“I’m not trying to impress you,” he replied, glancing up at the front of the room. “Gads,” he said, blinking in surprise. “What is that?”
Hyacinth followed his gaze. Several of the Pleinsworth progeny, one of whom appeared to be costumed as a shepherdess, were milling about.
“Now that’s an interesting coincidence,” Gareth murmured.
“It might be time to start bleating,” she agreed.
“I thought this was meant to be a poetry recitation.”
Hyacinth grimaced and shook her head. “An unexpected change to the program, I’m afraid.”
“From iambic pentameter to Little Bo Peep?” he asked doubtfully. “It does seem a stretch.”
Hyacinth gave him a rueful look. “I think there will still be iambic pentameter.”
His mouth fell open. “From Peep?”
She nodded, holding up the program that had been resting in her lap. “It’s an original composition,” she said, as if that would explain everything. “By Harriet Pleinsworth. The Shepherdess, the Unicorn, and Henry VIII.”
“All of them? At once?”
“I’m not jesting,” she said, shaking her head.
“Of course not. Even you couldn’t have made this up.”
Hyacinth decided to take that as a compliment.
“Why didn’t I receive one of these?” he asked, taking the program from her.
“I believe it was decided not to hand them out to the gentlemen,” Hyacinth said, glancing about the room. “One has to admire Lady Pleinsworth’s foresight, actually. You’d surely flee if you knew what was in store for you.”
Gareth twisted in his seat. “Have they locked the doors yet?”
“No, but your grandmother has already arrived.”
Hyacinth wasn’t sure, but it sounded very much like he groaned.
“She doesn’t seem to be coming this way,” Hyacinth added, watching as Lady Danbury took a seat on the aisle, several rows back.
“Of course not,” Gareth muttered, and Hyacinth knew he was thinking the same thing she was.
Matchmaker.
Well, it wasn’t as if Lady Danbury had ever been especially subtle about it.
Hyacinth started to turn back to the front, then halted when she caught sight of her mother, for whom she’d been holding an empty seat to her right. Violet pretended (rather badly, in Hyacinth’s opinion) not to see her, and she sat down right next to Lady Danbury.
“Well,” Hyacinth said under her breath. Her mother had never been known for her subtlety, either, but she would have thought that after their conversation the previous afternoon, Violet wouldn’t have been quite so obvious.
A few days to reflect upon it all might have been nice.
As it was, Hyacinth had spent the entire past two days pondering her conversation with her mother. She tried to think about all the people she had met during her years on the Marriage Mart. For the most part, she had had a fine time. She’d said what she wished and made people laugh and had rather enjoyed being admired for her wit.
But there had been a few people with whom she had not felt completely comfortable. Not many, but a few. There had been a gentleman during her first season with whom she’d been positively tongue-tied. He had been intelligent and handsome, and when he’d looked at her, Hyacinth had thought her legs might give out. And then just a year ago her brother Gregory had introduced her to one of his school friends who, Hyacinth had to admit, had been dry and sarcastic and more than her match. She’d told herself she hadn’t liked him, and then she’d told her mother that she thought he seemed the sort to be unkind to animals. But the truth was—
Well, she didn’t know what the truth was. She didn’t know everything, much as she tried to give the impression otherwise.
But she had avoided those men. She’d said s