Page 93 of Miss Determined
“Hic habitant monstra,” she murmured. “The real monster was your own father, and you have been trying to leave his realm since boyhood. Are we to dwell in France, Trevor?”
He closed the door, and not only for privacy. “I thought we might dwell in Berkshire, at least some of the time.”
Amaryllis began opening and closing the desk drawers. “Berkshire is hardly fashionable.”
“Berkshire is beautiful, and it’s home to an expert on growing hops—or at least a well-informed source—who happens to be my only living brother and my heir. It’s not that far from my step-mother’s various in-laws, or from her. My prospective in-laws dwell in Berkshire, and I can purchase good land there at a reasonable price.”
Amaryllis ceased inspecting empty drawers. “I am very nervous about becoming a marchioness, Trevor. I am not grand. I have no airs and graces adequate for such a lofty status. I laugh too loudly. I wanted to swat Purvis with my parasol, except that I am not fashionable enough to have remembered to bring a parasol.”
She sat on the desk, an informality that would have driven the late marquess to strutting lectures and profanity. Trevor perched beside her—the desk was a sturdy old article—and took her hand.
“I want to make beer, Amaryllis. I want to see to it myself, and if I’m successful, then I’ll have managers and whatnot, but I want to build something with my own native wit, experience, and determination. Something good and affordable and English. It’s not done for a marquess to be in trade. It’s not done for him to turn his back on Town and take up village life. It’s not done, but—”
She kissed him. “But it shall be done, if that’s the sort of marquess you want to be. I am glad now that you didn’t use the title when you first came to Crosspatch. I learned to respect and admire the man rather than scorn the peer. I will marry the man—though you have yet to propose to me, sir—and the marquess will simply have to manage as best he can. My husband’s happiness matters to me. His title, other than the responsibility it brings, does not signify.”
“You’re sure? The gossips can be awful, Amaryllis. They will blame you for turning my head. They will castigate me for disrespecting my birthright.”
“Your birthright,” Amaryllis said, laying her head on his shoulder, “was a lot of loneliness, posturing, and arrogance. I don’t want that for you or for our children. We had best prepare to endure market-day squabbles, trysts by the Twid, and Roland’s good digestive health for some years to come—assuming you eventually propose to me.”
“I am entitled to court you first. I thought we might discuss the particulars of that undertaking in my bedroom.”
Amaryllis hopped off the desk and seized him by the hand. “You thought correctly.”
“I never thought I’d miss market day in Crosspatch,” Gavin DeWitt said, sinking onto a bench on the terrace of the Arms, a pint of Pevinger’s finest in his hand. “Did not think it possible to miss Vicar’s little homilies or Diana’s infernal sonatinas.”
“But you did,” Phillip replied, taking the place beside him. “I thought a few weeks in Town would part me from my wits.” He’d kissed his mares upon returning, foolishness nobody need ever know of, but the sight of them, foals gamboling in the sunshine, the green grass springing up from the good earth…
Somewhere in the vast and stupid lexicon of rules known as proper deportment, an edict had doubtless been inscribed that full-grown courtesy lords were forbidden to cry with relief to be home. The list of inanities required by proper deportment beggared description.
“I missed Pevinger’s ale,” Gavin went on, taking another sip.
“You missed Pevinger’s daughter.”
Gavin saluted with his mug. “The fair Tansy did not miss me. Told me to get my handsome arse to London if Crosspatch was a such a penance, try my luck, and quit complaining. She imparted that wisdom with the air of a woman who’d given the speech on previous occasions.”
Phillip had nothing to say to that. He understood flirtation in a limited sort of way. He understood procreation as both a man and a farmer. Women as a species, though, were wondrous, confusing, and best left to fellows with an overdeveloped taste for adventure.
“Tavistock is truly putting Miller’s Lament into hops and barley?” Gavin asked.
The marquess himself was halfway across the crowded green, in earnest discussion with Granny Jones, who stood about as tall as his elbow. Mrs. Raybourne was getting her oar in as well, and Mrs. Dabney was poised to join the affray.
Talking beer recipes, no doubt.
“Tavistock is also building himself a lovely little distillery,” Phillip said. “He negotiates the purchase of barrels with as much verve and determination as a fishwife haggles when her wares are first to market. If you kick him, he starts maundering on about vats and tubing and mash… He is drunk on beer without imbibing a drop.”
“Are you jealous?”
Gavin had always been a canny lad, a friend to all, and doubtless the repository of more than a few confidences. Phillip chose to answer the question honestly, rather than prose on about the marquess.
“Amaryllis and I are friends. When she becomes my brother’s wife, that won’t change.” Lissa had been an ally, a good neighbor, and somebody to whom Phillip’s weak shoulder and dubious origins had not mattered. Because Amaryllis hadn’t made an issue of those oddities, nobody else had. “Yes, I will miss her, but no, I am not jealous. Women baffle me as all the knives, forks, dishes, and glasses at a formal dinner baffle me.”
He’d endured one such dinner at some ducal residence, dragged along by Trevor and Amaryllis, who were too besotted to realize they’d landed Phillip in a wilderness where no birds sang and no friendly rays of sunshine beamed down from the heavens.
He’d watched what Hecate Brompton had done—use this fork, sip from that glass—and muddled through, feeling like the bumpkin who had never actually danced the steps he’d studied so carefully in the pamphlets.
“I had to learn all the place-setting whatnot,” Gavin said. “Grandmama was a very patient teacher, but then, I had all the time in the world to learn. Crosspatch isn’t exactly a hotbed of formal balls and lofty suppers. There they go.”
Mr. Pevinger stood a few yards from the vicarage steps, feet spread, arms crossed, chin jutting in the manner of an overbred bulldog. Mr. Dabney had taken up a comparable stance and was shaking an admonitory finger in Pevinger’s face.
