Page 24

COCKTAILS AND COCKCHAFERS

S everal things happened as Georgette fell: the sound of a dozen people scrabbling to their feet filled the room, something shattered loudly, and several people—not all of them women—shrieked. She bit her tongue when she hit the floor, and the metallic taste of blood filled her mouth.

“Miss Hawkridge!”

“Mind the pig!”

“Georgette!”

“Andrew, fetch help, quickly.”

“Zounds, what the devil is that?”

“Be not alarmed, sir. I think it is only a?—”

“Look lively! ’Tis crawling up your arm, man!”

Another frantic shuffle and a muted grunt.

“Be careful of its antennae, they are extremely delicate!”

“Georgette, can you hear me? ”

“Gads! Get it off him!”

“There is no need to use your shoe, sir!”

Another wild bellow and several hearty guffaws of laughter preceded a second smash as something else was knocked over. Georgette was somewhat mollified to know she was not the only casualty. Still, the plan had not been that she would get as far as the floor.

“Georgette?” someone, perhaps Elizabeth, whispered urgently over the chaos.

Georgette kept her eyes closed and feigned shallow breaths. If one was going to be theatrical, it was always best to commit to the performance. Though, her bloodied mouth gave rather more verisimilitude to the act than she had intended.

Arms slid beneath her—solid, warm arms, but not the right ones. She would know Anderson’s embrace anywhere, and whilst his hold would be strong, firm, and unapologetic, these arms were hesitant, careful.

“Can you hear me, madam?”

Mr Darcy. Drat! She owed Elizabeth an apology. Only a small one though—the woman married to these arms would have little need for the sympathy of others. Mr Darcy lifted her off the floor, and she allowed her head to loll sideways, drawing a gasp from someone.

“Georgette? Can you hear me?”

Lilly. She felt a flicker of guilt, but it passed quickly, replaced by vexation that almost every person in the room had now come to her aid but the one person who had been meant to catch her.

“Oh Lord! She has blood in her mouth!”

“Heaven’s sake! Put her here, Darcy.” She was placed gently on a sofa and somebody took her hand. “Georgette?” said a deep voice, soft with concern. “What is this? You are not afraid of a crusty old pig, are you? Come now, wake up, and I shall forgive you for upstaging me at my own feast.”

Dear, sweet Saye! He would be furious with her for compelling him into such a public display of compassion, though Georgette did hope Lilly was watching. She could not be satisfied, however, for as considerate as her cousin may be, he was still Saye and not Anderson.

“My dear Miss Goddard. Pray, come and sit over here, away from all the gore,” said Mr Balton-Sycke condescendingly, putting an end to whatever view of Saye’s heroics Lilly might have had.

There was a scrape of furniture, a shout of alarm, another crash, then, in the midst of increasingly raucous laughter, a rattled plea from Sarah.

“Do try not to crush it!”

Another grunt; another clang; more hilarity.

“I thought you said you had decided against hiring dancers, Saye!”

Her cousin sighed quietly and stood up. “Keep an eye on her, will you, Darcy?” Then, his voice returning to its usual jaunty tone, he said more loudly, “Steady on, man, you’ll set the place alight if you keep prancing about like that. ”

“Is she well?” Elizabeth asked nearby.

“Come away, Lizzy. You need not see this either.”

Georgette sneaked one eye open a crack in surprise, for that had been Fitzwilliam’s voice, not Darcy’s.

And, indeed, her cousin had put his arm around Elizabeth’s shoulders and was guiding her away to the other side of the room with as much overprotective pomp as Hairy Ball-Sack had shown Lilly.

Darcy, sticking dutifully to his assigned post at Georgette’s side, veritably writhed with displeasure, his jaw set angrily and his eyes ablaze as he watched them go.

Oh, Fitzwilliam, you are playing a dangerous game, Georgette thought to herself.

You will get yourself run through if you are not awfully careful.

She closed her eye again and began to consider how best to extricate herself from her little predicament when the pandemonium was shattered by another, rather angry exclamation from Sarah.

“It will not hurt you! Pray, sir, do not bat at it so! There is nothing alarming about a common cockchafer!”

It was all Georgette could do not to give herself away by snorting with laughter.

After a brief but palpably incredulous pause, the rest of the room obliged her by roaring its amusement to the rafters.

She sucked on her throbbing tongue to prevent herself from joining in.

Only Sarah could utter such a thing in complete innocence.

Indeed, the poor dear evidently did not understand the hilarity, for her pleas grew ever more distressed.

“It must have come in from the orangery on one of the plants.”

