Mr. Dorning resumed his seat and took up a cheese knife. “I gather Tavistock was an even worse disappointment as a husband?” He held up the knife, which bore on the end a dried apricot smeared with pale cheese, a skein of honey across both.
Jeanette steadied Mr. Dorning’s hand with her own and took the treat with her mouth, suggesting the excellent selection of wines had made her a bit tipsy.
“A wealthy, titled marquess cannot be a disappointing husband,” Jeanette said. “The most excellent authority on the subject assured me of that.”
“Meaning Tavistock himself,” Mr. Dorning replied, smearing brie on a sliced pear. “Did you kill him?”
From Sycamore Dorning, at the end of a good meal and a bad throwing session, the question was merely conversational.
“I was too busy praying for conception to plan murder. Praying for conception and enduring the necessary preliminaries. I ought not to have said that, but I gather you are hard to shock.”
“Nearly impossible.” He munched his fruit and cheese. “A bore in bed, was he?”
From the back of Jeanette’s mind came the voice of caution, warning her to draw the line at such confidences, but her husband was dead, and she’d protected the dignity of his memory to all and sundry without fail. The burden of hypocrisy was heavy and wearying.
Also lonely. “I had no way to know at the time, but Tavistock was less than considerate about his marital duties. ‘Perfunctory’ might be the polite word.” Perfunctory and determined, when he was sober.
“Because,” Mr. Dorning said, preparing Jeanette a slice of honeyed pear and cheese, “if he’d been plainly inconsiderate, you would have killed him. How long had he been married to his first wife?”
“Fifteen years.”
“Fifteen years with only one child, and those were probably Tavistock’s most vigorous fifteen years. The inability to conceive was likely not your fault. I’ve heard of no Tavistock by-blows, which, for a man of his station and disposition, is hard to believe. Perhaps he was chaste and discreet.”
“He was neither.”
Mr. Dorning mashed a few raspberries into a portion of cheese, drizzled honey onto the resulting mess and passed Jeanette the knife.
“I’m sorry, my lady. You were barely out of the schoolroom and expected to content yourself with a frustrated, arrogant man twice your age. I can understand why you are concerned that your step-son could end up like his father.”
The tart fruit, smooth cheese, and sweet honey all hit Jeanette’s tongue at the same moment she realized that Mr. Dorning had articulated the very worry plaguing her of late.
“Trevor is a good young man,” Jeanette said. “Kind, considerate, intelligent in a quiet way. I am afraid that as he becomes more worldly, he will turn into his late father. Selfish, sly, demanding, and petulant. Full of his own consequence and heedless of others’ suffering, but he’s not a boy, and there’s little I can do.”
“But you worry,” Mr. Dorning said, dabbling a pear slice in a few drops of honey, then swirling raspberry sauce and honey together on his plate. “You worry that he’s already become good enough at lying to you that he’s half corrupted, and you don’t even know it. I have a suggestion.”
He bit off the end of the pear slice, and Jeanette finished her wine to distract herself from the sight.
“I’m listening, Mr. Dorning.”
“Sycamore, or for my familiars, particularly when they are exasperated with me, Cam. You are free to fly into the boughs at what I’m about to say, but hear me out first.”
“I never fly into the boughs.” Though, why not? Why hadn’t she ever?
“His young lordship was here at the club last night. He lost, badly. Do not bail him out. Let him flounder, and when he comes to me, hat in hand—for I bought his markers—don’t attempt to interfere.”
Interfere? “I am in the habit of interfering where my step-son is concerned, Mr. Dorning. I interfered when his father hired a nasty old drunk to teach Trevor his Latin on the end of a birch rod. I interfered when Trevor had torn his new riding breeches and was terrified his father would find out. That young man is the only good thing to come of my marriage. He’s the only proof I have of my own value in anything like a maternal capacity. If he has the airs and graces of a gentleman, I can assure you that is solely a result of my interference.”
