“I suppose I should not have served myself. Is a third cup of tea beyond the pale?” Phillip asked. He knew it was, but he liked hearing Hecate Brompton talk. Her words trickled past his ear like a bright, splashing brook. Full of light, purpose, and energy, but never hurried.
“A third cup is occasionally permissible. Appropriating the pot is generally not done. If you are among true friends, rather than mere acquaintances, and nobody has an eye on the clock, the rules are relaxed. The worst sin a guest can commit is overstaying his welcome. Perhaps you’d care for a tea cake?”
He’d like a cold tankard of Pevinger’s best ale, served by a smiling Tansy Pevinger in the common of the Crosspatch Arms with a side of steaming cheese toast.
“No, thank you, but neither am I ready to leave. Give me some assignments. Let me embark on a curriculum of manners, and I will be less inclined to pace.”
The pacing had been about getting free of her scent, which was light, rosy, and brisk. Probably blended specially for her, a failed attempt at convention. The little spicy note—nutmeg and pepper—turned the fragrance intriguing instead.
The severe bun piqued his curiosity as well. How long was that lovely chestnut hair? Did it ripple to her hips, or swing in a soft curtain halfway down her back? When had she adopted the style of governess, and why?
“Can you dance?” she asked, eyeing him critically.
“Not well. I’ve seen the country dances enough times to stumble through them, but the fancier ballroom dances haven’t made it to the local assembly in Crosspatch.”
“You’ll need a dancing master, then. I can recommend several. Can you ride?”
“Passably.” He rode quite well, but he hadn’t the knack of turning a mounted outing into a fashion exhibition.
“Do you read the Times?”
“The financial pages. The rest is tripe.”
She gave him a sharp look. “No, it is not. You will add La Belle Assemblée to your reading list, and I will quiz you on the contents. Read the political articles, don’t just sneer at the patterns and fashion plates. Can you read French?”
“Competently. My pronunciation is atrocious, because I’ve never heard the language spoken except by our local liveryman. Dabney hails from the Caribbean, and his French is mostly profanity.”
“No profanity, my lord, not in the company of the ladies, anyway. Gentlemen consider colorful languages something of an art, one I am unqualified to teach.”
If so, profanity was the only aspect of polite society’s curriculum Miss Hecate Brompton avoided. She prattled on, about tailors (Bond Street), boots (Hoby), handkerchiefs (always carry two, one for show, one for necessity), cravat pins (gold for every day, discreet jewels for evening), gentlemen’s clubs (the grand equivalent of the snug at the Crosspatch Arms, having the sanctity of the confessional and the comfort of unlimited libation), and horseflesh (always know the bloodlines before you purchase, as if Phillip gave a donkey’s fart for bloodlines when a beast’s conformation and gaits were obvious to the eye).
All the while she interrogated and lectured, Phillip pondered his own list of questions. Did Hecate Brompton ever laugh? She had a rare, pretty smile. He’d seen it once, when she’d caught him studying her at the only formal dinner he’d so far endured.
The array of cutlery and glasses had baffled him. One did not use any old fork to eat lobster. One used the smallest implement on offer, because that made no sense whatsoever. One did not partake of every dish and vintage the footmen brought around, lest one be comatose by the end of the meal.
Phillip had survived the ordeal only by closely watching what Miss Brompton did, and when the ladies had withdrawn, he’d been assigned to escort her to the parlor. Ladies, for reasons unknown to mortal man, were incapable of navigating a half-dozen yards of carpeted corridor without a gent to show them the way.
At the parlor door, Miss Brompton had smiled at him, thanked him, and swanned off. Tavistock had seen the exchange and for once kept his big, handsome, insufferably competent mouth shut.
“And a ladybird,” Miss Brompton said, “may be driven in the park during the carriage parade—you acknowledge only gentlemen when she’s at your side—any day except Sundays.”
“Because?”
“Because it’s the Sabbath.”
“And thou shalt not take the air with thy mistress on Sundays? I missed that one.”
“It’s not done, my lord, and if you think to thwart convention in this regard, you can find somebody else to explain the mysteries of Mayfair to you.”
She wanted to pace. How Phillip knew this, he could not have said, but the martial light in Miss Brompton’s lovely eyes told him so.
“Somebody flaunted his mistress before you.”
The martial light died, not without a fight. Miss Brompton sipped her tea, which had to be tepid, and topped up her cup with a fresh splash from the pot.
“My lord, I grasp that you are perceptive, astute even, but one does not blurt out one’s every insight. One exercises discretion and kindness. If you suspect that I was slighted in the manner you describe, the gentlemanly choice would be to ignore the possibility. Such an occasion would have been an insult to me, had it taken place, and would have spoken poorly of the fellow at the ribbons.”
The tea cup when she replaced it on the saucer settled without a sound. Her heart had apparently been broken with nobody the wiser either.
“Did some lady snatch the bachelor you’d chosen to be your own?” Phillip asked. “You mustn’t tell Tavistock, but his marchioness was at one time the object of my fondest fancies.” Not particularly erotic fancies, but fond all the same. “Amaryllis DeWitt was the perfect wife for me. Sensible, kind, well bred without being high in the instep. Tall enough that I would not look ridiculous partnering her if I ever did learn the wretched dance steps.”
Doubtless a gentleman kept such maunderings to himself, but did Hecate Brompton truly believe she was the only person to stumble on life’s dance floor?
“Does she know?” Miss Brompton asked. “Does Miss DeWitt—does her ladyship know you harbored a tendresse for her?”
“No, and she never will. I’ve lately concluded that if I was so keen to marry her, I should have proposed. That’s how brilliantly astute I am. Our estates march, she was of age and then some, and she needed a husband.”
“But you let the moment pass?”
He’d let the years pass, always finding another excuse. Amaryllis’s family was in mourning. Her family had just emerged from mourning. Her family was back in mourning. Her family needed her. She deserved to take her place in London Society.
All valid considerations, not a one of them insurmountable to a devoted swain.
“One wants to marry for something more lasting than expedience,” he said. “Amaryllis and I would have rubbed along tolerably well. We were and are friends, but that friendship would have been a casualty of matrimony. I have so few friends. To reduce their numbers by even one would be a shame.”
Miss Brompton studied him. “Was that the real reason you did not offer?”
Phillip had given the matter considerable thought, and Miss Brompton could be trusted with the truth—the rest of the truth—perhaps even comforted by it.