Quesnel stepped up to help her out of the pond. Rue took his hand warily. But he acted the perfect gentlemen, just as if he hadn’t tumbled her in.

“I suppose I’ll have to leave Percy until tomorrow now, unless I’m lucky enough to dry out on the way back to town.”

“Percy?” Quesnel let go of her hand.

Rue almost slipped back into the pond. She recovered her balance and glared at him. He remembered his manners, embarrassed. However, when he tried to assist her in dumping water out of her boots, she issued him a sharp, “Shoo!”

Quesnel did not try again but he did not let the matter of Percy drop. “Professor Percival Tunstell? Are you in earnest? Please tell me you aren’t in earnest?”

“What, you thought you were the only impossible man I’d have to deal with? Much as I hate to admit it, Dama is as right about Percy as he was about you. He’s my best option. You two will have to get along. Without dunking each other in ponds, I hope. He’s unlikely to be as understanding as I.”

“But he’s so very annoying.”

Rue cocked her head. “Funny, that’s pretty much exactly what I said about you.”

Quesnel was so centred on the fact that he might be trapped on a dirigible for weeks on end with Professor Tunstell that he didn’t bat an eyelash at this insult. “I don’t know what anyone sees in that man.”

“I did hear a rumour that he inadvertently stole something from you last season. I hardly gave it credence at the time but I take it the rumour’s true? Care to elaborate?”

Quesnel bit his lip. “How on earth did you hear such a thing?”

“You forget about my father’s pack. Terrible gossips, werewolves. Worse than Dama’s drones.”

“Are they really?”

Rue nodded gravely. “Yes, less circumspect and louder about it. Plus the drones are actually more interested in politics and fashion than the liaisons of others. If he didn’t steal your waistcoat, hat, or social standing, they don’t give a fig. The werewolves, on the other hand, like to be tangled in relationships. And if they don’t know the details, they’ll make them up.”

“I see.” Quesnel, raised in a respectable sort of hive, clearly didn’t see at all. “But if Pompous Percy’s coming I don’t know if I…”

“Oh no, you can’t back out now. I have your word. And you dumped me in a pond. Fair dues, Quesnel.”

“You called me Quesnel. How nice. Now, how about calling me sweetheart? Wouldn’t that be even nicer?”