Page 70 of Miss Dashing
Flavia held a twenty-four-point hand, which put her over the finish line. “Excitement is fine for a lark, but for a marriage… A fellow one can rely on, who esteems one, and has a kind heart strikes me as the better bargain.”
Dear Flavie was hopelessly sentimental. “Johnny is rich, and all Hecate cares about is money. They’ll get on quite well, if Hecate can be made to see reason. Let’s get up a game of whist. I lost sixpence on today’s race.”
Mr. DeGrange was reading a paper over by the French doors, Boots Corviser was idly inspecting the offerings on the sideboard. Cousin Isaac and Mrs. Roberts were at the chessboard, and Mrs. R looked to be on the road to victory.
“Did you bet on Johnny?” Flavia asked, organizing the deck and setting it aside. “I bet on Mr. DeWitt. You can have my sixpence, but I promised Mr. DeGrange I’d partner him at whist this evening.”
When had she done that? “I suppose one of us ought to keep an eye on him if he’s playing Mama’s gallant. Thankless job, and you are very good to take it on. Don’t wait up for me.”
Portia would have risen, but Flavia put a hand on her wrist. “Porry, what are you planning? This business about sparing Hecate the tedium of a farm life isn’t a charitable impulse.”
Portia looked around and saw nobody even close to eavesdropping. Nobody had gone up to the mezzanine either, which was where Uncle Nunn shelved the plays and French novels.
“That scheme with the notes almost worked last year, Flave. If we were more careful, we could pull it off this time. Get Hecate and Johnny sorted out before the London matchmakers can seize upon him this autumn.”
Or before Hecate could seize on Lord Phillip, who was apparently more than willing to become her captive.
Flavia put the cribbage pegs back in the starting holes. “I’m glad we failed last year. I could have ended up married to a man who cared for me not at all.”
“I would not have let that happen.”
Flavia made the same face she used to make when Portia insisted the younger sister always take the smaller half of any shared biscuit.
“You would have been a viscountess, Flavia. Any other sister would be thanking her lucky stars to have found herself in such a situation.”
Flavia was quiet for a moment, while Portia was mentally composing notes and choosing where to lure the soon-to-be-happy couple.
“I don’t like it,” Flavia said at length. “Hecate has supported the whole family for years, and now Johnny wants her money, too, just like the rest of us. He’s not smitten with her. He’d have mentioned her in his letters if he had been, and he’d have written more than once or twice a year.”
Flavia was at her worst when she was trying to apply logic to facts. “He was busy making his fortune so he was worthy of her.”
“Then he shouldn’t be underhanded in his courtship, accosting her in the garden and threatening scandal if she won’t have him.”
“We have only Lord Phillip’s word for that version of events, and honestly, Flave, what would either of us know about how smitten fellows behave? Charlie is supposedly smitten with Eggy, and he’s forever sowing wild oats nonetheless.”
Flavia’s brows drew down, portending a prodigious attempt to reason through that conundrum. The house party had a mere handful of days left to run its course, and Portia could not afford to wait on Flavia’s dubious skill with cogitation.
“Let’s not think it to death,” Portia said, patting Flavia’s hand. “If you are partnering Mr. DeGrange, I suppose that leaves me with Boots Corviser.”
“Or Mr. DeWitt,” Flavia said. “He was on the terrace when I came in.”
“I wonder how much he won on today’s race. Perhaps we should relieve him of a few pence in the interests of keeping him humble?”
“Fetch him,” Flavia said, “and if Mr. DeWitt won’t join us, we’ll press Boots into service, though he looks none too steady on his pins.”
Portia had no interest in a tipsy whist partner, so she repaired to the terrace, though Mr. DeWitt had apparently found elsewhere to end his day.
Time to plead a headache, then, and find a private place to practice imitating Hecate’s precise, tidy hand.
Phillip had run through the whole prissy, prancing sequence of the quadrille for the third time, which he could do only slowly and because he allowed himself to stop and mentally review each sub-pattern before embarking on it.
“Chassé jetté et assemblé, en avant en arrière…”He’d asked DeWitt to help him with the pronunciation, because unlike the ladies, he’d not be carrying a fan that helpfully listed the steps. He’d be relying on the prompting of a caller, and thus a grasp of proper French pronunciation became imperative.
“Phillip, what are you doing?” Hecate stood framed in the doorway by the light of the corridor sconces.
“Making a cake of myself,” he said, lowering his arms. “I regularly entertain the Brompton ancestors with my stumbling. You are sworn to secrecy.”
She hesitated on the threshold, and that broke his heart. A week ago, she’d been willing to steal into his room by the light of the moon. Now, she looked both directions before slipping into the gallery and closing the door behind her.
