The Last True Gentleman: The True Gentlemen — Book 12

by Grace Burrowes

  “I will come back to Town to do your wedding portrait,” Oak offered, passing around a plate of sandwiches. “Or we might stay for a time. The children enjoy London, and they should get to know their cousins.”

  “They should get to know Uncle Sycamore and Aunt Jeanette,” Sycamore countered. “We intend to bide in Town for much of the year, so you will all send us your offspring from time to time. Jeanette will insist upon it. She thinks having a huge family is wonderful.”

  Casriel munched a sandwich and surveyed the chattering, laughing, happy throng who had long since abandoned mealtime decorum to move about, talk across the table, and otherwise turn a breakfast into a celebration.

  “You don’t think a huge family is a blessing?” he asked.

  Jeanette was across the room, one of Casriel’s infants perched on her hip. Daisy and the countess were in discussion with her, but as if she’d known her husband—her husband—gazed upon her, Jeanette looked up, smiled, and blew Sycamore a kiss.

  “Smitten,” Hawthorne muttered.

  “Besotted,” Valerian added.

  “Top over tail,” Oak said, and thus the roll call went.

  “Of course I love my wife,” Sycamore said. “I love even saying that: I love my wife. She loves me too, and I love saying that as well.”

  “We meant,” Hawthorne said, taking a tray of glasses from a waiter and passing the drinks out, “she is smitten with you.”

  Casriel held his glass up. “Papa always said when it came to his children, practice made perfect, and the best was saved for last. Jeanette is apparently of the same opinion. To the best, truest gentleman, and to many years of happiness with your lady.”

  Sycamore took a sip of champagne before his brothers thumping him on the back could cause him to spill his drink. “Papa said that?”

  “I wanted to hit him for it,” Casriel replied. “He was doubtless only saying it to goad me, but his ploy worked. I became the best gentleman I could be, and thus Beatitude holds the same opinion about me that Jeanette holds about you. Dornings aren’t wealthy by the world’s standards, we can’t command a great deal of consequence, and we will never be a motivating force in government, but we are a happy family and I defy you to name me a greater blessing.”

  Being Jeanette’s husband qualified, though that was probably the sine qua non of a happy family.

  “Uncle Sycamore.” Daisy’s youngest, little Chloe, tugged on Sycamore’s hand. “You have to come. Auntie Jeanette says you must.”

  This provoked much hooting and laughter from Sycamore’s brothers, also many understanding smiles.

  “Then I must away to my lady’s side,” Sycamore said, passing Casriel his glass. He let Chloe lead him by the hand to Jeanette, plucked the baby from her grasp, and passed the child back to her mother. “My lady, you summoned me?”

  Jeanette took his hand. “I did. Oak is asking when we will sit for our portrait, and her ladyship suggested we make a wedding journey to Dorsetshire by way of Hampshire.”

  “A royal progress?” Sycamore replied.

  Casriel’s wife tucked the baby against her shoulder. “We can’t get to know your bride if she doesn’t spend time with us, Sycamore. Ash can look after the Coventry for a few weeks—he owes you that—and you and Jeanette can make your calls on family. Susannah would love to have some company too.”

  Beatitude went on speaking, extolling the virtues of touring the English countryside in spring, while Sycamore looked to Jeanette.

  He still had to pinch himself every time he realized that he beheld not simply the magnificent, passionate female who had stolen his heart, but his wife. His to love and cosset and build a future with, his to strut and stumble through life with.

  Jeanette squeezed his hand, all the while appearing to attend to the countess’s diatribe. Across the room, the brothers were watching, silent for once, and smiling at him as if they’d always known he would do them proud. They raised their glasses again to Sycamore, and while he did not feel as if he were the last true gentleman to bear the Dorning name, he certainly knew himself to be the happiest.

  Then Jeanette kissed him, in front of his whole, whooping, cheering, laughing family, and he was happier still.

  To my dear readers

  Oh, lordy, I’m tempted to find a few more Dorning siblings lurking in the bushes, because I do enjoy this family tremendously. Instead, our next tale will start a new series, Mischief in Mayfair, which begins with Miss Delectable (May/June 2021).

