Sycamore Dorning was like the knives he wielded—a dangerous ally. Jeanette had listed for him the advantages of the knife as a weapon, but she’d not mentioned the primary disadvantage: A knife had no loyalty and could become the weapon of anybody with the speed and skill to throw it. Guns, once fired, were of little use, particularly if cast into a handy patch of mud.
Jeanette had thought long and hard about paying a call on Mr. Dorning, and in the cold light of a spring morning, she was glad she had. Maybe even a little proud of herself for taking that much initiative.
“Good morning, Step-mama.” Trevor, Marquess of Tavistock, strode into the breakfast parlor looking like the embodiment of young English manhood at its finest. He had his father’s blond hair, height, and blue eyes, but he lacked the late titleholder’s cold heart. Trevor had been a good boy thanks mostly to his tutors and to Jeanette’s ingenuity.
He was well on his way to becoming a good man. “Good morning, Tavistock. How was your ride?”
“Splendid. I met Jerome in the park.” His lordship piled half his plate full of eggs, the other half full of crispy strips of bacon. “He invited me to his club for supper.”
The less said about Trevor’s sole male cousin, the better. “Have you given any more thought to returning to your studies?” Supper at Jerome’s club would turn into a few hands of cards, which would turn into Trevor owing money to Jerome or to one of Jerome’s dodgy friends.
Trevor set his plate at the head of the table. Jeanette had abdicated that position when Trevor had turned eighteen, though when she was eating alone—which she did most evenings at home—she sometimes moved her place setting to its former location.
Widows were permitted a few eccentricities, after all.
“I don’t know as I shall return to my studies,” Trevor said, setting a full rack of toast by his plate. “Butter?”
Jeanette passed him the dish, knowing it would be empty before Trevor finished eating. He was an active young man, and his appetite was bottomless. His father, by contrast, had been a sybarite, preferring a few elegant pleasures indulged with exquisite focus. Havana cheroots, silk shirts, specific French vintages, and half-wild bloodstock.
“You have never said exactly why you left university, Trevor.” And Jeanette hadn’t until now asked him directly.
“Boredom,” he said, scraping butter over his toast. “Two years of Latin, Greek, natural philosophy, mathematics, and great literature after years of same from my tutors and public school were enough to impart a general flavor. Might I have the tea?”
Trevor was such a dear, and such a bad liar. “You are scholarly by nature, sir. You did not leave out of boredom.”
He made himself a sandwich of scrambled eggs, bacon, and buttered toast—university-boy fare. “I did, actually. One can study anywhere, and our library here in Town is ample enough that I will always find something interesting to read, but the company at school…” He munched thoughtfully. “How many times am I to laugh at the same fart jokes? How often should I flirt pointlessly with the same harried tavern maids who smile at me because they would rather earn coin with a smile than through more intimate means? How many references to male anatomy or female anatomy is one conversation supposed to hold? I found it all pointless.”
That, Jeanette could believe. Trevor’s calling lay, if anywhere, in the Church. He was an earnest soul who cared for others. He had a wide streak of decency and was generally liked. He had not, however, referred to making any good friends in his two years among the philistines.
And alas for him, he was a marquess and fated to sit in the Lords.
“Is the company at Jerome’s club so much more sophisticated?” she asked, passing over the teapot.
“A hit, Step-mama, but that lot does occasionally discuss politics. What is the point of passing labor reforms if Parliament won’t tuck along any money for enforcing the new rules? Factory hours can be reduced, but then somebody needs to drop ’round and make sure the place is actually closing when it is supposed to.”
Great Jehovah’s hoary beard. Jeanette mentally chided herself for underestimating Jerome’s choice of companions, a potentially dangerous mistake.
“That’s what you’ll discuss with Jerome?”
“Well, no.” Trevor’s smile was bashful. “Jerome is smitten with the Chalfont heiress. I will have to hear about her ankles and her ears, I’m sure. Noble brows might earn a mention as well, along with a discreet reference to her settlements.”
How different that lament was from Sycamore Dorning’s bewildered late-night confession. He loved his sisters-in-law, clearly, and he resented them to a lady.
