Kettering was, if anything, more effective at annoying Sycamore’s brothers than Sycamore was, and that was a worse betrayal than stealing Jacaranda away and making her so blasted happy.
“Young Sycamore,” Kettering said, offering a firm handshake. “To what do I owe the honor?”
Young Sycamore. He would still be young Sycamore well into his dotage in this company.
“Kettering. I’ve come to discuss investments. First, tell me how Jacaranda and the children go on.”
Kettering was big, dark-haired, blue-eyed, and not bad looking. The blighter had charm, to hear some tell it—especially some ladies. He also had a genius for turning a profit, and once a man gained that reputation, people with bright ideas and a lack of blunt tended to seek him out. Kettering heard about the best investment opportunities first, and the sovereign himself would interrupt a meal if Kettering had commercial news to pass along.
“My lady wife thrives in my loving care,” Kettering said, “as I shall ever thrive in hers. We have reason to hope another delightful addition to the family is in the offing.”
Kettering exuded both bashful humility and smug conceit. Probably part of his much-vaunted charm.
“Congratulations. Please convey my best wishes to the expectant mother and to my nieces.”
“You might pay a call on them,” Kettering said, taking Sycamore’s hat and cane. “Surrey isn’t that distant, and your club can’t demand your presence every night. My office is a disaster. I’m trying to do a fortnight’s work in five days so as to more quickly rejoin my adoring womenfolk. It’s half day, else my butler would be apologizing for the mess on my behalf. Let’s use the family parlor.”
The only evening the Coventry was closed was Sunday, meaning the only time Sycamore could jaunt out to Surrey to see his sister was Sunday, with a Monday morning return.
Kettering would know that if he gave Sycamore’s situation a moment’s thought. “My free time is spoken for lately, what with the club’s busiest season approaching. What do you hear from the rest of the family?”
Kettering, married to one of the Dorning clan’s better correspondents, rattled off a litany: This little one was teething, that one had taken first steps. Willow and Susannah were awash in spring puppies—they were always awash in puppies—and Oak was finding portrait commissions even in rural Hampshire. Valerian’s books were selling quite well, Tabitha’s letters were now rendered in creditable French.
“Tabitha writes to you?” To you too?
“To us,” Kettering corrected gently, opening double doors to an airy, old-fashioned parlor. “She is growing up, doing exactly as young ladies are supposed to do at fancy finishing schools—making friends, gaining confidence, and pretending to a sophistication that in time becomes the genuine article. She’ll need it, given her antecedents, and Jacaranda and I will be on hand to lend her our consequence as well.”
Tabitha was Casriel’s illegitimate daughter, a youthful indiscretion raised at the Hall, and much beloved by the entire family. She had been the only child for years. She was also—or had been—the family member who regarded Uncle Sycamore as great good fun, less stodgy than all those other uncles.
“Do you suppose you could invite her down for a holiday in Town?” he asked, rather than admit he missed her terribly. “One can hardly acquire Town bronze in the schoolroom.”
Kettering gestured to a pink tufted sofa. The pale blue wallpaper was flocked with gold fleur-de-lis, and a pianoforte painted with scenes of rural romance stood in the corner. The curtains were lace, the fireplace of pink marble. The room was decorated in the delicate, old-fashioned style of the previous century, and yet, Kettering looked quite at home among its refinements.
The parlor was redolent of the bouquet of lemon blossoms holding pride of place in the center of the mantel, not a typical spring scent, but unless Sycamore was mistaken, one Jacaranda favored in her perfumes.
Lady Tavistock would enjoy this room. She’d like the sense of repose, the light flooding through the tall windows, the books lining the shelves behind the pianoforte. She’d bring her needlepoint to a room like this, because she was a serious-minded woman who’d not bother with cutwork.
Too serious-minded.
“Shall I ring for tea?” Kettering asked. He typically poured out with all the aplomb of a duchess, a skill the successful man of business needed, to hear him tell it.
“No, thank you.”
Kettering took a Queen Anne chair that groaned under his weight. “To business, then. What’s on your mind?”
Sycamore’s mind was full of memories of a woman with a latent skill for wielding a blade. Of the nape of her ladyship’s neck, pale, sweet, and tempting above the demure lace of her dress collar. Of red hair bound up in a ruthless knot, begging to be undone and allowed to fall freely to naked hips.
Of a fleeting, just-between-us grin. “Pineapples,” Sycamore said. “I had occasion to consume one recently, one of ours.”
“Delectable, aren’t they?” Kettering said, crossing his legs at the knee like a confirmed dandy. “The French have got hold of a particular variety I’m negotiating to add to our cultivations in the Canaries. Did you save the crown?”
“Already on the way to Dorning Hall.” Where the vast conservatory held a dozen maturing plants, which would yield a dozen more crowns, plus shoots, if Casriel’s undergardeners could be bothered to tend to them. “Does this project have room for another investor?”
Kettering stared off into the middle distance, while Sycamore imagined the sound of abacus beads sliding and clicking.
“Depends on the investor and the sums involved. Pineapples are not a venture for those in need of a quick profit. The first crop alone takes—"
“A year and a half to mature. I know, Kettering, I read Papa’s journals the same as you did.” But only Kettering had connected the Dorning hothouses with the rented pineapples crowning the Mayfair hostesses’ spectacular epergnes and
