Page 29 of Miss Dashing
“Was she a happy wife?”
A voice in Hecate’s head told her to chide Lord Phillip for such a forward question, but they were not at some duchess’s ridotto, where a dozen ears would overhear. Then too, nobody ever mentioned Mama.
“She tried to be a happy wife. Papa is not warmhearted by nature, though he can be very charming when he wants something. He and Uncle Nunn are opposite sides of an ill-humored coin. Uncle Nunn is bereaved and without children, so his discontent with life is understandable. Papa married Mama for her money and lost interest when she, too, was unable to produce sons.”
“Is that why she took up with your true father?” Lord Phillip asked, moving on to the first Baron Nunnville.
Ancestors organized by date marched along the inside wall, and Hecate had seen them all hundreds of times. Men, mostly, with a nod to the occasional viscountess or countess. The baronesses hadn’t signified.
“Where is Mr. DeWitt, my lord?”
“I bring you his regrets. He felt the need for some activity after being shut up in the coach all day yesterday. He took my place on the haying crew and asks that you reserve another day for his tour.”
“Let’s sit, then, shall we? You had a busy morning.”
“And if the weather is obliging, I will indulge myself similarly tomorrow and the day after, until Travers waves me off. Nunnsuch is going ragged around the edges.”
He was understating the matter. Uncle Nunn’s steward had likely served an apprenticeship to Noah upon the landing of the ark and had long since given up on arguing with the earl. Mr. Jamison was a Bristol man by birth and spent as much time as possible with his family on the coast.
“One suspected the estate was in need of a steadying hand,” Hecate said, “but that hand cannot be mine. I have hopes that Mrs. Roberts might sidle into a more active role—she is nobody’s fool—but she’s doubtless reluctant to take on Edna, Charles, and the rest of them.”
“Then tell her to take on the hedgerows,” Phillip said. “They’ve spread, as hedgerows will do, and up to a point, that’s a fine thing for the birds and bunnies, but as the branches cast more and more shade, the adjoining arable land becomes less productive. The rain can’t reach the soil as easily, and what does fall is snatched up by the thicker vegetation of the hedgerows.
“The tallest of the oaks should come down,” he went on, “and something shorter planted, if Nunn must have his shady bridle paths. And as to that, the hogs can tidy up many an acorn and save the woodsman the bother of thinning saplings.”
“Hogs?”
“Pigs, swine. They can’t have a steady diet of acorns, and one doesn’t feed acorns to the young stock, but the larger specimens can and should be permitted their autumn pannage through the hedges and forests. Spares the cows and horses from snacking on a treat they ought not to have.”
Hecate did not want to discuss pigs or pannage, whatever that was. She wasn’t all that keen on introducing Lord Phillip to the ancestors either, truth be known. She unlatched a set of French doors and stepped out onto the balcony that ran the width of the gallery.
“Pretty view,” Phillip said, joining her. “One can say that for Nunn’s lackadaisical husbandry. His overgrown woods and park make a pleasing vista. I am comforted by big, healthy trees. If the land can grow such as that, then my sheep and corn are likely well situated too.”
“Your insights are appreciated, but I do not want to discuss the earl’s trees at the moment.”
“Do you want to lecture me?” The wretch sounded hopeful.
The breeze teased his dark locks, and the afternoon sun garnished it with dancing highlights. Hecate had touched that silky hair on the pretext of whisking the chaff from it, and no handy glass of punch had been available to blame for her forwardness.
Nor could she blame the punch for her current thoughts. She shaded her eyes against the sunshine and pretended to study the arched bridge in the distance.
“I want to kiss you.”
Lord Phillip led her to a bench that faced out over the rolling treetops. To the left, the garden stretched in tidy parterres, but this wing of the house did not face the busier view. The park, the home wood, the stone bridge, the roof of the distant stable-cum-carriage house stretched beneath them.
“Is this urge to sample my charms distasteful to you, Miss Brompton?”
“Distasteful? Why would…?”
He gestured for Hecate to take a seat, but did not offer his hand and did not take the place beside her.
She looked up at him—he was quite tall—and tried to fathom his thoughts. “I tried frolicking,” she said. “Years ago. When I’d made my bargain with Papa and realized that perpetual spinsterhood could be dull. Frolicking can be dull, too, a lowering discovery.”Why won’t you sit beside me?
“Mindless, you mean? Shallow and trivial? For some, that is part of its charm. A passing pleasure without weight or worry.”
“For you?” She patted the place beside her, and he appeared to ignore the invitation.
“For me, a bit complicated. In Crosspatch Corners, I was known as Mr. Phillip Heyward, a shy, somewhat backward, bookish, squire-ish sort of fellow. I was good at foaling, lambing, and calving and up to date on the latest pamphlets, but too retiring to attend the local assemblies. Some of the older folk knew my specific antecedents, or guessed them accurately, but I was generally believed to be some nob’s by-blow.”
