An Extraordinary Flirtation by Maggie MacKeever Page B

color-changing properties of the hydrangea? Could you work that into a waistcoat, it would be a masterpiece indeed. Not that I mean to infer that this waistcoat isn’t, because of course it is.”
    Fitz beamed at her. Ianthe also smiled, revealing her own version of the family dimples, which were very fine. Zoe wished that she might poison both her cousin and her aunt. Not fatally, of course, just enough to make them ill enough that she might slip away. Not that she wished to slip away alone. Was Mannering ravishing her with his eyes? He was not.
    “Have you noticed the baron’s neck-cloth?” said Ianthe. “It is of his own design. He is pondering a name for it. I had another notion, Baron. Perhaps, the Amourette?”
    Cara eyed the neck-cloth, which Fitz’s long-suffering valet hadn’t been able to prevent him from tying himself. “The Coup de Grace,” she said.
    Fitz, who had been demonstrating his unique left-handed style of manipulating his snuffbox—that damned Byron had taken the credit for it away from him, alas—inhaled abruptly, and sneezed. Nick chuckled and moved forward. “I think your creation has been christened, Fitz.”
    Zoe trailed after him. “This is my aunt,” she said, so gracelessly that Ianthe’s brief good humor fled.
    “No introductions are necessary.” Nick bent over Cara’s hand. “Your niece has told me all about you, Lady Norwood. You’re the pattern-card of propriety who is to show her how she must go on.”
     

Chapter 6
     
    A pattern-card of propriety! Cara ground her teeth. She would go down in the family annals as the only member of the family to have never blotted her copybook. Even Ianthe would be remembered as having had her youthful disappointment, as a result of which she had foresworn all other amours and devoted herself to Zoe, although she would have been better advised to go into a nunnery, like their ancestor Francesca, who had nevertheless ended up being captured by corsairs and flung into the harem of the Grand Turk. Since the world didn’t know about them, Cara’s own romantic disappointments didn’t count.
    Surely she was not now regretting that she had failed to act like a Loversall! Cara tried to instill order upon her chaotic thoughts. Conflicting emotions assaulted her at each turn she took in London. Mocking memories lurked around every corner. It was far from comfortable to recall her younger self.
    If only she hadn’t allowed Beau to persuade her to accompany him. Cara had been happy where she was, or if not happy, certainly not discontent. She leaned against a sadly weathered classical maiden who retained possession of only one breast and wondered if Beau’s garden would benefit from a Gothic ruin.
    In truth, Beau’s garden was a Gothic ruin. Wide and overgrown stone paths led through what had at one time been lovely beds of plants and flowers surrounded by circles of white, blue, and red sand. Cara remembered the posies that had bloomed here in her mother’s day. Now the pool was dry, and the garden dominated by nature in so profusely weedy a manner that even her enthusiasm faltered. Cornflower, broad-leafed spurge, fingered speedwell, pheasant’s eye—she frowned at an especially fine example of groundsel. Between Beau’s garden and Beau’s daughter, Cara foresaw that she would be required to stay in town far longer than she wished. Wistfully she recalled her clematis and wisteria, her lilacs and her yew tree; her cows and chickens and sheep. She dreaded to think what mischief the head gardener was getting up to behind her back.
    Cara walked along the crushed stone path, pushing aside branches and vines. At least the roses still flourished, many of them grown six feet high. Later in the summer they would erupt in glorious bursts of white and pink and yellow. More than one of the bushes was already in bud, which according to the French, was a sign of ill luck. She touched a bird of paradise flower that had miraculously managed to survive