"Yes, of course." Theo sat up, blinking the sleep from her eyes. "I feel a bit as if someone hit me over the head with an ax, but… Oh, God…" She stared at her sister as memory flooded back. No wonder she'd slept so late; it had been almost three before she'd gone to bed… been put to bed.
"What is it?"
Theo combed her hands through her hair, tugging at the tangles. "I believe I said I'd marry Stoneridge," she announced slowly. "Clarry, I must have been mad."
"Oh, Theo, are you all right?" Emily spoke from the door before Clarissa could respond to Theo's startling statement.
"I don't think I can be," Theo said. "I'm heading for Bedlam. Oh, God!" She fell back on the bed and pulled the covers over her face. "Tell me it didn't happen."
"What didn't happen?"
"She agreed to marry Stoneridge," Clarissa informed her elder sister with a grin.
"Oh, I am glad," Emily said with heartfelt warmth. "He's such a nice man, Theo. I'm sure you'll suit… and you won't have to leave the manor now."
Theo flicked the covers from her face and said vigorously, "Stoneridge is not a nice man… He's many things, but nice is not one of them."
Clarissa nodded. "Yes, I agree. It's too… too sloppy a word to describe him."
"Well, forgive me," Emily said with some asperity. "I don't have your linguistic precision, clearly. Anyway, / like him, and so does Mama."
"But / don't," Theo wailed. "I detest him."
"But you can't," Clarissa said practically. "You wouldn't agree to marry a man you detested."
"Oh, you don't know how persuasive he can be," Theo said bitterly. Those moments in the rose arbor were embarrassingly vivid, his hands on her, inside her. Dear God, how had she ever let it happen? But she hadn't let it. It had just happened.
"Well, it's understandable that you'd have cold feet," Emily said with the brisk wisdom of one who'd been there before. "When Edward and I agreed to marry, I felt sick with nerves for days… worrying whether I was doing the right thing."
"Edward is not Stoneridge," Theo pointed out. "Edward is a nice man." She pushed aside the covers and got to her feet. "I'll have to tell him I made a mistake."
"Theo, you can't possibly do that!" Emily was genuinely shocked. "That's just like a common jilt… a flirt… Mama would never permit it."
"Mama wouldn't expect me to marry a man I loathed just because of an indiscreet moment," Theo stated.
"An indiscreet moment?" Clarissa inquired, her eyes alight with curiosity. "What happened?"
Theo felt herself blushing. "Nothing… it was nothing."
"Oh, come on, Theo. What happened? I'd dearly love to have an indiscreet moment."
Clarissa on the track of truth was like a terrier with a rat.
"I expect Theo means that the earl kissed her," Emily said with the same knowledgeable air as before. "It's perfectly proper between engaged couples… It's not at all indiscreet."
"But perhaps Theo means the earl kissed her before they became engaged," Clarissa said with a gleam in her eye. "Now, that would be indiscreet, wouldn't it?"
"Oh, be quiet, both of you!" Theo pulled off her nightgown and went to the dresser, bending to splash cold water on her face.
"Well, did he?" persisted Clarissa.
"If you must know, he did a great deal more than that," she said, her voice muffled by the towel as she dried her face.
"Theo!" exclaimed Emily.
"What did he do?" demanded Clarissa, regarding her sister's naked body with a new interest.
"I'm not saying." Hastily, Theo grabbed her chemise and pulled it over her head.
"Well, of course the earl is quite old," Emily observed judiciously. "A lot older than you, and much more worldly, I'm sure."
"Well, he would be – he was a soldier," put in Clarissa.
"But so is Edward."
"And I'll lay odds Edward's a lot more worldly now than he used to be," Theo said, glad to turn the spotlight away from herself. She rummaged through the armoire for a dress… something as plain as she could find. When she told Stoneridge she'd made a mistake, she didn't want him to remember what had led to the mistake.
"Have you told Mama yet?"
"No… It only happened a few hours ago. Everyone was asleep."
"You had an assignation in the middle of the night?"
"Not exactly… It wasn't an assignation… it was an accident." She pulled a hairbrush through her hair before deftly plaiting it. "In fact, this whole damn business has been one mistake after another."
"That's a bad word, Theo."
The three sisters whirled to the door. "Rosie, you really must learn not to creep up on people," Clarissa scolded.
"I wasn't. What's a jilt?"
"How long have you been hiding there?" Theo demanded, her mind racing backward, trying to remember what they'd been saying. It definitely hadn't been suitable for the child's ears.
"I wasn't hiding. I was just standing here," Rosie protested. "Is anyone going to come and catch butterflies with me?" She flourished the white net she held.
"No, not at the moment," Emily responded distractedly. Like Theo, she was trying to remember exactly what they'd said.
Rosie came into the room, hitching herself onto the bed. "So what's a jilt? Is Theo going to marry the earl?"
"One of these days those big ears of yours are going to get you into deep trouble," Theo threatened, scowling fiercely at her little sister.
"Is this a private party, or can anyone join in?" Elinor appeared smiling in the open doorway. "I was wondering why I was breakfasting alone. How are you feeling, Theo, dear?"
"I haven't been ill, Mama," Theo said.
"No, she's going to be a jilt," Rosie said. "But they won't tell me what that is… Oh, and she's going to marry the earl."
Her elder sisters sighed; their mother frowned. "Theo isn't marrying anyone, child, without my permission. And since there's been no discussion in my hearing on the subject, you may assume you misheard. Is that understood?"
"Yes, Mama." Chastened, Rosie slipped off the bed. "I just wanted someone to catch butterflies with me."
"Off with you." Her mother shooed her out the door before turning to the others. "Clarissa, Emily, I'd like to talk to Theo in private." The two exchanged a quick look with Theo and made themselves scarce, closing the door behind them.
Elinor sat on the window seat, regarding Theo gravely. "Now, perhaps you'd like to tell me what's going on."
Theo sighed and flopped onto the bed. "It's a mess, Mama…"
Elinor received a greatly edited version of the previous night's events, but if she guessed at the missing pieces, she gave no indication.
"So in the cold light of day you've changed your mind?"
"Yes," Theo said baldly.
"Then you'd best explain that to the earl with all dispatch," Elinor said, rising to her feet. "It's a most unpleasant thing to do to anyone under any circumstances, and you owe it to Stoneridge not to leave him in ignorance of the true state of your regard another instant."
"You're vexed," Theo stated.
Her mother turned at the door. "I simply wish that you had managed things with more principle, Theo. To agree to marry a man in one breath and withdraw it in the next smacks of an indelicacy that I find hard to accept in one of my daughters. I'm not going to imagine what went on between you and the earl last night, but if it gave him permission to believe you held certain feelings for him, I trust you will find it very uncomfortable to disabuse him."