Page 75 of Miss Determined
“I am not family to these people, Trevor.”
“That is only partly up to you. They can’t help it, so you’d best yield gracefully. I’m trying to. Let’s put an end to Jacques’s pining and take a stroll through the stable, shall we?”
Trevor was up to something with that suggestion. Well, so was Lissa.
She’d had a long talk with the former marchioness on the coach ride out from Town. Mama had traveled out with the Ketterings in a carriage that had made Sycamore Dorning’s conveyance look like a pony cart by comparison.
Jeanette had explained to Lissa about a small boy, born with a courtesy title slung about his neck and raised by a man with impossibly high expectations of his son. Trevor was never to complain, never to show fatigue, bad manners, impatience, ignorance, vulgar laughter, temper, or foolish smiles.
He’d become adept at playing roles from a young age out of sheer necessity. Of course he’d put aside the Tavistock title when he’d wanted tenants and villagers to be honest with him. He’d probably put the title aside permanently if he could.
“I have missed Jacques too,” Lissa said, letting Trevor steer her toward the fieldstone stable sitting downwind of the gardens on another slight rise. “I spent many happy hours in his company.”
“Did you?”
“Yes, and we can continue to mince about if your sensibilities are too delicate for direct speech, Trevor, but even the Dornings won’t leave us endless privacy.”
“I didn’t want to presume, and I did want to be… swainly. Considerate. Not rush my fences.”
He was adorable when he was on his dignity. “I am not a stile in muddy footing that you need to check your speed when approaching me. I was upset with you.”
“One notes the past tense with cautious hope.”
“You lied to me, and I don’t like that, but your reasons were sound, and you thought you’d put matters right with me before… the critical moment. I lie, too, Trevor, though not as convincingly.”
They passed a paddock of mares, some with foals, some drowsing in the shade of a maple hedgerow and clearly still in anticipation of motherhood.
Lissa shifted her grip on her escort so they were hand in hand. “When I came to Town this year, I decided I would not be old Tom DeWitt’s granddaughter, with the stink of tallow clinging to my skirts. I would be instead the DeWitt Heiress, who had already passed over two crops of eligibles, including an earl’s heir. The DeWitts have always excelled at amateur theatricals, and London is nothing if not one big theatrical.”
“Hadn’t thought of it that way, but you’re right.”
“Diana and I were shopping for bonnets, and as we made our way home, it occurred to me that if I could have arrived in Town credibly claiming to be a marquess’s granddaughter, I’d have done it. Not for myself, but because of how Mama, Diana, and Caroline would be treated if I could make the claim convincing. Sooner or later, my ruse would have been discovered, and that’s probably all that keeps more people from putting on assumed names and fictitious antecedents.”
“But you did not lie, and I did. I’m sorry for that, and I hope we can get past it.”
“We are past it. I am past it. Just don’t do it again.”
“I won’t.”
They had reached the stable, and given the midafternoon hour, the yard was quiet. Crows flitted around the rim of a stone trough. A particularly grand specimen perched atop the pump. A fat tabby tom lazed on the ladies’ mounting block, watching the crows through slitted eyes.
Swallows darted about when Lissa and Trevor entered the barn, and the scent of hay and horses thickened the air.
“A country smell,” Lissa said, wrapping Trevor in an embrace. “A good smell. You brought me here so we could greet one another properly, didn’t you?”
She felt the surprise and relief go through him, and his arms settled around her like homecoming and springtime in Berkshire and all good things.
“I wanted privacy to talk, Amaryllis. I could not presume beyond that.”
“What shall we talk about?” The feel of him was the same—muscular, elegant, solid, and dear.
He pulled off his gloves with his teeth, finger by finger, while Lissa held him. “I’m not a fortune hunter, for one thing. Purvis has looted the marquessate’s coffers, but I wasn’t idle on the Continent, and Jeanette had much of my personal money put in the cent-per-cents. I don’t need or want your money.”
Lissa purely hugged him. Not the declaration most women would long to hear, but precious for its insightfulness. “Purvis thinks he has you by the pence and quid, but he doesn’t?”
“That is very likely his scheme, but he’s sorely in error. The boot might well be on the other foot.”
How she had yearned for these conversations undertaken at close quarters, confidences freely traded. The situation called for kissing, too, so she planted a smacker on Trevor’s lips.
