Page 7 of Miss Dramatic
“Wordsworth. He knows the countryside, and I find his verse appropriate reading in summer.”
“My youngest sister has developed a taste for Wordsworth in my absence. She fancies herself the first female contemplative.”
“Caroline. She’s what, thirteen now?”
You remembered. Gavin set a slow pace in the direction of Miller’s Lament. “Going on forty-two. She reads voraciously, disappears into the woods by the hour, and shows no interest in putting her hair up. My mother and grandmother would be worried, but they are too preoccupied with Diana’s wardrobe for next year.”
“Diana is preparing for her come out?”
“The whole village is preparing for Diana’s come out. What of you? How are you going on at Colforth Hall?”
She prosed on about the approaching harvest, some timber that was ready for coppicing, and a squabble over fishing rights, while Gavin was torn by a sense of unreality. They’d once been able to speak of anything and nothing, to share confidences, silences, looks, and touches with the ease of the devoted lovers he’d thought them to be.
To avoid each other as they’d done at Nunnsuch had solved nothing. To merely chat, to limit discussion to commonplaces, hurt, and yet, that was the sensible course. With Rose Roberts, Gavin was determined to be sensible—this time.
“And have you given up the stage?” she asked after regaling him with a story about a goose who’d wandered into the middle of divine services earlier in the summer.
He’d taught her that, taught her to tell a story when conversation wanted leavening. “I was never really on the stage in any meaningful sense. Having a lark, sowing wild oats, galloping off the fidgets. I’m home where I belong now, and my family is glad to have me here.”
“Are you glad to be here?”
The old Rose, the Rose who’d woken up beside him and known his dreams before he’d said a word, might have asked that question. Gavin chose to answer honestly in honor of the old Rose.
“I am resigned to being here for now. My family has worked hard to make the leap from the shop to the ranks of gentry, and now Amaryllis has married a marquess. I must capitalize on that great accomplishment as Diana and Caroline prepare to join Society, or I am no sort of head of the family. I shall acquit myself as the wealthy squire I am, and it would be churlish to pretend the role is onerous.”
A fine and mendacious speech. The jovial-squire part was worse than onerous, it was so very comfortably, smotheringlyall wrong.
Rose walked along beside him, and he braced himself for more chitchat. How lovely Berkshire was, if one had to impersonate a squire anywhere. How silly Society could be. How happy Amaryllis and Trevor were—a love match for a marquess, who’d have thought it?
“It’s not churlish to admit when an assignment doesn’t suit one’s abilities, Mr. DeWitt.”
TheMr. DeWittstung a bit, but the honesty soothed Gavin’s soul. “My grandparents,
parents, and sisters have all expended considerable effort to ensure the DeWitts are respected gentry. I jeopardized their efforts with my ventures on the stage. I am well aware that this house party is an effort to rehabilitate my reputation by parading me before ladies of discernment.”
“Is it? Here I thought Lady Phillip was determined that we should discuss investments, and Lord and Lady Tavistock wanted to give Lord Phillip a chance to polish his Society manners.”
That was news to Gavin. “Phillip polished his manners—which are quite above reproach to begin with—at Nunnsuch and came away engaged to an heiress.”
They walked along, following the curve of the river. “It’s good to see you,” Rose said. “I probably shouldn’t admit that, but two weeks of pretending at Nunnsuch put a strain on my nerves, and I thought my nerves had become nigh indestructible. You are looking well.”
Whynotadmit that? Whynotbe glad to see him? “I am glad to see you too,” Gavin said, because the words were the truth. He could have honestly said that the sight of her also baffled and saddened him and that he’d be much more careful with his heart around her in future, but to see her healthy, serene, nose in a book…
The sight still had the power to bring him joy, and that was mostly good. If he gave it time, the sad part might fade, as the hurt was slowly fading. He’d been a lark to her, wild oats, galloping off the fidgets, and she’d been the haven his soul had craved, his present joy, his future delight.
More fool he.
“You’ll be at supper this evening?” Rose asked as the house came into view.
“I will bide at Twidboro Hall, but otherwise I am at Amaryllis’s beck and call for the next two weeks. You will see me at supper, though I reserve the earliest hours of the day for schooling my horse.”
“No breakfast sightings, then.” She stopped and stroked a hand over Roland’s nose. He commenced making sheep’s eyes at her, for which Gavin could not blame him. Roland hadn’t been gelded and consigned to the plow, after all.
“Do you suppose…” Rose said. “Do you think we might…?”
“Yes?” To see her at a loss was intriguing.
“At Nunnsuch, we avoided one another. I’m sure the other guests remarked it and were curious as a result. I loathe being an object of curiosity. I dislike center stage, Mr. DeWitt, and I hope that you…”
