Miss Dramatic, page 9
“You are so silly.” Relief lurked behind a fine showing of sibling exasperation.
“That is no way to address the head of your family, Miss Caroline.”
She stuck her tongue out at him, tapped Roland lightly with her heel, and—sitting half aside in a man’s saddle, only one foot in a stirrup—cantered off without a backward glance.
In another year, she might be too adult to attempt that bit of mischief. Gavin desperately hoped not, and he made a promise to himself that he’d ride out with Caroline and with Diana, separately, at least once a week.
Assuming they had the time to spare him.
As for that bit about manly humors being out of balance, the reasons to toss our marquess into the Twid just kept adding up.
“I don’t understand why Mr. DeWitt didn’t warn you, is all.” Timmens spoke around a pair of hairpins, both of which she then jammed into Rose’s chignon.
“Ouch.”
“Sorry, ma’am, but we can’t have you coming undone in company.”
The implication, that Rose had come undone in private, was surely not intentional. Rose surveyed herself in the vanity’s folding mirror and silently pronounced her appearance above reproach. Demure, widowly, boring.
She stood and took her bottle of lemon scent to the window. “Perhaps Mr. DeWitt does not know that traveling players are to join the house party.”
“He knows,” Timmens muttered, tidying up the vanity and extracting a gold bracelet from Rose’s jewelry box. “If I can believe the housekeeper, who had it from the Lark’s Nest housekeeper, who had it from Lord Phillip’s Frenchie valet, Lord Tavistock has hired the self-same bunch Mr. DeWitt went off with when he left home two years ago. Dryden’s Players. I hoped to never see that lot again.”
Drysdale’s Players. One didn’t correct Timmens over trivialities when she was sharing intelligence from belowstairs.
“I wasn’t aware the acting troupe had given offense among the servants.” Rose dabbed scent on her wrists and, because she was feeling a bit defiant, applied a touch behind her ears as well. She had also hoped never to see Drysdale’s Players again, but how did Gavin feel about this development?
“They get above theirselves, actors do. Don’t argue with me on that score, ma’am. Little better than strolling strumpets, I always said. You’ll want this bracelet to give that dress a bit of color. Aubergine is so somber, though the color flatters you.”
Aubergine had been Rose’s first step beyond mourning, a substantial, pretty shade that could stand up to black or go nicely with cream and gold.
“If I’m to wear the bracelet, I should probably wear the locket as well,” Rose said, though the locket—small and heart-shaped—was nearly girlish in its simplicity.
“Sorry, ma’am,” Timmens said, holding the bracelet open between two hands. “I wasn’t able to find that particular bauble. I’m sure it will turn up once we’re back at Colforth Hall.”
“I dearly hope so.” Rose held still while Timmens fastened the bracelet around her wrist. The bracelet had been a gift from her departed mother, the locket—complete with a miniature of Dane’s profile—had been another one of his peace offerings. The two items didn’t match exactly, but Rose wore them as a set anyway.
Mama had doted on Dane, and he’d flattered her shamelessly.
“Your shawl,” Timmens said, stepping back and retrieving a black lace article Rose hadn’t asked to have packed.
“Let’s have the cream instead,” Rose said. “For a summer evening, with gold jewelry, the lighter color appeals.”
Timmens wrinkled her nose. “You’re sure? That Mrs. Booker is a widow too. She might like to know she’s not the only one who lost the love of her life.”
Dane had not been the love of Rose’s life, but Timmens was loyal to his memory. “Mrs. Booker’s spouse died at least five years ago. I haven’t seen her in anything approaching weeds since we arrived. The cream shawl, please.”
“Aye, ma’am.” Timmens draped the requested article around Rose’s shoulders. “You stay up with the ladies as late as you like. I’ll be waiting.”
“No need for you to go short of sleep. I can undress without assistance, one of the beauties of this ensemble. You are to seek your bed and enjoy a pleasant night’s rest. I’ll ring in the morning when I arise.”
