Miss Dramatic, page 24
“Why are women always cast as temptation’s minions?” Rose left the alcove, and Gavin came with her. “You fellows can give a good account of yourselves in that department when you’re of a mind to.”
“Consider my inspiration.”
He was in the most devilish mood, while Rose felt weepy and uncertain. Widow-ish, and that would not do at all.
“I have the last of my packing to do,” she said as they approached the door of her apartment. “You will see me off?”
“Though it will break my heart, I will of course see you off. My sister would go very spare with me if I were to turn up dunderheaded at this stage. She wasn’t trying to marry me off, you know.”
“The marquess and Lord Phillip were certainly investigating that possibility.”
“They are good, simple fellows. Marriage has filled their respective cups with joy. I was not thriving here in Crosspatch. Ergo, I would benefit from a wife. As it happens, I agree with them, provided that wife is you.”
Logical romance. What had the world come to? “Will you go to Bristol?”
“Not for some time. I, too, have a harvest to oversee, and Drysdale and the Merchants will sort themselves out more easily if I’m not making an inspection tour on behalf of Lady Phillip’s investors.”
Rose wrapped her arms around Gavin’s waist and leaned against him. “I hate the word ‘harvest.’”
“No, you don’t. You excel at managing Colforth Hall, and you enjoy it. I excel at the theater, and I enjoy it. You insist I investigate those possibilities, and I insist you delight in running the whole business down in Hampshire.”
Rose straightened. “I do enjoy it. Colforth Hall has sound bones. The tenants are hardworking and conscientious and the land good and generous. You will come see me?”
“Thirty days hence. I promise, and I keep my promises, Rose.”
Gavin was not Dane. Rose would likely be reminding herself of that eternal verity for some time, hopefully with less and less frequency.
She took his hand, lifted the door latch, and drew him through the sitting room into the bedroom. They had time for other and further expressions of a fond farewell, if they—
“Timmens.” Rose’s maid was at the jewelry box. A large trunk sat open at the foot of the bed, Rose’s black shawl folded neatly atop the contents. “I thought you’d be down in the Hall making your good-byes.”
“Most has already gone,” Timmens said. “That lot out from Town wasn’t very friendly anyway. Putting on airs, talking posh.”
“You are from London,” Rose said.
“I’m from Hampshire now, ain’t I? P’raps Mr. DeWitt could summon us some footmen to haul this trunk down to the coach?”
Gavin walked around the open trunk to prop a hip against the windowsill. If he was appalled by Timmens’s bit of cheek, he gave no sign of it, but Rose wasn’t in the mood for her maid’s uppish crotchets.
“If there are footmen to be fetched,” Rose said, “you will fetch them. I don’t suppose you’ve found my bracelet?” The wretched thing had gone missing at some point before the final formal dinner. Rose might have suspected Drysdale, except that Gemma would have murdered him in his sleep for even considering the notion.
“That clasp was none too reliable,” Timmens said. “The marchioness will probably find the bracelet in some coal bucket, mark my words, madam. I’ll just be off to find those footmen.” She popped a curtsey at Gavin that had something of rudeness to it and flounced through the bedroom door.
“A moment,” Gavin said. “Timmens, you can set my mind at ease regarding one bit of old business.”
She turned in the doorway. “Sir?”
“You were with Mrs. Roberts in Derbyshire.”
Timmens’s chin came up. “I been with Missus for better than five years. She doesn’t go anywhere without me.”
“And Mrs. Roberts tells me that she also trusts you in matters of petty cash. You paid the vails in Derbyshire?”
Whatever he was on about, Rose knew that measured tone, that gentlemanly reserve. Gavin was in deadly earnest, regardless of his objective.
“How can I recall back that far?” Timmens said. “That was ages ago, and what do a few pence here and there matter when some flighty actor is putting Missus’s reputation at risk?”
“What about a few pounds?” Gavin said evenly. “What can you recall about many pounds left in Mrs. Roberts’s jewelry box?”
Timmens took a few steps forward, as if she’d shake a finger directly in Gavin’s face, then stopped and speared Rose with an exasperated look. “Will you send me to fetch them footmen, or am I supposed to stand here, being insulted to my face while you keep mum? This ’un ain’t never been nothing but trouble, and here he is again, stirring up more trouble.”
Gavin pushed away from the windowsill and walked a slow circle around Timmens. “I hear no insult… to you. I hear a reasonable question, but I have yet to hear a reasonable—much less respectful—answer. Mrs. Roberts is your employer, and you will not disrespect her.”
“Timmens handled the vails,” Rose said. “In London, in Derbyshire, everywhere, until today. I gave the butler a tidy sum this morning and asked him to use his discretion in its disbursement.”
“I coulda done that,” Timmens said. “You had no need to take that on yourself, missus.”
Gavin ceased his perambulations just behind Timmens’s left shoulder. “In Derbyshire, you found a small fortune in Mrs. Roberts’s jewelry box, didn’t you, Timmens?”
“I’ll not stand for this,” Timmens said, crossing her arms. “Missus, you’d best call him off, or you’ll regret it.”
That was a threat. The old Rose, the one who’d tried to read Wordsworth, would have done anything to smooth over the moment.
“You stole from me?” Rose asked.
“He left that money in your jewelry box,” Timmens said, chin jerking in Gavin’s direction. “Making a common strumpet of you, he was. You were fair gone on him, and he treats you like that. Nobody else coulda done it. Of course, I took that money.”
An odd sensation enveloped Rose, of having had the same discussion at many points in the past and of hearing the words clearly for the first time.
“You committed this substantial act of larceny for me?” Rose asked almost pleasantly.
