Page 45 of A Game of Scandal

“And then Mr Kent said something extremely indiscreet about Lady Thurlow’s sister,” Mother was saying. “Which was bad manners on his part but could have come as absolutely no surprise to her.”

“I should think not,” I agreed, having not the faintest idea what she was talking about.

“Have you seen anyone who you might be interested in?” Mother asked in a low voice, her eyes scanning the park. “I know it’s early days, but there are several interesting matrimonial candidates to my mind.”

“I don’t think—” I began, but Mother cut me off with a squeeze of her hand.

“And here comes one now!” she hissed.

My heart in my mouth, I turned and found myself faced not with my quarry but with the disappointing sight of Mr Trent walking towards us with his mother, a lady who constantly looked as if someone had served her a piece of undercooked chicken.

“Your Grace, Lady Felicity,” Mr Trent said, bowing. His hand went anxiously to his neck tie, as if it were too tight. His mother cleared her throat rather pointedly and his fingers sprang away from his collar as though it burned. “How lovely to see you.” The words were slightly strangled, and I wondered if his shirt really was cutting off his supply of oxygen.

“Mr Trent!” Mother trilled. “What auspicious timing. I wonder if you would keep Felicity company, while I have a quick chat with your mother? I’ve been wanting to pick her brains about her lovely gardens for some time.”

“Yes, Geoffrey.” Mr Trent’s mother practically shoved him into my arms. (I suppose there’s no room for subtlety when a duke’s sister is up for grabs.) “You entertain Lady Felicity.”

The two women smiled wide as alligators.

With a resigned sigh, I fell into step beside Mr Trent. For a while neither of us spoke and as we walked in blissful silence my opinion of the man temporarily increased.

Then he opened his mouth.

“I have learned since our last conversation that you are something of a dabbler in mathematics yourself, Lady Felicity,” he said with a good deal of condescension. “It’s a surprising trait in a young lady, but now I understand why you were so happy to listen to talk of my Cambridge studies.”

“I would not call myself a dabbler,” I said stiffly.

Mr Trent only smiled indulgently. “No, perhaps, hobbyist is a better word?”

“It certainly is not,” I managed, and the man seemed finally to understand that I was about to start spitting fire.

“Forgive me!” He raised his hand as we wound our way along the footpath, emerging at the side of the large pond around which other couples were walking endless circles, like painted horses trapped on a carousel.

“I was clearly misinformed,” he continued. “I didn’t mean to imply that you were anything other than a gentle, well-bred lady. I have no problem with women being exposed to a little education.” He said this as though it were a generous concession. It was clear in that moment he believed himself an enlightened young man. “After all, a woman’s role as wife and mother requires her to be a helpmeet and companion to her husband, does it not? And if that husband is an intelligent man, he requires a wife who is happy to listen to him talk about his world. But I realize I may have offended you. I did not mean to imply you were some sort of … bluestocking!” He chuckled here.

“Mr Trent,” I said through gritted teeth, my mouth stretched into an unholy imitation of a smile, so as not to alert my mother that her plans were going deeply awry. “Let me be clear. I am not a dabbler. I am not a hobbyist. I am a mathematician. In fact, I’m one of the most promising young mathematicians on this continent, which is far more than I can say for a man who possesses not even the most basic grasp of Weierstrass’s theory that a continuous function on a finite interval of the real line can be uniformly approximated arbitrarily closely by a polynomial.”

“I…” a pink-faced Mr Trent attempted to interject.

“It is a source of great frustration to me that you’re in a position where you can so cavalierly treat your university education as a game – one which you are playing badly,” I continued. “I find you to be entitled, obnoxious and of extremely average intelligence.”

We had come to a halt by this point and Mr Trent was gaping at me, open-mouthed, like a fish heaved unceremoniously on to dry land.

“Well, I never,” he began in the startled tones of a society matron. “Really, this is—”

I’m not precisely sure what happened next. I think that, in his fit of indignation, Mr Trent simply tripped over his own feet. All I know is that one moment he was there, mottled and outraged beside me, and the next his arms were windmilling as he tipped backwards into the pond. I reached out for him but it was too late. He hit the water with a tremendous crash.

A deathly hush fell over the park, dozens of pairs of eyes turned in our direction. With a shuddering gasp, Mr Trent emerged from the pond. His suit was soaked through. His hat was lost. There were several unfortunate strands of algae clinging to his person.

I tried hard to stifle my laugh, but a snort escaped; my hand flew to my lips.

Mr Trent’s eyes narrowed, his chest was heaving. “You!” he hissed. “You pushed me!”

“I certainly did not!” I said hotly. “Though now I wish I had!”

Mother and Mrs Trent appeared at my side, the latter of the two making the sort of wailing noises of anguish that implied her son had drowned and was lost for ever in the briny deep, rather than having ruined a perfectly mediocre suit in a scant few inches of water.

“Oh, Geoffrey!” She clasped her hands. (I noticed that despite her loud distress, she didn’t seem to want to help him out of the pond, or let him near her own pristine ensemble.) “Whatever has happened?”