“About last night.”

Fen wriggled. It was a wriggle into Pat, a little happy shimmy that sent remembered pleasure shooting up her nerves. “Ooh. Yes. What?”

“I just wondered—well, how you felt about it.”

“Marvellous.” Fen tipped her head back. “Quite terrifically marvellous. Which I am a tiny bit guilty about, but not really. I shall have to leave, you know, in the circumstances.”

“Yes, of course.”

“I’ll wait until Jimmy’s spoken to his parents, and then I shall speak to them, and I imagine they’ll have me driven straight to the railway station after that.”

“Where will you go?”

“Home. I don’t really want to go back to London and sit through another scandal.” Fen hesitated. “Please don’t feel obliged, but I wondered if you’d like to come for a visit? Our place is in King’s Norton, outside Birmingham, quite in the countryside.”

Hope fluttered in Pat’s chest like a trapped bird. “Would you like me to?”

“Very much. You could teach me to shoot. Daddy won’t be there so it would be awfully private. Just us. And you need somewhere to stay while you do nothing, and I can’t socialise with a third broken engagement, and if it wasn’t for this party going horribly wrong we could have had three weeks to get to know one another more and—well, I’d like it awfully if you would.”

“Yes. When?” Pat probably sounded like a child hoping for a treat, but the prospect felt like Christmas. A private visit, with Fen, just the two of them and countryside to explore...

“As soon as you like. You could say you were keeping me company in my distress. I’m sure I oughtn’t be alone with my broken heart.” Fen adopted an expression suggestive of a mournful kitten. “It would be only kind.”

“You are a menace,” Pat said, and kissed her.

Fen extricated herself a few moments later, eyes glowing, and went to check her hair in the mirror. “Goodness. Do I look far too happy for someone who just ended an engagement with a future earl?”

“A little.”

“I’ll think sad thoughts.” She smiled up at Pat, the real, hesitant smile that never failed to stop her breath. “You know, this really ought to count as the worst house party ever given, but I’m so very glad I came.”

“Like the curate’s egg, good in parts,” Pat agreed.

“Exactly.” Fen beamed at her. “I’d better go untangle my affairs, hadn’t I?”