Miss Dashing, page 21
“I wish we’d left last week,” DeWitt said. “The situation here grows complicated.”
“We might not make it past the finish line,” Phillip said. “If Hecate accepts Johnny Brompton’s suit, I will not answer for the consequences.”
The day was shifting from afternoon to a long, lovely summer evening, and Phillip endured a wave of homesickness. Not for Crosspatch Corners in particular, but for a life made simple by geographical limitations. As long as he’d kept to himself and tended his acres, he’d been safe from heartache.
“Come swimming with us,” DeWitt said. “You stink as badly as I do.”
“Worse,” Phillip said. “A four-mile course was a romp for Roland. You’ve been conditioning him.”
“He loves to run.” DeWitt’s pride in the horse was evident in his tone. “Speed is in his blood. The whole time I was away, he wanted to be about his job—galloping like the wind—but nobody was on hand to sort him out. He’ll have more endurance for being allowed to grow into his frame before he’s permitted to compete, but the native speed has always been there.”
Had this conversation taken place in spring, before Tavistock had upended Phillip’s life and Hecate had stolen his heart, Phillip would have taken the bait DeWitt so kindly dangled. A good long natter chin-wag about training a promising colt would have been enjoyable. The highlight of the day.
“Be off with you,” Phillip said. “I will leave the hale-fellow-well-met nonsense at the swimming hole to you. You’re the professional thespian.”
“Don’t say that too loudly. If you, as the ranking guest, disdain our company, Henry Wortham and his ilk will take it amiss.”
Phillip had been very nearly of Henry’s ilk until recently. “Then I will put in an appearance for the sake of Henry’s pride, but charm is beyond me.”
“One doesn’t expect miracles, my lord. That’s part of their appeal.”
Phillip accompanied DeWitt down the path to a widening in the stream below the arched bridge. A bend on the stream’s course had made for a stretch of deeper, slower water and obscured the location from the sight of the house or summer cottage.
Private enough that Henry Wortham was already parading around as God had made him.
Henry, a truly magnificent specimen in the altogether, made a clean dive from a handy rock and came up gasping. “Ruddy cold. My cods will be the size of raisins.”
“They’ll match your brains, then,” somebody replied.
“Still bigger than yours.” Henry splashed water at his detractor, and others peeled down and joined Henry in the water. A four-mile gallop had taken the starch out of most of them, and when the numbers began to thin, Phillip shed his clothes and waded in.
The water was luscious. Just cold enough to be refreshing, though the swimming hole itself lacked the dimensions to accommodate much more than a casual dip. Phillip scrubbed off, made use of the towels provided for the occasion, pulled on shirt and breeches, and found a place beside Henry on the grassy bank.
“How fares Mrs. Riley?” Phillip asked as several yards away, a still shirtless Johnny began to hold forth about some howling, half-man/half-beast creature rumored to inhabit the Canadian woods.
Johnny Brompton when drunk, perhaps.
“Midwife says Mavis is coming along nicely, and the baby’s doing well too. I brought them the flowers. Didn’t stay, just passed them over the threshold. I think Mavie was pleased. My ma sent over a quarter ham, and the basket from Nunnsuch could double as a cradle.”
Hecate had doubtless chosen it for that reason. “But you’re at a loss for what to do next?”
“Aye. Mavis is a hard worker, and I know not every man will take on another’s get, but Mavie is also smart. Smarter than most village girls. Her pa was a vicar’s lad, and they had books. She’ll want a smart fellow like her William.”
Henry spoke of books as Portia or Flavia might have referred to ducal invitations. “You aren’t stupid, Henry.” Though a man could be reasonably intelligent and still utterly stumped in matters of the heart.
Henry shoved damp hair from his eyes. “Ma put the manners on me, and I can read the London newspapers, but I’ll never be like him,” he said, jerking his chin in Johnny’s direction. “He’s a gent. A proper gent, and now half the village will be eating out of his hand. He listened to Mrs. Vicar go on about her knee and laughed at old Jonas’s jokes. He’s a better earl than the earl, and he hasn’t even studied for the part.”
