He watched as she stepped into place, the seductive little scrap of red hiding itself back beneath her skirt. He stepped forward and said, in perhaps a frostier voice than he’d intended, “Lady Honoria.”

“Lord Chatteris,” she replied.

He hated when she called him Lord Chatteris.

“How lovely to see you.” Her tone was that of a polite acquaintance, or perhaps a very distant cousin. “Are you acquainted with Mr. Bridgerton?”

“I am,” was Marcus’s succinct reply.

Bridgerton nodded, then Marcus nodded, and that, it seemed, was the extent of the conversation the two men wished to share.

Marcus waited for Bridgerton to make up some excuse to leave, because surely he would understand that that was what was expected of him. But the annoying sod just stood there grinning, as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

“Mr. Bridgerton was just saying—” Honoria began, at the precise time that Marcus said, “If you will excuse us. I require a private word with Lady Honoria.”

But Marcus was louder, and more to the point, he actually finished his sentence. Honoria clamped her mouth shut and retreated into stony silence.

Mr. Bridgerton gave him an assessing stare, holding his ground for just long enough to make Marcus’s jaw clench, and then, as if the moment had never occurred, he turned charming in the space of a second, executed a jaunty bow, and said, “But of course. I was just thinking that I should like a glass of lemonade above all things.”

He bowed, he smiled, and he was gone.

Honoria waited until he was out of earshot, then she turned to Marcus with an angry scowl. “That was incredibly rude of you.”

He gave her a stern look. “Unlike the younger Mr. Bridgerton, this one is not wet behind the ears.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You should not be flirting with him.”

Honoria’s mouth fell open. “I wasn’t!”

“Of course you were,” he retorted. “I was watching you.”

“No, you weren’t,” she shot back. “You were talking with Felicity Featherington!”

“Who stands a full head shorter than I am. I could see right over her.”

“If you must know,” Honoria ground out, quite unable to believe that he was acting like the aggrieved party, “your aunt called him over. Do you expect me to be rude and cut him here in my own home? At an event to which, I might add, he possesses an invitation?”

The last she was not strictly positive about, but she couldn’t imagine that her mother wouldn’t have invited one of the Bridgertons.

“My aunt?” he asked.

“Lady Danbury. Your great-great-great-great . . .”

He glared at her.

“Great-great-great-great . . .” she continued, just to be annoying.

Marcus said something under his breath, then said, in only a slightly more appropriate tone, “She is a menace.”

“I like her,” Honoria said defiantly.