Miss dramatic, p.1
Miss Dramatic, page 1
Miss Dramatic
Mischief in Mayfair—Book Nine
Grace Burrowes
Grace Burrowes Publishing
Miss Dramatic
Copyright © 2023 by Grace Burrowes
All rights reserved.
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Contents
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
To My Dear Readers
A Gentleman in Challenging Circumstances—Excerpt
A Gentleman in Pursuit of Truth—Excerpt
Dedication
To families of every description
Chapter One
“Are you two out of your happily married minds?”
Gavin DeWitt did not shout, nor did he pitch the nearest porcelain vase to the hearthstones. The acting profession taught a man to control himself before all audiences, as did life in Crosspatch Corners. “The only curse worse than a house party,” he went on, “is a hen party, and you propose to gather up every clucking biddy ever to roost at a Mayfair ridotto.”
“Remind me again,” Lord Phillip Vincent drawled. “What exactly is a ridotto?”
His brother, Trevor, Marquess of Tavistock, lounged with an elbow propped on the library mantel. “The usual dancing and flirtation. Better food at a ball, better gaming at a ridotto.”
“Ah.” Phillip had taken to studying the niceties of polite society as Gavin might have applied himself to a Shakespeare soliloquy. “Interesting.”
Gavin considered pitching the vase at the marquess, his brother-by-marriage. “‘A learned fool is more a fool than an ignorant fool.’ If you know polite society so well, Tavistock, then you know this gathering will only end in disaster.”
“In finding you a wife, you mean?” Tavistock smiled in that urbane, self-possessed, annoying way of his.
Lord Phillip rose from the desk. “Stow it, Tavistock. Gloating is bad form even here in the shires. Just because you and I are the happiest of men, delighting in the affections of our darling wives, doesn’t mean you should tease DeWitt about his lamentable bachelorhood.”
Neither Molière nor the Bard offered a riposte worthy of that bit of inanity. “I like my bachelorhood very well, thank you, and I intend to enjoy it for some time.”
Tavistock and Lord Phillip exchanged a look possible only between men who were both in the early throes of wedded bliss. Tavistock was fair, Lord Phillip dark-haired, but the pair of them were tall and rangy, and they shared a certain resemblance in their features.
And in their patient pitying of Gavin’s bachelor state.
“I was like you once,” Tavistock said, as if once had been ages and ages ago in a land far away, not the mere handful of weeks, and most of those weeks spent in Crosspatch Corners. “I was determined to avoid parson’s mousetrap, but I had a reason: My father’s example would have put any man off marriage. Phillip was concerned about his past overshadowing his future, which we can also lay at our late father’s feet. What’s your excuse?”
“Why do I need an excuse to enjoy my freedom? Phillip, you professed the self-same contentment until very recently.”
Phillip’s smile was sweet, and that hurt worse than Tavistock’s smug condescension. “Then I met my Hecate, and mere contentment would no longer do, though I understand your hesitation. Women like Hecate and Amaryllis are rare.”
Phillip had been raised in Crosspatch Corners, far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife—and its licentiousness. He was in some regards the most innocent of men, though in his understated, soft-spoken way, also quite shrewd.
“You could not possibly understand why the prospect of a lot of spinsters and meddlers congregating beneath my very nose gives me the collywobbles.” Opening night on Drury Lane wouldn’t have been half so intimidating. “These are the ladies who make up numbers, who pop up on short notice when more fashionable guests decline an invitation at the last minute. They aren’t half so harmless as you might think. You have no idea…”
Phillip and Tavistock were looking at him as if he’d lapsed into Old English.
“You’ve been off racketing about the shires for two years,” Tavistock said. “Doing your Shakespeare impersonation. How could you predict the sort of women Hecate and Amaryllis will favor with an invitation?”
The former Miss Hecate Brompton was not well known to Gavin, but he was better acquainted with his sister Amaryllis than with any other person living upon the earth. He could predict exactly what sort of ladies she’d invite to Berkshire for a few weeks of summer socializing.
Dragons in disguise, basilisks in bonnets, wyverns in white gloves.
“While I was on the stage,” Gavin said, “my troupe was occasionally called upon to grace social gatherings.”
Phillip squinted at him. “You were hired to entertain in private homes. Juggle for your supper?”
If only the expected entertainments had been limited to juggling. “We enacted selected scenes, delivered famous speeches, and assisted with the amateur theatricals. We were also expected to serve as supporting cast.”
“Flirt with the dowagers?” Tavistock pushed away from the mantel. “So you rounded out the dance sets when you weren’t mooning about the court of Denmark or preparing to storm Agincourt. What of it?”
Both men regarded Gavin with genuine puzzlement. If he told them the rest of it, that puzzlement might well turn to disgust or amusement. The situation wanted some thought, some rehearsal. He’d find a way to explain, a way to say what needed to be said without making himself look like the ignorant bumpkin he’d been.
