Page 85 of Miss Dashing
“Where is Lord Phillip? You assured me he’d return in time for the ball. The receiving line will be assembling in the next twenty minutes, and no Lord Phillip.”
“Unless I’m mistaken, he has traveled to Bristol, made certain arrangements while there, and will complete the journey… Ah, the prodigal returns,” Mr. DeWitt said, peering out the window. A large coach was tooling up the drive, a rider cantering before it on a stout bay colt.
“That’s your Roland?”
“And your Lord Phillip, unless I miss my guess.”
Hecate’s emotions coalesced into pure relief. Whatever else the evening held—Johnny’s mischief, Portia’s machinations, Hecate’s own schemes running amok—Phillip was safe, and he’d kept his word.
“I dearly wish,” Mr. DeWitt said, “that somebody would smile like that when I arrived at a formal occasion in all my dirt.”
“He’ll arrive fashionably late,” Hecate said, “meaning he’ll take a few minutes to spruce up at the summer cottage, then join the festivities.” Phillip handed his mount off to a groom, and the lumbering coach pulled up to the front steps. “You will please greet Lord Phillip and tell him I expect him in the ballroom in thirty minutes.”
“That would require that I leave your side. I know not where Johnny lurks, but as the long-lost cousin newly returned from the perils of the Canadian wilderness, he’ll take a place in the receiving line, meaning he has an excuse to accost you here. That alcove is a few short steps away, and he could have you against the wall in the time it takes you to say, ‘Unhand me, you brute.’”
“Phillip is coming in the front door.” One did not attend a formal ball in dusty riding attire. What was he about?
A lone gentleman climbed down from the traveling coach—who took a traveling coach to a neighborhood ball?—and then Phillip was through the door, past the butler, and marching up the steps. The dozen or so guests already in the foyer watched with varying degrees of curiosity as he ascended.
His gaze lit on Hecate, and the relief in his eyes was obvious.
“Is that Lord Phillip?” Edna, the hostess of record, chose then to swan forth from her sitting room. “I daresay he’s in want of a wash.”
Eggy appeared at her elbow. “He does look a bit road weary. Did you send him away, Hecate? Is he here to create an untoward scene?”
Must Eglantine sound so pleased? “He’s here, and for that, I’m grateful. One worried.” Phillip looked exhausted, but… confident, pleased. Not despairing.
He gained the top of the steps and bowed. “Miss Brompton, good evening.”
“My lord, a pleasure.” Hecate curtseyed as Charles joined the gawkers.
“Not done,” Charles said, “to anticipate the receiving line, bring half the dirt of Hampshire with you, and trudge up the steps in your boots, my lord. Hecate, offer to send his lordship a footman. The staff can’t be expected to manage bathwater, given the general pandemonium, but even a basin—”
“I’ll not have it!” Johnny strode up the corridor, Portia trailing at his side, and Nunn, DeGrange, and Mrs. Roberts bringing up the rear. “The whole business was a complete travesty, concocted by an overwrought spinster with ambitions above her station.”
“I am not a spinster,” Portia retorted, “and if anybody is overwrought, it’s you, Johnny Brompton.”
“My, my, my,” Eglantine said. “I do believe we are about to have an untoward scene after all.”
“We already had an untoward scene,” Nunn said, his tone sufficient to freeze the punch in the bowls set up in the foyer. “I went to my study, thinking to share a quiet brandy with a pair of guests, and what should we come upon, but Portia nigh climbing Johnny’s person, and Johnny aiding her ascent with both hands upon the lady’s fundament.”
“A unique approach to kissing,” Mrs. Roberts added. “Very athletic.”
“What it lacked in refinement,” Mr. DeGrange observed, “it made up for in enthusiasm on the part of both parties. I see Lord Phillip has returned.” He bowed courteously, and Phillip reciprocated. “My man will happily attend you, my lord, should you wish to freshen up.”
“I’m not marrying her!” Johnny spluttered. “She manipulated me, she used me, she took unfair advantage.”
Portia assayed a pitying smile. “Come now, Johnny. You needn’t be coy. You did send me a note.”
Phillip was looking amused. The other recent arrival waited on the landing, while Hecate hoped the guests in the foyer were catching every word.
“I sent you no note,” Johnny said. “I vow I sent her no note.”
“Feeling frustrated?” Hecate inquired pleasantly. “Cornered? Trapped? Without allies or advantages? Victimized through no fault of your own?”
Johnny’s expression shifted from worried to puzzled to furious. “Youdid this? You maneuvered me into this situation?”
“She didn’t maneuver you into kissing me,” Portia said.