  Orion Goddard has left us all guessing about his unfortunate past. Ably assisted by Miss Ann Pearson, he (and we) will get to the bottom of that mystery. Excerpt below!

  I also need to tattle on myself for a Yank-ism. I am fortunate to have many readers in the United Kingdom, and some of those good folk will notice that I referred to the fashionable bachelors’ abode as the Albany. The correct reference is simply Albany, as we refer to Chatsworth, Wentworth Woodhouse, or Luton Hoo—all with no definite article.

  Americans, however, know Albany as the capital of the state of New York, and reading that somebody had taken lodgings at or in Albany would conjure inaccurate associations for those readers. I tossed in the definite article, and ask the indulgence of my non-US readers.

  If you’d like to stay up to date on pre-orders, new releases, and special discounts, please follow me on Bookbub. I also have a Deals page on my website where I highlight both web store and retail sales. If you want some behind-the-scenes details (I keep threatening kitten pictures…), you can sign up for my newsletter. I will never spam you or share your addy, and unsubscribing is easy.

  Happy reading!

  Grace Burrowes

  Read on for an excerpt from Miss Delectable, book one in the Mischief in Mayfair series!

  Miss Delectable — Excerpt

  Chapter One

  “Benny’s piked off again.” Otter’s tone suggested complete indifference to this state of affairs, but Colonel Sir Orion Goddard heard the worry the boy attempted to hide.

  “How long ago?” Orion asked, with equally studied casualness.

  “Nobody’s seen ’im since last night. Missed supper.”

  Hence, Otter ’s worry, for no child in Orion Goddard’s household willingly missed a meal or passed the night anywhere but in the safety of the dormitory.

  “You’ve looked in the usual places?”

  A terse nod. Otter—Theodoric William Goddard—was constitutionally incapable of fashioning an actual request for aid, but he was asking for help nonetheless. In all likelihood, Otter and the other boys had been searching for Benny for most of the day. Sunset approached, and with it the unavoidable necessity of enlisting adult assistance.

  A child alone on the London streets at night, even a lad as canny as Orion’s lot of cast-offs, was a child in danger. “Any idea why he’d wander away now?”

  Otter’s gaze slid around the room, which managed a credible impersonation of a gentleman’s study. The ceiling bore a fresco of scantily clad goddesses, muscular gods, and snorting horses, and more than once, Orion had caught Otter lying on the couch, gawking at the artwork.

  The rest of the room was nondescript. Grandpapa Goddard’s portrait added a note of stern benevolence from a bygone era. Correspondence sat in neat stacks on the desk, and newspapers in French and English adorned the sideboard. The carpet bore a slightly faded design of roses and greenery and the furniture qualified for the worn version of comfortable.

  The only remarkable object in the room was Orion’s cavalry sword, hung above the mantel and below Grandpapa’s portrait. Rye kept it there, immediately across from his desk, as a reminder and a reproach.

  “Benny disappeared for a few days last month,” Otter said. “Away on business, according to him.”

  Orion mentally berated himself for not noticing that previous absence, but he did not eat with the boys. Enlisted men needed privacy from officers, and conversely.

  “Did the magistrate take him up?”

  “Mayhap. The
y’d hang a boy like that for sport,” Otter said, “or sell him to a molly house and claim he’d been transported.”

  Some of the magistrates would. Of the six boys who called Orion’s dwelling home, Benny was the tallest and the least robust. He had a lanky sort of grace, delicate features, and the quiet air of the scholar, even though he hated soap and water. Benny could read—read well in both English and French, a quirk he didn’t advertise to the others—and had a fondness for cats.

  Otter by contrast, was terrified of cats, a secret Orion would take to his grave. If the other boys knew, they exercised the curious diplomacy of the stews, and ignored this gap in Otter’s otherwise impregnable defenses.

  “Did Benny intimate what sort of business had called him away?”

  Otter pushed unruly dark hair from his eyes. “Hint, ya mean? Nah. Benny keeps mum on a good day.”

  One of Benny’s many fine qualities. “I’ll ask a few questions down at the pub, and have a look around.” Orion would search every alley and coal hole. “He won’t be gone long. The lad would miss his mates.”

