Miss Dashing, page 6
He stood on the terrace steps beside Gavin DeWitt. His lordship’s hesitation should have conveyed timidity, a lack of polish. Instead, he surveyed the gathering as one looked over a flock of sheep. His indifferent expression pronounced the herd mostly culls, a few worthy specimens, nothing impressive.
Beside him, DeWitt was a slightly overdressed ornament. Every other person present would have said DeWitt was the more desirable supper companion, including, probably, DeWitt himself.
Lord Phillip sauntered down the stairs and made straight for her.
“Miss Brompton.” He bowed correctly over her hand. “May I have the pleasure of introducing to you Mr. Gavin DeWitt, late of Berkshire. DeWitt, Miss Hecate Brompton.”
They moved through the little pattern of bowing and nodding as Cousin Eglantine let forth a trill of all-heads-shall-now-turn-and-admire-me laughter. DeWitt obliged.
Lord Phillip subtly winced. “Perhaps you’d be good enough to introduce us to our host and hostess, Miss Brompton?”
“Of course. This way. Mr. DeWitt, I trust your rooms are in order?” Cousin Edna would not bother to ask.
“My rooms are lovely, thank you. Nunnsuch is a most impressive venue.”
A flatterer. Hecate had learned to appreciate them. They were easier to endure than the men who sneered or leered.
“I’ll happily give you the tour tomorrow afternoon,” she said. “Parts of the house date back to Norman times, and the earl has only recently had the oubliette filled in.”
Hecate had insisted. If Charles and Eglantine expected to raise children in this house, an oubliette was out of the question, and to blazes with family history.
“Venerable and interesting.” DeWitt twinkled at her. “I so enjoy that combination.”
Oh, for pity’s sake. He was a persistent flatterer. “Then you must see the gallery. We immortalize our rogues as all conscientious families do. Cousin Edna.”
Edna left off simpering at Hallowell DeGrange. Hecate so rarely claimed a handsome gentleman on each arm, and the slight surprise in Edna’s eyes was gratifying.
“Miss Brompton.” DeGrange was a decent fellow, by Brompton standards, past thirty and no longer given to foolish wagers. The monocle was a recent affectation, but Hecate preferred it to Charles’s quizzing glass. “How do you do? And who are these fine fellows? A brace of bachelors, no doubt?”
He laughed at his own observation, Edna joined in, and Mr. DeWitt looked amused. Lord Phillip, by contrast, appeared to be mentally culling two more underperforming sheep from his herd.
“Cousin Edna, I have the pleasure to make known to you Lord Phillip Vincent and Mr. Gavin DeWitt. Gentlemen, your hostess and my cousin, Mrs. Edna Brompton.”
Cousin Edna held out her hand, and more tedium ensued. DeWitt exerted himself to be adorable and succeeded in being annoying, while Lord Phillip’s behavior was correct. Edna, who possessed good instincts for self-preservation, did not attempt to flirt with either man—she was nearly old enough to be Mr. DeWitt’s mama—but neither did she offer to take up the hostess’s duties and introduce her guests to the earl.
Nothing for it, then.
“Lord Nunn will want to make your acquaintance,” Hecate said when Edna and her flirt du jour excused themselves. In truth, the earl didn’t bother making anybody’s acquaintance. He preferred instead to look down his nose, nod, and retreat into his study. To his credit, he didn’t put up with toadying, which flummoxed most of his Brompton relations.
If Lord Nunn was in residence at Nunnsuch, Hecate bided in London rather than presume on his hospitality. In recent years, he’d kept increasingly to Nunnsuch rather than Town, where impecunious relations lurked behind every potted palm.
“My lord,” Hecate murmured when Nunn’s audience, Mrs. Rose Roberts, smiled at Hecate in greeting. “If you have a moment, I’d like to introduce two more guests to you.”
Nunn brushed a glance over her, then arched an eyebrow at Mr. DeWitt and Lord Phillip. DeWitt smiled genially. Lord Phillip looked bored.
“Proceed,” Nunn said. He had the looks to be a convivial old raconteur—snowy white hair, blue eyes, lean save for a bit of a paunch, but he instead attempted relentless majesty. Hecate used to contemplate dashing a serving of punch in his face, but punch cost money. Then too, by the time she was Nunn’s age, the Bromptons might well have put her in a permanent ill humor too.