Timmens made a great production out of refolding the black shawl. “If you say so, ma’am.” A world of judgment lay behind that seeming politesse. In Derbyshire, Rose had all but forbidden Timmens to leave the servants’ hall, the better for Rose to enjoy privacy with Gavin DeWitt. Timmens had repaid Rose with months of baleful lamentations.
If only you hadn’t gone so peculiar on me, ma’am.
If only you hadn’t taken such odd notions, missus.
If only you’d let me give that actor fella a piece of my mind.
“Timmens, Gavin DeWitt doesn’t even bide here.”
“A man can get up to very great mischief indeed when off his home turf.” Timmens disappeared into the dressing closet on that parting shot, and Rose let her go. Scolding a maid for loyalty and protectiveness was bad form, and Timmens would simply retaliate with silent recriminations and forced good cheer.
She does a good job. She’s loyal. Dane’s defenses of Timmens still rang in Rose’s ears, and in this case, Dane had been right. Somewhat right.
Not entirely wrong.
Rose made her way down to the terrace, where guests were assembling prior to supper, which was being served under a long white tent set up in the park beneath the formal parterres.
“Punch, ma’am?” The footman was older than his London counterparts, and homelier, and his smile was friendlier too.
“Is this Lady Phillip’s signature raspberry recipe?”
“Champagne with some raspberry cordial, I believe. We’re certainly enjoying our portion in the hall.”
Rose took a glass. “If you come across my lady’s maid, Timmens, please exhort her to try some. I vow raspberries were never put to a better use.”
“I’ll do that, ma’am.” The footman assayed a slight bow, even holding his tray, and glided off.
Rose was considering joining the circle around Lord Phillip, whom she liked insofar as she knew him, when Gavin DeWitt appeared at her elbow.
“What a wonderful color on you,” he said, “and you have dressed to match the punch. Good evening.”
“Mr. DeWitt.” He made a fine picture himself in his evening attire. Rose kept that thought to herself. “No punch for you?”
“I know to go slowly with Hecate’s brew. In warm weather, it’s easy to overdo the libation.” He offered his arm. “Shall we admire the privet, or whatever one does while waiting to be seated al fresco?”
The privet hedges had all been trimmed to waist height or below, which showed off blooming beds of salvia, geraniums, hollyhocks, and daisies.
“Let’s tarry among the lavender borders,” Rose said. “The scent is marvelous, and soon enough those borders will be trimmed back.”
“Harvested, you mean,” Gavin said, escorting Rose down the terrace steps. “Tempus fugit. I gave Caroline permission to put up her hair today. That she needed my approval makes me feel antediluvian.”
“That you gave it without teasing her, pretending to dither, or mocking her made her feel special,” Rose said. “You took her situation seriously.”
“She’s taking it seriously. Caroline was biding in one of the maples by the towpath, and I rode right past her without seeing her.”
They’d been able to do this in Derbyshire. Talk about anything and everything, no preliminaries, no bantering for the sake of establishing positions. Why hadn’t Gavin mentioned that Drysdale’s troupe was soon to arrive at Miller’s Lament?
Did he not know? Not care?
He bent to snap off a sprig of lavender and held the buds to his nose. “I have learned of a development hatched up by my brother-by-marriage to enliven this house party. Tavistock intends that his surprise provide entertainment for the guests and impress his lady with his husbandly devotion.” He passed over the lavender sprig. “I thought you deserved a warning.”
Rose gave the lavender a sniff—what a magical, complex, bracing aroma—and recalled many similar informalities from before.
Timmens was doubtless watching from the window, and Rose resisted the urge to turn around and stick her tongue out in the general direction of the second-floor balconies.
“You refer to the impending arrival of Drysdale’s Players,” Rose said, more than a little relieved that Gavin had brought up the topic. “My maid mentioned this as I was dressing for supper.”
“The estimable Timmens?”
“The same. The servants have been alerted, doubtless because beds must be readied and so forth. I don’t particularly care to cross paths with Mr. Drysdale and his underlings again. What of you?”
“I’m to regard my time onstage as a misguided frolic, to gaze upon my youthful errors with a fond dismay. I was the best Shakespearean lead Drysdale had ever seen, as he himself admitted, but that was all so much folly.”
