“Oh, Bel!” Endymion exclaimed, visibly relaxing. Christabel could be a firecracker when she wanted to be, but she was usually polite-until-insulted, so he wasn’t worried anymore – at least not until Daphnel mentioned lighting rose bushes on fire. Dymion’s brows quirked up, surprised but not probably not as shocked as one might be by that admission. (After all, one had to expect a certain level of eccentricity from a Dempsey.)

Fortunately, Daphnel didn’t sound particularly put out about it, which Endymion would take as a success. “I’m surprised you haven’t either, if that’s the sort of thing she’s been up to at parties,” he commented with a wry look, but shook his head with more fond amusement than disapproval of his sister – he didn’t have any room to disapprove, given that he had rarely paid much attention to chaperoning his sisters about at parties. No, indeed, that was their mother’s remit. (And that probably, Endymion considered, explained their mother’s short tether to a state of utter exasperation.)

He tilted his head inquisitively at Daphnel, trying to glean why he had turned the conversation this way. All he added for now, though, was – in a cheerful, sincerely curious tone – about the fire-lighting. “Accidentally, or on purpose?”

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