Page 10 of Miss Determined
Temptation won, for a change. “He has a dirty spook,” she said. “A dirty buck, and a filthy bolt. You don’t see it coming, and in hindsight, you never know what set him off. He can run like the wind when he’s panicked, and then he gets the bit between his teeth and you’re halfway to Windsor before he can be reasoned with.”
“Better halfway to Windsor than halfway back to Town. Shall we?”
Lissa preceded Mr. Dorning from the common. “You truly do not care for London?” she asked when they’d reached the inn’s front terrace.
“I spent most of my boyhood in London, and while Town life has its advantages, Mayfair never felt like home. Is Crosspatch Corners your birthplace?”
“I grew up here and have always dwelled in these surrounds, but for a year at a Swiss finishing school. I love Berkshire and wish…”
A groom was leading Roland and Jacques across the green. Both horses were large, elegant, and athletic, but one wasn’t to be trusted.
“What do you wish, Miss DeWitt?”
That Gavin would come home. That Mama would cease fretting over Lissa’s rubbishing settlements. That Grandmama wasn’t so prone to repeating herself. That Diana wasn’t doomed to disillusionment, as all girls whose grandfathers’ fortunes had been made in trade were doomed to disillusionment.
“Here at home,” Lissa said, “I can ride out with you, though we haven’t been properly introduced. I need not pretend I’m a schoolgirl ignorant of life, or a fragile ornament who would shatter if you cited one of the Bard’s more ribald jests. I am on familiar territory, such that you benefit from my escort, rather than conversely. I’ve helped out during foaling season, looked after my grandfather in his final illness. I can be myself here at home.”
“You’ve been presented at Court?”
“When I was eighteen, which is beginning to feel like German George’s day. Then my father died, and I was spared the rest of the Season. Grandfather died just as we were emerging from mourning, and there have been other… upheavals. My mother took it into her head to drag me back to London last year, and…”
I failed miserly.How to say that without admitting the resentment, bewilderment, and humiliation public failure had occasioned?
“You were not favorably impressed,” Mr. Dorning said.
Roland made a try for a few bites of grass, and the groom, like an idiot, allowed that naughtiness.
“I was trying to figure out how to indicate that London was not impressed with me,” Lissa said, “but your words are more accurate. My family has no title, my mother has only the most distant connection to some baron or baronet, but Papa was nominally a gentleman. The proper place of such a young lady is among the wallflowers and chaperones, looking anxious, pretty, and grateful.”
“Pretty certainly applies. You there!” Mr. Dorning called to the groom. “You’re letting Roland set a bad example for Jacques. Time enough for grazing when they aren’t under saddle.”
The groom touched a finger to his cap and hauled on Roland’s reins. Roland, having established that now was the time to denude the green of every blade of grass, yanked back and tossed in a little hop to emphasize his point.
“Allow me,” Mr. Dorning said, jogging down the terrace steps. He took Roland’s reins from the groom, got a good hold close to the horse’s chin, and set a course for the inn. Roland tried to protest, but Mr. Dorning wasn’t having it. By sheer forward momentum, he towed the horse to the mounting block.
“Miss DeWitt, shall we be off?”
Lissa stood at the top of the steps, battling an uncharacteristic confusion.Pretty certainly applies… Shall we be off?She wasn’t pretty. She was statuesque, Junoesque—detestable word—stately, imposing, substantial.
Big.Like Jacques and Roland, but less serviceable. Maybe Mr. Dorning knew what it was to be seen for only his height, though given those blue eyes and that smile, Lissa didn’t put much faith in her theory. She came down the steps and got herself aboard Jacques. Mr. Dorning fiddled with his stirrup leathers and situated himself atop Roland.
“Are you interested in any particular sort of properties?” Lissa asked when she’d endured the groom’s put-upon glower, resigned headshake, and muttered warnings.
“Peaceful properties. Pretty, bucolic retreats that retain the dignity and orderliness of self-sustaining manors. A conservatory is a plus, as are good pastures for the home farm and stable, some tenancies, a decent home wood.”
He described half the holdings in Berkshire.
Lissa nudged Jacques into the street, and Roland ambled along beside him. “I meant, are you interested in any particular properties by name? Did some solicitor make inquiries on your behalf? My own home is under a ninety-nine-year lease, so we don’t really own it, but Mama expects to grow old there, assuming we can pay the rent. Other properties in the area operate in the same way, but some are also available for hunt season, for shooting parties and so forth.”
The village was quiet—no market this morning—but a few pedestrians and a dog cart idled along the perimeter of the green. Mrs. Wilson had her at home today, a jolly hen party very different from its sniffy Mayfair counterparts.
“I do have such a list,” Mr. Dorning said. “Several properties west of the village caught my eye, both owned by some absentee lord or other. Does Twidboro Hall ring any bells?”
Unease slithered through Lissa’s middle, but surely her anxiety was unwarranted. The Hall was technically a rental property, as she’d said, and a London solicitor might not know anything more than that.
“I’ve lived at Twidboro Hall my whole life, and as far as I know, my family has no intention of breaking the lease for the convenience of a greedy, prancing peer who thinks he can turn us out and raise the rent for a new tenant.”
That was not the speech of a lady, but the DeWitt family had been through enough drama and upset in recent years, more than enough. To lose their home would be the outside of too much, and Lord Tavistock—whom Lissa had never had the misfortune to meet—could learn to content himself on the pittance his dozen other properties doubtless earned for him.
