DeGrange considered his port. “A lady is never too old to enjoy a mild flirtation, Winover, or to merit a little harmless flattery.”
“Were you flattering the Brompton antidote with all that bowing and bobbing at the parlor door?” Winover shot back. “Nobody has placed a bet in that direction in years. Wouldn’t want you to waste your firepower on a forlorn hope, as you soldierly fellows would say.”
The Earl of Nunn had declined to remain on hand for the port and piss pots, which meant the assemblage bore an unfortunate resemblance to a pack of spoiled boys sorting out their schoolyard politics. Phillip hadn’t been to public school, and he was glad of it.
DeWitt lounged in elegant splendor against the mantel. “I like Miss Hecate Brompton,” he said. “She has a wealth of good sense, is loyal to her family, and doesn’t suffer fools.”
“That lets you out, Winover,” somebody quipped.
“Why waste my time tilting at that windmill when the younger Misses Brompton are ever so much more amenable to a fellow’s overtures?” Winover drawled. “They are so nearly twins they conjure all manner of interesting fantasies.”
Phillip longed to pitch Winover into the roses, but alas, the dining room was on the first floor, and the drop would have been insufficient to see justice done.
“You only have the one prick,” the same wag observed, “and anybody can see that Portia and Flavia aren’t twins.”
“Right,” a third fellow said. “Portia is scheming, and Flavia hasn’t a brain in her head. Easy to tell them apart.”
Phillip sent DeWitt a hard stare, but DeWitt was looking bored and handsome at the hearth.
“Better scheming,” Phillip said, “which some might call shrewd, and stupid, which could more kindly be termed innocent, than insolent, arrogant, and a disgrace to one’s upbringing. The ladies deserve our respect, and I find this company beyond tedious. Excuse me.”
Somebody guffawed as Phillip headed for the door, and Winover offered a languid salute with his cigar, but the conversation had been halted, as well it should have been.
What a pack of fat-headed, yowling, tomcats. They even pissed indiscriminately like tomcats, and these were the fellows Hecate had invited after much thought. Phillip shuddered to consider the bachelors and baronets who had not made the list.
He stalked along the corridor, wishing he could spend an hour stacking hay, mucking stalls, or clearing some weed-choked drainage ditch.
“They will talk about me now,” he muttered, letting himself into his room. “Concoct witty insults, dub me Lord Finicky, or worse.” He kept going straight out to his balcony. Hecate would not expect him quite yet—port and cigars amid a miasma of flatulence and urine was a man’s reward for enduring good food and pleasant conversation.
A fashionable fellow did not hasten through his reward, even when it bore a very close resemblance to purgatory. Not done.
Phillip shrugged out of his jacket, which would need a thorough airing, and stripped down to the skin. He did the best he could with soap and cold water, then changed into breeches, a plain shirt, and an unembroidered waistcoat.
The old boots he’d worn for the journey down from Berkshire completed his ensemble, and trading his formal evening kit for a farmer’s attire helped settle his temper.
How dare those imbeciles publicly insult women, first for being unattainable, as Hecate had been, and then for being too willing to tolerate a fellow’s overtures, as Portia and Flavia might be? Hardly rational to criticize both responses.
Phillip dragged a brush through damp hair, used his toothpowder, and escaped down the footmen’s stairs into the blessedly dark night. Hecate was waiting for him on the bridge, and in all his years of appreciating nature’s splendors, he had never seen a sight half so breathtaking.
“You’re early,” she said, remaining where she was.
“Is that bad? Shall I lurk in the bushes admiring your profile until the appointed hour?” Did he take her hands, perhaps bow? Was there protocol for such encounters? If so, he’d already bungled his opening lines.
“I have no doubt that you excel at lurking in bushes,” Hecate said, rearranging her shawl. “Was dinner awful?”
Oh, lovely. Now he’d thrown her off stride too. Phillip closed the distance between them and perched on the wide stone wall that formed the bridge railing.
“Dinner was delightful. I had only to look up, and I could behold the loveliest lady in the room, and sometimes she was even glancing my direction.” He patted the place beside him and hoped he hadn’t committed four violations of good manners by failing to offer Hecate his hand.
“I had only to look up,” Hecate said, settling right next to him, “to behold the most impressive gentleman of the gathering, and sometimes he was even smiling in my direction.”
This was supposed to be an assignation, an exploration of further steps toward intimate congress, but Phillip wasn’t feeling amorous. Relieved to be once again in the fresh air and delighted to share the stars with Hecate, but not… swainly.
“I made a cake of myself over the port and cigars. Insulted the company.”
“They aren’t a very impressive lot,” Hecate replied. “I had to content myself with who was available on short notice for a gathering that would offer no deep play, no orgies, no obliging housemaids. I can’t speak for Nunn’s footmen when it comes to frolicking, but I trust them around Portia and Flavia.”
Phillip looped an arm around Hecate’s waist, and she rested her head on his shoulder. “I can see why this house-party business exhausts you. Without scheduled entertainment, that lot in the dining room turns to prurience and strutting. I left in high dudgeon when they started on Portia and Flavia.”
“That would be… Winover’s doing?”
“He led the pack. I wanted to kick him in the cods, Hecate. I can see why Nunn begs off at his own house party.”
“Uncle is getting on, though he enjoys good health, much to Charles’s frustration. I’ve warned Edna that she needs to keep a closer eye on Portia especially, but my warnings are brushed off as the anxious imaginings of a sheltered spinster.”
Perhaps Hecate did not expect amorous advances, or perhaps she, too, needed to air the day’s burdens. Phillip gathered her closer and kissed her temple.
“I wish we could slip away to Lark’s Nest,” he said. “High summer is lovely in Berkshire. Not lazy—farm life admits of no laziness—but satisfying. I make a list over the winter of summer projects—repair this fence, clear that acre, reroute another irrigation scheme—and seeing to my list gratifies me inordinately.”
“I plan in winter too,” Hecate said, taking his hand and lacing her fingers through his. “The year’s expenditures and income get a thorough review, and then I contemplate what ought to be changed going forward. Should I move some investments? Is my sailors’ charity performing adequately? Is the local house of worship in good trim? Nunn holds the living, but he can’t see rising damp in the vestry, and Vicar won’t show it to him.”
They were quiet for a time, while Phillip let the peace of a luscious moment sink into his mind and body. The stream burbled along, one of the most tranquil sounds known to humankind, and a song thrush serenaded the moon. A robin answered occasionally, and some horse enjoying his night at grass whinnied to his fellows.