No, he was not, but he might well be a better actor than DeWitt. “Johnny Brompton has no designs on your Mavis, I can assure you of that.” Would that he had.
“He’s a fool, then. Mavie is worth ten of the twittering misses from Town, meaning no disrespect to my betters. Brompton has something the ladies want, though, and he knows it.”
Did he? Most young ladies were shrewd enough to see past handsome looks and flattery. They wanted manners from a fellow, true, but also genuine consideration, respect, affection.
“He will always be more enthralled by himself than he will be with any lady,” Phillip said. “You don’t appear to be afflicted with much vanity, for all that you’re a fine figure of a man.”
To comfort another frustrated swain felt good. Henry’s cause was far from hopeless, despite his gloomy outlook.
Henry stared at his hands, great calloused paws capable of tremendous hard work. “I’ll never have hands like his, not if I slather them with lanolin and wear gloves to bed every night. Mavie knows that.”
“What Mavie knows is that you are a hard worker, just as she is a hard worker. Weed her flowers.”
“Beg pardon?”
“An enterprising lady will have flower beds, a spice garden, a vegetable garden. We’ve had a good rain recently, and the weeds will get ideas. Stay ahead of them and use those calloused hands to tidy up Mrs. Riley’s garden.”
“I was weeding pretty much as soon as I could walk.” Henry ceased studying his hands and peered off to the west. “Won’t be dark for nigh two hours.”
“Please give the lady my regards if your path should happen to cross hers. Make a fuss over the baby.”
“Willa has her ma’s red hair,” Henry said, rising. “She’s the prettiest baby you ever did see, my lord.”
“I’m sure she is. You might also take a look at Mrs. Riley’s henhouse while you’re in the vicinity.”
“Right. Nothing stinks like a neglected henhouse.” Henry collected the rest of his clothing and strode off, a man intent on courting his lady one shovelful of chickenshit at a time.
And Henry would probably succeed in his aims, while Phillip…
He rose, tired in his bones, but restless in his mind. If Hecate hadn’t the heart to fight Johnny Brompton, then the battle was Phillip’s to win. The objective was to send the blighter packing while preserving Hecate’s freedom and as much of her fortune as possible.
That money was hers, and she’d be a better steward of it than the Canadian Cad would be.
Phillip hoped to sidle off along the stream bank without having to make small talk with Johnny, but that wasn’t to be.
“Why didn’t you tell me DeWitt’s colt is fit enough to win the Derby?” Brompton asked, getting to his feet and pulling his shirt on.
“The last time I saw Roland go,” Phillip replied, “a half mile’s effort left him winded. That was several months ago, and DeWitt has apparently had him in work since then.” Mr. Dabney, a former jockey who now ran the Crosspatch Corners livery, was doubtless advising on particulars.
“Perhaps I’ll buy that colt.” Brompton did up his buttons and shoved his shirttails into his waistband. “Make him a wedding present to my bride.”
“I’m sure every lady longs to have a flatulent horse for a morning gift, or perhaps giving a new wife a gift she can’t use is the fashion in Canada?”
“You’re saying I’d be giving the horse to myself, and you’d be right. I do not like to lose, my lord.”
Oh botheration. Phillip gathered up his jacket, cravat, and waistcoat. “Is that how you justify cheating?” A gentleman would never have posed such a question.
Phillip had had a bellyful of trying to impersonate a gentleman.
“You realize I could call you out for such a question?” Brompton shrugged into his waistcoat and tied his cravat in a loose mathematical, for years the only fashionable knot Phillip had known.
“You are doubtless a dead shot,” Phillip said, “veteran of the wilderness, former soldier, erstwhile fashionable scion, et cetera and so forth. I did not refer to the horse race, but rather, to your tactics with Miss Brompton. If you consider assault in the garden and blackmail to be anything but cheating, then I and every other gentleman present should be calling you out.”
Hecate would disapprove. Phillip would disapprove, too, just as soon as he located some gentlemanly scruples.