“Has your fancy been taken by any particular ears or ankles?”
The Tavistock succession hung by a pair of slender threads, namely, Trevor and Jerome, though Jerome’s father was still extant. Lord Beardsley Vincent was loyally, if not exactly happily, married, and his lady wife was no longer of an age to bear children.
“Allow me some privacy, Step-mama,” Trevor said. “You cannot shoo me back to school one moment and shoo me into parson’s mousetrap the next.”
From Trevor, that was a rebuke, albeit a gentle one. Jeanette was torn between a need to protect Trevor from the heartaches adulthood inevitably brought and resentment of her role as his sole parent, counselor, and authority figure.
“I want you to be happy,” she said, sipping tepid tea and searching for honesty. “I ask about the young ladies because I suspect Uncle Beardsley lectures you endlessly to take a wife and secure the succession. There’s time for that Trevor, time later.”
“Uncle Beardsley’s letters to me at university were… I sometimes think Aunt Viola wrote them. They sound very like the letters she sends to Jerome. She has his allowance all budgeted, right down to which chop shop should have his patronage even though it’s five streets away from his rooms. If he can save tuppence by walking the distance and eating cold hash, then walk the distance he must.”
The Vincent family had profited enormously over the past century from Britain’s preoccupation with conquest and war. Soldiers had to be clothed, fed, armed, and shod, and every phase of that undertaking meant profit for a few and expense for the ratepayers. Six marquesses ago, when the Dutch were still hostile to English shipping, the Vincents had figured out how to stay on the profitable side of the equation.
Two marquesses ago, with the loss to the Americans, the situation had shifted, and not in favor of the marquesses. Jeanette was very comfortably well-off, and Trevor would be considered wealthy, but he’d not have the fabulous fortune his grandfather had enjoyed.
And Lord Beardsley’s situation had honestly become a trifle straitened. “Aunt Viola has two more daughters to marry off,” Jeanette said, “and she is quite particular about whom she will accept as a son-in-law. Jerome would do well to heed his mama’s advice.”
Trevor paused to construct a second sandwich. “Jere says Auntie has me in mind for Cousin Hera. You must not abet that scheme, Step-mama. Promise, and don’t let her throw me at Cousin Diana either.”
In Trevor’s earnest smile, Jeanette caught a glimpse of the slender, curious, soft-spoken boy he’d once been.
“I promise. You and Hera or Diana might suit, but that should be entirely a decision for you and your intended, and a decision for some point in the future.”
Trevor went about the important work of cleaning his plate, while Jeanette contemplated a jaunt out to Surrey to call upon Viola. Was it meddling to warn off a meddler? Would antagonizing Viola make the situation worse, or turn that lady’s active mind to the more productive challenge of seeing her two unmarried daughters fired off? Jerome had five sisters, and the first three had married respectably but not impressively.
The next in line—Diana—was making a belated come out. In the spring of her eighteenth year, her next oldest sister had yet to marry, and thus Viola had decided that Diana’s presentation could wait. Diana had broken an ankle in the spring of her nineteenth year. Her m
aternal grandfather had died in the spring of her twentieth year, and last year, her dear grandmama’s death had once again prevented a court presentation.
Viola was understandably determined to see her daughters well launched. Jeanette was equally determined that Trevor should make his own decisions regarding the eventual taking of a wife.
“What will you do with yourself today, Step-mama?” he asked, refilling his tea cup.
“No social calls. I was out a bit later than I’d planned last night.” Though the excursion had been successful.
“You ask me about ankles, and I must return fire by inquiring about handsome cavaliers. Has any fellow caught your fancy?”
And there was proof that the sweet boy was gone forever. “I have no wish to remarry, Trevor, you know that.” He did not know why Jeanette held marriage in such low regard, but Trevor was a perceptive fellow. He had grasped early in life what his father expected of him and had met those expectations with every appearance of good cheer.
If Trevor ever did decide to kick over the traces of propriety, his rebellion would be well earned.
