Miss Determined, page 7
“If you can settle Roland’s nerves, he’ll be more valuable.”
“Gelding him would likely settle his nerves once and for all, but he’s blazingly fast, and that’s without anybody attempting to truly condition him. He might have value as a stud.”
Something in that recitation, as ungenteel as it was, provoked Amaryllis into a subdued smile. “How long will you be at the Arms?”
“A week at least. It’s a two-day jaunt back to Town if I’m to pamper my horse, and one doesn’t typically travel on the Sabbath, so I’m here until next week.” A voice in Trevor’s head that sounded unpleasantly like Sycamore Dorning noted that calling at Lark’s Nest would not take the better part of a week.
“We’ll trade horses, then,” Amaryllis said. “No lease, just a temporary trade to rest your gelding and put some manners on Roland. You are being kind, and I do appreciate it.”
On that less than effusive note, Miss DeWitt saw him out the side door and accompanied him to the stable, where she explained the arrangement to the groom.
“I must get back to the house, Mr. Dorning. Mama and Diana will be rowing, Grandmama will have retired to her room, and Caroline is probably off to marvel at the bats in the gatehouse.”
“Then you’d best return by way of the kitchen, Miss DeWitt.”
“Why the kitchen?”
“An army marches on its belly, according to some old generals. If you are to sort out the warring factions, you will need some sustenance first. You ate not a single tea cake and forgot to pour yourself so much as one cup of tea.”
Her displeasure was more evident this time. “Must you be so noticing?”
Apparently so, where she was concerned. “My apologies. Might we hack out again on Friday?”
She swished off across the stable yard. “Weather permitting, and assuming Mama hasn’t whisked me off to London. Good luck with Roland.”
Roland’s situation was a straightforward matter of patience and consistency. Miss DeWitt’s more complicated circumstances would assuredly have benefited from some luck.
Chapter Five
Lissa did not find her mother and sister squabbling. Diana was attempting a new sonatina, F major this time, and far from spiritoso. Her stumblings, fumblings, and repetitions were a worse trial to the nerves than even her party piece.
Lissa closed the door to the family parlor and prepared to be interrogated.
“How distant is Mr. Dorning from the titled branch of the family?” Mama asked, opening her workbasket. “Have you seen my gold thread?”
“I believe you gave the last of it to Grandmama.”
“I most assuredly did not. Your grandmother would claim I loaned her my best bonnet because it looked so much more fetching on her, of all the ridiculous notions.”
Lissa cast around for something innocuous to say, something placatory and cheerful, but that effort was beyond her. “I heard Grandmama ask for that spool and saw you pass it over to her.”
“Don’t be contrary, Amaryllis. Your failure to make yourself agreeable last spring is why we are facing such difficulties. If only you’d brought the Merriman boy up to scratch. He seemed quite keen on you.”
The Merriman boy—age eight-and-twenty—had been quite keen on Lissa’s settlements and even more keen to get under her skirts. “The less said about the Honorable Titus Merriman, the better.”
Lissa ought to help Caroline with her French. She ought to look in on Grandmama, anything to put off this discussion, though sooner or later, Mama would have her say.
“But you and Mr. Merriman seemed so well suited. Not as well suited as you and Mr. Brompton, of course, though that’s all water over the dam. What made Mr. Merriman change his mind?”
Lissa took the wing chair that had been Papa’s favorite, back when the cushion hadn’t been so lumpy. “Titus and I were not well suited. I was resigned to marrying him because, as you say, needs must. He changed his mind about courting me, and that is a gentleman’s prerogative.” At the time, Lissa had been relieved at his defection. A tittering husband would have made Diana’s sonatinas soothing by comparison.
Titus was also an inept kisser with clammy hands. Worse yet, he lived for gossip and wagering and thought the most childish puns the height of intellectual sophistication. The Prince of Whales, don’t you know? Wink, wink.
“You could have changed his mind back,” Mama said, rummaging in her basket and producing an embroidery hoop. “A little friendliness always makes a courtship go more smoothly.”
