“No, no, truly it’s not!” Miss Wantage assured him. “You can sit on my cloak, Sherry, can’t you?”
“Well, I can’t stay for long,” the Viscount warned her. He hoisted himself up beside her and put a brotherly arm round her shoulders. “Now, don’t go on crying, brat: it makes you look devilish ugly!” he said. “Besides, I don’t like it. Why has that old cat suddenly taken it into her head to send you off? I suppose you’ve been doing something that you shouldn’t.”
“No, it isn’t that, though I did break one of the best teacups,” said Hero, leaning gratefully against him. “It’s partly because Edwin kissed me, I think.”
“You’re bamming me!” said his lordship incredulously. “Your wretched little cousin Edwin hasn’t got enough bottom to kiss a chambermaid!”
“Well, I don’t know about that, Sherry, but he did kiss me, and it was the horridest thing imaginable. And Cousin Jane found out about it, and she said it was my fault, and I was a designing hussy, and that she had nourished a snake in her bosom. But I am not a snake, Sherry!”
“Never mind about that!” said Sherry. “I can’t get over Edwin! If it don’t beat all! He must have been foxed, and that’s all there is to it.”
“No, indeed he wasn’t,” said Hero earnestly.
“Then it just shows how you can be mistaken in a man. All the same, Hero, you shouldn’t let a miserable, snivelling fellow like that kiss you. It’s not the thing at all.”
“But how could I prevent him, Sherry, when he caught me, and squeezed me so tightly that I could scarcely breathe?”
The Viscount gave a crow of laughter. “Lord, only to think of Edwin turning into such an out-and-outer! It seems to me I had best teach you a trick or two to counter that kind of thing. Wonder I didn’t do it before.”