Gracious heavens, she’d just flown into the boughs. Hadn’t raised her voice, but she’d delivered a tirade of sorts.
Also parted with a confidence.
Mr. Dorning used the knife to draw the letters S and D in the raspberries sauce on his plate. “I feel the same about this club. I did not build it, but it’s mine to protect and take pride in. I detested university, detested being one of a herd of drunken, randy boys pretending to scholarship. At the Coventry, I am somebody. I always have something to do that matters to the wellbeing of the club.” He drew a line under his initials, which, like the letters, melted back into the sauce. “I took over this place with Ash, and for the first time, I’ve been in a position to help my family. That is a heady power, to be able to help the people I love.”
Whatever Jeanette had expected by way of reply, it hadn’t been that. “Precisely. I want to help Trevor. I’ve endured much on the basis of the hope that I’ve helped him.” And yet, the object of all that aid had been to see Trevor mature into a self-sufficient young man.
Mr. Dorning set the knife aside. “I am asking you, my lady, to give me a chance to help him, too, and to also help myself. I love this club, but by August, I resent it too. I am run ragged by long hours and details that never sort themselves out. I will suggest to Trevor that he work off his debt by assisting me here for the busy weeks of the Season. He can do the pretty with you at Almack’s and still trot around at my side several nights a week to see what becomes of young men who can’t manage themselves.”
For Jeanette, parenting a step-son had largely been a matter of exercising self-restraint. Not laughing when a very young Trevor badly mangled his French. Not scolding, not lecturing, not doing for him what he had to learn to do for himself…
“You won’t let me pay off his markers?” she asked, longing to do that and knowing exactly how stupid a plan it was.
“No, my lady. They are his markers. He has turned eighteen, and he aspires to be a man-about-Town. Let him take up the responsibilities of that office. If he’s conscientious here at the club, he can work off the debt in a few weeks, and I will start him on the conundrum of finding me a better source of good, affordable champagne.”
The urge to argue, to demand to take on Trevor’s debts, was strong, also misguided. He was not a nine-year-old boy who needed protection from his martinet of a father. He was the marquess, as he’d said himself, the nominal head of the family.
Jeanette was losing him, though like Mr. Dorning, she could also admit that, at times, Trevor had become a resented burden. A dear, resented burden.
“As you wish, Mr. Dorning, and you have my thanks for taking an interest in his lordship’s situation. Others would not be as generous. Does this mean my knife lessons are over?” Jeanette would be relieved if that were the case, and very disappointed.
“Of course not,” Mr. Dorning said. “You aren’t proficient yet, and as your instructor, I can’t turn you loose in your present inept state. Last week was beginner’s luck, this week was the daunting reappraisal. We get down to the real business next week. And no, Tavistock will not learn of your lessons, but I do have a question for you.”
The last of Jeanette’s resentment evaporated, for Trevor had met Mr. Dorning at an autumn house party and seemed to like him. They would rub along well together, and Jeanette could focus again on her own difficulties.
“Ask, Mr. Dorning, but I will not tell you upon whom I exercised my wiles once widowed. I engaged in a few discreet frolics, realized the business was not worth the drama, much less the risk to my reputation, and have been content with a life of decorum ever since.”
“You
dallied with Lord Forster at the Turners’ house party and allowed Mr. Mills Endicott a few turns when you summered in the Lakes six months after Tavistock’s death. I consulted with a friend, the Duchess of Quimbey, and because she was concerned for you, she kept an eye on your choices.”
Jeanette felt as if all the wine had flooded her mind at once. “I beg your pardon?”
“The Duchess of Quimbey, formerly the Dowager Duchess of Ambrose. She never did care for Tavistock. She said the mumps had probably impaired his fertility and was worried you would choose another dunderhead for your next spouse. More cheese?”
“Tavistock was not a dunderhead, he was a marquess.”
“He was both, and those were his better qualities, but your ancient history is entirely your business, my lady. My question has to do with present facts.”
