Miss Dramatic, page 12
“The Twid is fairly deep there, part of the reason I chose that spot. Besides, we haven’t any naughty boys in Crosspatch Corners, only devoted husbands, handsome swains, and devoted husbands-to-be.”
He’d taken off his shirt, and when Hecate ought to have been attending to his words, she was instead focused on the gorgeous, muscular expanse of his back and shoulders.
“You truly are a work of art, Phillip.”
“Then I’m a work of art not yet fit for his slumbers. Shall I shave?” He caught her eye in the mirror, and naughty did not begin to attempt to approach what Hecate saw there.
“Don’t you dare shave.” She adored the piratical air he acquired with a day’s beard.
“I am your servant in all things. I made it halfway down the riverbank before I realized my gazebo was occupied by the marquess and his lady. I became an unwitting eavesdropper to an exchange of marital confidences.”
“Awkward.” Phillip was nothing if not shy.
“Touching, enlightening, and yes, a bit… Amaryllis and Tavistock sorted matters out nicely, muddling through the situation with Drysdale’s surprise arrival. I was proud of them, but one cannot say that. They were making a fine business of a marital reproachment when Miss Peasegood and Lady Iris came along the towpath, deep in conversation.”
“While you lurked in the bushes?”
“Half dressed and beset by the most persistent mosquito in all of Berkshire.”
“You poor darling.”
Another look, this one promising a very different sort of persistence. “Miss Peasegood recited her supper conversation with Mrs. Roberts word for word. I do not mean a close approximation, Wife, I mean better than any actor reciting rehearsed lines. She interrogated Mrs. Roberts about her impressions of our Gavin.”
Phillip scrubbed his face, under his arms, and the back of his neck. Hecate had watched this ritual any number of times, and it still made her heart beat faster. She’d joined Phillip for his nocturnal swims occasionally, and a tin of soap became a vehicle for marital sorcery in his calloused and capable hands.
“Recounting chitchat over supper is idle gossip, Phillip. You missed a spot.”
He sopped the flannel and wrung it out. “Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.” He slapped the cloth gently into her hand.
Hecate rose and began slow passes across his shoulders. “What else did the ladies say?”
“They suspect Gavin DeWitt of being a thief. I was left with the impression Lady Iris has met him before. He did not recognize her. I believe we have a pair of lady thief-takers in our midst. When I scrub off at the end of the day, I am getting clean, a pleasant undertaking. When you do that… I want to be the cleanest fellow ever to crawl between the sheets.”
Hecate reached around him and undid the drawstring of his pajama trousers. “Gavin DeWitt is not a thief.” She wore only a summer nightgown, which meant that little hug she bestowed upon her spouse pressed her breasts intimately close to his freshly washed—and damp—back.
“I would stake five acres of wheat that you are right, my dear: Gavin is not a thief, but I’d also have said he wasn’t the sort to decamp without notice, having arranged a position for himself with a troupe of traveling players, in whose company he whiled away two whole years. He is a talented actor. Who knows what roles…? That feels…”
Hecate pushed the trousers over Phillip’s hips to pool on the carpet. “Gavin is not a thief, but I have no doubt something was stolen. Something valuable. Why shouldn’t women be thief-takers when women can be thieves?”
“Valid point. You are stealing my wits at this very moment.”
“We can consult with Lady Duncannon. She knows every scandal, on-dit, and whisper passing through Mayfair. If some valuable necklace was purloined, she will know.”
“I’m not sure we… can.” He braced himself on the washstand, his shoulders rising with each inhalation.
“Almost done,” Hecate said, leaning close to delicately swab Phillip’s jewels. “You were saying?”
“God alone knows…” He stood straight. “Lady Duncannon’s given name is Delphine?”
Another slow, gentle pass of the cloth. “It is.”
“She was quoted as having had a look at DeWitt’s finances. If you do that again…”
“Yes?”
“Please do that again. As often as you like.”
He let her torment him for some moments before taking the cloth from her, muttering about revenge, and tossing her onto the bed like a laughing sack of wifely grain.
“We must speak more about what you’ve overheard, Phillip. This could be a problem.”