“Shall I stand on street corners showing off my ankles this spring, Mama? Will that solve our difficulties?”
Mama blinked at her embroidery, freed the needle from the fabric, tried for a stitch, then gave up.
“I know you think I’m awful, Lissa. I think I’m awful, to be so grasping and determined, so fixed on seeing you well matched, but your father did so hope you could marry up, and you have the settlements necessary to make that happen. Diana cannot be presented for another year at least, and that’s assuming we have any funds to make the effort. She’s not like you. She isn’t stately, shrewd, or clever. She’s like those sonatinas—pretty, amiable, forgettable—and I know what it is to have only those bland attributes.”
Please, not the tears. Not today, not after such a lovely, impossible morning.
“You are not awful, Mama.” Overbearing, desperate, and gauche, yes. Not awful. Gavin’s disappearance was awful. The solicitors were heinous offenses against decency. “But dangling me before spares and fortune hunters is both awful and pointless. I was friendly to Titus, very friendly. He assured me he was talking to his solicitors about settlements, and I… Well, I would make different choices had I known that his handsome head could be turned so easily.”
His handsome, empty head. Dear Titus had eloped with an opera dancer.
Charles Brompton, the suitor who’d defected during Lissa’s first season, had at least proposed to a lady whose settlement was larger than Lissa’s.
Society didn’t hold that development against Lissa, but an opera dancer? What was wrong with her that Merriman had chosen scandal and penury rather than marriage to Lissa?
Mama studied her needlework, an intricate border of roses, leaves, and thorny vines. “That’s why I married your father. We weren’t a love match, but he was kind, loyal, and respectful. He was so cheerful, such a friendly husband, though he never once tried to dissemble with me. Marrying your father was to be my family’s guarantee of financial security. He married well socially. My uncle was a baronet, let it be said. I married well financially. It can work, Lissa. Your papa would hate to see us in reduced circumstances.”
In an earlier age, not as plagued by war and progress, Mama’s formula had kept the squires, the cits, and the peers on nodding terms. Take one younger son or Honorable, marry him off to a cit’s pride and joy or a wealthy squire’s darling daughter. The products of that union could enjoy both standing and security as they took their turns marrying up.
“Times have changed, Mama, and even if they haven’t, I am nigh elderly by Mayfair standards.”
“You are also wealthy. Your father saw to at least that much. Your pin money, once you marry, will keep us all in fine style.”
They aren’t awful. Your family. Mr. Dorning had meant the words kindly, but they’d cut like the meanest gossip. Lissa was abruptly in anticipation of a megrim.
“Mama, instead of trying to find me a husband, why aren’t we working harder to find Gavin?” That solution wouldn’t require anybody to marry up, down, or sideways.
Mama stuffed her needlework back into the basket. “You know why. One cannot make inquiries without causing talk. If it becomes known that your brother is kicking his heels in Venice, then scandal is bound to follow. Perhaps he killed somebody in a duel or was led astray by a young woman with a jealous papa. Better to not know the details until the prodigal thinks it safe to return.”
Lissa hadn’t the heart to pose the logical question: And if Gavin had been killed in that duel? If Gavin was expiring somewhere of the pox, slowly losing his mind and physical health, but too ashamed to ask his family for help?
For those facts to erupt after Lissa had spoken her vows with some prancing lordling would make a difficult marriage hellish—and all the more necessary if Diana and Caroline were to find husbands.
“If only Mr. Dorning were more closely associated with the titled branch of his family,” Mama said. “The Dorset Dornings are all married and doing well for themselves. One married an heiress that I know of. Perhaps your Mr. Dorning is a cousin of some sort?”
Of all topics, Lissa did not want Mama discussing Mr. Trevor Dorning. “He said he’s cordial with the earl’s family, but he would have told me if they were as close as cousins. I am coming to hate the key of F major.”
“C major is the more villainous. No black keys to slow the child down and make her learn the notes correctly in the first place.”
Diana was still a child, except for those rare flashes of insight that warned of impending adulthood. The Charles Bromptons and Titus Merrimans of polite society would corner Diana behind the potted palms before Lissa could say Muzio Filippo Vincenzo Francesco Saverio Clementi.