She stepped through the ritual, and Nunn bestirred himself to exhibit his manners. He was a peer, true, but in terms of family standing, a marquessate outranked an earldom. Mr. DeWitt ingratiated himself with Mrs. Roberts and inveigled her into showing him the wonders of the herbaceous borders, while Lord Phillip remained at Hecate’s elbow.
“Hail from Berkshire, do you?” Nunn asked. “I thought the Tavistock marquessate had its seat in Surrey.”
As opening salvos went, that one should have landed sizzling with menace at Lord Phillip’s feet. Hecate doubted his lordship had clapped eyes on that family seat, his banishment to Berkshire a blatant indicator of paternal rejection.
“As it happens, I prefer Lark’s Nest,” Lord Phillip replied mildly. “My estate is not only profitable, but lovely. Tavistock deeded it to me outright, and I do so admire generosity, especially in those with many demands upon their resources. Don’t you agree?”
His tone was pleasant, but heads had turned. Charles sent Hecate a do-something look. Edna’s plumes were for once still, and over by the punchbowl, Cousin Portia was whispering furiously into Cousin Flavia’s ear.
“Decent thing for the marquess to do,” Nunn harrumphed. “One cannot fault his intentions.”
“Tavistock is the best of brothers,” Phillip replied. “When he learned that he had family in my humble person, he dropped the Town whirl flat and presented himself on my doorstep in Berkshire. He’s been biding there more or less ever since, and we hope he and the marchioness will make a permanent home in the surrounds. Family is as family does, after all.”
In the distance, an owl hooted, the sound dying away into the shadows of the home wood and leaving a vast silence in its wake. Then somebody commenced a coughing fit, while Portia snickered, and Flavia rapped her sister on the arm with a folded-up fan.
“Perhaps you’d like a glass of punch, my lord?” Hecate said, gesturing with her empty glass. “I could certainly use more. The earl has many other guests to greet, and I’d like to introduce you to more of my cousins.”
Lord Phillip offered his arm. “A glass of punch would suit.”
Hecate wrapped her fingers around his elbow and all but dragged him past the punchbowl and into the relative shadows of the conservatory.
“What on earth were you doing?” she hissed when she’d hauled him among the potted lemons.
“Greeting my host. I thought it went rather well. The old bore must be lonely, racketing about this enormous place with nothing to do but fill in his oubliette and wait for his next quarterly allowance. One pities him.”
“Does one really?” Hecate felt a great lecture welling up, about decorum and civility and the duties of a guest and first impressions… and the list went on from there. A long, worthy, sanctimonious list, intended to prevent further disasters of the kind Lord Phillip had just visited upon himself.
“You are distressed,” Phillip said. “I do apologize, but somebody had to remind the old fellow of a host’s obligations. I don’t mind that he was uppish with me, but he had no excuse for his rudeness to you.”
Oh, that. “He’s rude to everybody. Gruff, rather, by nature.”
“Then the lesson was overdue. He has all this family—cousins and nephews and nieces—and he can’t spare a drop of gratitude for that abundance, much less for the coin you part with to keep him in gardeners and embroidered dressing gowns. I’d half a mind to deliver him a true tongue-lashing.”
Hecate’s imagination was seized by the image of Lord Phillip, fist on hip, shaking an admonitory finger at Nunn as the earl stood, shame-faced, in one of his many richly adorned silk dressing gowns.
“Does my lord have earls thick on the ground in Crosspatch Corners that he feels qualified to comment on Nunn’s deportment?”
“Oh, now I’ve done it. You are my-lording me. I will tell you this: In Crosspatch Corners, we have common decency by the hectare. The crop flourishes when all are dedicated to its care.”
“Don’t turn up Farmer Phillip on me when you’ve insulted your host. I will be blamed for your rudeness.”
“I wasn’t rude,” Phillip said gently. “I was polite. If Nunn chose to hear insults, then he did the damage to himself. You cannot continue to cosset these buffoons, Hecate Brompton. They forget to whom they owe the punch they drink and the pretty frocks they wear.”
He was lecturing her, and his reproach was all the more devasting for being brief and kindly.