“A far more pressing problem plagues me, your ladyship.” He came down over her and gave the word pressing particular emphasis. “Did you know that a husband’s unsettled nerves can be remedied by his wife’s kisses?”
She drew her toes up his calf. “One hears rumors to that effect. Kiss me. We’ll test the theory.”
The theory was well and truly proven, and Hecate was drowsing blissfully on Phillip’s chest when his earlier comments came back to her.
“If Lady Duncannon, Lady Iris, and Miss Peasegood are all involved in this thief-taking business, we ought to confer with Amaryllis and his lordship. They doubtless overheard much of what was said.”
Phillip’s hand, which had been caressing her hip in a delicious, slow rhythm paused. “Somebody ought to tell Gavin. I built that gazebo for him.”
“What…? Oh, by the river. Why did he need a gazebo?”
“After his father died, he needed a place to escape his womenfolk. He was little more than a boy, with a man’s expectations thrust upon him overnight, and yet, he was not master of his own household. Nobody is at that age. I built the gazebo so he’d have a place to retreat and ponder the world. He took the Bard with him, as well as the philosophers, lurid novels, and a few poets. I suspect he learned to tipple and smoke there and caught more than a few naps.”
Hecate kissed her husband on the mouth. “You are so kind, Phillip. Did Gavin ever thank you?”
“He thinks I built that gazebo for myself. I had the whole Lark’s Nest manor house to rattle around in, not to mention miles of bridle paths to wander, and more solitude than one man needs in a lifetime. We’ll let this be our secret, shall we?”
She subsided into the warmth and security of his embrace. “Somebody else is keeping secrets at this house party, maybe several somebodies. I object strenuously to the notion that Gavin is being spied on, but if we say anything…”
“First, I cannot imply to Amaryllis and Tavistock that I overheard the same conversation they did, or endless mortification will ensue, at least on my part. Tavistock appears to have no shame. Second, we know the spies are among us, and much insight might be gained by spying upon them.”
“I don’t like it, Husband. A house party is to be full of good company and enjoyable diversions. Not intrigue and whispering.”
“I don’t care for conniving and scheming either.” Phillip resumed stroking her hip. “Nonetheless, Gavin is innocent. He has no need to steal, no history of stealing. Telling him that he’s suspected of thievery will only add to his troubles, and for all his pleasant good cheer, he strikes me as a man with troubles enough.”
In his usual fashion, Phillip had seen to the bottom of matters. Gavin was unhappy. Hecate didn’t need to know him well to sense that, but he was also making some sort of progress with Mrs. Roberts. To imperil that budding romance with nasty rumors and insults… not done.
Not at my house party. Hecate fell asleep after making a slight correction to her silent vow. Not at our house party.
Chapter Nine
“Whacking balls about on the grass,” Timmens said, giving Rose’s pillow a thump. “The very sort of nonsense to while away a summer morning, though some prefer to play pall-mall in the evening.”
Rose’s joy in the day dimmed slightly. “Were you spying on me, Timmens?”
“I don’t spy, but all manner of fine personages from fine families are here, ma’am. They all brought their fine servants. You’d best recall that the walls have ears and the windows have eyes. More tea?”
Somebody had seen Rose disappear behind the hedge with Gavin last evening and remarked that fact in the servants’ hall.
What of it? She was a widow, Gavin was more than of age and eligible, and the ball had gone missing.
Rose sipped her tea and waited for an internal voice that sounded like Mama, or Timmens, or occasionally Dane, to reproach her. Instead, somebody tapped on the door.
“At this hour,” Timmens muttered, giving the pillow a final smack before answering the door. “My lady.” She curtseyed, and not just a hasty dip of the knees.
“Lady Duncannon.” Rose set aside her tea and curtseyed as well. “Good morning.”
“Let’s have no more of that bobbing about like chickens, shall we? We must plot our strategy, Mrs. Roberts. I’ve chosen you for my team, and we’ll want to get in our practice rounds before the other teams are stirring. Besides, I’m famished. I’m always famished, and I want first crack at the breakfast offerings.”
