It didn’t work. Instead of being diverted, Mr. Fitzhugh just looked sorry. For her. “I won’t forget it again,” he said. “Your name, that is. I can’t make any promises about the Norman Conquest.”

“Thank you, Mr. Fitzhugh. You are too kind.”

“Didn’t think there was such a thing,” Mr. Fitzhugh mused. “As too much kindness, that is.” Peering down at her, he added, as though the thought had just struck him. “I say, I didn’t mean to detain you. Or knock you over. Might I, er, see you anywhere? My chariot is at your disposal.”

“Oh, no, that’s quite all right. I’m joining friends for supper just across the street.”

“That’s all right, then,” Mr. Fitzhugh said with evident relief. “Shouldn’t like to leave you here by yourself. Not after knocking you over and all that.”

Arabella’s smile turned sour. “Think nothing of it,” she said.

With a tip of his hat, he strode jauntily out the door. Gathering her scattered wits together, Arabella made to follow, but her booted foot struck something hard and round, half hidden under the hem of her walking dress.

Bending over, she picked it up. While slightly the worse for her stepping on it, it was unmistakably a Christmas pudding, small and round and wrapped in white muslin, finished off with jaunty red and gold ribbons.

“Mr. Fitzhugh?” she called after him, holding the small, muslin-wrapped parcel aloft. “Mr. Fitzhugh! You forgot your pudding!”

Blast. He didn’t seem to have heard her. Lifting her skirts, Arabella hurried down the short flight of steps. Mr. Fitzhugh, his legs longer than hers, was already some way down the street, making for a very flashy phaeton driven by a team of matched bays.