Gavin was the best Shakespearean lead Rose had seen too. “Will you resent having Drysdale and his confreres paraded before you now?” Or did Gavin dislike rubbing shoulders with those who’d known him when he’d been dabbling in the role of male strumpet? Why was there no word for a male strumpet, because they apparently existed in life?
“I left Drysdale’s group under something of a cloud,” Gavin said as they crunched along the crushed-shell path. “I wanted more serious fare, and Drysdale wasn’t about to demand that from his players, when they’d spent so much time and effort perfecting their farces and comedies. We remained civil, but there was a strain. Mrs. Drysdale in particular will likely have little use for me.”
No mention whatsoever of having sought coin for intimate favors, but then, what had Rose expected? A full confession? An apology between the herbaceous borders? That Gavin had slunk off to the south in a fit of self-disgust?
Apparently, a fresh start meant a fresh start, complete with convenient lapses of memory.
Very well. “So you miss the stage, but not these players. I miss marriage, but not my husband as he was before he died.”
Gavin came to a halt. “You adored your husband. His death devastated you.”
If Gavin had been playing a role up north, so had Rose. In part because of her experiences in Derbyshire, she could—in some circumstances, at some times—put the role aside. She’d come to that realization only recently and was still pondering its significance.
“The manner of Dane’s death was lamentable,” she said. “An overturned curricle while galloping down his own driveway, two days without regaining consciousness, and no heir of the body left behind. He was nonetheless in that curricle and three sheets to the wind, again, because what gave him joy lay in London and not in Hampshire with me.”
Gavin snapped off another sprig of lavender and twirled it between his fingers. “He was drunk at the ribbons?”
Rose abruptly felt ancient and exhausted. “By then, he was always drunk. He was bitterly disappointed, and spirits offered him oblivion, or so my mother claimed. He and I had quarreled—he was in no fit state to manage a vehicle, and I begged him not to make the attempt.”
Mama had also said that Rose should take the shame of her marital failings to her grave, to confide in no one, and tend to Colforth Hall as conscientiously as possible in Dane’s memory.
Mama hadn’t been married to the man. “You need not say anything,” Rose went on, “but I wanted the truth aired between us, lest you… be deceived.”
Gavin tucked his sprig of lavender into his lapel. “To guard one’s dignity, and the dignity of a departed spouse, is not a deception. You were and are entitled to your privacy, and you deserved much better from your husband.”
She’d expected him to offer some polite platitude made substantial by his sincere gaze and beautiful diction, not… not understanding. Not judgment of Dane.
“For the most part, I can manage well enough. I’m fine. I understand what’s expected of me, and I know my lines. But sometimes…”
Gavin’s smile was wan. “You want to curse and rail at the night sky, to fling profanities to the heavens, and tempt the wrath of fate with your honesty.”
Also to throw a few slippers at Dane’s portrait. “Very Shakespearean, Mr. DeWitt.”
Whatever Gavin might have said next was obliterated by the third dinner bell. Rose lined up at the buffet, her partner for the evening to be Miss Peasegood, while Lady Phillip appropriated Mr. DeWitt, who politely winged his elbow.
He’d meant to warn Rose about the invitation to Drysdale’s Players, but Rose had not meant to admit the truth of Dane’s passing to anybody. Why confide that to Gavin DeWitt, of all people?
A fresh start, indeed.
But upon what?
Chapter Seven
“I gather Phillip told you?” Hecate murmured as Gavin accompanied her to a small table on the river side of the supper tent. “Your old chums will be doing a few scenes from A Midsummer Night’s Dream for us, among other offerings. Tavistock meant to see that you were warned, but he’s busy playing host.”
Gavin did not know Hecate well, but he’d had several days in Hampshire to observe her at close range. She had a thespian’s ability to control her features, voice, and posture such that what information she gave away, she usually meant to convey.
Not always. The softness in her gaze when Phillip was in the room was likely beyond her control, as was the genuineness of her smile. She was dignified, but honest, and Gavin liked that about her.