“I dread to hear your question.” The mumps. The mumps could affect a man’s fertility?
“Who is following you, and would you care for more wine?”
Who was following…? Jeanette thought back over the exquisite meal, the patient instruction belowstairs, the assistance with her shawl and realized that though the process was more swift, Sycamore Dorning put the same amount of preparation and forethought into every throw of the knife. She would never come close to matching his skill, but she could learn from him.
“More wine, please. What makes you think somebody is following me?”
Chapter Four
Sycamore had followed the marchioness at several points during the week.
So had somebody else, though only at night and only when she was most likely to travel in the Tavistock town coach, a lumbering conveyance any self-respecting footpad could keep up with easily enough.
“I do not think somebody is following you,” Sycamore said. “I know it. You are tailed by professionals, street boys dressed up to look like messengers, linkboys whose lanterns are extinguished. You are followed exclusively at night, and the spies abandon you when you return home.”
He poured her ladyship half a glass of wine, though he took no more for himself. Drink could unhinge a man’s self-restraint, and having spent hours in her ladyship’s company, some blunt comment about her fine bosom, her rare smiles, or her bad taste in dallying partners was bound to come out.
Forster and Endicott were good-looking enough, widowed, past the stupid years, and not given to gossip, but if ever habits could proclaim a pair of fellows uninspired in bed, theirs did. No wonder her ladyship had gone no more a-roving after those two timid ventures.
“I have probably attracted the notice of a journalist,” she said, sitting up straight and trying for the prim, unwelcoming dignity she usually affected.
“That nonsense won’t wash,” Sycamore said. “I’ve seen you smile. I’ve seen you hurl a knife dead center at a target and watched you rejoice in your accomplishment. Poker up all you please, but you aren’t learning to wield a blade out of boredom, my lady.”
She sipped at her wine—full glasses this week, for the most part—and regarded him balefully. “The problem with you, Mr. Dorning, is that you listen to me.”
“The problem with me,” he countered, “is that I talk to you. I blather on about my benighted boyhood, my siblings, my fretful nature, the woes of club ownership, while you turn years of a difficult marriage into a few terse understatements. Not well done of you, my lady. I am to teach you to throw a knife, you are to share a few meals with me, and here you have wrested my secrets from me while barely hinting at your own. Who needs to keep an eye on you, besides Her Grace of Quimbey, that is?”
“Your secrets?”
Sycamore waved a hand. “The feuds among the staff, my reliance on Her Grace of Quimbey for the best gossip. If you haven’t made her acquaintance, you must. I think she and Quimbey are very much in each other’s confidence, and I envy them that.”
Her ladyship speared a fat red raspberry on a two-pronged silver fruit fork. “I cannot. Imagine such a thing, that is. My husband barely spoke to me beyond ‘hold still,’ ‘be quiet,’ and ‘damnation, woman.’ What did you mean about the mumps?”
She slipped the raspberry between her teeth, and Sycamore’s brain stalled. He poured himself wine he ought not to drink.
“Tavistock suffered a bad bout at the same time his heir did. The boy would have been seven, according to Her Grace, and the child recovered more quickly than the father did. Were Tavistock’s testicles at all shriveled?”
Her ladyship tried to spear another raspberry and missed. “I beg your pardon?”
“His stones, his cods. The little bits you are to kick hard if a man ever menaces you. If Tavistock had a bad bout of the mumps, his stones could have been involved in the inflammation. That occasionally makes it difficult for a man to get children thereafter, though he functions well enough otherwise.”
Her ladyship speared her berry on this try. “I did not examine his lordship—had no wish to—though he exercised his marital rights vigorously and often, especially at first.”
Sycamore let a silence build, the better to torment himself watching her ladyship consume the second berry. He wanted to consume her, to put various parts of her into his mouth and delight in their textures and tastes, and to bring her delight too.
And he wanted to keep her safe, which talk of the late marquess’s tiny cods would not do, though as a distraction, the topic had served well enough.
