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 up on 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 up on 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 Yahoo he’d been.
“For the good of all concerned,” he said, “the only role I will be playing for next few years is the country squire conscientiously minding his acres right here in Crosspatch Corners. Perhaps after Caroline and Diana are 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 said. “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 been racketing about 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 handsome Hamlet.”
“Not Hamlet,” Gavin said, and handsome 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, recognizing a few names, and allowing 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 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.”
“She was at the Nunnsuch house party, wasn’t she?” Tavistock asked, overdoing the casual 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, the way she caressed the rim of her wine glass when her thoughts wandered…
“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 a 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 they 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 in to dinner.
* * *
Order your copy of Miss Dramatic, and read on for an excerpt from A Gentleman Fallen on Hard Times, The Lord Julian Mysteries, Book One!
A Gentleman Fallen on Hard Times—Excerpt
Society addresses me as Lord Julian Caldicott, though as that aristocratic curiosity, a legitimate bastard, I bear no blood relation to Claudius, the late Duke of Waltham. Toward the end of His Grace’s life, when he and I were both using canes as more than fashionable accessories, we got on tolerably well.
Not so in earlier years, though let it be said both parties as well as my mother had a hand in instigating skirmishes.
I survived those battles and even weathered Waterloo in better shape than many. The worst blows to my body and spirit were dealt long before Wellington’s great victory, when I’d been held as a prisoner of war by the French.
The guns have gone silent, the ghosts have not. The best medicine for me of late is solitude and quiet. I was thus starting my day with an ancient Sumerian text involving agrarian metaphors and procreation when Lady Ophelia Oliphant sailed into my study like a seventy-four gunner bearing down on the French line.
“Julian, do instruct your butler that his harrumphing and stodging are pointless. I call only when you are on the premises, and his posturing will not serve.”
“I am at home because you pounce at an indecently early hour, Godmama. Good morning to you.” I drew a blank page over my translation—Godmama could read upside down and, I am convinced, with her eyes closed—and came around the desk to kiss her ladyship’s proffered cheek. She smelled of bourbon roses and mischief, and in my youth, she’d been one of my favorite people.