Johnny Brompton when drunk, perhaps.
“Midwife says Mavis is coming along nicely, and the baby’s doing well too. I brought them the flowers. Didn’t stay, just passed them over the threshold. I think Mavie was pleased. My ma sent over a quarter ham, and the basket from Nunnsuch could double as a cradle.”
Hecate had doubtless chosen it for that reason. “But you’re at a loss for what to do next?”
“Aye. Mavis is a hard worker, and I know not every man will take on another’s get, but Mavie is also smart. Smarter than most village girls. Her pa was a vicar’s lad, and they had books. She’ll want a smart fellow like her William.”
Henry spoke of books as Portia or Flavia might have referred to ducal invitations. “You aren’t stupid, Henry.” Though a man could be reasonably intelligent and still utterly stumped in matters of the heart.
Henry shoved damp hair from his eyes. “Ma put the manners on me, and I can read the London newspapers, but I’ll never be like him,” he said, jerking his chin in Johnny’s direction. “He’s a gent. A proper gent, and now half the village will be eating out of his hand. He listened to Mrs. Vicar go on about her knee and laughed at old Jonas’s jokes. He’s a better earl than the earl, and he hasn’t even studied for the part.”
No, he was not, but he might well be a better actor than DeWitt. “Johnny Brompton has no designs on your Mavis, I can assure you of that.” Would that he had.
“He’s a fool, then. Mavie is worth ten of the twittering misses from Town, meaning no disrespect to my betters. Brompton has something the ladies want, though, and he knows it.”
Did he? Most young ladies were shrewd enough to see past handsome looks and flattery. They wanted manners from a fellow, true, but also genuine consideration, respect, affection.
“He will always be more enthralled by himself than he will be with any lady,” Phillip said. “You don’t appear to be afflicted with much vanity, for all that you’re a fine figure of a man.”
To comfort another frustrated swain felt good. Henry’s cause was far from hopeless, despite his gloomy outlook.
Henry stared at his hands, great calloused paws capable of tremendous hard work. “I’ll never have hands like his, not if I slather them with lanolin and wear gloves to bed every night. Mavie knows that.”
“What Mavie knows is that you are a hard worker, just as she is a hard worker. Weed her flowers.”
“Beg pardon?”
“An enterprising lady will have flower beds, a spice garden, a vegetable garden. We’ve had a good rain recently, and the weeds will get ideas. Stay ahead of them and use those calloused hands to tidy up Mrs. Riley’s garden.”
“I was weeding pretty much as soon as I could walk.” Henry ceased studying his hands and peered off to the west. “Won’t be dark for nigh two hours.”
“Please give the lady my regards if your path should happen to cross hers. Make a fuss over the baby.”
“Willa has her ma’s red hair,” Henry said, rising. “She’s the prettiest baby you ever did see, my lord.”
“I’m sure she is. You might also take a look at Mrs. Riley’s henhouse while you’re in the vicinity.”
“Right. Nothing stinks like a neglected henhouse.” Henry collected the rest of his clothing and strode off, a man intent on courting his lady one shovelful of chickenshit at a time.
And Henry would probably succeed in his aims, while Phillip…
He rose, tired in his bones, but restless in his mind. If Hecate hadn’t the heart to fight Johnny Brompton, then the battle was Phillip’s to win. The objective was to send the blighter packing while preserving Hecate’s freedom and as much of her fortune as possible.
That money was hers, and she’d be a better steward of it than the Canadian Cad would be.
Phillip hoped to sidle off along the stream bank without having to make small talk with Johnny, but that wasn’t to be.
“Why didn’t you tell me DeWitt’s colt is fit enough to win the Derby?” Brompton asked, getting to his feet and pulling his shirt on.
“The last time I saw Roland go,” Phillip replied, “a half mile’s effort left him winded. That was several months ago, and DeWitt has apparently had him in work since then.” Mr. Dabney, a former jockey who now ran the Crosspatch Corners livery, was doubtless advising on particulars.
“Perhaps I’ll buy that colt.” Brompton did up his buttons and shoved his shirttails into his waistband. “Make him a wedding present to my bride.”
“I’m sure every lady longs to have a flatulent horse for a morning gift, or perhaps giving a new wife a gift she can’t use is the fashion in Canada?”
“You’re saying I’d be giving the horse to myself, and you’d be right. I do not like to lose, my lord.”
Oh botheration. Phillip gathered up his jacket, cravat, and waistcoat. “Is that how you justify cheating?” A gentleman would never have posed such a question.
Phillip had had a bellyful of trying to impersonate a gentleman.
“You realize I could call you out for such a question?” Brompton shrugged into his waistcoat and tied his cravat in a loose mathematical, for years the only fashionable knot Phillip had known.
“You are doubtless a dead shot,” Phillip said, “veteran of the wilderness, former soldier, erstwhile fashionable scion, et cetera and so forth. I did not refer to the horse race, but rather, to your tactics with Miss Brompton. If you consider assault in the garden and blackmail to be anything but cheating, then I and every other gentleman present should be calling you out.”
Hecate would disapprove. Phillip would disapprove, too, just as soon as he located some gentlemanly scruples.
“Not blackmail,” Brompton replied, draping his jacket over his arm and starting down the path. “Hecate is free to reject my suit. If she does, I will console myself with recourse to the courts, and she will again be free to negotiate with me regarding adequate compensation for my disappointed hopes.”
“You’re going the wrong way,” Phillip said.
Brompton bowed and twirled his wrist. “My tactics will be effective, despite your disapproval of them. We’ll even invite you to the wedding.”
“She won’t marry you.” Except that Hecate well might, because then she could check the worst of Brompton’s excesses and make some provision for her rackety family.
“We shall see.” Brompton sauntered along, the picture of manly splendor.
“You are going the wrong direction,” Phillip said. “The stable is over there.” He nodded to the westering sun. “The manor house is up the path that way, and the summer cottage is across the park to my left.”
Brompton looked momentarily nonplussed. A trick of the slanting sunbeams perhaps, or maybe the man had been far gone in dreams of unearned wealth.
“I’m taking a constitutional,” he said, “to contemplate my rosy future, despite today’s defeat in the saddle. I bid you good evening, my lord, and congratulate you on having come in second. No shame in that. In fact, you’d be well advised to get used to it.”
Phillip took the path in the other direction, though the whole exchange made him want to go for another swim and scrub himself thoroughly all over again. That, or go best out of three with Brompton.