Page 58 of Miss Dramatic
Caro looked up from the table. “Upstairs. But the ladies’ retiring room is on the main floor.”
Diana had forgotten that part. “She came back with a shawl. Does it take twenty minutes to fetch a shawl?”
Caroline bent low, the cue stick in position. She resembled a cat preparing to pounce. The crack of one ball hitting another resounded through the afternoon’s peace.
“Good job,” Gavin said, offering the first genuine smile Diana had seen from him that day. “You got your hips into it.”
Caroline grinned. “I had a good teacher. What is Lady Iris up to, Gav?”
“I suspect she’s either looking for stolen goods, or she’s planning to purloin somebody’s treasures. Ladies will occasionally hide valuables someplace other than their jewelry boxes.”
“Because,” Caroline said, “jewelry box locks are notoriously easy to pick.”
Gavin’s brows twitched down. “Who told you that?”
“You did. Honestly, Gav, are you going all elderly and decrepitated on us?”
“He’s in love,” Diana said, because no good brother should go untwitted. “Though he wasn’t acting very lovable at lunch.”
“I am… preoccupied.”
Caroline twirled the cue stick like some sort of performer at Astley’s. “You hurt Mrs. Roberts’s feelings.”
“I am sorry for that, and I will make amends. For right now, I want the two of you to promise me something.”
Caroline left off threatening the breakables. “We don’t make promises lightly, brother dear.”
“I don’t make this request lightly. Be careful of Drysdale. Don’t share your meals with him. Avoid his escort in the garden. By no means allow him to pry into family business. If he tries to strike up a conversation, be as boring as Lady Iris on the subject of her herbs.”
“I’ll quote Wordsworth,” Caroline said. “I’ve got pages and pages of him off by heart, all rhyme-y and sweet. I can make a regular hash of it all too. Maybe I should do some Shakespeare for him.”
She’d clearly surprised Gav with that one. “When did you take up memorizing the Bard?” he asked.
“When you disappeared.”
Gavin caught Caroline in a hug. “I’m never disappearing again. I thought we’d established that.”
Caroline tolerated the embrace with patient long-suffering and stepped back at the first opportunity.
“So where are you off to now?”
“I must have a very frank and very private talk with Mrs. Roberts.”
Mission accomplished.“Be off with you.” Diana waved a hand toward stage left. “Caro and I will avoid Mr. Drysdale’s company. Our regards to Mrs. Roberts.”
Gavin headed for the door. “If she’s still speaking to me.”
“Gav, dearest, if Mrs. Roberts won’t speak to you, neither will we.” Diana blew him a kiss and took up a cue stick.
Gavin bowed and slipped out the door.
“You didn’t leave me much in the way of shots,” Diana said. “Shall we play to eight points?”
“We shan’t play at all.” Caroline had drifted to the window, but was standing a good foot back from the panes. Lurking, in other words. “Keeping an eye on the Drysdale creature isn’t the same as accepting his escort, is it?”
Diana put the stick back on the rack and went to the window. “Why no, brilliant sister and observant sister of mine. Not the same thing at all.” She joined Caroline at the window, also keeping back a foot or so. “Dear me. Mr. and Mrs. Drysdale seem to be out of charity with each other.”
The couple were on the path that led to the river, and Mrs. Drysdale was apparently delivering a hearty dressing down to her spouse. He countered with a hand raised to the heavens, followed by a finger shaken at his helpmeet.