“I’m not suggesting you remarry, my lady, but neither must you take holy orders. You are deuced pretty, and more than a few of my friends… Well, suffice it to say a good opinion of your looks is frequently expressed.”
A year ago, Trevor would have blushed to offer that compliment. Now he simply returned to the sideboard for another round of sustenance.
“I am content,” Jeanette said, and she was also wise enough to treasure her contentment. That somebody sought to disrupt her hard-won peace provoked as much anger as it did fear.
“Do you seek for me to be merely content, my lady?”
“I seek for you to be happy.”
“Well, then.” He grinned as he returned to the table, his syllogism complete according to his lopsided male logic. If a bride was the sure guarantee for his happiness, then a husband must be the sine qua non of Jeanette’s. “Let the right fellow waltz you onto a few moonlit terraces and strive for more than mere contentment.”
I am done striving for anything where moonlit terraces and waltzing partners are concerned. “You ask about my plans for the day. I will be off to the soldiers’ home for much of the morning, and I am meeting with the solicitors this afternoon. If you are available, I hope you’ll come with me to call upon the lawyers.”
Trevor consumed this plateful directly without bothering to build himself any sandwiches. “What is the agenda for the meeting?”
Putting the fear of waste, fraud, and chicanery into a law office that had never earned Jeanette’s trust.
“The usual quarterly review of the investments. If your allowance is inadequate, I will direct Smithers to increase it.”
Trevor took an inordinate interest in the bottom of his tea cup. “A bit more blunt would be appreciated. Town life puts a few demands on the exchequer.”
Trevor’s bills were sent to Jeanette, who paid them out of the fund set up for his direct maintenance. She had insisted he have his own money besides, enough to hold his head up among his chums, not enough to get into trouble.
Again. “Another twenty percent?” she suggested.
Trevor’s relief was disturbingly obvious. “My thanks, and no, I am not gambling it away. Jerome has mentioned dropping around to The Coventry Club for a few hands, but I told him I’d go along strictly as an observer.”
Jeanette had offered to show Trevor around at the Coventry, but apparently her company on such a sortie paled, as it should.
“I haven’t been on the Coventry’s premises since last autumn,” she said. “The Dorning brothers were very helpful at the Wentwhistle house party. If you see them, please give them my regards.”
She would warn the footmen of Trevor’s plans, for they were as close as she could come to assigning him bodyguards. Her own footmen were loyal to the Vincent family, and she could not rely on them to safeguard her wellbeing if somebody—say, Uncle Beardsley or dear Auntie Viola—was intriguing against her.
“I thought I detected a bit of liking on your part for Mr. Sycamore Dorning,” Trevor said, refilling his tea cup.
“Both Dorning brothers comported themselves honorably.” Sycamore’s honor had surprised her and pleased her, hence her recent request of him. He was not a sweet boy making a calm transition into young adulthood. He had likely never been a sweet boy.
Sycamore Dorning was shrewd, self-interested, and quietly ruthless—also tall, dark-haired, and charming, as well as possessed of exotic, amethyst eyes that saw much and gave away little.
Jeanette would pretend the suppers he’d asked for were a bit of a penance, but the truth was, she liked him. She also trusted him to keep his word to her, and that was far more than she’d trusted any other man since speaking her misbegotten marriage vows nearly ten years ago.
Chapter Two
In his first two years overseeing the Coventry, Sycamore had anticipated the spring Season with delirious glee. The controlled pandemonium in the kitchen, the tumble of the dice against felt-covered tables, the whirr of the roulette wheel… Those had been his odes to joy, and the scent of beeswax and signature perfumes had been the fragrance of the life he’d been meant to live.
His enthusiasm this year was tempered by a hint of resignation to drudgery, perhaps because Ash was preoccupied with wedded bliss. Surely that reasoning explained why a session of knife throwing with Lady Tavistock held inordinate appeal and had taken eons to arrive?
Sycamore watched for her at the staff entrance, appalled when she arrived on foot and without an escort.
“You walked?” he asked, drawing her into the Coventry’s back hall.
