"You dance so delightfully!" she murmured. "Where have you been hiding these last days?"
"At Headquarters, when I was not laming my horses on these shocking roads. By the by, had you to create a scandal in my family?"
"It seemed as though I had to," she admitted. "Did it some to your ears?"
"Every word of it. You stirred up a great deal of unhappiness, Bab."
"What, by permitting poor bored Perry to gain little experience? Nonsense! I behaved charmingly him. Oh, you are recalling that I said I would be a sister to him! Well, so I was, until his ridiculous wife chose to challenge me. I won that encounter, however, and will sheathe my sword now, if you like."
"I wish you had never drawn it, Bab. Lady Taverner wasn't a worthy foe."
"Ah, that's charming of you! Well, I will engage to get him out of my clutches. I don't see him tonight: is he not coming?"
"No. He is going back to England."
"Going back to England? He told me nothing of this!"
"It has only quite lately been decided. Brussels does not agree with Lady Taverner. I am charged with a message from Peregrine: his apologies for not being able to take his leave of you in person."