Page 16 of Miss Dramatic
“She strikes me as an entirely estimable woman, and the two of you clearly have a past. That’s not what we need to talk about.”
Clearlythey had a past? “Clearly, how?”
“You all but bolted out the window whenever she came into the room at Nunnsuch. She developed a pressing need to head for the door when you made your appearances. Then there was all that fishing without a single trout to show for it. Hecate noticed the pattern right off, but that needn’t concern you now.”
“It doesn’t concern me. Mrs. Roberts and I have found cordial footing.”Cordial.An insipid, neutral word, but better thanacrimonyorfoolishness. Friends were cordial, weren’t they?
“Delighted to hear it.” Phillip glanced over his shoulder, though the ladies had disappeared around the bend of the Twid. “You need to know that Tavistock is laboring under a series of unfortunate assumptions and that he has taken action on his mistaken beliefs.”
Gavin stopped by the very spot where he’d come upon Rose earlier in the day. “How unfortunate are these assumptions?”
Phillip scooped up a handful of pebbles and began tossing them into the water. “I don’t know, hence this conversation. Hecate said the sooner you knew, the better, because Tavistock means for you to know, but he’s preoccupied with his guests. Heed me, DeWitt. I don’t intend to repeat myself.”
Gavin watched the succession of pebbles sink, one by one, and resigned himself to exhibiting still more patience.
“Evenings like this are the embodiment of peace,” Rose said, mostly meaning it. “The crops are ripening, the lambs, calves, and foals have begun to grow up, and the very air feels benevolent.”
“You truly do prefer the country, don’t you?” Lady Phillip ambled along, arm in arm with Rose.
“I prefer the country in summer. Spring and autumn can be too busy, winter too bleak. Summer strikes me as a good balance of idle pleasures and industry. What of you? Do you have a preferred time of year?”
And what of Lord Phillip’s private chat with Gavin? His lordship hadn’t been rude, precisely, but he’d been determined on some pressing objective.
“I love the changing of the seasons,” Lady Phillip said. “Just when I am out of patience with summer’s heat or winter’s chill, along comes a change in the air. When all the bustling about in Town in spring has driven me barmy, a few weeks of Nunnsuch in its summer glory will restore my spirits. I gather Mr. DeWitt was something of a change of air for you?”
Not fair that her ladyship should be so astute, but then, she’d seen all the awkwardness at Nunnsuch, and she was a surpassingly intelligent female.
“I am supposed to say that Mr. DeWitt and I are only recently acquainted, and he seems a very agreeable gentleman.”
“He strikes me as a very honorable gentleman, but discontent.”
“Honorable?” Not the first word Rose would have used to describe him. Or the third or fourth.
“When Phillip had to absent himself from Nunnsuch, he appointed Mr. DeWitt my bodyguard, for reasons on which I need not elaborate. Mr. DeWitt was at my side, or within earshot and keeping me in view, from first light to last. He didn’t merely attend me, he directed my activities to ensure I wasn’t bothered by those who would have vexed me. He executed thankless duties conscientiously and without a thought to his own convenience.
“After three days of that,” her ladyship went on, “I was ready to wallop him for his devotion to duty, and yet, he would not be swayed. He was more tenacious than an overactive conscience.”
They rounded the bend in the path, and through the trees, another manor came into view. “Is that Twidboro Hall?”
“The very one. The DeWitt ladies are likely enjoying the evening air in the garden, if you’d like to be introduced.”
Rose beheld a modest manor on a slight rise. The place looked of a piece with its setting, contented, dependable, solid, the perfect home for that squire Gavin was trying to become.
“I would like to meet the DeWitts, but perhaps another time, when visitors are more likely to be expected.”When I have my wits about me and am not recovering from a verbal ambush.
“It’s not like that here,” Lady Phillip said, taking a seat on a bench that had to have been built shortly after the Great Flood. The oak had long since silvered, and several sets of initials had been carved into the seat. “Neighbors drop in unannounced. They visit back and forth across the hedgerows and collect the day’s news on the bridle paths. Unnervingly informal. Phillip says I’ll become accustomed to it. It’s not that different from London, except it is, and Phillip can’t quite grasp that. People here are kind.”
“You love Lord Phillip very much, don’t you?” A woman in love was always willing to see the world in a benevolent light.
“Extravagantly so. I flatter myself that my sentiments are returned. I should not have asked about you and Mr. DeWitt, but I’m something of a co-hostess here. If you want to be thrown together with our Gavin, if you want him kept out of your way, you should tell me.”
Rose settled onto the bench. He’d never beenherGavin, though she’d wished and hoped and wondered if he might be.
“We met early last spring. One of those house parties that tries to take advantage of the end of hunt season, but isn’t a hunting party. I spent some time in London when I’d first emerged from mourning, but the whole business was too much. I am merely gentry and only comfortably well-off. What was Idoingthere?”
“Fending off offers of marriage?”
“A few. Widowers looking for somebody to manage their nursery and have their slippers warming at the end of every day. Older bachelors having second thoughts about their finances. I was appalled at first.”
