Regine collapsed on a neighbouring chair, her cheeks red as embers from her exertions. She waved her fan vigorously before her face a moment before addressing her sister.
“I wish you would bestir yourself and dance. It makes me feel guilty to be enjoying it all with you sitting here like a blancmange.”
Davina smiled faintly. “A blancmange?”
“Well. All pale and quivering. You are, you know. I can’t think where Howard has gone to. It’s quite wrong of him to disappear like this. Unless, of course, it’s this wretched business that the men are about.”
“I thought – the stable hands had been sent out?”
“They have, but you know how our own menfolk are. They’d hunt a fellow as quick as a pheasant. Father and Lord Delverton have disappeared too. I am sure they’ve sneaked away to join in.”
“Y-y