Her ladyship was, like Rose, a widow. The similarity ended there. Rose considered herself of medium height, medium coloring, medium good family. Lady Duncannon was a countess, a peer in her own right, statuesque, with flaming-red hair, a soft Scottish burr, and a hearty laugh.
She did not put on airs, though she was not a woman to cross lightly.
“I am ready for breakfast,” Rose said. She was also ready to quit Timmens’s company.
“Excellent.” Lady Duncannon slipped her arm through Rose’s and set a brisk pace for the steps. “So what did you think of that Drysdale creature making a grand entrance and taking half the dessert course to do it?”
“I hadn’t thought of it like that, but he did give the company a very long moment to appreciate his approach.”
“Like cavalry charging infantry squares. My late husband was retired military. Excuse the battlefield analogy before breakfast.”
They rounded the landing, and Rose heard a door close on the floor above.
“I do believe your pretty maid was eavesdropping,” Lady Duncannon said, continuing their descent. “To be expected, I suppose. Somebody should tell her to close doors more quietly when she’s about her surveillance. Drysdale did not impress me favorably. He should have taken a room at the inn for the night and come by in the morning. He’s not expected until tomorrow at the earliest.”
The advance guard, Gavin had called him, though how did Lady Ducannon know when Drysdale had been expected?
“And if the Crosspatch Arms hadn’t any room,” Rose replied, “then he should have begged a tray here and taken any available cot, until greeting his hostesses in the morning. Perhaps actors anticipate disrespect and must take evasive maneuvers.”
Lady Duncannon crossed the foyer at the same purposeful gait. “Now I have you doing it, too, with the army talk. Let’s blame my sainted spouse, shall we?”
“You’ve been widowed for some time?”
“Five interminable years. I’ve grown particular in my dotage, though my family insists I must take another husband. I agreed to marry Archie because he was a known quantity. We rubbed along well, and I was confident I could handle him. He had one job—to get me with child, boy or girl, made no difference—and he went to his grave without having achieved that goal. Not for lack of trying, mind. Archie was the determined sort.”
“Not headstrong, obstinate, stubborn, or dramatic?”
Lady Ducannon grinned. “Of course not. He was a man. I, on the other hand, qualified for all of the above plus a few Erse terms generally reserved for goats and donkeys. You?”
“Mulish,” Rose said, smiling back. “Ungovernable.”
“Infernal,” Lady Duncannon said, sailing into the breakfast parlor. “Unnatural, because keeping a lot of fat, bleating sheep and a few grouse moors from the crown’s paws doesn’t strike me as a pressing duty any more, though I suppose I will remarry one of these days. That is a gorgeous ham.”
Rose made her way down the sideboard, though her portions paled beside Lady Duncannon’s. Perhaps her ladyship viewed husbands and hams as occupying similar categories—both for assuaging appetites, both expected to meet certain criteria regarding quality.
“Let’s eat on the west terrace,” Lady Duncannon said, opening a cabinet in the sideboard and producing two trays, to the apparent consternation of the footman who’d just come through the door. “Plenty of shade there at this hour, and my antique complexion requires shade. We won’t have to put up with Lady Iris rhapsodizing over herbs, or Miss Peasegood trying to correct her, though they are, of course, both very dear.”
“Of course.” And old King George was invariably described as good, though he was more than a bit mad. “I take it your family is concerned for your holdings if you leave no heir?”
“They are concerned for themselves,” Lady Duncannon said, leading the way out of the breakfast parlor. “First, the shame—the unbearable, unspeakable shame—of a title reverting to the crown, isn’t to be borne. I will be dead on that dark day, so what do I care? The second consideration is more important: The loss of my title will mean my siblings, in-laws, cousins, nieces, nephews, tenants, neighbors, and passing acquaintances can no longer trade on the reflected glory of association with the peerage. Can’t have that.”
“This matters to you.”
They emerged into the terrace, into the gilded splendor of a summer morning. “Of course it matters. We’re still clannish in Scotland, still look to our own of necessity. I thought this house party would be a respite from the usual polite whirl.”
“Isn’t it?”
