“Amaryllis would have married me for good reasons—to ensure her family’s wellbeing, to ensure my wellbeing, to silence the unkind talk about spinsterhood and antidotes. We aren’t fancy in the shires. We understand and respect pragmatism, but if a fellow truly cares for a lady, he wants more for her than practical solutions. He wants her dreams coming true. Tavistock can do that for his marchioness, while I could not. Ergo, all is as it should be, and I am pleased for her.”
Miss Brompton’s scrutiny became specific. Her gaze drifted from his brow, to his nose, to his lips and chin. He had the sense she was seeing him for the first time, and though he loathed visual inspections of any kind, he bore up without flinching.
“You are a gentleman,” she said. “The dancing and cutlery and handkerchiefs are trappings of the role, but the reality is in here.” She tapped her sternum with her index finger. “All the deportment instruction and dancing masters in Mayfair can’t make a true gentleman out of a selfish bore. They can only provide him a handsome and expensive disguise.”
“A costume,” Phillip said, “and ‘the apparel oft proclaims the man.’”
He’d hoped to lighten the moment, but Miss Brompton’s gaze narrowed. “You’ve read Shakespeare?”
“I’m familiar with the plays and sonnets.” How else was a country lad to endure English winters? “The Bard was paraphrasing Erasmus, vestis virum facit, who was doubtless paraphrasing the ancients. I had an adequate basic education, Miss Brompton, though classical literature never interested me half so much as farming.”
“Farming is good,” she said. “Gentlemen who take care of their acres are well received, but don’t prose on about it.”
They were back on safer footing, which disappointed Phillip inordinately, though his call had been, on the whole, successful.
“I should be going, shouldn’t I? I’ve had my polite two cups plus one, and I must not overstay my welcome.” He rose rather than put her through the effort of a polite demurral.
“Offer me your hand,” she said, gazing up at him. “Assist me to rise.”
Phillip stuck out his paw. “You are marvelously vital, fit, lithe, in the very pink, and capable of standing without assistance, and yet, I have been remiss…”
She took his hand and stood and shifted her grip to lace her arm through his. “Some women do need assistance. Their apparel is confining, they are weary, their high-heeled slippers render their balance questionable. A gentleman offers.”
“You mean they’ve been laced too tightly. Foolishness, that. Gratuitous torment. If a lady enjoys robust dimensions, then let her dress for her own comfort and to blazes with La Belly Ass Whatever.”
He’d barely recognized the French words when Miss Brompton had uttered them earlier, and he’d defaulted to his own pronunciation. Close enough.
Miss Brompton dropped his arm. She stared at his boots, which were the work of old George Deevers, not to be confused with his parent, Grandpa Deevers.
Her shoulders twitched, and Phillip feared the tea might have disagreed with her. His worry was relieved when a peal of laughter rang out over the music room, followed by a hoot and more laughter.
“Repeat after me,” Miss Brompton said when her merriment had subsided. “La Belle Assemblée. Never that other thing. The whole French language is cowering in terror at your pronunciation.”
Phillip composed his features into his best imitation of the marquess about to hold forth in damnably flawless French. “La Belle Assemblée.”
“You’re a good mimic. That will come in handy.” She tried for a return to her usual starch and decorum, but the citadel had been breached, and Phillip had peered over the walls.
Hecate Brompton was beautiful when she was on her dignity, but she was captivating when her tiara slipped. Phillip resolved to compensate his new finishing governess for the Sisyphean labor of turning him into a lordling by giving that tiara the occasional friendly nudge.
Or maybe frequent nudges. The least he could do for her, being a gentleman at heart and all.
Chapter Two
“Mrs. Charles Brompton to see you, Miss Hecate.” Selwyn held out the silver card tray. “I put her in the family parlor.”
Blast and bother. “Is Mrs. Brompton composed?” Eglantine usually showed up on Hecate’s doorstep bearing problems.
Selwyn was too good at his job to grimace. “Happily agitated, I’d say. I’ve asked the kitchen to send up a fresh tray.”
“Thank you. Some sandwiches would be appreciated as well. I’ll just be a moment.”
Hecate put aside the list she’d been making—dancing masters, French instructors, tailors— tucked it into the escritoire and locked the drawer, then slipped the key into her pocket. Nobody thought to snoop in the music room, but Hecate had become cautious of necessity.
She stopped before a pier glass and rummaged up a polite smile. The effort looked tired, as all of Hecate looked tired. The social season did that—wore a woman out, even a woman firmly on the shelf.
“Eglantine, welcome,” Hecate said as her guest squeezed her hands, beamed, and squeezed her hands again. “Sweet of you to call.”
“Oh, I just had to, Hecate. I had to, had to.”
Eglantine did everything in triplicate. Well, almost everything. Only two children so far, both of them boys. Given Charles’s nature, another child was bound to come along soon.
“You are in good spirits.” Which often boded ill for Hecate. “Shall we sit?”
“Yes, we shall. A cup of tea will settle my nerves if anything can. I am so excited.”
Eglantine was so young. Barely twenty-five, the mother of two, and married to an earl’s heir. That Cousin Charles would one day be a peer was proof the Fates occasionally took to tippling.
Hecate led her guest to the tufted sofa and situated herself in the wing chair across from her. The tea service arrived, sandwiches doubtless to follow, and Hecate resigned herself to having her ear talked off.
“Charlie has had the best idea,” Eglantine said, stirring her tea vigorously and tapping her spoon on the saucer. “My Charlie is so clever. Nobody gives him enough credit.”
Rather the opposite. Everybody extended credit to Charles Brompton on the basis of his expectations, despite the fact that Great-Uncle Nunn was in excellent health.
“Have some cakes,” Hecate said, holding out the plate. “They go down so well with good China black.”
“No sandwiches?” Eglantine made a face and put three cakes on her plate. “Cakes will have to do, but with supper so far off, you’d think the kitchen…”
A footman paused at the door, nodded, and deposited a tray heaped with sandwiches on the low table. “Anything else, miss?”
“No, thank you, Timmens, and my compliments to Cook for her prompt work.”
Timmens bowed without so much as glancing at Eglantine and withdrew.
Eglantine added a pair of sandwiches to her haul of cakes. “You will die, Hecate, simply expire of envy when you hear Charlie’s idea. I am so proud of him.”
Eglantine, bless her loyal heart, was a good wife. She’d been all of seventeen and in anticipation of a scandalous event when Charles had offered for her. Her settlements had gone a long way toward rewarding Charles’s supposed gallantry. Their firstborn child was no relation to Charles, a complication Charles had been willing to overlook before he’d become Great-Uncle Nunn’s heir.