Page 67 of Miss Determined
The only sound in Jeanette’s wake was Amaryllis munching her tea cake. Trevor swirled his tea and decided on the direct approach. Neither Sycamore nor Jeanette would leave him alone with Amaryllis for long.
He took Amaryllis’s hand. “I’ve missed you dreadfully.”
That was her cue to buss his cheek and offer reciprocal assurances.
“I’ve missed Mr. Trevor Dorning,” she said, “and I’ve wanted to administer the Marquess of Tavistock a sound drubbing.”
What the hell was going on?“Has his lordship given offense?”
She rose and began to pace, arms folded, hems whispering of feminine upset. “Why did you lie? You presented yourself to us as Mr. Trevor Dorning. Then you told me otherwise, but I was too muddled… I was not focused on proper terms of address, I was… I thought you were Tavistock’s by-blow.”
Trevor stood because the lady was on her feet. He grasped the plain meaning of her words—Amaryllis had been mistaken about his antecedents—but his pride snagged on the wordlie.He’d told her…
What, specifically had he said? Not that he was the marquess, but that the previous titleholder was his father.
“You thought I was the marquess’s bastard?”
She nodded once. “Your name—the only name you gave us—was TrevorDorning.The shires are full of aristocratic by-blows. The young ladies get sent to select academies. The fellows are given a patch to go shooting on. They become vicars and squires, and nobody thinks anything of it, and I… Idon’t likethat you are Lord Tavistock. I don’t like it at all.”
“I’m not too keen on it myself,” Trevor said, which was the rubbishing damned truth. “I needed to not be the marquess when I nosed around Crosspatch. I had thought to salvage some of my honor by ensuring you knew of my birthright before we… before our expectations advanced beyond a certain point. I apologize for causing confusion.”
Amaryllis looked ready to hurl blunt objects at his head, or perhaps to cry. He’d withstand any and all domestic missiles she wanted to pitch at him, but he could not bear to see her in tears.
“I apologize,” he said more softly, “for causing you any upset at all. Badly, badly done. I am sorry I hurt your feelings. That is the last thing I’d ever intend. I can explain.”
Amaryllis’s chin came up. “This had better be the best explanation in the history of explanations, sir. I do not enjoy being made a fool of.”
She hated feeling like a fool. Trevor started there. “I am the fool. When I went to France, I thought only to escape the stupidity that amounts to polite society. Nobodydoesanything. The young men get drunk, make stupid wagers, and dangle after heiresses or expect heiresses to dangle after them. The social entertainments are deadly dull, and Parliament is a farce.”
“Do go on.”
She was listening. Trevor took heart from that. “I served no purpose here, and Jeanette had started a new chapter of her life. The Continent loomed as my salvation, and for a time, it was.”
“You learned about winemaking?”
“Jeanette’s brother makes champagne. Another family connection blends exquisite clarets. Then I became interested in the Rhenish vintages. Languages are much easier to learn if one has a purpose for learning them. Travel becomes more meaningful if undertaken for a reason. I was half serious about brewing beer commercially when I went to Berkshire. I’m in earnest about it now.”
“Do not,” she said, “prose on to me about beer. You lied to the whole village, and the truth you eventually gave to me was easily misconstrued. Explain that.”
I was somewhat distracted at the timestruck Trevor as an imprudent observation, though he’d never forget the hours spent in the Twidboro gatehouse.
If Amaryllis regretted those hours… He’d make it up to her, somehow.
“I am being made a fool of,” he said. “While I was kicking my heels in France, my solicitors were having a fine time looting my coffers. They still are. They didn’t even tell me that I owned Lark’s Nest, and the rent they claim I am receiving from Twidboro is substantially less than the rent you are paying.”
Some of the starch went out of her posture. “Is that why you tried to raise the rent again? Because you didn’t know about the last increase?”
She sounded merely curious, not appalled—not appalledyet. “It’s worse than that, Amaryllis. I had no hand in establishing the rents.I thought only to flee Town before the matchmakers got ideas, to gain some time to sort myself out, to indulge my own whims and fancies after doing as I had been told since birth. I bid farewell to Merry Olde, told my solicitors where to reach me, then contrived to not be at that address for months on end.”
She dropped her arms and resumed her seat. “What does all this belated self-castigation have to do with lying about your name, station, and connection to Crosspatch?”
“I have created a mess. Cleaning up that mess is my responsibility. Twidboro and Lark’s Nest are only two of my holdings. The solicitors have likely left the family seat largely unmolested. The staff and tenants there are loyal to the Vincents, but in Yorkshire? Derbyshire? The ties are attenuated, and I’m sure Purvis has been lining his pockets handsomely with those properties.”
“Purvis.” She spat the name. “Mama and I have an appointment with him next week, and if he’ll steal from a marquess, he’s likely been looting our funds too.”
“This has occurred to me and makes my determination to see him foiled all the more pressing.”
A peal of feminine laughter sounded from a few rooms away, followed by, “Oh, Mr. Dorning. You are so naughty!”
