“Your…contretemps took place at a ball, after all,” Arthur added.
“Well, I…”
“It seems a kind of…poetic justice. To close the books on the whole matter.”
Miss Grandison gazed at him with puzzled wonder. “Yes, I see. I agree with your assessment. But I’m afraid… That is, I’m not certain I could bring myself to overturn a punch bowl before all those people. I would be all too likely to botch it.” She shook her head. “A lowering reflection. I am quite disappointed in myself. But I don’t think I have the temerity to do it.”
“I’ll do it for you,” declared Arthur.
“You?”
Under her astonished gaze Arthur felt a pulse of excitement. This would work. She couldn’t believe he would to do such a thing. All society would be agog.
As a young man, Arthur had never indulged any of his wild impulses. He’d watched some of his fellows develop unfortunate habits or make fools of themselves, but he’d always been restrained. Not prudish or judgmental, he fervently hoped, but correct. That had simply been his inclination. But now it seemed that he’d had enough of strict propriety. He’d met Teresa and ended up bundling a half-conscious villain onto a ship for the Indies. Which must certainly rise from unorthodox to outrageous. Or worse. Something had ignited his madcap streak at this point in his life, and he gloried in it.
“What in heaven’s name are you up to, Macklin?” asked Miss Grandison.
Fleetingly, he was drawn back into old habits. He started to rationalize. And then realized that he had no idea how to do so. Love was not reasonable. But that was none of Miss Grandison’s affair. He owed no explanations. She could take or leave his aid. If she didn’t want it, he’d think of something else. “Offering to help you? Do you really care what else?”
She took a moment to consider this. “I suppose not,” she said slowly.
“And why should you? If your goal is accomplished.”
“Well, I am very curious,” she answered. “Intensely so.”
“They do say not to look a gift horse in the mouth.”
“Indeed,” said Miss Grandison. “Why is that? I have often wondered.”
“One judges the age of a horse by its teeth,” Arthur replied. “To look in its mouth would be to question the value of the gift.” He emphasized the last word.
Their eyes met for a long moment. Arthur wondered how many people would stare at him with such wild surmise after this. The question made him want to laugh.
“The punch could do,” Miss Grandison said then.
And so his fish was hooked. “There are people who recall what happened to you,” said Arthur. “They will understand the message.”
“You think so?” Her tone was very dry.
“Turnabout is fair play,” he suggested.
“You believe in fairness, do you, Macklin?”
This was not the time for a philosophical discussion. “You could repeat what he said to you years ago, when he is sitting there covered in punch. What was it?”
“He said, ‘You are always so clumsy, Julia.’”
“Yes. You should say something like that to him. In your best public voice.”
“My public voice?”
“It is marvelously penetrating,” Arthur pointed out.
“What in the world has come over you, Macklin?”
“Ingenuity?”
“In…” She frowned at him. “You are behaving quite unlike yourself.”
“Perhaps you don’t know me very well. Perhaps no one does. Oh! I’ve thought of something else. We should include the others. The fellows who plotted against you to overturn the punch. You told me who it was, but I’ve forgotten.”
“Trask and Quigley.” Miss Grandison had begun to look morbidly fascinated.
“That was it,” said Arthur.
“Quentin Quigley is a high-court judge now,” his hostess pointed out. “And Ralph Trask is a solemn paterfamilias. Bald as an egg, of course, as I knew he would be.”
“He’d look like an Easter egg covered in punch.”
Miss Grandison was surprised into a laugh. And once she’d begun she couldn’t immediately stop. “To think of them,” she gasped finally. “All soaked, dazed, and dripping on the carpet.”
“Sticky as well, I suppose,” said Arthur.
“Oh yes. It was terribly sticky. But I do not see how it can be done, Macklin. How would we get them all together at the right moment?”
“Leave that to me.” He had no idea how, but he would think of something. “You might start retelling the old story, as if it was just amusing now. Remind people who was responsible. You could call it a lark, or some such thing. Set the stage as it were.” He had learned from Tom’s experience.
“Lord Macklin, I am beginning to feel that I should refuse your extremely…surprising offer.”
“Really? Why?”
“Because I very much fear you’ve gone mad.”
“I haven’t.”
“Are you sure?” Her tone was desert dry. “How would you know?”
“I am very well aware of what I’m doing.”
They engaged in another lengthy staring contest. Arthur settled in. He would have to become accustomed to astonished gazes. And mouths agape and dumbfounded gasps, he supposed.
“And you do not intend to tell me what that is,” Miss Grandison said finally.
“Do you want your revenge, or not?” Arthur asked.
She considered this for some time, finally letting out a sigh. “I do. Though perhaps I should not. My mother used to say that one should strive to be the larger person. But she never actually had to occupy that position.” Miss Grandison gestured at her massive figure.
“So we go forward with the plan then?”
“I feel as if I’ve harnessed a tiger to my carriage.”
“Thank you.” Arthur smiled. She looked taken aback by his expression. “So we are agreed it is to be at the Overton ball?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“I will set things in train.” He could get Tom and some of the actors to help. That was a good notion. Tom was always a wellspring of ideas.
“Things,” repeated Miss Grandison, voice and expression wary. “I believe I won’t ask what things.”