Page 88 of Miss Determined
“Purvis,” Phillip said quietly, “can shout my existence from the roof of Windsor Castle, and I doubt anybody would believe him. Granny Jones can vouch for me, and a few other local antiquities, and I hope I am sufficiently well mannered to put period to the charge of imbecility. I don’t see that my relationship to you should alter your plans for Purvis in any degree.”
“You are granting me permission to go to battle?”
“Do you need my permission?”
“Yes.” Trevor already had Lissa’s permission, and her blessing, but Phillip’s mattered as well.
“Then you have it. When do you return to London?”
“My horse will disown me if I try to make the journey tomorrow. I don’t suppose you can put me up for a day or two?”
Phillip blinked several times, though the breeze had died down. “I’ve room to spare. Welcome to Lark’s Nest, my lord.”
He held out his left hand, in his usual fashion. Trevor responded by holding out his right and leaving it extended until Phillip yielded to the gesture and shook firmly with his right hand too.
ChapterNineteen
Purvis prided himself on never underestimating an opponent, and he had to admit that the present Lord Tavistock was smarter than his father had been.
Though that wasn’t saying much.
“A meeting at Gunter’s, sir?” Jones asked, striding along a respectful half step behind Purvis. “A legal meeting?” He shifted a few well-chosen files from one arm to the other.
“His lordship doubtless seeks to alert us that we’ll soon be drafting marriage settlements. Nobody will think it odd if a peer and his solicitor exchange a few genial words beneath the maples of Berkeley Square.”
Purvis thought it odd—a bit odd, anyway—though any element of London’s population with pretensions to respectability could patronize Gunter’s. Governesses and their charges, toffs and their chums, ladies on the prowl for new bonnets or new flirtations… On a fine spring afternoon, Gunter’s would welcome them all.
“His lordship has been out of mourning for only a fortnight,” Jones said. “Wouldn’t an engagement be precipitous?”
Nobody worshipped at the altar of propriety like a lad from the shires. “Not among the peerage, Jones. They don’t walk out together for two years waiting for some auntie to leave the bride a competence. If I can trust the footmen, gardeners, and maids in the Bromptons’ employ, Tavistock is maneuvering his courting artillery into place.”
In the past two weeks, Tavistock had met the Brompton antidote in the park for a hack, accompanied by a few other ladies, chaperones, grooms, and gawkers.
He’d stood up with her at the Earl of Westerly’s do, only the once, but for the good-night waltz.
He’d escorted her and some of her coven to Hatchards.
He was, in short, doing as he was told and with far less sulking and seething than his father would have done. Purvis did not especially care for ices, but he did relish the prospect of a handsome, wealthy, young peer doing the pretty on command like a titled dancing bear.
That the dancing bear had requested a meeting in Mayfair was a tolerable display of resistance, and Purvis quite liked the idea that all of polite society would see the marquess publicly acknowledging his man of business.
“If Tavistock is simply warning us that settlement negotiations are in the offing,” Jones said, “why are we hiking halfway across Town to hear the news? He could have dropped a note.”
Jones had his strengths, but his imagination was not among them. “He’s displaying his influence, tugging at the leash. He has come to heel well enough and deserves this little bit of farce. The workings of the aristocratic mind are not complicated for one who has made a study of its predictable machinations.”
“If you say so, sir, but why bring the files? It’s not as if we’d discuss his lordship’s finances in public.”
“To remind Tavistock that we have all the pertinent information and always will.” More than that, Jones did not need to know. “Besides, his lordship is particularly concerned with the debts his late cousin amassed, and a peek at the numbers might be in order, particularly if Tavistock had the presence of mind to bring his coach.”
The weather had obliged his lordship, at least for the present. Purvis had decided to walk, not because trekking about London on foot had any appeal, but rather, because the carriages lining the square would be the most elegant conveyances in creation. Purvis’s town coach, while commodious, did not measure up to such ostentation.
Berkeley Square, with its majestic trees, wide walks, and predictable throng of pedestrians, came into view. Children created a din kicking a ball about, waiters bustled to and from the shop, and ladies held court from within their coaches and gigs.
Tavistock sat in lordly solitude on a bench toward the west side of the square, Gunter’s being across the street from the east side. He cleaned up nicely, though he tended more to brutishness than his father had. Even so, the Brompton woman wouldn’t have done better no matter how great her fortune.
Purvis was prepared to be tolerant and even a bit flattering, lest the course of his affairs be delayed by lordly tantrums.
“Fetch me an ice,” he said to Jones, taking the files. “Barberry… No, vanilla.” More exotic, more… worldly. “I have a pouting peer to humor, however temporarily.”