“What business is it of yours if somebody is following me?” she asked, putting down the fruit fork.
She was stalling, and because Sycamore was in no hurry to either part from her or attempt to coerce her, he allowed it.
“Would you believe gentlemanly honor motivates my interest in your safety?”
She made a skeptical face. “Maybe in part, but you allow women to come to grief at your tables night after night. Your gentlemanly honor is bounded by self-interest.”
“The rule we apply is, a patron can lose badly once, but they are quietly informed that further adventures at our tables will be ill-advised until all debts are cleared. When the debts are cleared, we will be overjoyed to welcome them back, but not until that day. A woman can come to grief at our tables, she cannot be ruined.”
He chose a berry, speared it with the fork, and offered it to her ladyship—because he was an idiot, and she really did have a luscious mouth.
“You apply the same rule to men and women, Mr. Dorning?”
Sycamore, please. “Yes, and the same limits. If you don’t believe gentlemanly honor compels me to inquire into your situation, then perhaps I’m motivated by vulgar curiosity.”
She took the fork from him, her fingers brushing his hand, and if Sycamore’s privy parts had had powers of speech, they would have groaned.
“You have too much self-possession, sir, and you are too busy to indulge in idle curiosity where I am concerned,” she said, consuming the berry. “So what does that leave, Mr. Dorning?”
“It leaves me in the novel and slightly uncomfortable position of admitting that I like you, my lady. I am flattered to think there is some modicum of trust between us, and I hope we can be friends. Friends look out for each other.”
She chose a berry and held the fork out to him. He took the fruit from the tines with his mouth, as she had.
“Uncomfortable because I am difficult?” she asked.
“I adore that you know your own mind and do not suffer fools. The people who call you difficult would have you keeping silent and holding still. You are done with such as that.”
“I am,” she said, putting down the fork. “I quite am. The truth is, I do not know who is watching me, but I think it started at last autumn’s house parties. I had the sense that my behavior was monitored, sometimes by the guests, sometimes by the staff, but I dismissed my feelings. Trevor attended the house parties with me, and perhaps the gossips were speculating about my relationship with him.”
Sycamore’s body was clamoring for her ladyship to feed him more fruit, to touch him, to show somehow
that desire was wreaking the same havoc with her composure that it was with his. His mind, however, realized that she had not argued with his proffer of friendship, had neither mocked nor rejected it.
And his mind, by the slimmest of margins, was still the ascendant faculty. “Your relationship with the marquess is familial and protective. Anybody can see that.”
“Anybody can see what they want to see. I am somewhat well-heeled, and if I could be caught out in a scandal, I could be blackmailed.”
“My dear, you are far beyond somewhat well-heeled. You have invested shrewdly, you live frugally for your station, and whatever else was true of old Tavistock, his pride demanded that you have decent settlements.”
Her ladyship finished her wine. “Not his pride, my father’s solicitors. I was sold to the marquess in exchange for considerable coin, enough to see Papa’s debts paid and Rye’s commission purchased. I was given the merest pittance of pin money, and Tavistock handled the expenses necessary to keep me. Papa allowed that, but his solicitors demanded a larger widow’s portion, and the Tavistock attorneys agreed. They believed his lordship would live to enjoy a vigorous old age, so I would never see a penny of that settlement.”
“Because you would have expired after delivering the eighth or eleventh son?”
Hurt flickered in her gaze, quickly replaced by that cool self-possession she could summon at will. “Two or three healthy boys would have sufficed, as his lordship told me on many an occasion. He’d saddled himself with a seventeen-year-old bride precisely so the children could be spaced every eighteen months, the better to ensure I carried and delivered them properly. That timing ensured the first one could be weaned shortly after the second had been conceived. I was to provide sustenance to my children—his lordship did not want strange women of low origins nurturing his babies—and besides, he was paying for the whole damned cow, he might as well have the milk.”
The Last True Gentleman: The True Gentlemen — Book 12 Page 7