Page 80 of Miss Dramatic
“Very good, Mr. DeWitt.”
“He loved me,” Timmens spat. “He lovedme.”
Rose had spent the first few months of her widowhood trying to convince herself of the same lie, then giving up the exercise as both vexatious and impossible. She said nothing, and Timmens was soon gone from sight.
Gavin wrapped her in a hug. “I’m sorry.”
His embrace was balm to the body and soul, but upon examination, Rose did not find herself much injured.
“I’m not. Timmens doubtless did me a great favor by humoring all of Dane’s imagined injustices and supporting his fantasies.”
“She did more than that.”
“Oh, very likely. Dane had a mistress in Town. Why wouldn’t he have a mistress at home? The irony is, he was an awful lover. Seldom able to… complete what he started. I dreaded intimacies with him and prayed that I did not conceive. I got Colforth Hall from the marriage—though admittedly my settlements are why the Hall is still standing—but what does Timmens get? A broken heart, coach fare, and some trinkets.”
“Then I’m glad your prayers were answered, because you are right: A man who will betray both wife and leman and set the leman to betraying the wife all over again does not deserve the honor of fatherhood.”
Gavin would be a wonderful father. That thought surprised Rose as none of the previous drama had.
“Timmens delighted in making me feel inadequate and diminished. I knew that and put up with it because I felt sorry for her. I still do.”
“I do not. You were more than gracious, to the late lamented sot, to Timmens, and to Drysdale. Part of me wants to see them both bound over for the assizes, but the playwright in me…”
Playwright?“Yes?”
“Happy endings are more satisfying.” Gavin led Rose to the bed and sat beside her on the mattress. “We are not of noble houses in Verona or princes of Denmark, but Mr. Dabney is the king of his livery stable, and Mrs. Pevinger is the queen of the Crosspatch Arms. We all know what it is to see dreams die, to lose loved ones, to struggle, to long for justice. The tragedies are all very interesting and useful as cautionary tales, but most audiences are more appreciative of laughter, hope, and love.”
“I am more appreciative of those qualities. I had tragedy enough—and farce enough—in my first marriage. How did you know to suspect Timmens?”
“A bit of acting advice from Drysdale. He once said that when possible thievery arises, the audience knows who’s guilty and who is falsely accused based on the moment after the alleged thief is discovered. If the person cast in that role will, even for an instant, look about as if assaying the house for support or condemnation, then the audience knows that party is guilty. That small display of self-preservation, rather than embarrassment, humor, cool unconcern, gives the thief away to the observers, but the action needs to be very small. So subtle, the audience won’t be able to say how they know they behold a thief, but are certain of their conclusions.”
“And Timmens gave herself away with such a look?”
“She gave away enough that I suspected, then I saw the gold clasp at her nape and heard again how disrespectful she could be. Her insubordination escalated when a maid with nothing to hide would have been relieved to leave us some privacy.”
“Well, thank you. I might have gone years tolerating her behaviors out of misplaced pity and loyalty. Good riddance.”
More good riddance.Good riddance to guilt, to regrets, to widow-ish tears, and—the realization came to Rose like birdsong on a beautiful morning—to lying about beingfine.
She sat side by side with Gavin, holding hands and marveling at her own good cheer. She was soon to get into the coach, and she wouldn’t see Gavin for weeks, but she was nonetheless confident that they had a future, and a happy one.
She got off the bed and locked the door. “This is not an ending, Mr. DeWitt, but given that we have time, and that I am in very fine spirits, I hope you will tarry with me a few minutes longer.”
Gavin remained with Rose behind that locked door for nearly two hours.
Early autumn in Hampshire was a spectacular canvas of ancient hedgerows in their seasonable glory, fat sheep, gamboling foals, and harvest crews singing and sweating their way through one ripe field after another. What Hampshire lacked in forests, it more than made up in magnificent rural vistas.
“Lots of room to gallop here,” Gavin said, patting his mount on the shoulder. “But let’s keep it to a canter, shall we?”
He turned the horse through the Colforth Hall gateposts—dragons couchant—and started up a stately curving lime alley. When the carriageway straightened, the Hall presented itself on a slight rise at the end of a long, luminous stretch of golden foliage.
The effect was magical, imbuing Rose’s home with an ethereal glow despite its generous proportions. Rose had described the place in one of her thrice-weekly letters as a cross between a cozy manor and a stately residence, but she’d clearly been viewing her home with a modest eye.
“A ruddy palace in miniature.” Twidboro Hall would fit comfortably in the northern or southern wing of the edifice, to say nothing of what wings might be projecting behind the façade.
Colforth was up to Rose’s weight, in other words, and while that should have given a hopeful suitor pause, Gavin was pleased. Colforth was worthy of its owner, as Gavin hoped to be worthy of her.
He’d brought his horse to a halt at the foot of the steps, and as he dismounted, the front door flew open.