“I couldn’t let him treat you like that, and it’s not as if I don’t work hard.”
Gavin made another slow circuit around Timmens. “Mrs. Roberts, exactly how much jewelry has gone missing?”
“Not that much. A locket, a bracelet, earbobs, a few rings, some nacre hairpins, a pair of silver shoe buckles…” Quite a lot, actually, one or two pieces at a time.
“Widows are forgetful,” Timmens said. “Everybody knows that. And those actors were underfoot in Derbyshire, or Missus wouldn’t have crossed paths with you. Actors are beggars reciting verse. One of them doubtless took the bracelet, because they earn even less than a lady’s maid does.”
“Everybody knows that too?” Gavin asked, starting another circuit of Timmens’s person. “I wonder, then, why a mere maid can afford this gold chain about her neck.”
He delicately lifted the clasp of a slender chain peeking above the collar of Timmens’s dress.
“You leave me alone,” Timmens shrieked, wrenching to the side.
Gavin held fast to the chain, which broke when Timmens jerked away. He held up the broken links and the locket dangling from them. “I believe we’ll find the late Dane Roberts’s miniature inside, and I suspect that coin, jewelry, and trust were not the only valuables Timmens purloined from you.”
He pried open the locket while Timmens glared daggers at him.
“I earned that locket,” she spat, her tone venomous. “He promised me we’d be together, promised me that he’d set me up in Town. She wanted babies of him, and he pitied her too much to leave her.”
“I wanted babies?” Rose’s voice sounded oddly calm to her own ears. “I wanted babies?”
“Sons. Every woman wants sons. You left him no peace on the matter. You never treated him right, never gave him the respect he was owed. You never understood him, how delicate his nerves were and that he drank because you drove him to it. I loved him, and he loved me.”
Rose felt the absurd urge to laugh, except that in Timmens she saw another woman trying to convince herself that she was—after her fashion—fine. Lovable, valued, desired.
“Timmens, Dane was a sot by the time he came home from public school. He was all but drunk when he proposed to me, and if you believe for one moment that I wanted to bring children into a household headed by a chronic inebriate… Give her the locket, Mr. DeWitt. She’s right—she earned it.”
Gavin obliged. “Shall I summon the magistrate?”
“Wot? You’ll bring the law on me after all I’ve done for you, Missus?”
Timmens even had Dane’s ability to become the tragic victim in dramas of her own creation. “I will write you a character. You can keep your treasures as severance, and I never want to see you again. Mr. DeWitt, if you’d see that Timmens is on the afternoon stage at my expense, I’d appreciate it. She had best never set foot back in Hampshire.”
Gavin went to the parlor door and bellowed for a footman. A stout young blond fellow soon appeared.
“Please take Miss Timmens to the servants’ hall and ensure she remains there until somebody can get her to the Crosspatch Arms. She’s to be seen onto the late stage, inside fare, along with her belongings and a packed hamper. Pay her fare to any British destination outside Hampshire. And I do mean put her bodily into the coach.”
“Very good, Mr. DeWitt.”
“He loved me,” Timmens spat. “He loved me.”
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 being fine.
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.
“That is not our Roland,” Rose said, making short work of the terrace stairs. “What have you done with your horse, Gavin?”
She wrapped her arms around him, and all equine thoughts flew from Gavin’s mind. “I’ve missed you so, Rose Roberts. Missed you until I ache with it.” He followed up that ringing statement of the obvious with a protracted kiss, and devil take any gawking neighbors, servants, horses, or grooms.
Rose stepped back all too soon. “I’ve missed you too, sir. Has my nose flattened for being pressed against the glass watching for your arrival?” She touched the tip of her proboscis and smiled up at him.
“You are lovelier than ever. All of Crosspatch Corners sends their regards and hopes you’ll visit again soon.” The lectures from their rubbishing lordships had been endless. “I carry letters from Diana and Caroline and standing invitations from the marchioness and my mother.”
“My correspondence has exploded since I was in Berkshire,” Rose said as a groom approached from the downwind side of the house. A stand of maples obscured what was doubtless a sizable stable and heaven only knew how many other outbuildings.
“As has mine. A certain loquacious coachman got to expounding about Roland’s speed all up and down the London road. Roland has acquitted himself splendidly in his opening meets. He’s being called the Second Eclipse, but more to the point, our boy is having a grand time.” Also earning much more than the predicted tidy packet, bless him.
Half the proceeds had gone to investing in the Players, the other half to Lady Phillip’s sailors’ homes.
“Be warned,” Rose said, linking arms with Gavin, “I intend to have a grand time with you. I have missed you dreadfully.”
Gavin mounted the steps beside her and paused before the front door. “I’m not here to frolic, Rose.”
She looked him up and down, and Gavin could see the joy in her eyes dim. “Explain yourself.”
He had planned to have this discussion after some pleasantries, a meal, perhaps a tour of the Hall, but that would all be so much dithering.
“I want to marry you, but you gave me a challenge to complete before my hopes in that regard can be raised. I was to reconcile my love of the theater with my responsibility to my family and my love for you. I’d like you to read something before we…”
“Don’t frolic?”
“Before we decide the nature of my call.”
Rose put a hand on the door latch. “You’re sure we’re not to frolic? That was a very frolicsome kiss we just shared in view of God, the countryside, and half my staff.”
“I’m sure that I’d like you to read what I’ve brought for you, and beyond that, I cannot think.”
The door swung open to reveal a youngish, blond butler. “Madam. I’ve put a tray of lemonade and comestibles in the family parlor for you and Mr. DeWitt.”
The garrison had clearly been on high alert.