“Phillip mentioned that Drysdale and his troupe would be providing some entertainment,” Gavin said, assisting the lady into her chair. “I’m sure your guests will enjoy the diversion.”
He took his seat, which allowed him a view of the other diners. He and Hecate occupied an open corner of the tent, while Rose and Miss Peasegood were about halfway down on the same side. Without doing anything fancy to her hair, in the plainest frock, wearing only a simple bracelet, Rose outshone all the other women. The contrast had to do with that indefinable quality of presence, which actors coveted above all other traits.
“Whatever passed between you and Mrs. Roberts,” Hecate said, whisking her table napkin across her lap, “you still care for her.”
The situation was much, much worse than mere caring. “Mrs. Roberts is an estimable lady, and our views march on many matters. I take it Lord Phillip has been telling tales out of school?”
“Don’t be fanciful. Phillip would never betray a confidence. I watched you and Mrs. Roberts in Hampshire. She could have wrangled a marriage proposal from Uncle Nunn, a cordial and platonic union, but it was you she watched when nobody was looking. Let’s have some of that punch, shall we? This batch turned out exceptionally well.”
Punch, indeed. Hecate’s Uncle Nunn, known to any outside the family as the Earl of Nunn, was an upright fellow of significant self-regard and even more significant acreage.
Gavin passed over one glass and held up the second. “To successful gatherings.” That ended soon and without drama.
“I expect this gathering will be successful,” Hecate said. “The guest list all but formed itself.” She cut a slice of rolled-up ham and commenced eating.
“How does a guest list form itself?”
“Amaryllis suggested we start with Lady Iris and Miss Peasegood, who are cousins. They expressed great fondness for Mrs. Booker, who was married to another cousin, and opined that Mrs. Booker was particularly close to a neighbor in Mayfair…”
“Lady Duncannon?”
“The very one, and so it went. The guests know each other better than their hostesses know the guests. A curious situation, but off to a congenial start.”
Gavin surveyed the food on his plate, the usual artful presentations of cold meat, cheese, two slices of pale bread, some sort of peach-garnished crème brûlée tart. Simple, delectable summer fare for which he had little appetite.
Rose had not loved her husband as Gavin had believed she had. She had esteemed Dane, clearly, but she’d also… resented him. His death had left her with guilt and more resentment, and all that romance up in Derbyshire had been about more than a first attempt at merry widowing.
When she’d served up that confession, Gavin had wanted to take her in his arms and… what? Comfort her, of course. He knew what it was to resent close ties that one also valued, but he’d also wanted to—
“You should eat something,” Hecate said. “At supper, one usually partakes of the food. Mrs. Roberts will still be there if you happen to look away for a moment.”
Gavin put a cube of cheese into his mouth. Lark’s Nest cheddar. He recognized the nutty undertones and the smooth tang on the tongue.
“You are smitten,” Hecate said. “No shame in that. I am so smitten with Phillip… I thought romance diminished us, and diminished women in particular. I have no patience with gushing ninnyhammers and bad poetry. But when I contemplate the vast generosity of a universe that put my husband into my life… I am humbled and invincible both. I gather you feel vanquished rather than invincible?”
Rose had been able to converse for hours on so many topics. She was well-read, she’d taken a keen interest in her husband’s estate, and she followed politics, not only in England. The ongoing national French spectacle fascinated her—could a monarchy ever develop fresh roots in soil where a republic had been planted?—and she was an avid student of natural philosophy.
And more impressive than all of that, Rose had the gift of silence. Long intervals of simple affection, of lying hand in hand on a blanket and watching stars wheel slowly across the firmament. Long, quiet walks. Peaceful hacks.
Good God, I’ve pined for her.
“I was smitten,” Gavin said. “I got over it. How are the plans coming for Phillip’s conservatory?”
“He and Tavistock argue regularly over design, because they are both adding conservatories to their homes. They will purchase the glass and frames and so forth together, the better to save money. I don’t suppose Twidboro Hall would like to expand its conservatory?”
