Page 34 of Miss Dashing
And yet, Hecate did not leave Phillip’s side.
“Put me between them at supper,” he said. “They can entertain themselves at my expense. DeWitt has social stamina—an apparent necessity for young strolling players—and he’s up to their weight, so stick him in their vicinity as well.”
“You wouldn’t mind?”
For her, Phillip was prepared to bear up manfully under even Portia’s and Flavia’s torments. “I would be delighted.” He rose and offered his hand.
“That was very convincing,” she said, rising. “I have never been very fond of the gallery. Such a lot of space to devote to what amounts to vanity.”
“But we had privacy here, and time, and now we have lovely memories too.” He kissed her again, because he needed the fortification—he’d agreed to take his meal flanked by the magpies—and because words were inadequate for some sentiments. “I will walk out that door, doing my best imitation of the polite squire enjoying a social gathering, but my heart will remain with you, Hecate Brompton.”
She looked puzzled and a bit dazed. “A farmer poet. Until supper, my lord.”
Back to my-lording. Ah, well.“Thank you for an enlightening tour of the gallery, Miss Brompton.”
Hecate let go of his hand, he bowed, and by gathering every jot and tittle of his dignity, he managed to chart a straight path for the door.
“Phillip?”
He was back by her side in an instant. “Yes?”
“Tonight…” She, who could face down Wellington at his most charming and likely reduced Prinny to a blancmange, looked uncertain. “The others will resume their whist. Portia and Flavia have a system of signals, and they augment their pin money by cheating at the card table.”
“While you retire early?” Was he hearing aright?
She nodded. “I thought we might talk a bit more… Take a final stroll in the garden?”
Phillip did not know precisely what her invitation entailed, but he knew what it cost her to make the offer. In what she’d said, implied, and muttered, he’d learned exactly how lonely and difficult her early years in Society had been.
“I would adore a constitutional with you beneath the summer moon. When the ladies retire to the parlor, I will excuse myself and await you on the bridge.”
“I’ll have to deal with the teapot.”
“Pass that duty to Edna. Tell the lot of them the truth, Hecate: You will be tired and want some peace and quiet at the end of your very long day. They can manage scandal broth and tippling without you.”
“You’re sure?”
He took her in his arms, where she fit so well. “If you do not join me on the arched bridge, then come morning, I will still be there. As the leaves change and the harvest is brought in, I will yet bide where I’ve promised you I’ll be. The first snowfall, the first crocus, will yet find me awaiting my love’s arrival.”
She sighed, kissed him soundly upon the lips, and left him concocting more farmer’s poetry in the rogues’ gallery.
The food was always better when Hecate was on hand, and Portia resented her for that bitterly. Hecate had never had her own household, and yet, she knew how to run Nunnsuch in the midst of a house party.
What spinster put herself forward like that?
Though, of course, relying on Mama to direct matters was pointless. Portia took a sip of a decent Rhenish vintage—Hecate even dealt with the wine pairings—and knew she was neglecting Mr. DeGrange, her dining companion on the left.
Difficult to listen to what Lord Phillip—on her right—was saying to Flavia and to Mr. DeWitt’s conversation with Eglantine across the table if one also had to chatter to an aging bachelor. Mr. DeGrange was four-and-thirty if he was a day.
“More wine, Miss Brompton?” Lord Phillip asked.
Even though the meal was growing more informal by the moment, he really ought not to pour for her himself.
She gave the standard answer. “Just a drop. It’s quite good.” The idea that he was being gallant rather than flirtatious made her bilious.
“I could use a drop too,” Flavia said.
Across the table, Mr. DeWitt, who was a bit too pretty for Portia’s tastes, smiled at Lord Phillip in that smug way men had. That smile said,Sweet young things ought to imbibe slowly, but what do they know?
