Page 45 of Miss Dramatic
She’d heard that one from him, to devastating impact. “But would he have done it for himself?”
“No, he would not, and more’s the pity. Oh blast, I felt a drop. Last one into the library is a muddy slipper.” She darted off and left Rose on the terrace.
More raindrops speckled the flagstones, and another rumble of thunder rolled from the west. The footmen and gardeners were once again scurrying about, moving chairs and benches under balconies, and still, Rose did not want to join the crowd in the library.
“Come along.” Gavin had appeared from a shadowed overhang. “You can catch your death in a summer downpour, and I’ll not have that on my conscience.” He draped a man’s cloak over her shoulders, did up the frogs, and plunked a plain straw hat on her head.
“Where are we going?”
“I promised you a walk on the towpath, but I think we’d better make it more of a dash.” He took her hand and set off at a fast trot down the garden steps.
“What if this rain turns serious?” Rose asked as the footmen extinguished the last of the torches. “We could get a soaking.”
In Gavin’s present state, cold water dashed over his head might be welcome. “I get a regular soaking in the Twid this time of year when I enjoy the privacy to do so. Having three sisters left me with a certain caution in that regard. This way.”
He led her down a track near where the doe and fawn had been grazing and soon had his lady trundling along the towpath.
“Diana will make your excuses,” he went on. “A bit too much sun while vanquishing your pall-mall competitors.”
“Oh right. We had plenty of shade, and I am country born and bred. What excuse did you give for your own absence?”
“I’m off to Twidboro Hall to send the carriage back for my womenfolk. Because I am up at first light to exercise my horse, I’m the early-to-bed sort.”
“A lie and a truth. You have already arranged for the coach, haven’t you?”
Now that they were out of sight and sound of the house, Gavin slowed his pace. “Every soul in Crosspatch can navigate the farm lanes and bridle paths in this area blindfolded, my mother and sisters included. But rain can make the way muddy in patches, and I am a considerate brother and son.”
“Except when you run off to join a theater troupe and leave your family to fret over your absence for two years.”
Rose stated the self-same thought Gavin battled at least a dozen times a day. “I had informed the solicitors of my plans and my whereabouts, but I didn’t want the arguments and messy good-byes. The recriminations and lectures.”
The rain amounted to a whispery drizzle, as much mist as precipitation this close to the river.
“And given how things turned out,” Rose said, “you have likely been lecturing yourself ever since—when your steward isn’t sermonizing at you.”
“I bungled badly, Rose.” To say that to her lifted a burden of some sort from his conscience. “I trusted the same wrong people my father had trusted, and while the DeWitts are still quite wealthy, I have jeopardized my mother’s dreams for me.”
“My mother had dreams for me,” Rose muttered, “and I wish to God somebody had jeopardized them straight to perdition.”
She seized him in a hug. Not a lover’s embrace, more of a shipwreck survivor’s desperate clasp of a fellow passenger when both had staggered, sopping and shivering, to shore.
Gavin held her and mentally rearranged his expectations for the evening. “I’m sorry, Rose. You deserved better from your family and from your husband.”I’m not like Danebegged to be said, but Gavinhadbeen like her late husband, turning his back on home and family, indulging his own whims, convincing himself that nobody was harmed by his selfishness.
“It’s the time of year,” Rose said, stepping back. “Harvest approaches, and that brings difficult memories. Where are we going?”
“Not far. Phillip built me a retreat before I went off to university. He knew I’d need a place of solitude, where my mother and sisters could not intrude when I was home between terms. I was supposed to believe he built it for himself, though Phillip no more needs a retreat than Roland needs to be addled by darting bunnies. The gazebo is through here. Watch out for the root.”
Even as he spoke, Rose stumbled and pitched into him. “Sorry.” She righted herself and brushed down her skirts.
“That root even gets me when I’m distracted, and I think the tree put it there on purpose. We’re not supposed to barrel onward without pausing. We’re to stop and reflect on the beauty and tranquility of the spot, and our great good fortune that we get to enjoy it.”
“The tree decided all of that?”
“I believe so, or I did before I became such a sober and upright fellow. You mustn’t tell anybody how fanciful I can be.” So fanciful, he’d like to kiss her, with the rain building into a steady patter on the leaves and the darkness acquiring a density unusual for the relatively early hour.
“Perhaps that’s what’s amiss with Mr. Drysdale’s acting,” Rose said. “He lacks imagination. It’s all technique and calculation with him. We’d best get out of the rain, Gavin, or we’ll both end up with a lung fever.”
“Your wish, and so forth.” He led her around a turn between the rhododendrons, and Phillip’s gazebo loomed as a darker shape against the towering trees. “Three steps up, and they might be slippery. The door is unlocked.”
