My voice rose, into a range only decipherable by bats. “You call what happened to meromantic?”
“Naturally I don’t,” Christopher said. “But for someone watching, that could also be construed as an attachment, this time on Crispin’s part.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” It struck me that I had used that particular word quite a lot in this conversation, but really, what other word would be as apt? “That’s ludicrous, Christopher. St George doesn’t like me any better than I like him, and you know it. The only reason he stopped dancing with Johanna—who was still clinging to him like a vine when he asked me to dance, by the way—was because I managed to catch his eye while he was dancing with her. If I hadn’t, he wouldn’t even have noticed what was going on.”
Christopher muttered something. It might have sounded like, “Don’t be too sure,” or perhaps, “That’s whatyouthink,” but since it couldn’t possibly have been either, I pretended I hadn’t heard it.
