Free Cupid's Dart by Maggie MacKeever

the evenings, the Grove was illuminated with swags and garlands and festoons of brilliantly colored reflecting lamps. This particular evening's entertainment consisted of an Italian soprano warbling sentimental songs.
    The Italians could keep the lady, Georgie thought, as she drew her shawl closer against the evening chill. A pity Marigold couldn'thave come here in her place, because Georgie would much rather have stayed home with her new book. Andrew, at least, appeared to be enjoying himself, and was engaged in an animated conversation with Miss Inchquist, who was as he had said, very freckled and very tall, and dressed not at all to her advantage in a gown of white gauze striped with blue, and an Austrian cap. Perhaps lack of sartorial discernment was a family failing, for Lady Denham also made a startling picture in a dress of raw gold silk, a great deal of topaz jewelry, and a satin turban made up in the form of a beehive and finished with a bow at the top.
    From the animated expression on Miss Inchquist's face, Georgie concluded that her brother wasn't going on about fiery lakes of smoking blood, or corpses piled so high they were still warm the next morning, or carnage so severe that Wellington himself had wept.
    Was Andrew developing a partiality for Miss Inchquist? Lady Denham would wish to look higher for her niece. Georgie was hardly helping Andrew's chances by wishing very much to kiss a man rumored to have murdered his wife, and having as a houseguest a lady who had trod the boards.
    Lady Denham was occupied with another member of the party. Georgie was free to glance about at the other visitors to the Grove. Not, of course, that she expected to see Garth. Nor did she wish to see him, and if she did wish to see him she might perhaps find him upon the beach, but then he would only once again scold her and refuse to kiss her and then walk away. If he wished to kiss her, as he said he did, then why then did he not? Scruples, one supposed. Georgie marveled that she had so few scruples of her own, because despite everything she wished for Garth to kiss her, and never mind that he had a wife.
    Georgie smoothed her gloves. Here was a conundrum worthy of Marigold. Georgie thought guiltily of her friend, who had not reacted well to expulsion from this invitation, had wept and raged and stormed as histrionically as if she still trod the boards. Never before had Georgie seen someone wring her hands.
    Marigold's sense of ill-usage, her strenuous expressions of outrage, had lessened only when Georgie finally pointed out that a lady attempting to outrun the constable would hardly be prudent to parade herself about out-of-doors. Marigold had reacted to this good advice as might have been expected, scolding Georgie for reminding her of the tiresome troubles gathered round their heads. Yes, and what Georgie was doing to alleviate those troubles, Marigold couldn't see—not that she liked to mention it, because she did not wish to nag, but it was because Georgie knew how to fix things that Marigold had come to her in the first place. Moreover, if Georgie came home from this pleasure outing to discover that Marigold had died of the dumps, it would only serve her right.
    Just how wasGeorgie to fix her friend's predicament when Marigold turned hysterical if pressed for details? Georgie might die of the dumps herself—or become a Bedlamite—if she was exposed much longer to her friend.
    If only she felt free to confide in Garth. No doubt Lord Warwick was with his great friend Prinny this evening, enjoying a party at the Pavilion, a card assembly, or a ball, rubbing shoulders with well-bred ladies and others not so well-bred, for Prinny had an eye from the ladies, from actresses to other gentlemen's wives. Having contrived to thoroughly depress her spirits, Georgie sighed.
    * * * *
    Although he was not speaking to Miss Inchquist of smoking blood and warm corpses—indeed, had not once this evening thought about going out of the world