Page 22 of Miss Dramatic
“Fashionable,” Timmens said, putting the millinery back in the dressing closet. “Ma’am, I do despair of you sometimes. You’d rather have a gent noticing your freckles or wrinkles than noticing a pretty little hat.”
Even for Timmens, that was a bit much. “I’m not yet at my last prayers. If you lay out an ensemble for supper, I can dress myself.”
“As if I’d leave you to manage on your own. For shame, ma’am. The aubergine silk for tonight. Gives you a youthful glow while emphasizing your dignity.” She went off into deliberations about whether brown slippers would be overdoing the decorous theme, though white wouldn’t do either.
Rose left her to her muttering and incantations. Gavin DeWitt was not one to be taken in by costumes and stage settings.
“I was taken in,” Rose murmured, making her way to the stable. “By handsome manners and sweet kisses.” Though that wasn’t entirely fair. Gavin’s articulate politics, his devotion to his art, his endless willingness to listen and to offer affection without sexual expectations had also come into it.
His nature was passionate in many regards, and that intensity had been attractive.
Still was attractive, for that matter.
By note, Gavin had informed her that he’d meet her in the stable yard at four of the clock. The other guests were enjoying the quiet hours before the dressing bell, and several had taken a notion to investigate the shops in Crosspatch Corners.
And there he was, seated on the ladies’ mounting block, a book in his hands, his colt standing with a hip cocked, head down, eyes closed. They made a tableau of contentment, male specimens in repose, and yet, Rose would have bet her favorite slippers that Gavin was aware of her approach.
“Mr. DeWitt, good day.”
He rose in no hurry, set the book on the mounting block, and bowed. “Mrs. Roberts, greetings. I’ve asked to have Sid saddled for you. He’s a perfect gentleman and will set a good example for Roland.”
Rose curtseyed and made a little fuss over the colt. “He’s a handsome devil.” All soulful eyes and sleek muscle, like his owner. Rose did not want to be aware of Gavin DeWitt in any physical sense, but such was his self-possession and so compelling were her memories of him, that she couldn’t avoid making comparisons.
The Gavin over whom she’d made a fool of herself had been more prone to laughter, more playful. He’d had depths, but he’d also been pleased with his own ability to charm and entertain. The present incarnation had acquired gravitas as befitted the head of the DeWitt family.
Rose resented his new seriousness, because it made him yet still more attractive, which should not have been possible.
“Roland is a good lad at heart,” Gavin said. “He wants to please, but he gets distracted. He doesn’t enjoy a lot of native courage, and thus he’s prone to assert his dignity when what’s really in question is his confidence.”
A widow understood that description. “You are patient with him?”
“We are learning to be patient with each other, to assume good intentions rather than treachery. Progress has been slow because I was away from my post when Roland might have more easily been taken in hand.”
Some sort of self-deprecation lay in those words. Rose ceased stroking Roland’s velvety nose, took her riding gloves from her pocket, and pulled them on.
“I don’t care for the notion of rushing young horses into work,” she said. “The plow stock is particularly abused in this regard because they are born large and gain size quickly.”
“And because their lot in life is honest, hard work. The riding stock have it easier in many regards.”
Rose wanted to ask what that comment was about, but a wizened stable lad led out a handsome chestnut gelding.
“Mrs. Rose Roberts,” Gavin said, “may I make known to you Thucydides, affectionately known as Sid. I’ll take him, Franklin, and we should be gone about an hour. We’ll keep to the Twid, then have a turn about the village green, and come back by way of Lark’s Nest and Twidboro Hall.”
“Aye, guv. Sid will enjoy the outing.” The fellow tugged his cap and shuffled off.
“You tell them your route in case you come to harm,” Rose said. “That’s wise.” A rule Dane had scoffed at, though every equestrian was taught to follow it.
“Roland and I are often tearing neck or nothing over the countryside. A rabbit hole, a darting squirrel, a patch of mud could do us mischief, and so I take what precautions I can. Let’s get you aboard, shall we?”
What are you running from when you gallop over hill and dale?Rose would have asked that question, before. She didn’t need to ask it now. Gavin was being sewn into the costume of the country squire, and the part suited him ill.
Rose mounted her steed, Gavin swung aboard his, and they were soon ambling off in the direction of the Twid.
“Will you go to Town once the harvest is in?” she asked.
“My mother advises me not to. She is concerned that somebody who saw me prancing around in a provincial production ofA Midsummer Night’s Dreamwill recognize me prancing around Vauxhall Gardens. I’m to lie low until next spring.”
“And somebody might still recognize you, because you excelled at your craft. What of it?” That his mother should bind him hand and foot to Crosspatch, when he had such talent…
