Page 8 of Miss Dramatic
Ah.“You want me to pretend that Nunnsuch was our first encounter?” To forget the most glorious and devastating weeks of his life? To wear the role of genial country squire more convincingly than he’d ever done before?
“Wouldn’t that be for the best?” She lifted her hat to replace it on her head, but some disobliging ribbon or hairpin got caught in curling locks. Holding her book, she could not untangle her hair properly.
“Allow me,” Gavin said, taking the book and setting it on the ground. His intention was to be of use, as he’d be of use to his mother or sister in a similarly awkward moment. He pulled off his gloves and stuffed them into a pocket, then took the hat in one hand and went searching gently for the offending hairpin.
Too late, he realized his error. Rose stood still, suggesting she had also been ambushed by the proximity necessary when a gentleman’s fingers sifted slowly through the curls at a lady’s nape, when silky tresses and body heat and the quiet of a summer afternoon conspired to thieve his wits right out of his grasp.
Roland stomped at another imaginary fly, and Gavin mentally shouted at himself not to break role. He found the crosswise hairpin, carefully extracted it, and stepped back.
Rose was staring at him as if he were a particularly arcane line from Mr. Coleridge. He put her hat on her head and passed her the hairpin.
She shoved the pin into her hair. “Thank you.” Her thanks were less than emphatic.
“You’re welcome.” The words were steady, Gavin’s heart was not. “Shall I see you to the garden?”
“No need for that. About what I said earlier?”
He busied himself pulling on his gloves. “Earlier?”
“Can we not start afresh, Mr. DeWitt, or give that impression? What passed between us before—up north—was another time and place, and we are adults.”
The next bit of stage business was tightening Roland’s girth, which nonsense earned Gavin a double tail swish.
“You may rely on me, Mrs. Roberts, to comport myself as a gentleman. If you prefer that we ignore our initial dealings, I will oblige you. You need have no fear that I will presume on our previous acquaintance or spread untoward gossip.”
She was giving him the same intent, puzzled examination. “Have you a different suggestion?”
Well, no, he hadn’t. Suggesting that they be friends would put his feet on the same slippery slope that had led straight to a muddy ditch of humiliation and heartache. Suggesting they avoid each other would draw notice, and besides, the stupid, callow idiot part of him that had slid down that slope so easily once before didn’t want to avoid her.
Gavin wanted tounderstandher, and in some small, stubborn part of his soul, he wanted her to admit that she regretted her treatment of him.
“We will be cordial new acquaintances,” Gavin said, running the offside stirrup down its leather. He came around the horse to face her again. “But if you expect me to forget what happened in Derbyshire, I am bound to disappoint you.”
She retied her bonnet ribbons and dipped a curtsey. “Cordial new acquaintances, then. Nothing more, nothing less. We cannot help the tenacity of fairly recent memories, Mr. DeWitt. Good day.” She marched off with that singularly active walk of hers—Gavin did not stare at her retreating form for more than a few seconds—and then she was gone from sight around a bend in the path.
Roland gave Gavin the look of a horse who had been patient long enough.
“You were no help,” Gavin muttered, prepared to vault into the saddle and trot for home—except he’d forgotten to run the nearside stirrup down its leather. “Bollocks.”
He climbed into the saddle and tried to gather up the reins, but Roland was intent on sniffing something on the ground—or on being contrary. Gavin hauled up on the reins, and Roland rooted in response.
“You ill-mannered, contrary… Oh. Beg pardon, horse. My mistake. I humbly apologize.”
Rose had forgotten Mr. Wordsworth’s poetry. The book lay on the dusty path, looking forlorn and out of place.
Gavin dismounted and retrieved the volume, stuffing it into the tail pocket of his riding jacket. Even cordial new acquaintances didn’t let each other’s poetry lie about at risk of harm from the elements.
Then too, Rose Roberts would not have left her book behind unless she’d beenexceedinglyflustered. That thought cheered him immensely.
ChapterThree
“Before we pick up the extra saddles, let’s pop into the Arms and collect the mail,” Trevor, Marquess of Tavistock, said, bringing the dog cart to a halt outside Dabney’s livery. “Enjoy a pint, catch up on the news.”
Phillip climbed from the bench. “You are avoiding your own home,” he said as a lad came forward to stand at the horse’s head. “The ladies aren’t even all assembled, and you are dawdling in the village.”
Tavistock leaped off the bench in a single athletic bound. “Not dawdling, brother dear. Allowing my marchioness to catch her breath before we gather for supper. She tasked us with picking up spare sidesaddles, which is her way of getting us out from underfoot. If you’d been married longer, you’d understand these things.”
Phillip understood that his brother—who had but a few weeks’ seniority as a husband—was in great good spirits. Even greater good spirits than usual. Obnoxiously good spirits.
