Page 11 of Miss Dramatic
Oh, for pity’s rubbishing sake. Tansy had sense enough to swan off without dignifying that bit of flummery with a reply.
“Did you discuss this brilliant notion with your marchioness before you hired these players?” Phillip asked.
“Of course not. It’s a surprise. I realize she’s getting her feet wet as a hostess, beginning in the shallows before she attempts deeper waters, but a husband needs to put his imprimatur on the hospitality offered under his roof.”
Phillip wanted to put the imprimatur of his boot on the marquess’s lordly arse. “What of DeWitt? Did you clear this with him?”Say yes. Please say yes.
“These are his old chums. Why wouldn’t he be glad to see them?”
Tavistock meant well. He meant to perform some lordly legerdemain, produce a lovely surprise, and earn the goodwill of all. He was an outsider to some extent in polite society because he’d absented himself on the Continent right out of university, and he was an outsider in Crosspatch by virtue of his rank and origins.
Phillip marshaled his patience and attempted an explanation. “DeWitt didn’t intend to leave his family without means for two straight years when he decamped to indulge his theatrical interests. He didn’t mean to risk scandal. He didn’t mean to come dangerously close to losing all the standing his family has worked for two generations to establish.”
“And he hasn’t lost it,” Tavistock said, setting down his drink. “High spirits, youthful folly, an extended lark. We no longer send young men on a grand tour, and DeWitt was just having a bit of a tame adventure.”
Phillip had known Gavin DeWitt his whole life, and yet, he could not say what precisely had motivated DeWitt’s histrionic episode. He was certain, though, that had Tavistock not made inquiries, DeWitt would still be strutting about in Elizabethan finery and stealing the show as Benedick.
“Perhaps DeWitt would rather put the whole business behind him, forget it happened.” Phillip spoke quietly, though the common was deserted. “I have the sense our Gavin is ashamed of whatever transpired during those two years, ashamed of abandoning his family, ashamed of something. Now you will throw it all back in his face, and he might not be best pleased.”
Tavistock picked up his fork. “He won’t run off again. He promised us he wouldn’t.”
“Do I have your permission to at least warn him?”
Tavistock took a bite of pie, and drat the man for being able tochewelegantly. “I’ll do it. He’s my wife’s brother, and he and I are family, and that means we must be able to have honest discussions.”
Phillip was fairly certain that the boot went on the other foot. All the blood ties and legal connections in the world did not make two people family if honesty and respect weren’t there to begin with. He sipped his ale and kept his opinions to himself, while Tavistock demolished food and waxed eloquent about the many fine qualities of Crown of Crosspatch summer ale.
Rose sipped her punch and listened with half an ear to Lady Iris Wolverhampton waxing eloquent on the topic of restorative tisanes. Lady Iris was passionate about her subject, while Rose wanted passionately to return to the towpath and make a far better job of her discussion with Gavin DeWitt.
Can we not start afresh, Mr. DeWitt?So polite, so uncertain. A supplicant when she should never have asked him for anything ever again.
Have you another suggestion?What had he made of that inquiry? Had he heard an invitation where none had been intended? Rose had spent months wishing she’d handled herself differently where Mr. DeWitt was concerned, and the two weeks at Nunnsuch had been wasted on the same exercise.
“And peppermint,” Lady Iris said. “You never met a more agreeable herb for refreshing the mind or soothing the bowels. Sore muscles can benefit from peppermint unguent, and I firmly believe memory is improved by inhaling the scent.”
Lady Iris had no business being so earnest when she was so pretty, but this gathering was rife with women who’d managed to eclipse beauty with a less agreeable quality—bookishness, a gift for rhetoric, a talent for ciphering.
Miss Zinnia Peasegood, for example, was brunette perfection with gorgeous azure eyes, and yet, she had the recollection of an elephant and trotted out her word-for-word memories of previous conversations with all the grace of an inebriated pachyderm.
Lady Iris was a traditional beauty—blond, willowy, blue-eyed, with the complexion of a Renaissance angel. Her voice was musical, her gestures graceful, and yet, Rose harbored the suspicion that Lady Iris had perfected the use of peppermint as a conversational tisane to counteract the impact of her good looks.
“We grow plenty of peppermint at Colforth,” Rose said. “My herb gardens are extensive, and if you are ever in the area, you must take a tour.”
“I would adore that above all things,” Lady Iris said, with her signature guileless intensity. Her focus abruptly shifted, and without turning, Rose knew exactly what—or who—had captured her ladyship’s attention.
Gavin DeWitt had raised making an entrance to a high art. Rose casually turned under the guise of setting down her glass. He stood by the door, not overtly calling attention to himself, but drawing every eye nonetheless. In his stillness, in his bearing, in the way he wore his very clothes, he commanded notice.
Also in the way he didn’t wear clothing.
“Brother to Lady Amaryllis,” Lady Iris said, as if cataloging a specimen. “Mr. DeWitt is certainly striking.”
“Is he? I see some height, brown hair, regular features. A somewhat memorable nose, but nothing to rival Wellington’s proboscis, and yet, here we stand, all but gawking.” At a man who appeared to have no idea whatsoever that he was being gawked at—an actor’s trick, no doubt. Gavin DeWitt’s pockets were full of actor’s tricks.
“You know Mr. DeWitt, Mrs. Roberts?”
The question had no biblical underpinnings, thank heavens. “We met at the Nunnsuch do earlier this summer. Mr. DeWitt, having been born and raised in Crosspatch, is friends with Lord Phillip, who was the ranking guest down in Hampshire.”
“One needs a large fan with many sticks for gatherings such as these.” Lady Iris brandished an article painted all over with flowers. “Some people scrawl dance steps on their fans. I use mine to keep social connections straight. Might you introduce me?”