“They are all I have.” She’d not put that into words before, though what pathetic, inadequate words they were.
Phillip peered down at her. “In their present condition, they are not worth having. Besides, you have me. Please recall that I treasure my friends, even if they are a bit misguided on topics such as loyalty, generosity, and self-respect. Are you hungry? I’m famished. At what point is it permissible to plunder the buffet? And might I fetch you another glass of punch? Haranguing me is thirsty work, and I can see you’re winding up for a grand peroration.”
Hecate’s grand peroration slipped from her grasp. “A glass of punch would be much appreciated. We’re a quarter hour away from the buffet opening.”
“No, we are not. Wait here. Help yourself to my drink.”
He kissed her forehead and marched off, and Hecate wanted to call him back. He’d make a cake of himself, snitching from the buffet without permission, but then, he should have made a cake of himself arriving early, sauntering up the drive on foot, tucking his horse into his stall, and insulting his host.
But he hadn’t.
Hecate tried to identify the emotions welling where her extensive lecture had been. She wanted to cry, but crying was an outward indulgence. Tears were nothing but bother. Not worth wrinkling a handkerchief over.
What had Phillip said…? Not the part about Nunn’s rudeness, or the family’s general selfishness, something meant to be casual and fleeting… mostly bluster, but not entirely.
I treasure my friends.
He’d said that before, but just now, he’d said it about Hecate. She brushed her thumb over her forehead, where the hopeless man had kissed her. The riot he caused inside her included consternation and gratitude, but also… admiration.
Lord Phillip was a social disaster on two sizable feet, but he’d meet his ruin on his own terms, honor bright. For that, she had to sincerely admire him, provided he didn’t involve her in his downfall.
“She’s taken you to the conservatory to give you a dressing down, hasn’t she?”
The question was put to Phillip by one of two nearly identical young females who appeared to be joined at the hip. They were blond, afflicted with masses of ringlets, and attired in dressing gowns doubtless intended to hint of Grecian sophistication.
Phillip tried to leaven his consternation with a hint of Gavin DeWitt’s friendliness. “Ladies, have we been introduced? Phillip Vincent at your service.”
“You forgot the lord part,” the one on the left said. “But we know. You are heir to the Tavistock marquessate, for now, and Hecate somehow got you onto the guest list.”
“She does that,” the second one said. “Manages feats, and we have no idea how. Charles claims Hecate communes with the dark arts, but he’s only teasing. I’m Portia Brompton, and this is my sister, Flavia.”
They bobbed a synchronized curtsey. Phillip remembered to bow. “A pleasure, ladies. Are you having punch?”
“We are supposed to limit ourselves to one glass before supper,” Portia said.
“Hecate’s orders,” Flavia added. “Lest we get tipsy. Tipsy is bad, but ever so diverting. One feels clever when tipsy, and Hecate’s punch recipe is delicious. One must concede the obvious.”
“The raspberries,” Portia said, nodding sagely. “They are in season, and Nunnsuch has pots of them. We’ll have raspberry crepes and raspberry punch and raspberry pie. I love a good raspberry pie with a dollop of cream. I’m also very fond of syllabub with—”
“Not now, Portia. As for you, my lord. Don’t let Hecate go at you for too long,” Flavia said, lowering her voice. “She has a way with a scold. Makes one feel two inches tall and hopelessly stupid.”
“Reduces you to bumbling gudgeon status in about thirty seconds,” Portia said, requisitioning the glasses of punch Phillip had requested for himself and Hecate. “She’s had plenty of practice. We Bromptons are lively.”
She and Flavia touched glasses and sipped in unison.
“I was a bit less than mannerly with the earl,” Phillip said. “Miss Brompton is concerned that I make a good first impression on polite society. The earl is my host and my social superior.”
“Great-Uncle Nunn is superior to the archangel Gabriel,” Portia observed, with a confirming nod from Flavia. “Even Hecate only takes him on behind a closed door. You mustn’t blame her for being worried. Great-Uncle belongs to all the best clubs and sits in the Lords.”
“You know what that is, the House of Lords?” Flavia inquired.
“My brother sits in the Lords. I have a vague sense the job requires speechifying, robbing the nation blind, and assisting the monarchy to rob the nation blind.”