  “He’d miss a hot meal and a safe place to sleep.”

  Also true, but Orion hoped Benny was safe enough. He was a perceptive lad, and not cursed with Otter’s temper.

  “Tell the others I’ve been alerted,” Orion said, “and they are not to worry.”

  Otter snorted and left the office on silent feet. The boy never offered greetings or partings, though he was learning to knock before opening a closed door. With the lads, patience was not a virtue, it was a non-negotiable necessity.

  So was an ability to take each boy on his own merits. John was their songbird, with a tune for any occasion, most of them too filthy and hilarious to have been learned anywhere but the lowest taverns. Louis knew the streets, alleys, wynds and sewers. Entire rivers flowed beneath London, and Louis carried a map of the whole city in his head.

  Bertie knew the rooftops and could get onto them and traverse them with more agility than a squirrel. He frequently served as lookout for the others, a skill usually acquired in the housebreaker’s trade.

  And shy, fastidious Drew had a facility for math and memorization. He’d spout Bible verses at odd moments, in odd contexts, and how he’d come by his store of proverbs, aphorisms, and quotes, nobody knew. For all that he too hated soap and water, somebody had put the table manners on him.

  That the boys had already done their best to find their friend, with no results, was cause for panic. Most pickets who failed to come in from a night watch hadn’t deserted.

  Orion left the house by way of the back garden, stopping only to grab his top hat, riding crop, and gloves. He could look the part of a gentleman when necessary, not that it did him any good. Still, the uniform mattered, in business as in war, and so he had dressed today in the finery of the prosperous merchant.

  The boys were likely watching him, so he made straight for the stables, as if his plan was to trot from one watering hole to the other. Like a cat, Benny sought the warmth and safety of the mews when he wanted privacy, another secret Orion carried. He’d once found Benny poring over a primer in the hay loft, and had spotted the boy sniggling out of the mews on many occasions thereafter, a book in hand.

  Orion gave his eyes a moment to adjust to the stable’s gloom. He kept two horses, an extravagance he excused as more vanity expected of a successful purveyor of fine wines. The truth was, old Agricola was getting on, for all he still cut a dash under saddle, while Scipio had moments of youthful stupidity. They worked well enough together in harness, both being bay, but a matched pair, they were not.

  The horses looked up from their hay when Orion entered their domain. He paused to scratch Scipio’s hairy ear, and spared a pat for Agricola’s velvety nose. The horses were calm of eye and their stalls had recently been set fair, a routine Orion insisted on.

  “Seen any wandering boys?” Orion asked softly.

  Agricola craned his neck over the half door to nudge at Orion’s pocket. He rewarded the horse with a bit of carrot left over from their morning hack.

  Where were the cats? The stable had its share, and they were a lazy, arrogant lot. The swallows made sport of them, and if the felines had ever caught a mouse, they’d done so under a vow of secrecy.

  Benny loved the worthless lot of them, though. Orion climbed the ladder to the hayloft silently, his riding crop between his teeth. A fat tabby watched his progress from a beam over the barn aisle. An equally grand marmalade specimen lay curled in pile of hay, yawning as Orion stepped off the ladder.

  Threats welled, admonitions about boys who played silly games just to get attention, foolish lads who set a whole household to needlessly worrying.

  Except that Orion had once been a foolish lad unable to gain his papa’s notice, and on a few memorable occasions, he’d been a very foolish man. He poked gently at the hay with his riding crop.

  “I know you’re in there,” he said, pleasantly. “Grabbing a nap when there’s work to be done. Otter is worried about you, and if he’s worried about you enough to bother me, then you’ve made your point.” Not with fists, but with a more subtle weapon—absence.

  His riding crop brushed against something solid.

  “Go away.” This directive was muttered from the middle of the pile of hay, and never had two words given Orion greater relief.

  “I’d like to,” he replied. “I’d like to get back to tallying up my revenues and expenses, like to create my income projections for the next quarter—a cheerful, hopeful exercise—but no. I am instead required to nanny a wayward lad who has probably fallen in love with a goose girl indifferent to his charms. This happens, my boy. We all get our hearts broken and it’s the stuff of some of Louis’s best melodies.” Also the stuff of a commanding officer’s worst nightmares.