“Not blackmail,” Brompton replied, draping his jacket over his arm and starting down the path. “Hecate is free to reject my suit. If she does, I will console myself with recourse to the courts, and she will again be free to negotiate with me regarding adequate compensation for my disappointed hopes.”
“You’re going the wrong way,” Phillip said.
Brompton bowed and twirled his wrist. “My tactics will be effective, despite your disapproval of them. We’ll even invite you to the wedding.”
“She won’t marry you.” Except that Hecate well might, because then she could check the worst of Brompton’s excesses and make some provision for her rackety family.
“We shall see.” Brompton sauntered along, the picture of manly splendor.
“You are going the wrong direction,” Phillip said. “The stable is over there.” He nodded to the westering sun. “The manor house is up the path that way, and the summer cottage is across the park to my left.”
Brompton looked momentarily nonplussed. A trick of the slanting sunbeams perhaps, or maybe the man had been far gone in dreams of unearned wealth.
“I’m taking a constitutional,” he said, “to contemplate my rosy future, despite today’s defeat in the saddle. I bid you good evening, my lord, and congratulate you on having come in second. No shame in that. In fact, you’d be well advised to get used to it.”
Phillip took the path in the other direction, though the whole exchange made him want to go for another swim and scrub himself thoroughly all over again. That, or go best out of three with Brompton.
At a fork in the path, he was reminded of a moment about two and a half miles into the race. The front foursome had rounded the village green and were crossing a neighboring estate before making the final run up the Nunnsuch drive.
Brompton had checked his chestnut, who’d been in the lead at the time. At that point, the race was a matter of maintaining the pace, getting a good distance to the jumps, and saving back something for the final stretch.
Brompton had yielded the lead to DeGrange as they’d approached the crossroads that would lead back to Nunnsuch. Phillip had a sneaking suspicion that Brompton had neglected to review the course. He’d relied on old knowledge from boyhood and a general description of the course to see him safely around.
A farmer paid dearly for failure to prepare. If his equipment was poorly maintained over winter, his team in bad weight come spring, his blades dull, his ditches choked with weeds, he paid and paid and paid.
Phillip turned his mind to how else Brompton might have failed to prepare for his assault on Hecate’s freedom. Therein might lie a means of ambushing the scoundrel and bringing about his eventual defeat.
The problem occupied Phillip through his nightly dancing practice in the darkened gallery, though what could more clearly portend failure than a man stumbling about in the dark, with no music, no partner, and no plan?
Chapter Fifteen
“I do believe if Henry Wortham set his mind to sweeping a lady off her feet, she would be well and truly swept.” Portia kept her voice down, though only a few other guests were whiling away the middle of the evening in the library.
“Henry’s form did rather give me pause,” Flavia replied, moving her peg on the cribbage board. “He could model for Hercules or Perseus. One of those famously fit fellows. Lord Phillip is nearly in Henry’s league for muscle.”
“Not for height. DeWitt has some fine attributes.” Gavin DeWitt wasn’t bristling with muscle like Lord Phillip, nor was he on the grand scale of a Henry Wortham, but he was lean and strong, and he moved with a sort of unconscious grace. “Well-muscled quarters. Boots Corviser, by contrast, clearly owes his fine shoulders to his tailor’s skill.”
She and Flavia shared a smile. They’d been spying on the male of the species at the swimming hole since their first summer at Nunnsuch. Somebody had obligingly left Mama’s field glasses lying about, and enjoyable old habits died hard.
Flavia picked up the deck and shuffled expertly. “They weren’t boys, those fellows we saw today.”
“Boys make more noise.”
“And they haven’t well-muscled quarters. Or chests, or arms. Do you suppose Mr. DeGrange boxes at Jackson’s?”
The question was meant to be casual, but Portia knew Flavia better than Flavia knew herself. “Do you fancy him, Flave?”
“He cleans up nicely, but Mama saw him first.”
Portia hadn’t spared DeGrange more than a glance to inspect his forbidden parts. She did that not because those parts were of any special interest—they were the most ridiculous appendages God had ever fashioned on a human body—but because any opportunity to investigate members of the opposing team, as it were, must not be neglected.
