Everyone stood and applauded—it was a play, after all, no matter how startling the finale—and began to file out of the drawing room.

“Perhaps I ought to help,” Iris said, casting a wary glance at her cousins.

Richard waited while she approached the melee, watching the proceedings with no small amusement.

“Just remove the pillow!” Lady Pleinsworth directed.

“It’s not that easy,” Elizabeth hissed. “Her horn goes right through my shirt. Unless you want me to disrobe—”

“That will be enough, Elizabeth,” Lady Pleinsworth said quickly. She turned to Harriet. “Why is it so sharp?”

“I’m a unicorn!” Frances said.

Lady Pleinsworth absorbed that for a moment, then shuddered.

“She wasn’t supposed to ride me in the third act,” Frances added petulantly.

“Is that why you gored her?”

“No, that was in the script,” Harriet said helpfully. “The horn was supposed to come off. For the purpose of safety. But, of course, the audience wasn’t supposed to see that.”

“Iris glued it to my brow,” Frances said, twisting her head in an attempt to look up.

Iris, who was standing at the edge of the small crowd, immediately took a step back. “Perhaps we should get something to drink,” she said to Richard.

“In a moment.” He was having far too much fun to leave.

Lady Pleinsworth grabbed the horn by both hands and pulled.

Frances screamed.

“Did she use cement?”

Iris’s hand wrapped around his arm like a terrified vise. “I really need to go now.”

Richard took one look at Lady Pleinsworth’s face and hurriedly guided Iris out of the room.

Iris sagged against the wall. “I’m going to be in so much trouble.”

Richard knew he should try to reassure her, but he was laughing too hard to be of any use.

“Poor Frances,” she moaned. “She’s going to have to sleep with that horn on her head tonight!”

“She will be fine,” Richard said, his laughter still peeking through his words. “I promise you, she will not walk down the aisle at her wedding with a horn on her head.”

Iris looked up at him in momentary alarm, and he could only imagine what was racing through her imagination. And then she burst out laughing. She laughed so hard she doubled over right there in the hall.

“Oh my goodness,” she gasped. “A horned wedding. It could only happen to us.”

Richard started to chuckle again, watching in amusement as Iris’s face turned red from her exertions.

“I shouldn’t laugh,” she said. “I really shouldn’t. But the wedding—Oh my heavens, the wedding.”

The wedding, Richard thought, and it all slammed back to the forefront of his mind. Why he was here tonight. Why he was with her.

Iris wasn’t going to have much of wedding. He needed to get back to Yorkshire too quickly for that.