  “Go away.” For Benny, that tone of voice qualified as snarl. “I ain’t talking to you.”

  “Did Otter threaten to make you take a bath?” Benny didn’t stink, but neither did he regularly wash his face.

  “Fetch the lady wot cooks at the Coventry. I’ll talk to ’er.”

  Orion planted his arse on an overturned half barrel and considered the puzzle before him. Benny was not by nature a difficult or complicated fellow, but now he was talking in riddles.

  “What lady who cooks for the Coventry?” The Coventry being a gaming hell doing business as a fancy supper club. Orion’s sister Jeanette had, for reasons known only to her, married one of the club’s co-owners several months ago. Multiple reconnaissance missions suggested the union was happy and the club thriving, which was ever so fortunate for the groom’s continued welfare.

  And no, Orion was not in the least jealous. Jeanette deserved every joy life had to offer, and if Sycamore Dorning counted among her joys, Orion would find a way to be cordial to the man—when Jeanette was on hand.

  “Fetch the lady with the kind eyes,” Benny said, as the hay rustled. “I won’t talk to you.”

  “Miss Pearson?” Ann Pearson was an assistant cook in the vast kitchens at the Coventry. Orion had met her once under less than ideal circumstances, but like Benny, he recalled the compassion in her green eyes.

  “Aye, Miss Ann. She’ll come.”

  Benny’s tone rekindled Orion’s worry. The boy wasn’t having a mere pout, he was miserable. Orion nudged the hay aside with his hand.

  “Benny, are you well?” More nudging and swiping at the hay revealed the boy lying on his side curled in a blanket. Not well, was the obvious answer, not well at all.

  “Go away, Colonel.” Benny pulled the blanket up over his head. “Fetch Miss Ann. I ain’t tellin’ ye again.”

  Ann Pearson knew her herbs, of that much Orion was certain. She had been a calm, sensible presence when Jeanette’s health had been imperiled.

  “Benny, what’s amiss?” Orion asked, trying for a jocular tone. How long had the boy been in this condition, and what the hell was wrong with him?

  “Fetch Miss Ann, please.” The lad was beggi
ng now. “I’m dying, Colonel. You have to fetch Miss Ann.”

  Orion half-reached for the boy, prepared to extract the lad from his cocoon of wool and distress. Something stopped him.

  Benny’s unwillingness to move, his desperate rudeness to the person who provided him food and shelter, his decision to hide in the place that signified safety to him, all converged to support one conclusion. Benny wasn’t having a pout or enduring a case of too much winter ale. He exuded the same quality of hopeless suffering common to soldiers wounded in battle, half fearing death and half-tempted by it. Orion had seen enough battles and their aftermaths to recognize the condition.

  Benny was injured.

  Seriously injured.

  “I’ll send for Miss Ann. Don’t move, boy. Stay right where you.”

  Orion half-slid down the ladder, spooked both horses, and bellowed for Louis to attend him immediately.

  “She’s here!” Louis’s shout nearly startled Rye out of his boots. “I brung the lady!”

  “Good work,” Orion said, going to the top of the ladder. “Miss Pearson if you could join us up here? Louis fetch the lantern and then see to your supper.”

  The stable had grown dark while Orion had waited, and memories had crowded in. How many hours had he spent in the infirmary tents, listening to a dying man’s final ramblings or writing out the last letter the fellow would send home? How many times had he refused a fallen soldier’s entreaty for a single, quick bullet?

  “Colonel,” Miss Pearson said, arriving at the top of the ladder. “Good evening.”

  Orion took a basket from her and waited while the lady dealt with her skirts and climbed from the ladder into the hay loft. Louis passed up the lantern and tried for a gawk. He climbed back down when Rye aimed a glower at him.

  That Benny did not want an audience was clear.

  “Miss Ann has come,” Orion said. “You will do as she says, Benny, and if she says to send for the surgeon, we send for the surgeon.” No soldier ever wanted to fall into the surgeon’s hands, much less commend another to that torment.