That thought restored a bit of Lissa’s temper. “I truly do not want to go to London, Mama. Last Season was bad enough, and this Season will be worse.” Brompton and Merriman both would give her smug smiles and leave innuendo wafting about with their cheroot smoke.
Their guilty consciences had so far stopped them from ruining her outright.
Mama rose and braced her hands against her lower back. “This Season might be worse, Lissa, but it had better be successful. The solicitors have kindly sent me a warning that Lord Tavistock will raise the rent at the end of summer.”
Bollocks to Lord Tavistock. “He raised the damned rent after Papa died. That was only…” Well, five years ago. The marquess had waited until the DeWitts had finished second mourning, then cited rising prices, Twidboro’s enviable proximity to Town, repairs to tenant cottages, and a lot of other twaddle. Gavin had approved additional expenditures for rent—a dwelling being a “necessity” and thus within his legal purview even as a minor—and life had gone on.
“Tavistock can raise the rent,” Mama said, “but he cannot throw us out until we are in default. We are not in default, though your grandmother thinks we should stop paying rent at all. Save that money. It’s not as if Tavistock has kept up with the repairs to the Hall.”
But this is my home. This is Diana and Caroline’s home. Grandmama’s home. How much more forgetful would Grandmama be in new surrounds, where every neighbor was a stranger and every room unfamiliar?
“Then we will simply have to make the solicitors see that an additional sum for rent is the only reasonable course and the one Gavin would support, as he supported it five years ago.”
Mama regarded her with a half smile. “You are very like your father, in some regards. He was cheerful and kind, but he was also determined. When that man took a notion to do something, it was as good as done.”
“I have not taken a notion to marry just any old eligible title, Mama. I will do what I must to see that we keep a roof over our heads—preferably this roof—but I also think we should be searching most diligently for Gavin.”
Mama pulled the window curtains closed, sunlight being the enemy of carpets and upholstery. “The solicitors have sent inquiries.”
Lissa pushed to her feet, wishing she’d heeded Mr. Dorning’s suggestion to stop by the kitchen. A good, hard ride had left her famished, and luncheon was an hour away.
“The solicitors are probably telling you that, when what they mean is, they added a footnote on some epistle to a factor in Marseilles last summer. I don’t trust them, Mama.”
“Nonsense. Smithers and Purvis is an old and respected firm, and they have given us nothing but loyal service since your father convinced them to accept us as clients.”
“They have also given us generous helpings of condescension, sermonizing, and lectures about economy and expectations, while they help themselves regularly to our funds.”
Mama shoved her workbasket behind a wing chair. “Riding out with Mr. Dorning put you in a bad humor, my girl, though he seemed taken with you. Should we ask the solicitors to investigate his prospects?”
Lissa knew how Roland felt when the compulsion to throw a tantrum bore down on him. “Mama, I’ve known Mr. Dorning less than twenty-four hours.”
“I stood up with your father exactly three times before we began to form a closer acquaintance. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may…”
“Mr. Dorning is no rosebud. Please do not ask the solicitors to meddle, and don’t you meddle. Mr. Dorning isn’t looking for a wife, and he might well end up buying property nearby.”
“Maybe he should be looking for a wife. Did you ever think of that?”
Well, yes. Somewhere between Miller’s Lament and the majestic splendor of the napping oak, Lissa had thought that very thing. Also while trotting along the Twid, and while admiring Mr. Dorning’s patience and skill with Roland.
“We should be searching harder for Gavin.”
Mama’s smile faded. “We’ll leave for Town at the end of the month, Lissa. If we take Diana and Caroline with us, Mr. Dorning can sublease Twidboro for a few months. In any case, you shall remove to London, where you will exert yourself to charm the younger sons and fortune hunters into proposing marriage.”
“Doomed,” Lissa said, heading for the door. “We are doomed if our situation turns on my ability to charm anybody. Please listen to me, Mama, and don’t wait lunch for me.”
“Where are you off to now?”
