Henrietta shook her head to clear it of unfortunate images, and looked pointedly at Penelope. "Back to the matter at hand…"
"Don't fuss, Hen. What's the worst that could have happened?"
"Disgrace?" suggested Charlotte.
"Marriage to Mr. Fitzhugh," warned Henrietta.
"Ugh," said Penelope.
"Exactly," said Henrietta crisply.
Henrietta was about to drive the point home, when she was distracted by the sound of booted footsteps in the doorway. Jerking her chair around, she saw the object of her earlier speculations leaning win-ningly against the doorjamb. He had clearly made the kitchen his first stop; he held one of Cook's ginger biscuits in either hand and was alternating taking bites from both.
"Good morning, ladies," he pronounced with a winning smile, only slightly marred by bulging cheeks.
"You do know Richard doesn't live here anymore?" snapped Penelope.
Henrietta waved a languid hand. "Oh, that doesn't make the slightest difference to Miles. He just comes here…"
"… for the meals," Miles obligingly finished for her, swallowing a final mouthful of ginger biscuit.
Henrietta cocked her head. "You're in good spirits this morning."
"How could I not be, with three such pulchritudinous ladies arrayed before me?" Miles swept an elaborate bow.
Charlotte blushed.
Penelope snorted.
Henrietta narrowed her hazel eyes suspiciously. "Last night it was, 'Run along, children; I'm flirting.'"
Miles clasped his hands behind his back and gazed up at the elaborate piasterwork of the ceiling. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"You have a new mistress?" Henrietta fished.
"Hen!" Charlotte exclaimed.
Miles wagged a finger, and pronounced, "You aren't supposed to know of such things."
Henrietta noticed that he didn't deny the allegation. "Don't you mean 'such women'?"
"Such states of affairs," Miles corrected loftily.
"Affairs are precisely what I was referring to," Henrietta said, rather more sharply than she had intended.
"Richard," Miles said ominously, "tells you altogether too much."
"If you knew half of what was whispered in the lady's retiring room, your ears would fall off in shock."
"Might be an improvement," muttered Penelope. "I don't think ears fall off just like that," put in Charlotte thoughtfully. "Whose ears are falling off?" enquired Lady Uppington, sweeping into the morning room in a rustle of emerald silk. "Miles's," said Penelope pointedly.
"Not before this evening, I hope. You will be coming with us to the Middlethorpes' ball tonight?"
"Uh…"
"Good. We'll call for you at those dreadful bachelor lodgings of yours at ten o'clock. That's ten o'clock, mind you. Not five to eleven."
"I had a problem with my cravat," protested Miles defensively. Lady Uppington emitted one of her infamous harrumphs. "Don't think I don't know your tricks by now, young man." Henrietta smothered a chuckle.
She failed to smother it well enough. Lady Uppington's shrewd green eyes lighted on her daughter. "Henrietta, darling, the lime green silk, I think, for tonight. I've just heard that Percy Ponsonby will be there — "
"I don't like Percy Ponsonby."
" — with Martin Frobisher."
"And Martin Frobisher doesn't like me."
"Don't be silly, darling, everyone likes you."
"No, he really doesn't like me."
"She spilt ratafia all over his new coat last week," explained Pen, exchanging an amused glance with Henrietta. "It was completely ruined," she added with relish.
"Pure sacrilege, ruining a coat by Weston," muttered Miles. "He said things no gentleman should say," Charlotte rose to her friend's defense.
"What did he say?" Miles asked darkly.
"Nothing like that!" snapped Henrietta. "He just made a suggestion regarding the balcony and placed his hand somewhere where his hand was not supposed to be."
"If he tries it again — " began Miles, just as Lady Uppington said frowningly, "When I see his mother at the Middlethorpes' tonight…"
"Oh, no," Henrietta groaned. "This is just why I didn't tell you. Mama, please don't speak to his mother about it. It would be too humiliating. And you" — she pointed at Miles — "whatever you were thinking about doing, just don't. I'm f ine."
"Unlike Martin Frobisher's coat," giggled Penelope.
"S!" Charlotte tried to kick Penelope but hit the claw foot of Penelope's chair instead, subsiding back into her own chair with a little cry of pain.
"Didn't you have shopping to do before tonight?" asked Henrietta pointedly of her former best friends, casting them an "I am never telling you anything ever again" look.
"Oh, goodness!" Lady Uppington clapped her hands together. "Charlotte, I promised your grandmother I would deliver you both to the modiste by noon. Come along now — chop-chop. No dawdling, Penelope."
"I'll stay home," interjected Henrietta. "I have some letters to write." Or at least, she could find some letters to write. To someone. She just didn't feel like picking over ribbons and squealing over flounces this morning. A nice gloomy horrid novel would be just the thing.
Lady Uppington cast Henrietta a sharp look, but her maternal eye failed to note any flush of fever, so she hustled Penelope and Charlotte out of the room in a flurry of flounces and rustle of petticoats, issuing orders all the while.
"Don't forget, Miles! Ten o'clock!"
Miles wandered out into the hallway. "How does she do that?"
"Black magic," replied Henrietta frankly, rising from the settee to join him just outside the morning room. "Eye of newt and toe of frog, with just a dash of essence of hedgehog."
"I heard that!" came Lady Uppington's voice from the other end of the hall.
"That also explains," added Henrietta confidentially, "her exceptionally good hearing." The front door clicked shut, cutting off the cacophony of female voices. Henrietta cocked her head to look up at Miles. "I need a favor of you."
Miles casually rested a hand against the wall above Henrietta's head.
"I'm listening."
They had stood that way a hundred times before — Miles liked leaning on things and against things and over things — but for the first time, Henrietta felt uncomfortable. Crowded. She was acutely aware of the stretch of Miles's arm next to her head, the muscles outlined against the well-tailored sleeve of his jacket. The warm, distinctly Miles scents of sandalwood and leather filled the space between them. He was so near that she could see the miniscule blond hairs on the underside of his chin, so near that to sway even slightly forward would bring her into his embrace.
Embrace and Miles were not concepts that went together; Henrietta found the thought distinctly unsettling.
So she did what any mature, poised young lady would do in such a situation. She poked him in the chest. "Do stop looming."
"Ouch!" Miles jumped back. "Don't I loom well?"
Henrietta moved quickly away from the wall. "Yes, splendidly, but it's very frustrating trying to carry on a conversation with the bottom of your chin. Valet knicked you shaving, did he?"
Miles's hand went protectively to the bottom of his chin.
She felt much better standing three feet away, with the black and white checks of tiled floor separating them. Much more like herself.
"About that favor…" she began.
Miles's eyes narrowed. "What sort of favor do you have in mind?"
Henrietta shook her head in exasperation. "Nothing as onerous as all that."
" 'Onerous,'" Miles said darkly, rubbing his abused waistcoat, "is a highly relative term."
"Will you dance with Charlotte tonight?"
"Why?" asked Miles suspiciously.
"What sort of nefarious ulterior motive could I possibly have?"
Miles cocked an eyebrow.
"You don't think… I'm not trying to matchmake!" Henrietta was surprised by the vehemence of her own reaction. "You're not Charlotte's type at all."