Page 23 of Miss Determined
Raybourne echoed what Amaryllis had said about introductions and social calls. Nobody stood on ceremony, and word of Trevor’s arrival in Crosspatch had already traveled all over the neighborhood in any case.
As Trevor got up to leave, he hazarded a question he would never have put to a new acquaintance in London—or Paris.
“Do we know anything of Gavin DeWitt’s possible whereabouts?”
“We know young Mr. DeWitt is likely enjoying himself, wherever he is. He has his father’s gift of a light heart. We like and respect Lissa DeWitt, but we dote—doted—on Gavin. A good-looking devil who always has the right word, the right smile, the right silence. Mrs. P called him a natural-born charmer, and he was our best baritone too. Very musical. His mother’s pride and joy, though his father was forever after him to take more of an interest in the family business.”
“Candles?”
“DeWitt and Son probably does still sell candles, but they also did quite well supplying the army with lanterns, fuses, whale oil, and I know not what else. The business prospers, but all the profits are turned over to the solicitors, and being a man of God, I will lapse into pious silence rather than give you the benefit of my thoughts on that arrangement.”
“Then nobody has any idea where DeWitt has gone off to? No duel, no ruinous gambling, no scandals involving women?” None of which would have forced Trevor himself into hiding, but then, he was a useless, titled, fribbling lord.
“Gavin DeWitt is jolly, but he isn’t stupid, beyond the stupidity we are all heir to in our youth. He might have fallen afoul of highwaymen, but it’s a rare gentleman of the high toby who commits murder these days. The press-gangs have been outlawed, Britain is more or less at peace, and DeWitt has a gentleman’s usual accomplishments.”
“He was literate?”
“Literate, well-read, musical, mannerly, a fine equestrian, and not too proud to take part in the amateur theatricals and musicales. We all miss him.”
Trevor took his leave on that wistful note. The afternoon was sunny, if not quite mild, though testing Roland’s improved manners with another outing seemed ill-advised. The horse was not in regular work, and overtaxing him would be a sure recipe for a histrionic display of the equine variety.
The thought of returning to the Arms to read more gossip and tattle held no appeal, and yet, Trevor wasn’t in any frame of mind to call at Lark’s Nest, where he’d doubtless hear himself vilified yet again. He had no recollection of raising the rent at Twidboro Hall—the opposite was the case, if memory served—but twelve properties, travel, the unreliable mails…
Perhaps Purvis had confused one tenant with another, one property with another. In any case, Travis wouldun-raise the DeWitt’s rent, of that he was certain.
He trod the path along the Twid until he came to a boulder situated along the riverbank. He perched upon that boulder and mentally composed correspondence to his solicitors. After that exercise had exhausted his stores of lordly imperiousness, he turned to drafting a note to Sycamore Dorning.
When his bum had grown stiff and cold, he yet remained on the boulder long enough to mentally dispatch an epistle to Worth Kettering. As he rose and took the path in the direction of Lark’s Nest, he added a short postscript to the last missive.
By then, he’d realized that somebody half secreted in the undergrowth was watching him and had been for some time.
ChapterSix
Jones, whose self-possession rivaled Wellington’s legendary calm on the day of battle, passed Young Purvis a single folded piece of paper.
“Troubling news, sir.” A slight quaver in his voice indicated the news starting Young Purvis’s day was dire. The blob of wax clinging to the edge of the paper was of a particular purple color, suggesting the dire news had come from Berkshire. “His lordship sent this by express yesterday afternoon and to my attention.”
“Most unusual.” On the reverse of the epistle, in the same elegant, confident hand as the letter itself:John Jones, Senior Clerk. To be opened by addressee only, at the firm of…“I take it we had no direction from his lordship requiring the rent at Twidboro to be raised in the first place?”
“None, sir. I double-checked the files to be sure. Tavistock has never given us leave to raise anybody’s rent. Shortly after he went to France, he indicated that, in particular, no rents are ever to be raised on any family in mourning.”
In France, Tavistock would have seen one dispossessed widow after another, and the current marquess was a decent sort, more’s the pity.
“We must do as our client says.” Young Purvis passed the letter over. “Make a copy of that and file the copy. You may return the original to me.”
Jones folded the letter carefully. “And the funds for a new roof on St. Nebo’s? It’s a modest house of worship, but a new roof…? The bankers will want a Purvis signature on that dispersal, sir.”
“Battle stations!” Young Pennypacker sang out the warning from his desk along the window. He jammed the last bite of a hot cross bun into his maw, took up his pen, uncapped his ink bottle, and bent over a half-finished copying exercise. The other clerks followed suit, and by the time Old Purvis strolled into the office, the clerks’ chilly chamber was a hive of quiet, focused industry.
“Good morning, all,” Old Purvis said, ambling between the desks. “A fine day to be gainfully employed on the business of the great and the good. Jones, I’ll want a word with you.”
Jones discreetly handed Lord Tavistock’s express back to Young Purvis. “Of course, sir.”
“I’d like a word with you as well, sir,” Young Purvis said, tucking the letter into his breast pocket. “About the Tavistock Berkshire properties.”
Pennypacker exchanged a portentous look behind Papa’s back with the assistant head clerk, Northam.
Papa began unbuttoning his greatcoat, a work of sartorial splendor sporting five capes. “What of them?”