“My brother’s coach dropped me off at the corner,” she replied, untying the ribbons of her plain bonnet. “I trust you will see me home?”
“Of course.”
“Are we alone, Mr. Dorning?”
Did she want to be alone with him? Her expression suggested she was dreading the prospect. “The undercook and her assistants will remain in the kitchen until we dine, and we will have the rest of the premises to ourselves.”
“Then let’s get started.” The marchioness stalked off down the corridor, removing her bonnet as she went.
“My lady?”
She turned, her cloak swishing as she smoothed her hair with one hand and held her bonnet by its ribbons with the other.
“We’ll be in the cellars for this lesson. Stone walls mean wild throws have less chance of doing any damage.”
Her return journey was slower. “Wild throws?”
“You are here to learn to wield a knife, are you not?”
“Well, yes, but I thought we’d start with how to stab a footpad.”
Sycamore held the cellar door for her. “You are bloodthirsty, my lady.”
“I am determined to remain safe.” She processed down the steps with more dignity than a duchess at a state funeral. Sycamore had lit every sconce on the stairway and in the main cellar passage, and still, the space had the feel of a private lair.
“The wine cellar runs the length and breadth of the street,” Sycamore said, “and this passage becomes a tunnel connected to the kitchens beneath my private rooms. Shall I take your cloak?”
She peered up at the shadows dancing on the stone ceiling, then at the racks and cabinets of bottles. “I had no idea this was down here. You must have a fortune in wine.”
“The club consumes a fortune in wine, and our inventory is high now in anticipation of our busiest season. I’ve suggested to Tresham that he invest in a champagne vineyard, but he does not listen to me.” If Mrs. Theodosia Tresham had made that suggestion, the vineyard would have been purchased within the fortnight.
“This doesn’t smell like a cellar,” her ladyship said, wrinkling her nose. “The scent is more that of a lumberyard, oak rather than pine.”
“We have a few barrels of Scottish whisky for the stout of heart, and a small ocean of ale. You will want to remove your cloak.”
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“I’m chilly.”
No, she wasn’t. Not in any sense. Uncertain and mistrustful, but in no wise chilly. “You’ll warm up fast enough once we’re throwing, and you need the ease of movement that fewer clothes provide.” Sycamore shrugged out of his coat and slipped his sleeve buttons free of his cuffs, then draped his coat over an upright barrel at the foot of the steps.
“What are you doing?”
Marshaling my patience. “If you cannot see how I achieve the results I do, you will have a harder time emulating my success. I, too, need ease of movement to throw at my best. You were married. A man in undress should not shock you.”
“A husband in undress is one thing. You, however…” She still had not taken off her cloak, and now Sycamore understood why. The marchioness was ambivalent about this venture that she’d so boldly embarked upon earlier in the week.
Her courage, in other words, was flagging.
“I am much the same as any other man,” Sycamore said, unbuttoning his waistcoat. “Arms, legs, hands, ribs. The design varies little from one specimen to the next. The more clearly you can see what I’m doing, the faster you’ll be able to pick it up yourself.”
“And do you expect me to peel down to my shift?”
“Not unless you’d like to.” Sycamore set the target in the center of the passage. For this occasion, he’d selected an eighteen-inch-thick disk of spruce trunk measuring a good two-and-a-half feet in diameter. “We’ll start with the target on the ground,” he said, undoing his neckcloth, “standing right next to it. Then we prop it against the wall, still on the floor, then we gradually raise it to chest height. Your cloak, my lady?”
She passed him her bonnet, which he set atop his clothes on the barrel. She was again watching him as she undid the frogs at her throat.
She laid her cloak over his coat and remained standing by the barrel. “Now what?” Her gaze went to the steps, as if she visually assessed whether she could beat Sycamore out of the cellar.
This wealthy, attractive, self-possessed woman was afraid of him—not merely reserved or cautious in an awkward situation—and that made Sycamore incandescent with… frustration? Ire? He wasn’t sure what, but the emotion was powerful and angry.
The Last True Gentleman: The True Gentlemen — Book 12 Page 2