Page 53 of Miss Determined
“I like him,” Phillip said, finishing his tea. “Dorning is busy up here.” He tapped his temple with a finger. “A fashionable gent to appearances, but he pays attention.”
That last was said while Phillip peered into the dregs of his tea cup. He swirled the cup, and something about the gesture struck Lissa as familiar. She’d seen Phillip make the same gesture previously, of course, and examining tea leaves was more than a metaphor, but still…
“Phillip, how did you come to be at Lark’s Nest?”
He set down his tea cup. “In the usual fashion. I was born here, by all accounts. My mother’s health was delicate, and she did not want to compound the challenges of childbed with the ordeal of London in summertime. Lark’s Nest was suited to the purpose.”
“What happened to your mother?”
He rose, though Lissa still had a piece of toast to finish. “Died, I’m afraid. Her health was never robust, though she apparently had a lively mind. Granny Jones recalls Mama fondly, as do I. Will you and Mr. Dorning be riding out again today?”
Lissa stood and took her last piece of toast with her. “Have you been spying, Phillip?”
“I’ve heard laughter drifting up from the path along the Twid. I’ve seen evidence of two riders passing by Lark’s Nest side by side. I know Roland’s particular whinny, and he does greet the mares when he’s in the vicinity.”
“Are we that obvious?”
Phillip paused in the dining room doorway. “Methinks you are that besotted, but if Dorning ever gives you cause to regret his acquaintance, you can count on me to hold him accountable. I am a dead shot, in case he has a need to inquire.”
“I suspect he is, too, and not only with an antique fowling piece.”
“Details.”
Lissa munched her toast as Phillip led her through the public rooms, explaining his plans for new curtains here, a reupholstered love seat there. In the parlor, he’d taken down the portrait of the blond lady and propped it against the sideboard. Another painting rested on the mantel, not yet properly hung.
“The same woman,” Lissa said. “The late marchioness?” And a solemn little blond boy standing beside her. “Is that the heir?”
“I suppose so. Mrs. Peeksgill thought an informal portrait ought to grace the informal parlor, but I’ve asked her to give the painting a cleaning and find someplace else to hang it.”
Phillip had spoken sharply, for him. “Someplace like the cow byre?” Lissa studied the boy, who was past the age of breeching, but not by much. Such a serious little lad, and for the second time in an hour, she had a sense of elusive familiarity. “That would be the present marquess?”
“I know not who he is, but he’s too superior for my parlor.”
Not superior, the lad looked… stoic, beyond the patience demanded of a child holding a pose for a portraitist. That boy had already learned some of life’s harder lessons and was resigned to learning more.
“A proper little man,” she murmured, moving closer. The child’s attire was exquisitely made for such a small person, right down to a tricorn hat trimmed with gold braid and silver buckles on his Sunday shoes. “His mother loved him.”
The lady had a hand on the boy’s shoulder, and her expression was the epitome of maternal devotion. Pride, joy, a touch of worry, and tremendous fondness. The child’s expression, by contrast, was devoid of emotion.
Sad little creature. Lissa looked for a signature. “Good God, this is a Reynolds, and it has been gathering dust in your lumber room?”
“I didn’t commission it, for pity’s sake,” Phillip said, pacing for the door. “Haven’t you a handsome swain to meet by the mill?”
“We meet at the Arms, in broad daylight for all of Crosspatch to see.”
“And you kiss by the mill.”
Among other places.Lissa grinned. “You’ve seen us?”
“Tansy Pevinger has made a few comments that suggest she might have. Be careful, Lissa. Dorning is apparently a lovely fellow, but we aren’t all who we seem to be.”
“Precisely,” she said, turning her back on the mother and child. “Polite society says I seem to be a shopkeeper’s uppish granddaughter with more settlements than refinement. Little do they know that I am the belle of Crosspatch Corners.”
Phillip offered her a swirling bow, gesturing with his left hand. “Tell it to Dorning. I’ve seen you with straw in your hair and manure on your skirts.”
“And yet, I can still be a belle, can’t I?” And the woman Trevor Dorning loved most in the whole world. “Who are you, Phillip?”
Lissa expected a flippant reply, a reference to the walking almanac of Berkshire, the Crosspatch expert on sheep breeds, a knight of the foaling shed…
