Any response she might have formulated was forgotten (as was, in all honesty, the English language) as Mr. Pettigrew’s lips met with her own.

It would occur to Dezzie only later that any of the romantic novels she had read involved the heroine’s eyes closing during The Big Kiss, but hers instead remained resolutely open in utter shock at what was happening to her.

To her in that she was too surprised to be particularly involved in the matter, not in that she wanted nothing to do with it.