“For the good of all concerned,” he said, “the only role I will be playing for the next few years is the country squire conscientiously minding his acres right here in Crosspatch Corners. Perhaps after Mama has Caroline and Diana launched, I will see fit to add a wife to the cast at Twidboro Hall.”
“Wife is not a part to be acted,” Phillip said, “any more than husband is a role to be put on and taken off. One fears for your understanding, DeWitt.”
Better that than fearing for a man’s good name.
“You won’t run off?” Tavistock asked ever so casually. “Hecate and Amaryllis have quite warmed to the idea of a mostly ladies gathering, and if you were to absent yourself, they would be puzzled.”
Amaryllis would be hurt, possibly furious. “I won’t run off.” Appending the word again was unnecessary. For the two years Gavin had performed on the provincial stages, his family hadn’t known where to find him, through no direct fault of his.
The indirect fault had been and remained entirely his.
“Splendid.” Phillip came around the desk and clapped him on the back. “You will enjoy yourself, and we might even let you do some of that to-be-or-not-to-be business. The guests we’re expecting are a bookish lot, and they will doubtless appreciate some rousing speeches from a tall, dark, and brooding Hamlet.”
“Not Hamlet,” Gavin said, and brooding was doing it a bit brown. “The poor fellow went mad, committed suicide by duel, and left his kingdom ripe for plucking by a foreign invader. I don’t suppose you have a copy of the guest list?”
Another shared glance that spoke volumes. Got him! from Tavistock, and I told you he’d come around, from Phillip.
Tavistock opened the desk’s middle drawer and brandished a piece of foolscap. “Might not be complete, but these are the ladies who have accepted.”
Gavin read down the list, recognized a few names, and allowed himself a gathering sense of relief. Formidable women, but none with a reason to wish him ill. No drunkards or hopeless gamblers, no prattling…
Oh spite. Oh hell. His dearest memory, his deepest regret lurked near the bottom of the list, gracing the space between Lady Iris Wolverhampton and Miss Zinnia Peasegood.
“You see some familiar names, I trust?” Lord Phillip sounded pleased with himself. “I know you and Mrs. Roberts are cordially acquainted.”
“Rose Roberts was at the Nunnsuch house party, wasn’t she?” Tavistock asked, overdoing the curious tone by half. “A widow, as I recollect.”
“Mrs. Roberts was at Nunnsuch,” Gavin replied, passing back the list. “An agreeable, sensible lady.”
“And easy on the eyes,” Phillip added. “Surely you noticed that part?”
How could Gavin have failed to notice that a woman who’d been luminous eighteen months ago despite her grief had bloomed in the wake of mourning? Hair between auburn and Titian that loved both sunlight and candlelight, a smile to intrigue even a saint—Gavin was not a saint—and silences that could bless or condemn. Then there were her hands, her eyes
“Quite pretty,” Gavin said. “Also well-read and much enamored of her late spouse, if I’m to believe the Earl of Nunn. I can see why Amaryllis would enjoy her company. Unless you two have any more ambushes to spring upon me, I’m off to see Old Man Deever about a new pair of riding boots.”
The bedrock of any successful role was in the details. Which hat would a rake wear to see his mistress? Which would he wear to take supper at his sister’s house? The audience noticed those details, even if they didn’t realize they noticed.
The mention of riding boots was such a detail—Gavin was notably fond of his colt, Roland—and apparently convincing.
“My regards to the Deevers,” Tavistock said. “Amaryllis and I will expect you and the rest of the family for supper tomorrow evening.”
Gavin assayed his best, harmless smile. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
He knew not to rush his exit and denied himself a moment to tarry in the wings. He cared not one fresh horse dropping how Phillip and Tavistock parsed the conversation.
He knew only that this hen party could foretell his doom, but that he’d risk even his good name if he could once again escort Mrs. Rose Roberts into dinner.
Your brother and I have a past.
Rose Roberts could not say that in the face of Amaryllis DeWitt’s gracious welcome—she was Amaryllis, Marchioness of Tavistock now, which made such a confession an even more daunting prospect. Her ladyship had always had presence, a certain calm self-possession, as had her brother.
In the past eighteen months, Gavin’s self-possession had become the gravitas of a man who knew his place in the world, and that place did not require him to renew old flirtations. Though Rose could not call him Gavin here. He was Mr. DeWitt, just as he’d been Mr. DeWitt for the two interminable weeks of the Nunnsuch house party.
“Welcome to Miller’s Lament,” Lady Tavistock said, taking both of Rose’s hands. “We are so glad you could join us. Hecate has been in transports to know you accepted our invitation.”
Hecate, rather than Lady Phillip. The party was off to a very informal start, which made Rose want to turn right back around and climb into her traveling coach. At the Nunnsuch gathering, she had relied on the Earl of Nunn, an old and trusted ally, to ensure the decorum of the proceedings.