“Hecate has assembled a decent crop,” Portia said, picking up her cards. “Not stellar, but decent. Then along comes Cousin Johnny to give the other fellows a run for their money.”
“He was horrid to his horse.” Flavia rearranged her cards, frowning at her hand. “I was embarrassed for him. He’s apparently up to something where Hecate is concerned, else Lord Phillip would not have spoken to him so severely.”
The talk of dueling had been interesting. “Why do you suppose Johnny didn’t call him out? Johnny was a soldier. He’ll be a better shot than any farming courtesy-lord-come-lately.”
“Johnny always had more sense than the average Brompton. Witness, he went to Canada when everybody knew Napoleon was the greater threat to England. It’s your crib, Porry.”
“Right.” Portia began the round, though her mind wasn’t on the cards. “Lord Phillip is apparently smitten with Hecate. One must admit the obvious.”
Flavia peered at her across the board. “They would suit. He’s the steady sort. She is too.”
“Steady is dull. I grant you, having Hecate’s fortune about has been helpful, but I cannot imagine anything more tedious than life as a farmer’s wife. I suppose one plucks chickens when one isn’t birthing little farm boys and goosegirls, but crops, weather, weather, crops… I’m not sure I’d wish that on even Hecate. We might give Johnny’s aspirations a slight nudge, Flavie.”
“What of Hecate’s aspirations? I don’t gather she’s as fond of Johnny as she used to be.”
“When she tires of Johnny, she can disport with Lord Phillip all she pleases to, assuming Johnny allows her out of the house. She needs some excitement in her life, and Johnny is just the fellow to see that she has it.”
Flavia held a twenty-four-point hand, which put her over the finish line. “Excitement is fine for a lark, but for a marriage… A fellow one can rely on, who esteems one, and has a kind heart strikes me as the better bargain.”
Dear Flavie was hopelessly sentimental. “Johnny is rich, and all Hecate cares about is money. They’ll get on quite well, if Hecate can be made to see reason. Let’s get up a game of whist. I lost sixpence on today’s race.”
Mr. DeGrange was reading a paper over by the French doors, Boots Corviser was idly inspecting the offerings on the sideboard. Cousin Isaac and Mrs. Roberts were at the chessboard, and Mrs. R looked to be on the road to victory.
“Did you bet on Johnny?” Flavia asked, organizing the deck and setting it aside. “I bet on Mr. DeWitt. You can have my sixpence, but I promised Mr. DeGrange I’d partner him at whist this evening.”
When had she done that? “I suppose one of us ought to keep an eye on him if he’s playing Mama’s gallant. Thankless job, and you are very good to take it on. Don’t wait up for me.”
Portia would have risen, but Flavia put a hand on her wrist. “Porry, what are you planning? This business about sparing Hecate the tedium of a farm life isn’t a charitable impulse.”
Portia looked around and saw nobody even close to eavesdropping. Nobody had gone up to the mezzanine either, which was where Uncle Nunn shelved the plays and French novels.
“That scheme with the notes almost worked last year, Flave. If we were more careful, we could pull it off this time. Get Hecate and Johnny sorted out before the London matchmakers can seize upon him this autumn.”
Or before Hecate could seize on Lord Phillip, who was apparently more than willing to become her captive.
Flavia put the cribbage pegs back in the starting holes. “I’m glad we failed last year. I could have ended up married to a man who cared for me not at all.”
“I would not have let that happen.”
Flavia made the same face she used to make when Portia insisted the younger sister always take the smaller half of any shared biscuit.
“You would have been a viscountess, Flavia. Any other sister would be thanking her lucky stars to have found herself in such a situation.”
Flavia was quiet for a moment, while Portia was mentally composing notes and choosing where to lure the soon-to-be-happy couple.
“I don’t like it,” Flavia said at length. “Hecate has supported the whole family for years, and now Johnny wants her money, too, just like the rest of us. He’s not smitten with her. He’d have mentioned her in his letters if he had been, and he’d have written more than once or twice a year.”