Portia’s eyes went round, and Flavia agitated the air with her fan.
“You’re a Whig!” she said, fluttering madly. “Is that why your papa hid you away?”
Phillip accepted two filled glasses from the footman. “I’m a farmer. You are both sworn to secrecy.” He’d just ensured they’d repeat the conversation word for word to any willing ears, of course, which was fine with him.
“Hecate means well,” Flavia said when Phillip would have made his escape. “Her heart was broken at a young age—younger than we are now—and she has never recovered.”
“And she has unfortunate antecedents,” Portia said. “We aren’t clear on the particulars, but Eglantine says we must make allowances. My antecedents are quite in order.” She batted her lashes at Phillip, and Flavia smacked her with the fan.
“Mine are too,” Flavia said. “And I don’t gossip half so much as Portia does.”
Not for lack of trying. “Do we know who broke Miss Hecate’s youthful heart?” The question was doubtless a breach of eight social commandments, but if Hecate had to watch the object of her first attachment turning down the room with every other woman in Mayfair, Phillip wanted to know who the dunderhead was.
“Cousin Johnny,” the ladies said in unison. “He went for a soldier in his dashing regimentals. Off to Canada, and he refused to take Hecate with him.”
“He took Cousin Emeril, though,” Portia continued, circling the rim of her glass with her index finger. “There is that. Emeril was a bit much, even for a Brompton, though he’s not as bad as Uncle
Frank. Uncle prefers life on the Continent, which Mama says is mercy. Both cousins took a fancy to the New World, which is not a mercy. We get occasional letters, but they all say the same thing: ‘Canada is beautiful, give my love to everybody.’”
“I wouldn’t like that very much,” Flavia observed. “‘Give my love to everybody,’ when Hecate gave her heart to Johnny. Very romantic and tragical. It explains a lot.”
“Do you waltz?” Portia asked, sending her sister a repressive look. “We do. We were given permission last year, and I’ve stood up with your brother.”
Before Phillip could answer, Flavia was sticking her oar back in. “That was only the once, Portia. Tavistock promenaded with me. That counts as standing up as well.”
“Does not.”
Both occasions likely counted as Hecate inspiring Tavistock into some charity work. “I do not waltz,” Phillip said. “I haven’t been given the nod.”
Flavia, who looked to be on the point of sticking her tongue out at her sister, sent him a keen glance. “It doesn’t work like that. If Hecate told you it did, then she’s in error.”
An occasion for gloating, clearly. “I have not been given the nod by Miss Hecate, and I account her a faultless arbiter of all matters social. If you ladies will excuse me, I am overdue for my first lecture of the evening.”
“Apologize like you mean it,” Portia advised. “Look sincere. Tearing up might be a bit much in your case, but Flavia and I have resorted to desperate measures from time to time. Hecate can be so…”
“So Hecate,” Flavia said. “She can’t help it, so don’t try to reason with her. She means well, and she… she means well, and she’s getting on. Spinsters are deserving of understanding.”
On that magnanimous proclamation, both magpies fell silent.
“I will bid you ladies good evening,” Phillip said. “Enjoy your punch, though you might want to consider limiting yourselves to two glasses each. One can think oneself quite clever when tipsy, though in fact, we often become gibbering fools when we overindulge. I speak from experience.”
He nodded and beat a retreat. Portia looked puzzled, but Flavia was smacking her closed fan against her palm as if she might just possibly have comprehended an unappreciated reprimand.
The most recent of many, no doubt.
Phillip detoured to the buffet where he found a tray and filled a plate with this and that. He half expected Hecate to have deserted her post, but she yet occupied a bench among the potted lemons. In the waning evening light, she looked not quite so tired as she had earlier in the day, and not as if she’d been rehearsing any lectures either.
“Shall we eat here,” Phillip asked, “or find a table?”
“Let’s use the side terrace.” Hecate rose unassisted and surveyed the laden tray. “You’ve been naughty.”
“I’ve been hungry. I was also accosted by Pythia Minor and Pythia Major, who strike me as having left the schoolroom far too soon.”
“Portia and Flavia. They are Edna’s current projects, and you must avoid anything approaching privacy with either one.”
