Hecate gathered up the letters and returned them to the safe, where neither moth nor rust nor conniving cousins could destroy them. She went to the door and found Mr. DeWitt at his ease in the footman’s chair several yards down the corridor.
“Mr. DeWitt, might you locate my uncle and tell him I’d like to speak to him?” Tears had made Hecate’s voice deeper, but she had never enjoyed such clarity of purpose. “I have a question to put to him, and I will await him in his study.”
“You’ve been crying.” This conclusion apparently displeased Mr. DeWitt. “Did Nunn give you the sharp side of his tongue?”
“He finally gave me the truth. Please fetch him, Mr. DeWitt. I will not set foot outside his study until you do, and then you and I can go for a stroll in the gardens, and you can tell me more about growing up in Crosspatch Corners.”
“More about Phillip, you mean?”
She smiled, because even the thought of Phillip gave her joy. “Of course about Phillip.”
Chapter Seventeen
“You cannot assist me to dress for the ball, Mr. DeWitt.” Hecate allowed a note of exasperation to underscore her words.
Gavin DeWitt had become her shadow in recent days, sitting through last-minute menu reviews with Cook, trundling along through the wine cellars when Hecate conferred with the butler. DeWitt had just finished patiently waiting through a discussion with the stable master regarding where coaches should park when half the shire showed up for tonight’s ball.
When DeWitt had been unable to escort her—to the parlor after supper, for example—Mrs. Roberts had taken up the duty. She’d admonished Hecate to keep her bedroom door locked at all times and not to venture down to breakfast until Mrs. Roberts or Mr. DeWitt arrived to escort her.
“As it happens,” DeWitt said, “my years with the theater mean I am an expert lady’s dresser. I am also accomplished with cosmetics, of which you have no need.”
Hecate reached the top of the staircase and turned for her room. “A man of varied accomplishments. Now I need you to turn invisible, because for the next ninety minutes, I will be in my bedroom, having a short lie-down, and then outfitting myself for the evening. If this is how royalty lives—no privacy, a retinue hovering at all times—it’s no wonder poor old George went mad.”
DeWitt strolled along beside her, damn his longer legs. “Comfort yourself with this realization, Miss Brompton: Wherever Lord Phillip is, whatever task he’s about, he is half mad worrying for you, and his anxiety is justified. Darling Johnny has been lurking behind potted lemons, loitering on balconies, and making a general attempt to keep you in his sights to an alarming degree.”
Hecate stopped outside her door. Johnny had been comporting himself like some lovelorn adolescent, or a villain intent on a kidnapping. He’d watched Hecate at meals, maintained a brooding distance from her over pall-mall, and taken a seat for piquet and whist that allowed him to stare at her over his cards.
“Phillip said he’d be back in time for tonight’s ball,” Hecate muttered, extracting the key from a pocket. “He has less than two hours before the dancing begins.” She twisted the key and pushed the door open, stepping back to allow DeWitt to inspect her room before she set foot therein.
Had she not lived her whole life among Bromptons, she would have thought the measure excessive.
“What have we here?” DeWitt posed the question to Flavia, poised before Hecate’s open jewelry box, a gold bracelet winking from her wrist.
“Nothing of any moment,” Hecate said, though Flavia had managed to get past a locked door, and then she’d had the presence of mind to relock the door before embarking on her larceny.
“I can’t undo the clasp,” she said, holding up her hand. “One puts the bracelet on one’s right hand, the better to display the pretty bauble, but then one’s left isn’t equal to the… I wasn’t stealing it. Please believe that.”
“Where is your familiar?” DeWitt asked, opening the wardrobe and moving dresses aside.
Flavia looked confused. “I am not a witch.”
“He means Portia,” Hecate said. “Did she accompany you?”
“Porry is having a lie-down. She’s on her last nerve, and Mama isn’t helping. I’m to waken Porry on the half hour so I can help her dress and do her hair. The maids always annoy her, and Mama’s lady’s maid won’t look in on us until Mama’s ensemble is complete.”
DeWitt moved aside curtains and peered under the bed, then had a look on the balcony. “No Portia. Shall I escort Miss Flavia to her room?”
Flavia fiddled with the clasp, pink staining her cheeks. Ashamed because she’d wanted to look pretty and sophisticated for a change.
“I think not,” Hecate said. “Flavia and I can chat while I get off my feet for a bit.”
“Don’t harangue me,” Flavia said, apparently giving up on the clasp. “I never steal. You know that. I only borrow, and then I put everything back.”
“Mr. DeWitt was just leaving, and I know you’re not a thief, Flavia.” A dupe, yes; a thief, no. “Mr. DeWitt, I will not go down to the buffet until you rap four times on my door. Give me at least an hour.”
He bowed and withdrew, sending Flavia the sort of look headmasters reserve for recidivist pranksters. Hecate locked the door after him, because he’d linger in the corridor until he heard the mechanism catch.
She gestured to one of the chairs by the empty hearth. “You are welcome to keep the bracelet, Flavia. You have the delicate bones for an article like that, while I do not.”
Flavia stared at her wrist. “You should be scolding me.”
“Everybody scolds you. I know how that feels.” Hecate took one of the worn chairs and waited for Flavia to do likewise. “No matter how hard you try, they criticize the results. If, by chance, you manage something perfectly, they warn you against showing off.”
Flavia looked up. “I don’t do anything perfectly.”
Hecate wanted to howl on behalf of her younger self and on Flavia’s behalf. “You keep a complicated set of signals straight at one game of whist after another.”
“That’s cheating.” Flavia resumed trying to free herself from the bracelet. “Porry says nobody misses tuppence, but we win a great more than tuppence sometimes. We never just enjoy a hand of cards anymore. I used to like whist.”
“Is that why you’ve been partnering Mr. DeGrange lately?”
Ah, a smile. A sweet, genuine, slightly bewildered smile. “Mr. DeGrange is kind and funny, and he’s only ten years older than me. He’s not silly, but he’s not serious either. Porry claims he’s merely gentry. Gentry live in the country, and I hate London’s coal smoke and bustle.”
Flavia got up to pace, which a lady did not do and which Hecate was prone to doing when vexed by an investment.
“One cannot think when the noise in Town never ceases,” Flavia went on. “Don’t tell Porry I said that. Porry claims a third Season is a disaster, but Mr. DeGrange says ladies should be allowed to thoroughly examine what’s on offer, not be rushed to the altar before they’ve had a chance to avail themselves of Town’s diversions. Porry declares that’s nonsense.”