Page 35 of Miss Determined
“I do,” Sycamore replied, “and breakfast is one of my eleven favorite meals of the day. To horse, Heyward, Miss DeWitt. We have eggs and toast to vanquish.”
“I’ll walk with Roland and his jockey,” Lissa said. “You and Phillip can go ahead. If I recall correctly, Mr. Dorning has market gardens on a Richmond property, Phillip. Quiz him about medicinals and spices, why don’t you?”
A gleam came into Phillip’s eye. “Market gardens require a fair amount of labor.”
“And manure,” Sycamore said, his bonhomie fading. “Tons of seasoned horse manure if we’re lucky. Are you much in the vegetable line, Mr. Heyward?”
Phillip mounted his gray, collected Jacques, and disappeared in the morning mist with Sycamore, their voices trailing behind them.
“Who knew that aging horse manure is as much an art as aging brandy?” Trevor said, stuffing his riding gloves into a pocket and offering his arm to Lissa.
He was being gentlemanly, the wretch. Lissa took his free hand, glad in her bones that she’d removed her gloves when she’d dismounted.
“Sycamore Dorning annoys me,” she said, getting a firm hold on Trevor’s hand. “I doubt I’ve stood up with him. I’d recall that too-charming smile, those too-knowing eyes, though his height would have appealed to me in a dancing partner. He’s probably a decent fellow beneath all the bluster, but he’s a bit much for Crosspatch first thing in the day.”
Roland was content to plod along behind them, and Lissa was acutely aware that in London, this little gathering would never have taken place. She might hack out in the morning in a crowded park, her mother or some other matron along to chaperone, a groom one horse-length back, and all of Society watching to ensure that she didn’t converse too familiarly with any gentlemen even on horseback.
She would have no opportunity to hold hands with a fellow to whom she wasn’t engaged, no chance to speak her mind to him in private unless he was proposing to her. For her to hold his hat while he walked along bareheaded would have caused gossip.
“Sycamore has a fear of being ignored,” Trevor said. “He’s the youngest of seven sons, and his two sisters commanded attention by virtue of their novelty. For years, he was the smallest, the least skilled, the least educated. He struggles now to remind himself that he’s not seven years old and watching his brothers gain inches of height each year while he is still sitting atop the atlas at table. For the most part, I like him, and I respect him.”
“You understand him. Why is that, I wonder, when you and he are of different stations?”
The question was simple enough, but Trevor took his time answering. “I have no legitimate siblings, and the one possible half-brother—raised as a cousin—has, like Gavin, taken French leave. Maybe a poverty of siblings makes me sympathetic to a man with so much family. Sycamore loves them, but he sometimes doesn’t know what to do with them.”
Trevor had given the matter of Sycamore Dorning some thought. Lissa had given a different topic extended consideration.
“I want to kiss you, sir.”
He didn’t drop her hand, didn’t step away and announce a sudden need to return to London. He didn’t sweep her into his arms either, and he was too substantial for even Amaryllis to sweep him anywhere.
“Why, mademoiselle? I’m just a fellow passing through, for all you know. A gentleman of modest means with a modest dream.”
Why kiss him? Because he was patient with everybody—Caroline, Diana, Mama, the fractious horse, Sycamore Dorning… Because he wasn’t demanding Town manners on a Crosspatch bridle path. Because he held hands without assuming he was welcome to go buccaneering beneath Lissa’s skirts.
Though he probably was. She was still mentally sorting that out.
“Sycamore Dorning,” Lissa said, “assumes that a quiet country life, for horse or human, is not to be compared with the glamor of worldly success and Town life. If I’m keeping my Dornings straight, he owns some fancy club in London and takes a keen interest in it, despite his claims to be a countryman at heart. You say his Richmond property is a wonder, where—skirting the acceptable limits of agricultural wealth—he grows everything from tomatoes to tarragon…”
“He wasn’t trying to insult you, Amaryllis. He’s just… Sometimes Sycamore doesn’t think before he speaks.”
“His view, that the shires are synonymous with boredom and obscurity, was all too often expressed to me overtly last year. Wasn’t I delighted to get away from Berkshire, which is far more beautiful to me than any manicured London park could ever be? Wasn’t I luckyat my ageto be dragged from all I love to wear uncomfortable fashions and stay up all night drinking dreadful punch? What iswrongwith those people, that they criticize the way of life that makes their frolicking and fashion possible? Does Mr. Dorning think his precious horse manure falls from the sky?”
One corner of Trevor’s mouth twitched. “Will you kiss me for revenge on all the fops and dandies and matchmakers?”
Oh, maybe that had something to do with it, but not much. “If I kiss you, it will be because, on this lovely, rural spring morning, I’m in the company of a man I esteem, I’m in good spirits, and I am honest enough to admit an attraction. Does that make me a strumpet?”
The hint of amusement died in his eyes. “Of course not. It makes you honest, and possessed of good taste in kissing partners, but, Amaryllis, you barely know me.”
That he’d remind her to stop and think, to be sure of her course, made Lissa that much more confident of her feelings for him.
“I’ve spent more time in your exclusive company than I ever did with…” She refused to mention her near misses by name. “I know you well enough, Trevor Dorning, and I also know that in five minutes, Tansy Pevinger will come down that path, swinging her egg basket and humming the Sumer Canon, though summer won’t be a-coming in for months. Lawrence Miller knows by her tune whether she’s alone or not, and he’ll be lurking just this side of the mill. I also know that in the next minute…”
“Yes?”
“I will lose my nerve and feel foolish, and, Trevor, I am tired to my boots of feeling foolish.”
He drew her off to the side of the path. “The only fool in this company would be me, if I denied us what we both long for.”
