Regency romance with a sore throat

2 am, wide awake, throat hurts so much I can barely swallow...  What to do?  Write a regency romance.

Lavinia ducked behind the curtain hiding the withdrawing room from view.  "Oh!" she said, wide eyed at the sight of a man and woman locked in an intimate embrace, "please excuse me."

"Don't be a fool," snarled the gentleman, "she's fainted.  Do something."

"Why not lay her on the chair behind you and let me pass."  He laid the girl, none too gently, on the chair and moved to the side.  Lavinia slid past him and asked, "who is she?"

"I haven't the faintest," he replied.  Lavinia looked at him sidelong while chafing the girls hands, an impudent grin in her eyes.  "I was summoned here to meet my nephew and when I entered, she just gasped and fainted."  He sounded more aggravated than aggrieved.

The grin got as far as Lavinia's mouth and her lips twitched.  She looked away and said, "do you often have that effect on young women?"

No response.  The girl was also not responding to the gentle chaffing, so Lavinia checked discreetly to see if her corset was too tight.  "You may want to ask a footman for smelling salts."

"Don't you have any?  I thought all gently bred ladies had a bag full of such quackery always to hand." 

"Flattering," she replied.  "Your reputation does not have you so boorish."

"You know me?" he asked, surprised, but with a thread of amusement in his voice.  Lavinia peeped at him again and saw no humor in his face, but he looked to her more human and interested.  Just then the girl on the chair moaned and half sobbed.  Lavinia turned back to her as he said, "it seems you have the advantage me."

"Shh, sweetheart.  Calmly, all is well."

"I don't see how she could be more calm or more unwell without actually expiring."  He was actually teasing her!  And at such a time.

"Why don't you go make yourself useful and get some smelling salts?"

Just then an enormous lady threw back the curtain, and theatrically exclaimed, "What's this!?"
Lavinia turned more fully, still on her knees holding the girl's hand, "have you smelling salts?  She has fainted and I can't rouse her."

The lady looked stunned and disappointed, rather like a florid souffle sinking into itself.  "The daft girl can't do a thing right."  She shot a guilty glance at the gentleman who had stiffened like a poker.  The comment along with her guilt and general theatricality made it rather clear that he had been made a fool of.

Reaching down and grasping Lavinia by her wrist, he hauled her to her feet and pulled her from the room saying, "I think we can leave the girl in the capable hands of her duenna."

Lavinia, half skipping to keep up, tugged at his hold on her.  "Will you stop before I break my neck!  It's not my fault you were a target of a matchmaking mama.  I've torn my flounce!"  He stopped abruptly causing her to bump into him.  He actually grinned this time and said, "I wonder what one has to do with the other?"

Lavinia drew herself up in mock indignation, "I entered that room and saved you a great deal of embarrassment to mend my flounce.  I did not have the chance before you hauled me forth like so much..." She stopped, not wishing to compare herself to baggage but he saw it and his grin widened into a real smile of appreciation.  Instead of replying, he moved another curtain on the wall aside, revealing a small alcove, with nothing in it but a rather ugly sculpture of a fish, and thrust her inside saying, "I will guard the entrance from unwanted intruders." 

With that the curtain swung shut and Lavinia was left in semi-darkness to find her needle (already threaded, thank god) and mend her torn hem.  "I hope I don't ruin it in the dark and all," she muttered hoping he heard.  She emerged to find his mood changed once more from the grimly teasing to surly.  He looked at her critically, "who are you?"

Lavinia twinkled up at him, "as we have not been introduced, perhaps you shouldn't be talking to me."

"Don't be an idiot," he advised, more mildly than the words would indicate, "What's your name?"

"Mrs. Linnett."

He considered for a while looking intently at her face.  "That's the family name of the Earl of Fosburnham."

"Indeed.  I was married to his fifth son, Frederick."

"Was?"

"He died several years ago."

He did not reply, but looked at her for a moment more, then turned abruptly away, grasping her wrist again.  "The next dance is starting."

Skipping again to avoid being dragged along behind, Lavinia said, "What of it?"

"We'll dance," he said.

At that Lavinia dug in her heels and pulled back sharply.  "I believe it is for the gentleman to ASK if a lady would care to dance."

"Don't you care for dancing?" he asked all smooth innocense.  Lavinia narrowed her eyes at him.  "Can't take it yourself?" he aked.

Lavinia grinned back at him and then laughed at his expression.  "Of course, I love to dance.  Do you?"

"I don't usually dance," he replied as he maved them once again towards the dance floor.

"But you do know how?  I've already had my dress torn once by a flat footed buffoon."

"Flattering," he said back at her.  "Of course I know how, I just don't do it that often."  With that he swept her among the dancers swirling gracefully about the floor.  They revolved around the floor a few times with no conversation.  He didn't even look at her.  As they began the next circuit of the floor, Lavinia looked away from him and commented, "Unusually fine weather we're enjoying this week."

That brought his eyes back to her face, but she refused to look at him.  She could see the grin in his eyes but it didn't make it as far as his mouth.  "So who were you before you married young Linnett?  Who's your family?"

"Your reputation has you top of the trees, yet I don't see how it can be so when you don't do anything right.  How do you manage it?"