Such magnificent, articulate anger. “I suppose some women come to the Coventry to exercise freedom, albeit a limited, polite version of it. If you were to undertake one daring indulgence in freedom, my lady, what would it be?”
Her ladyship’s expression lost the guarded, poised quality that she’d worn since sitting down to eat. For a moment, she looked perplexed, then wistful.
“How is a woman to know how to have a reckless adventure when her entire life is spent doing as she’s told, thinking as she’s instructed, and focusing on the needs and happiness of others?”
“Have you met my sister Jacaranda?” Sycamore asked, taking the lid off the fruit compote. “She’s not much of one for socializing, though she and her spouse bide in Town much of the year. When my mother abdicated all roles at Dorning Hall, save that of chief victim of cruel fate, Jacaranda was impressed into the job of de facto housekeeper. Would you like some fruit?”
“A small serving.”
Sycamore took a modest portion for himself, knowing the kitchen staff would gobble up any leftovers.
“Jacaranda revolted,” he said. “She went into service—scandalous, I know—and she had to do so without admitting her family connections. She became a housekeeper in truth. She said if she was to drudge for a pack of louts, she’d at least be paid for it. I gather she was ferociously competent at her post. Some cheese to go with your fruit?”
“One slice. What became of your sister?”
Sycamore pared off two slices of a pale Swiss cheese and laid a strip across her ladyship’s bowl of fruit. He had no earthly idea now why he’d brought up his older sister, whom he’d missed bitterly when she’d decamped for a paying post, but then, the entire conversation with Lady Tavistock bore no resemblance whatsoever to the witty banter Sycamore had intended to offer her.
“We thought Jacaranda would be home in a fortnight,” he said. “Several years later, we had to beg her to come back to Dorning Hall. Had her employer raised the slightest objection, she would not have taken pity on us even then. As matters unfolded…”
He fell silent while her ladyship took a bit of compote.
“What is this?” she asked, peering at the bowl.
“Mostly pineapple, with a few slices of orange for color.”
“You eat pineapple, Mr. Dorning? Most people rent them to display, not to consume. I’ve never in my life… This is very good.”
“My sister’s husband has a head for business and hatched a notion to grow pineapples for profit. I bought some shares in that venture and accept the occasional dividend in kind. What is the point of displaying a fruit that will only spoil if not consumed?”
“This is marvelous,” she said, taking another taste and closing her eyes. “Succulent, tart, sweet. Sunshine should taste like this.”
“Have as much as you like.” The kitchen would revolt, but the kitchen revolted regularly, as did the dealers, the waiters, the footmen, and the stable lads.
“When I die, there had best be pineapple served in heaven,” her ladyship said, taking another spoonful. “Even the juice… nectar of the goddesses.”
Goddesses, indeed. “You never did answer my question, your ladyship. What would your grand, reckless adventure be?”
“I am busy now, Mr. Dorning. I will ponder that puzzle later.” She leavened her scold with a startlingly impish smile, then took another bite.
That smile gave away volumes. Somewhere behind her poise, her asperity, and her ruthless self-sufficiency lay a woman who had once been mischievous and sweet, too intelligent for fashion, and far too tenderhearted for the fate that had befallen her.
Sycamore wanted to learn the delights of that woman, much as Lady Tavistock was learning to savor her pineapple.
“Finish your tale regarding your sister’s rebellion, Mr. Dorning.”
What sister? “Jacaranda’s rebellion led to wedded bliss when she married the man for whom she’d kept house. The pair of them are obnoxiously happy. All of my siblings are.”
Lady Tavistock dredged her spoon through the fruit juice in her bowl. “Tell me more about your family. Lord Casriel is the eldest?”
Sycamore did not want to discuss his legion of busy, impressive, blissfully married siblings. “If we are to embark on that recitation, you should have seconds. Have you only the one brother?”
“Orion. I call him Rye, though he and I are not close. The war did not go well for him.”
War, a tiny word to refer to twenty years of armed mayhem courtesy of the French, though to be fair, the Austrians had played an inciting role, and to be even more fair, England had been at war more or less for a century. The most recent wars with the Corsican hadn’t gone well for much of anybody, save the British mercantile community.
“We Dornings did not serve,” Sycamore said. “I ought to be ashamed of that, but Papa was furious that hostilities interfered with his botanizing. Napoleon, at least, put science above warfare where various expeditions or Josephine’s roses were concerned, but England did not. Then too, Papa operated from a general sense of equity toward his children. What he did for one son, he felt he should do for all of us, and thus one commission could have turned into five or six.”
Not seven, because Casriel, as the heir, would of course been required to bide safely at Dorning Hall.
Her ladyship set her empty bowl aside. “Did you want to go to war?”
Sycamore passed her his untouched serving. “I did not, though I am