“Here, turn around,” said Mr Withers through gleeful chuckling. “Cease flailing your arms and I might be able to swat the deuced thing!”

“There is no need!” Sarah insisted. “If you could only hold still, sir, I might be able to—oh! Oh my!”

“Hell’s bells, it’s gone inside my shirt!”

Georgette opened her eyes in alarm. There was no mistaking Anderson’s voice, and she had never heard him sound so panicked.

He was so steady, so calm, usually. She sat up and swivelled to look at him.

He was standing, divested of both dinner jacket and waistcoat, in the midst of half a dozen toppled plants, pedestals, and pillows, a look of absolute horror etched upon his countenance, hitting himself repeatedly on the chest. Sarah was standing before him with her hands poised as though she meant to delve beneath his shirt at any moment.

“Mr Darcy, could you tell me what is wrong with Mr Anderson?”

His head whipped around. “Miss Hawkridge! Are you well?”

She touched her lip with the back of her finger; it came away bloodied.

“Perfectly well, I thank you.” Mr Darcy raised a sceptical eyebrow, which provoked her to wink at him and whisper, “It is my cousin’s fault for banning stays this evening.

I am used to being more restricted. I must have been overcome by the abundance of air.

” To her vast amusement, his eyes flicked downwards as though to verify her ridiculous claim, then his expression hardened with displeasure and he averted his gaze to the wall.

“It has gone down my leg!” Anderson shouted, hopping in a circle and hitting himself on the thigh.

“Be careful, sir!” Sarah urged.

“If you are so concerned about saving the damned thing,” Anderson replied through gritted teeth, “Why do you not rescue it?”

“Hey, hey!” growled Fitzwilliam. “I shall ask you not to speak to Miss Bentley in that tone.”

Georgette swung her legs off the sofa and peered around Mr Darcy to look at her cousin. Fitzwilliam was glaring at Anderson with a curiously venomous look. Elizabeth, it seemed, had been forgotten. Interesting.

“Have a heart, little brother,” Saye said with a grin. “The poor chap has a cockchafer chafing his?—”

“Have you any suggestions, Miss Bentley?” Lady Aurelia interrupted, waving her wine glass vaguely in Anderson’s direction.

Sarah blanched, and though Georgette doubted Lady Aurelia had meant for her to personally intervene, she nodded and stepped towards Anderson with her hands tentatively outstretched towards him. Fitzwilliam, Georgette noticed, took a step in the same direction, his scowl darkening further still .

She stood up and moved to stand beside Saye. “What do you think she is planning to do? Tickle him?”

Saye twisted to look at her, all surprise, until his face softened into a sly smile. He passed her his handkerchief. “Welcome back.”

“Thank you.” She wiped the blood off her lips. “What have I missed?”

“A blasted great beetle has crawled into Blanderson’s unmentionables. Liveliest I have ever seen him.”

Georgette smiled broadly. Not at Anderson’s misfortune, but at the discovery of his eminently reasonable excuse for bungling their plan to escape Saye’s preposterous dinner plans.

She watched with vast amusement as Sarah frowned at Anderson’s trousers, and he recoiled in alarm.

More than one person raised their voice in objection when she abruptly lunged forward.

Georgette was almost disappointed when she only reached for Anderson’s neck, for she rather thought her friend’s insatiable curiosity might benefit from a quick rummage in a gentleman’s trousers.

“It was in the folds of your cravat, sir,” Sarah said with a relieved little laugh, clutching her prize proudly in her hands.

“What the devil is on the loose in his breeches then?” enquired Sir Phineas, returning the room to unrestrained merriment.

Georgette was distracted from the hullabaloo by her maid, who appeared at her side in the uncannily silent way she had. “Are you well, Miss?” she whispered. “Andrew said you had taken a turn.”

“Yes, thank you, Prinny. It was a trifling episode.”

“Like the one you suffered at Lord Faulkner’s ball?”

“Uncommonly similar,” she replied with as straight a face as Prinny herself was maintaining, for Saye was watching the exchange like a hawk.

“You won’t be needing to retire then?”

“No, I believe I shall last the evening, thank you.”

Prinny curtseyed and left, and Georgette, choosing to ignore her cousin’s satirical glare, said to him, “I am surprised at your indifference to Lilly’s present company. Are you not worried she might decide she prefers an idiotically possessive gentleman?”

Saye glanced at the sofa upon which Balton-Sycke had entrapped Lilly and scoffed.

“No indeed. The more I see of the imbecile, the more I am of a mind to leave him to woo his own way out of Miss Goddard’s affections.

I have never known anyone so deficient in refinement.

One can tell by her expression that she is repulsed by his servility. ”