Page 43 of Miss Determined
“Unless your brother turns up.”
“The London newspapers go to every corner of the realm, Trevor. If Gavin is in Britain, he must have read about a certain delicateflowerfrom bucolic Berkshire whose attractions were apparently inadequate even years ago to secure an offer from atitanof gentlemanlymerriment, and so forth.”
“I am seized by an abrupt desire to burn down the penny press.” Soon enough, they’d be remarking the doings of the Marquess of T…
Roland attempted a halfhearted spook at a large blue butterfly fluttering about his face.
“He’s much calmer than he was even ten days ago,” Amaryllis said. “You’ve given him some dignity.”
What was she saying? “We all grow up eventually. Roland simply wanted for some guidance and experience.”
They turned through the gateposts, and the sinking sensation spread to Trevor’s gut. He’d be welcomed at the Hall for a cup of tea, and Amaryllis’s family would flutter about like human butterflies, chattering, laughing, and vying for attention. Amaryllis would grow quieter and quieter, until she saw him off with a wan smile.
He enjoyed her family—enjoyed their noise and warmth and humor—but today’s looming separation sapped his social stamina.
“Show me the gatehouse,” he said, before Amaryllis could extend an invitation to take tea. “Your mother mentioned that I might rent the place as temporary quarters, and it’s certainly more commodious than a room at the Arms.”
Amaryllis turned Jacques off the carriage lane onto a short drive. “Gavin liked to rehearse here. Caroline sneaks away to read in Grandmama’s old parlor. I come to the gatehouse and pretend I’m dusting, but mostly, I’m finding solitude. The gatehouse was the first dwelling on the property, where the original owner lived when Lark’s Nest was being built.”
Trevor expected her to launch into a discussion of the building’s provenance—who built it in what year, of stone from which quarry—but she instead remained quiet. They pulled off the horses’ gear and turned them out in a grassy paddock behind the gatehouse proper. Amaryllis took a key from beneath a boot scrape and led Trevor into a sunny kitchen with mullioned windows and a flagstone floor.
“When the kitchen is spotless,” Amaryllis said, taking Trevor’s hat from his head and setting it on a counter, “the house must be deserted or for sale.” She stripped off her riding gloves and set them in the crown of Trevor’s hat. “My father used to say that. Come, I’ll show you the rest.”
The rest consisted of four other rooms—a dining room and parlor on the ground floor and, according to Amaryllis, two bedrooms upstairs. The topmost floor was a garret for housing staff. The whole was furnished, though the parlor sofa and chairs were under Holland covers, and the china cabinet in the dining room was empty.
“Empty houses have a different kind of quiet,” Trevor said, “as if they wait rather than slumber. I toured many empty homes in France, some of them pathetically grand. They’d survived the famines, the Revolution, the Terror, and the wars, but their occupants had not been so lucky.”
“Were you tempted to buy any of them?”
The clock on the mantel had stopped at noon or midnight. The sunshine coming through the windows was bright, but the Holland covers gave the parlor a sad air.
“I bought one of the most modest properties,” Trevor said, “not for the house. I have land in France, and the dwelling came with the acres. A friend manages it for me. We grow claret grapes, mostly.” Fournier was a friend, for all he was also a business partner.
Trevor saw the question his disclosure raised: He could afford land in France. He had touredpathetically grandhomes with a view toward buying them. He had means, so why not…?
“Is there somebody else, Trevor?” Amaryllis asked, leading the way up the steps. “Somebody to whom you are obligated?”
He was obligated to the Marquess of Tavistock and to a thousand other somebodies—tenants, factors, staff, cousins, pensioners, Parliament—though nobody save Jeanette would miss him if he resumed traveling for another five years.
“I am free of romantic entanglements—of other romantic entanglements.” He followed Amaryllis up the narrow steps and emerged onto a landing that boasted a window seat. The horses cropped grass below, and the roofline of Twidboro Hall was barely visible through the luminous green of the emerging canopy.
Two doors opened off the landing, the bedrooms presumably, and a visual metaphor for choices Trevor faced.
“Might we sit for a moment, Amaryllis?”
“You are the only person to call me that, other than Mama when she’s vexed with me.” She settled on the window seat and studied the dusty toes of her riding boots.
“Your name is lovely, and you are lovely, but you are too reserved to ask me what my intentions are. Had you a father or brother on hand, they would sort me out, but since no such worthy is available, you must sort me out yourself.”
She patted the place beside her. “Are you in a muddle?”
“I am. You?”
“I know very clearly who and what I want, Trevor.”
A secluded gatehouse was a fine place to have a difficult discussion, though it struck Trevor belatedly that it was also a fine place to… effect a mutual seduction.
“You don’t know the whole of the who,” he said, taking her hand. “You know me as Trevor Dorning, and Trevor is my forename.”
