Page 17 of Miss Dramatic
Crosspatch was blessed with an abundance of songbirds. The resident chorister on this stretch of the river was an enthusiastic robin, and his solo, while vigorous, struck Rose as sad. His babies were likely flown, and he was doomed to bide here through the harsh winter rather than fly off to gentler climes.
No warmed slippers for him or his missus.
Lady Phillip regarded her in the slanting evening light. “You were appalled by the offers of a practical match, until other sorts of offers began arriving?”
“Those other sorts of offers had likely been extended from my first week in Town, but I was too naïve to grasp what the flirtation and pretty manners were truly about. I was staying with a friend, and she found my lack of experience hilarious. I knew nothing of how to hold my fan, my parasol, my gloves. I was ignorant of half the meanings of flowers that arrived in bouquets. I was very much trying to fill a role without knowing the plot or my lines.”
Lady Phillip stared at the river flowing placidly by. “Because you were not titled or an heiress, they all assumed you had come to Town to frolic. You had probably come thinking to catch up on the latest fashions, having put aside your weeds at long last.”
“And to see some professional acting, to hear some opera, to take in St. Paul’s and the Tower. Hampshire is lovely, but our entertainments are humble. My late husband always spoke so glowingly of Town, and I had never been for more than an occasional short stay. I wanted to know what he’d fallen in love with. I have concluded London is a very different experience for a young man of means than it is for his widow some years later.”
“Doubtless true, and does that take us to Mr. DeWitt?”
Whose past with me is none of your business.“I mean Mr. DeWitt no harm.”
And upon reflection, that was true. Rose had raged and railed and ruminated where he was concerned—and felt beyond stupid—but now, having seen him again, she could be more dispassionate. He wasn’t a monster, nor was he irresistibly magnetic.
He was simply a man who’d behaved disappointingly.
“You mean him no harm.” Lady Phillip’s study of the river became intent. “That suggests to me he left you with a less than favorable impression on an earlier occasion.”
Rose flailed about in search of patience, humor, or any genteel spar in a sea of private and difficult emotions, but Lady Phillip was hectoring her past all bearing.
“Coming here was a mistake.” Rose stood and sketched a curtsey. “Even my lady’s maid could see that. Please excuse me, and I hope you will understand if my attendance at this gathering is brief.”
“Run off, then,” Lady Phillip said pleasantly. “Gavin ran off, and his family and friends are still at a loss as to why.”
“Because he wasmiserable,” Rose retorted. “Denied any hand in the family business lest gainful employment be seen as relapsing into the foul clutches of trade, expected to ramble around his acres for decades though nobody had bothered to tell him how to tend those acres, no friends despite everybody being friendly andkind, no control over his own funds… Why on earth would he have stayed where he was little more than a handsome tailor’s dummy? On the stage, he was valued for so much more than good looks and pleasant repartee.”
The robin had gone silent, and from the direction of Twidboro Hall, the notes of a pianoforte tinkled forth over the lengthening shadows. The tune was as sprightly as the robin’s, jarringly so.
“Clementi,” Lady Phillip muttered, rising. “Diana is in a taking about something. I suspect you are too. Keep your counsel if you must, and please do not swan off in high dudgeon because I have been graceless in my interrogation. Phillip is concerned about Gavin—Phillip is Crosspatch born and bred—and you were kind to me at Nunnsuch, very kind. I am concerned for you and Gavin both.”
Why must you always make a Drury Lane production out of nothing, little Miss Dramatic?Dane’s accusation still had the power to hurt. His wagering had beennothing, his temper had beennothing, his flirtations had beennothing, his increasing inebriated forgetfulness, and his leering friends…
Allnothing.
“Mr. DeWitt and I did not part on friendly terms,” Rose said. “Our expectations were at cross-purposes.”
Lady Phillip for once held her peace.
“I went to Derbyshire thinking I would get in some reading, practice my pianoforte, put the whole confusing, unpleasant business in London behind me. Meet a few new faces in a congenial situation, but raise no expectations and have none put upon me. I was half right. My hostess—Countess Rutherford—assured me my wishes would come true.”
Rose resumed her seat on the bench, while Lady Phillip remained standing on the path. Smart of her, to keep some distance.
“At the last minute, the guest list ran short by a few bachelors,” Rose went on, “so the countess arranged for some members of an acting troupe biding in the area to join the gathering. Not quite guests, not quite servants. Gav—Mr. DeWitt told me that actors expect to inhabit the fringes of polite society, the outer reaches of low society, and everything in between.”
“You might refrain from telling his family about the low-society part.”
“Because they won’t want to hear it, just as they didn’t want to hear of him taking a hand in the family businesses, didn’t want him joining the local militia, didn’t think he needed an extra year at university. Those women were driving him half mad.”
Lady Phillip worried a fingernail. “I ought not to admit this, but I am well acquainted with the frustrations family can engender. The DeWitt ladies are delightful, though I fear they were so comfortable with Gavin the youth that they couldn’t see he’d become Gavin the man.”
“Gavin the man is formidable,” Rose said, resorting to the very word he’d chosen to describe her. “He reads voraciously in several languages, his grasp of politics is keen, he’d make an exceedingly effective member of Parliament, and when he chooses to be charming…”
“Yes?”
Rose felt an odd urge to cry. “I fell for him, my lady. I fell as I’d never fallen for my husband. Dane and I had grown up together. We’d known we were to marry from a young age. I was familiar with Dane, he esteemed me. We were happy, at least at first, and I was devoted. With Gavin DeWitt…”
