“Well, no, I didn’t,” admitted Hero. “But it was you who did the glueing really, Sherry.”
“If that isn’t a female all over!” exclaimed Sherry. “Next you’ll say you had nothing to do with it!”
Miss Wantage tucked a small, confiding hand into his arm. “I did help, didn’t I, Anthony?”
“Yes, and spilled the glue over my new smalls because you thought you heard someone coming, silly chit!” said the Viscount, recalling this incident with a darkling look in his eye.
Miss Wantage gave a little chuckle. “Oh, how you did slap my cheek! It was red for hours and hours, and I had to make up such a tale to account for it!”
“No, did I really?” said the Viscount, rather conscience-stricken, and giving the cheek a friendly rub. “What a deuced young brute I was! Not but what you’d have tried the patience of a saint, brat, often and often!”
“Yes, that is what my cousins say, and I can’t but feel that I should try the curate’s patience even more, Sherry, because I do seem always to be getting into a scrape, though indeed I don’t mean to. At least, not every time.”
“Don’t keep on harping on the curate!” ordered the Viscount. “The whole idea of your marrying him is the greatest piece of nonsense I ever heard! In fact, it’s a very good thing I chanced to come down here, for the lord knows what silly trick you’d have tried to play off if I hadn’t caught you in time!”
“No, and I am so glad to see you again, Anthony,” she replied. “I thought perhaps you would come.”
“Good God, did you? Why?”