"It isn´t nonsense! I hit him with a p-poker as hard as I could , and he f-fell and lay quite still."

"Where did you hit him?" demanded the Viscount.

"On the head," said Horatia.

The Viscount looked at Sir Roland. "D´you supposen she killed him, Pom?"

"Might have," said Sir Roland judicially.

"Lay you five to one she didn´t," offered the Viscount.

"Done!" said Sir Roland.

"Tell you what," said the Viscount suddenly. "I´m going to see."

Horatia caught him by the skirts of his coat. "No, you shan´t! You´ve got to take me home."

"Oh, very well," replied the Viscount, relinquishing his purpose. "But you´ve no business to go killing people with a poker at two in the morning. It ain´t genteel."

Sir Roland came unexpectedly to Horatia´s support. "Don´t see that," he said. "Why shouldn´t she hit [...] with a poker? You don´t like him. I don´t like him."

And to summon it up, when it comes to the question why she is in that particular street at two o´clock in the morning, killing people:

"She walked home," explained Sir Roland. "We were walking home, weren´t we? Very well, then? She walked home. Passed [...] house. Went in. Hit him on the head with a poker. Came out. Met us in the street. There you are. Plain as a pikestaff."

 

This gave me a laugh in the morning. Some scenes are just so good in this book, especially the ones with Horatia´s brother Pel (the Viscount) and his friend Pom.

More things that I´m not particularly fond of:

• I don´t buy the romance between the Earl of Rule and Horry. How a 35-year-old man is able to put up with a 17-year-old girl, who acts like a 12-year-old, is beyond me (and let´s just put it here: I do have my problems with the age gap thing). Or how anybody at all can put up with Horry. She is such a freaking idiot. 
• I don´t like romances in which cheating and double-crossing and misdirection is a big part of the relationsship between two characters, especially if the are married to each other. I know, this isn´t a love marriage, but show at least some respect toward each other.
• And please, just talk with each other. This whole "Oh, I want to make him jealous so that I can elicit some feelings out of him" storyline just doesn´t work for me. Especially since Horry is an idiot, whose jealousy ploy is delivered in an incredibly backhanded way.

It speaks for Heyer´s writing that I´m still reading this book. She writes the best slapstick funny scenes I have read in a very long time and I already had to chuckle quite a bit about the things that has happened in this book.

"Hanging back, are you?" said the Viscount, thrusting Mr. Fox aside. "Well, you won´t wear that hat again!" With which he plucked the straw confection from Mr. Drelincourt´s head and casting it on the floor ground his heel in it.

Mr Drelincourt, who had borne with tolerable composure the insult of a glass of wine thrown in his face, gave a shriek of rage, and clapped his hands to his head. "My wig! My hat! My god, it passes all bounds! You´ll meet me for this, my lord! I say you shall meet me for this!"

 

Okay, I´m taking it back. The wigs are essential for the plot ;D

This book is not nearly as good as Frederica, the only other Heyer I have read so far.

The Earl of Rule, the male main character, is a doll, but his wife, Horry, is a spoiled brat. And the worst thing you can do in a book is to write out the stutter of your character in e-every d-dialogue s-she i-is h-having. And I don´t like that basically all the characters are mean to each other. 

And one of my biggest pet-peeves is featured in this book: endless descriptions of hairstyles and fashion. Honestly, I don´t want to know what kind of wigs these people are wearing. 

I´m a tad disappointed that this isn´t as a delightful read as Frederica has been.

After going back and forth what to read next (and before reading the last book in my mini project), I decided that I just need some well-written fluff.