Though a gaggle of proper ladies could hardly turn into a summer bacchanal, could it? Then too, blowing retreat would inspire dear Timmens to new heights of I-told-you-so mutterings and looks, a penance not to be borne, even from a devoted lady’s maid.
“I am delighted to be here,” Rose said, giving her ladyship’s hands a light squeeze. “An inspired idea. If the men must disappear to the grouse moors, why not enjoy the resulting peace and quiet in the company of female friends?”
Dane had never gone off shooting in the north. His expeditions in pursuit of sport had been to Town, always to Town. In late summer, he’d stayed home and pursued the manly art of canoodling with his wife in a duck blind.
“Mrs. Roberts.” Lady Phillip offered Rose the same two-handed welcome Lady Tavistock had. While the marchioness was tall, with dark auburn hair and a few freckles across her cheeks, Lady Phillip was more compact and curvier. She wasn’t a great beauty, but she had a compelling gaze and was said to be a genius with investments.
Rose curtseyed despite the two-handed grip. “A pleasure, my lady.”
“We’ve put you in the Rose Suite, for which you must not scold us. You have the best view of the River Twid, and you’ll have morning shade. You are among the first to arrive. Expect a tea tray before your trunks are carried up, have a stroll along the Twid, or indulge in a nap or a bath. Nobody will bother you until the buffet at seven. I trust all is well with Lord Nunn?”
The earl was an uncle of some sort to Lady Phillip. “His lordship is getting an education from his new understeward, and he seems to be enjoying the tutelage. I bring his fondest regards.”
“And Mrs. Riley is thriving?”
“She and the baby are well.”
Rose, by contrast, felt an increasing urge to flee, to plead a headache that could be cured only by an immediate return to Hampshire. The impulse was old and familiar, which made it no easier to resist. Timmens had been right—coming here was a mistake—but Rose need not admit the mistake quite so soon.
Gavin DeWitt did not dwell at Miller’s Lament. His property lay nearby, also along the River Twid, and Rose held out hope that his path would not cross hers again.
She held out equal hope that it would. Frequently.
“Mrs. Riley and her daughter are thriving,” Rose said. “Henry Wortham is making a respectful pest of himself, and Mrs. Riley is allowing it.”
Widows were to remarry. This was an unwritten law at every rung of the social ladder. Widows who bore their late husband’s posthumous child were most especially to devote themselves to recruiting a successor spouse, and Mavis Riley was making fast progress in the approved direction.
“That is wonderful news,” Lady Phillip said, releasing Rose’s hands. “Henry is a fine young man, and his prospects are good. Don’t let me keep you here catching up on the gossip. Away with you. Travel can be so taxing. Mrs. Williams will see you to your rooms.”
A sturdy, beaming housekeeper stepped forward. “This way, ma’am.” She trundled up a curving staircase, and Rose followed, pretending to interest herself in the house’s appointments. Miller’s Lament, like many country manors, had endured centuries of habitation, alternately coming up in the world and then traveling in the other direction.
In good times, a wing was added in the normal course, an attic fitted out. In bad times, the damp got in, retaining walls subsided. Miller’s Lament occupied a slight rise on an oxbow bend in the river. Human effort was doubtless necessary to encourage the river to maintain its course, else the house could find itself on an island after the next serious storm.
Colforth Hall lacked an encroaching river, but Rose’s home had its own stories. A priest hole here, a tunnel built for smugglers rather than servants there. Dane had taken the place for granted, and Rose looked after it as best she could.
Miller’s Lament was clearly enjoying an upswing. Every window sparkled, the carpets had the glow of new acquisitions, no cobweb dared lurk in a corner of the ceiling. All was light, quiet, and repose, with fragrant bouquets of sweet peas on the windowsills and sideboards.
“We’re doing right by the old place,” Mrs. Williams said. “Her ladyship has taken all in hand, and we’re to have a conservatory too, by this time next year.”
“The property is very attractive.”
“That’s the river for you. Gives the trees some purchase against the dry years, means the gardens and flowers will always flourish. This summer hasn’t been too bad for rain.”
“We should enjoy a good harvest in Hampshire as well.”
Rose could talk pleasantly about nothing all day and for half the night. She could steer any conversation away from the fraught waters of politics and back into the safer channels of the weather, churchyard news, or art.
Art generally put everybody on good behavior, or kept their mouths shut lest they betray their ignorance on the topic. Dane assuredly hadn’t troubled to take much interest in art.
“Here we are,” Mrs. Williams said, opening a door carved with twining roses. “Fine view of the river, pleasant breeze. The east side of the house is downwind from the stable this time of year. His lordship says the conservatory ought to go on that side to take advantage of the morning sun. He’s clever that way.”
For a marquess to realize the sun rose in the east was clever, of course. “It would be a shame to interfere with the lovely view available on this side of the house, wouldn’t it?”
