Pre-honeymoon story: THE QUACK ATTACK AND THE UNLIKELY SAVIOUR
It was the first of April 1880. and the sun was shining in London, shooting diamonds of white light down at people who were walking slowly around the Hyde Park, immersed in conversation. There was four of them — two boys and two girls, all well-dressed, proper gentlemen and ladies. One of the boys and one of the girls were apparently siblings — they both had dark hairs, colour of the night; and their blue eyes were blazing sapphires crashing into amethyst. The other boy was pale and had sort of an odd coloured, silvery hair and a pair of matching eyes. The other girl was tall for a lady; still, both young gentlemen were taller than her; she had plain brown hair and intelligent gray eyes. Their names were, respectively, Mr. William Herondale, Miss Cecily Herondale, Mr. James Carstairs and Miss Theresa Gray, the latter soon to become Mrs. Theresa Herondale.
“Help! Oh, by the Angel, someone help me!” Will was shouting.
Tessa and Cecily had walked far ahead and now they stopped and turned to see the speck that was Will, moving as if he was fighting someone with a sword, but there was no one there but him. Jem wandered off somewhere out of sight as usual, probably to fetch some kind of rare flower for Cecily.
“You go on and find Jem, Cecy. I’ll go and see what all this fuss is about,” Tessa said.
Cecily nodded in agreement and turned to go, sparing one more uncertain glance back at her possibly crazy brother who was jumping up and down in the distance, still shouting, waving hands and running around in circles. He reminded her of a circus monkey.
“Will!” Tessa was running toward him, her skirts gathered in her hands as she progressed. “Will!” she repeated, “what, in Heaven’s name, is going on?”