“To call on Mr. Heyward. I will ask him if Lord Tavistock is raising his rent as well, and we can condole each other on our impending homelessness.”
Not even in the friendly and informal surrounds of Crosspatch Corners would Trevor presume to call on the vicar at mealtime, so he took his nooning in the inn’s common while reading yesterday’s London newspapers.
A certain young lord, Marquess of T, was rumored to have returned from his Continental wanderings in search of a wife. The matchmakers were in alt, while the fortune hunters despaired.
“The news is seldom cheering, is it?” Miss Tansy Pevinger was the innkeeper’s oldest daughter. She was pretty in a sturdy, tidy way. Her blond hair was neatly gathered beneath her cap, her apron damp around the hems but clean. “Hard times and getting harder, to hear that lot tell it.”
“The London press delights in publicizing misery,” Trevor replied. “I was looking for properties for sale or lease out this direction, and the paper is no help at all.”
Miss Pevinger gathered his empty dishes onto a wooden tray. “We’re not like Kent and Surrey, where all the fashionable folk like to bide in winter and summer. Berkshire is still a real shire, with real neighbors. The squires look after their tenants, and the tenants do a good job by the land. Closer to Windsor and Reading, we get the racing stables, but most of them have been here for generations as well.”
She treasured her r’s—harrrd times and getting harrder—but other than that, her diction would have passed muster in Mayfair.
“That is precisely why I’d rather bide here in Berkshire,” Trevor said. “I’m keen to perfect the art of making beer. Do you know of any properties for rent?” At some point in the past two days, the inquiry had become half serious. Maybe more than half?
She finished collecting the dishes and set the tray on the next table. “Squire Holmes rents out his shooting lodge, but that’s not what you mean. You mean a proper manor.”
“With some land. I don’t need a lot of acres, but they must be arable if I’m to experiment with hops, barley, and wheat.” A place to tinker with his ideas perhaps, as French vintners tinkered with everything from which terrace best grew which grape varieties, to the angle at which wine bottles should be stored.
“I don’t know that you’ll find anything to interest you near Crosspatch.” Miss Pevinger took a damp rag to the table.
“What of Lark’s Nest and Twidboro Hall? My London solicitor claims those are rental properties.”
Miss Pevinger began scrubbing hard enough to make the stout table jiggle. “Then your solicitors are right dolts, Mr. Dorning. Both of those properties belong to the Marquess of Tavistock, and a worse landlord you never did meet. The repairs don’t get done, but the rents are always collected the very day they are due. Mr. Heyward looks after his place like he owns it—Mr. Heyward mostly goes his own way anyhow—but the DeWitts can’t be so bold, can they?”
“I suppose not.” Diana’s brash attempts at sophistication did not qualify as boldness.
“Mr. DeWitt was barely cold in his grave, and what does Lord Tavistock do? Raises the rent by nearly half. Word is his rubbishing lordship is up to his old tricks, and with Mr. Gavin gone off God knows where and the ladies having barely a spare penny between ’em.”
The table, clean to begin with, should have sported a mirror shine. “The DeWitts are good folk,” Tansy went on. “Miss Amaryllis had a hard time of it in London because she doesn’t know how to put on airs, and there’s her ma, determined to wed the poor woman to some viscount’s rackety spare. I’d rather slop the hogs and change the bed linens here at the Arms any day than trade places with Miss DeWitt, but you mustn’t tell Ma I said so. I’m too forward by half.”
She was dauntingly honest, a young woman secure in her place in the world. That honesty was denied Amaryllis DeWitt.
“You really don’t think much of Lord Tavistock, do you?” She’d said as much, but Trevor apparently needed to add insult to invective.
“I’ve never met the man, Mr. Dorning, and I hope to die in that fortunate state. Most people are decent enough at heart,” she said, lobbing her rag onto the tray with casual precision. “That one… Why treat people as he does? Off to the Continent for a jolly romp in Paris, they say. Gone for years at a time. If he can afford to kick his handsome heels in Paris, he can afford to do right by the DeWitts.”
