Somewhile later…
“So,” continued Dair, glass wafting around as though a heavenly hand might replenish it, “did you seduce Miss Seymour at Kew, as I thought?”
ThecheapBladnoch stuff was almost gone. A plate of ham brought in by Fairfax polished off. Boots discarded.
“No.”Well, not exactly.
“Poor show. What did you do then?”
“We…talked of the past.”
“Did you get answers?”
Miles gave a nod. “But there was more…much more to it than I thought.”
“Isn’t there always.” Dair stared moodily into his glass. “Do you want me to pay a call on her? Explain your forthcoming absence with some tale?”
Hell, no.
“I appreciate the offer but I’ll compose a letter to her instead.” He left the comfort of the desk chair, grabbed the poker and stabbed the embers of the fire. “But…I’m not too good with words.”
“Well, if I’m in need of decent verbiage for a lady, I borrow it – Byron. Shelley. Byrne has a nice turn of phrase although he needs to cheer up a bit.”
“What are you wittering on about?” Miles turned. “Those poets are all romantic claptrap and I wasn’t planning on declaring my affections by letter, just that I have businessmatters to attend to and so will be unable to call upon her for a week…or so.”
“‘Not too good with words doesn’t begin to describe that letter. Feeble, more like.” Dair traced the rim of his glass. “And I didn’t mention affections. You did. So you like her, no?”
Like?“Well, yes. Of course, IlikeMiss Seymour.”
“Hmm. And youlikedMiss Seymour when you were young too?”
“As I told you.”
“Hmm. And you bothlikeall that plant stuff?”
Miles merely nodded, the conversation beginning to feel like a maze with no exit.
Dair closed his eyes as though the gears of his mind were finally grinding to a conclusion. “Then you need to express all this…likefor her in a more roundabout and poetic fashion as blaming business matters for your absence is tantamount to expressing you have no suchlikeof her.”
“Is it?”
“You’ve been a soldier for too long. In London, no one says what they mean. You must interpret and then respond not saying what you want to mean either.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“TheTondoesn’t make sense.”
“Yet you mingle within it.”
A shrug. “Nowhere else to be.”
Miles watched his cousin in silence for a moment: there was something untethered about Dair of late, reminding him of a ship that’d lost its compass, the night too overcast to view the stars.
“You’ll have to help me write it then. But nothing mawkish. I’m an ex-soldier not some starry-eyed mooncalf.”
Dair rolled his eyes but his lips curved. “Leave it to me…”
26
