Page 6 of Miss Dramatic
The light softened, the heat began to lose its intensity, the undergrowth showed yellow and splashes of red, while the canopy remained green. Birds sang less, and the Twid ran at low ebb.
Gavin drew Roland to a halt on the towpath, waited a moment, then signaled the horse to back up a few steps. Roland wasn’t keen on backing up. A fellow could not see what was behind him unless he turned his head, and thus some effort to modify Gavin’s request ensued. A peek this way, a head toss that way, a tail swish, a hoof stomp that might have been necessary to dislodge a pesky fly, but was really in the nature of a protest.
“Back,” Gavin said quietly, because sometimes Roland responded more willingly to voice commands than to nudging and tugging. Every actor had his own means of memorizing cues.
Roland took two steps back, a grudging concession.
“Back,” Gavin said, because the effort had been late and prefaced with grumbling.
Roland took two more steps back—the stable wasn’t far off, and protesting for form’s sake was better done earlier in the ride, when a grassy paddock and a happy roll in the dust weren’t so near at hand. Gavin had taken some time to realize the subtlety with which Roland timed his insurrections.
“Good boy. Walk on.”
Roland hadn’t gone four steps forward before he stopped, lifted his head, and peered intently in the direction of the Twid. No fish had leaped—not that Gavin had heard—and Roland wasn’t reacting to the sort of imaginary horse-eating tiger that resulted in a dead run across the countryside.
Gavin followed the line of Roland’s gaze. Not until the lady turned a page of her book did he see her down along the bank a dozen yards up the stream.
His body reacted before his mind told him that he beheld Mrs. Rose Roberts. The sensation was lightness, relief, peace, and even joy.There she is. As if he’d ridden this way day after day, hoping, always hoping, to catch sight of her, and at long last, she occupied the place his heart had sought to find her.
The Nunnsuch house party had taught him to get his bearings with that reaction. To wait for the joy to fade and the sadness to follow. He and Mrs. Roberts had managed two interminable weeks of civilities, of pretending not to know each other, of managing to never be alone in the same place at the same time.
Gavin had taken to toting around a fishing pole like a penitent’s cross, signaling all and sundry that he was on his way… out, off to the great outdoors, bent on the important task of staring at quiet water while trying to stay awake.
Roland whuffled, the ruddy blighter.
Still, Rose remained fixed on her book. She made a lovely picture, a straw hat slipped down her back, her hair catching the sunlight. She was a woman of singular purpose, not given to dawdling, and yet, a book could bring her to a still point, to sitting quietly by the hour, all of her energies poured into her delight in the written word.
When Rose set her mind to a written passage, the rest of the world faded from her awareness. She had the same focus in other settings.
Gavin shoved that thought aside with his mental fishing pole. He should ride on, let her catch sight of him across a chattering crowd of Amaryllis’s guests, let her decide whether to approach him.
Except he’d taken that tack at Nunnsuch, and she had remained steadfastly unwilling to seek him out. Not on any deserted streambank, not in a library full of whist players, not at the buffet meals, or even after he and Roland had bested a dozen other riders in an informal steeplechase.
“Good day.” He spoke softly, knowing she couldn’t hear him over the babbling of the Twid, but rehearsing the line for his own benefit. He was no longer a callow youth to run away when his troubles wanted confronting. Besides, Rose Roberts wasn’t a trouble, and he’d rather they spoke their minds to one another here in private than go through more rounds of awkward courtesies.
He dismounted and loosened Roland’s girth, which occasioned a curious look from the horse. Deviations from routine were always apparent to children, dogs, horses, and the ladies of Crosspatch Corners, according to Mr. Dabney.
“Come along.” Gavin tugged on the reins—in-hand work was yet another area where more tutelage was needed—and Roland ambled forward.
“Mrs. Roberts,” Gavin sang out, “good day.”
She looked up, looked around, then focused on him as Roland clip-clopped along the path. She shaded her eyes rather than put her hat back on.
How to play his entrance? Gavin mentally sorted through options. In all the hours he’d spent pondering what he’d say to Rose, what his demeanor would be if they were ever again in conversation, he’d not envisioned being chaperoned by a horse when he encountered her on the banks of the Twid.
Though Rose Roberts was a widow. She needed no chaperone.
“Mr. DeWitt. And is that the famous Roland?” She nipped up the bank as nimbly as a goat, no need for gentlemanly assistance. “Greetings, Roland.” She held out a bare hand to the horse, who sniffed as delicately as any courtier had ever complimented a damsel.
No formalities, then, which was a relief, but also… difficult. “I didn’t know you’d arrived,” Gavin said. “I trust the trip up from Hampshire was uneventful?”
“Dreadfully so. I borrowed Lord Nunn’s traveling coach, and what it offers in comfort, it lacks in speed. Shall we walk?”
She liked to move, while Gavin wanted to remain in the shade of the path, taking in the sight of her. He’d not stood this close to her at Nunnsuch. Never close enough to catch that hint of lemony fragrance she wore—she refused to wear attar of roses—or to see that summer had brought out a few freckles on her cheeks.
“Roland and I were more or less on our way home when he spotted you,” Gavin said, taking up the reins. “What are you reading?”
He should have offered his arm, should have offered to carry her book.
