“Redmond Jasper Hartley, what is the meaning of this?” Aunt Agatha demanded stridently. Not even “your grace.”

“I would have thought it was perfectly obvious, Lady Salter,” the duke said in a cold, clear voice that cut through the buzzing of scandalized comment. George blinked at his apparent dispassion. He sounded perfectly calm and unruffled, even though she could feel that his heart was pounding as raggedly as hers.

“Lady Georgiana has just agreed to become my wife. We were sealing our betrothal with a kiss.”

His words drew a wave of muttered comment. Aunt Agatha’s brows snapped together.

Wife? George’s brain snapped back into life. Betrothal? “No, that’s not right—”

“Betrothal?” Aunt Agatha cut her off sharply. Pasting a smile on her face, she gushed, “Georgiana, my dearest gel, congratulations. No wonder you are all about with excitement—your head must be spinning.”

By now, the concert room had emptied into the hallway. Delicious smells wafted from the supper room but nobody moved. A much more interesting dish was being passed around; Lady Georgiana Rutherford, caught in flagrante with her legs wrapped around the waist of the Duke of Everingham—her own aunt’s jilted bridegroom!

Aunt Agatha turned to the crowd. “Friends, how wonderful that you are here to witness the romantic betrothal of my niece, Lady Georgiana Rutherford—”

“No! I am not betroth—” George tried to make herself heard.

Aunt Agatha’s voice rose, sharper and loud enough to fill an opera hall. “—to his grace, the Duke of Everingham. A moment of high romance, I think you would all agree.”

After the first gasp of shock, a scattering of applause started and a murmuring that grew to a swell of congratulation. And some surreptitious muttering.

“I am not betr—” George tried again.

And again, Aunt Agatha, oozing self-satisfaction, cut her off. “I promoted the match myself, you know.”

“We are not betrothed!” George shouted.

“Of course you are,” Aunt Agatha said.

The duke pulled her against him. “She’s a little overwhelmed,” he told the crowd.

“I am not overwh—”

But Aunt Agatha and the duke were talking over her so she couldn’t get a word in. “Yes, you are, my dear.” He sounded cold and relentless.

“Perfectly understandable,” Aunt Agatha said. “Excitement does that to some gels,” she told the crowd. “She doesn’t know whether she’s coming or going.”

“I do know,” George insisted “And I’m not betrothed!”

“I’ll put the notice in the papers in the morning,” the duke said.

George stared at him in stupefaction. “You’ll do nothing of the sort.”

“For heaven’s sake, shut your mouth, gel,” Aunt Agatha hissed in her ear. “Leave it for now. Discuss it with the duke later, in the privacy of your own home. Or do you have any more appalling indiscretions you wish the world to witness?”