Lady Ducannon set a course around to the shady side of the house. “With only the one bachelor to speak of, yes, it is. Mr. DeWitt is devilish good-looking, on the threshold of his prime, and quite well-heeled. He also doesn’t have the sort of sniffy pretensions all the heirs, spares, and nabobs adopt, though he’s a candle nabob as sure as whisky is good for the digestion. Ah, my compliments to our hostesses.”
Lady Duncannon set her tray on a wrought-iron table on the narrow terrace that overlooked the pall-mall court. Rose did likewise and took a seat facing the hedge behind which she and Gavin had… reached a new and better understanding.
As if her thoughts had summoned him, a tattoo of distant hoofbeats signaled the progress of a rider galloping along the towpath. Roland thundered into view across the park, a dark streak against the green foliage, his rider bent low over his neck.
“Mr. DeWitt cuts quite a dash in the saddle,” Lady Duncannon said, spearing a bite of ham. “That colt is a fine specimen, though I must say his form is unusual.”
“Roland runs best like that, a loose rein, nose low. Not how I’d like to approach a jump, but Mr. DeWitt knows his mount.”
“And you know Mr. DeWitt.”
Rose busied herself applying jam to her toast. Lady Duncannon had taken her time, but her approach to this topic had been as strategic as Drysdale’s grand entrance the previous evening.
“I do, to some extent. We’ve crossed paths at various house parties. What of you? You seem quite congenial with all the ladies.”
Lady Duncannon waited until Gavin and Roland had disappeared around a bend in the river. “We are half of us cousins, the other half friends and neighbors, of the sort you allude to. Our paths cross at house parties, in London during the social Season, in the spa towns, that sort of thing.”
Lady Duncannon was lying and doing it well—with a liberal garnish of truths and half-truths. Dane had had the same gift, which he’d used to cover his Town expenses, his gambling debts, and his flirtations with the ladies of the neighborhood.
He’d lied for the usual self-serving reasons. What inspired Lady Duncannon’s prevarications?
“You mentioned that Mr. DeWitt is quite well-heeled,” Rose said. “Have you had occasion to consider becoming more closely acquainted with him?”
Lady Duncannon’s smile for the first time acquired a hint of calculation. “I own part of a bank, Mrs. Roberts. The stereotype of the thrifty Scot is based on grim necessity. English ports were closed to us for far too long, and we nigh bankrupted ourselves trying to gain our own foothold in Central America. Then we wasted more coin in Jacobite uprisings—you notice I do not call them rebellions—and supporting our banished relatives on the Continent. I am in the habit of paying attention to who is well fixed and who is pockets to let. Then too, ladies in our situation must be wary of the fortune hunters, aye?”
Was that a reference to Dane? More prevarication? “Mr. DeWitt is not a fortune hunter.”
“I agree, and yet, he remains something of a puzzle. I like puzzles. I also like winning at pall-mall, and my short game is nigh untouchable. My aim is wanting for the longer strokes, though. What of you?”
Rose let the subject of Mr. DeWitt drop and chatted amiably about pall-mall, straw hats, grades of wool, and the Marquess of Tavistock’s budding brewery. Lady Duncannon allowed as how she might be persuaded to invest in such a venture—“You’ll ne’er part an English mon from his ale, Mrs. Roberts”—but Rose wasn’t fooled.
The purpose of this meal tête-à-tête had been to bring up Gavin DeWitt, cast him in a questionable light, and see how Rose reacted. Last night, the interrogation had come from Miss Peasegood, and Rose suspected Lady Iris might have a go at luncheon.
Which was just too blessed bad. Rose expected to share her lunch with Gavin himself and, when the occasion allowed, to share more kisses with him as well.
“Is Drysdale truly so inept at pall-mall?” Rose asked, “or is this, too, one of his performances?”
Gavin considered the question as the great actor pretended to sight down the handle of his mallet.
“Probably some of both,” Gavin replied, just as Lady Iris sent a ball bouncing onto the terrace. “Cissy Drysdale plays a convincing fool, though those roles fell to me initially. Drysdale came down with a cold a few months after I joined the troupe, and as I was his understudy, I stepped into a lead. Things began to change after that.”
