The Dornings had grown up with the occasional pineapple as a treat produced by Papa’s botanical “hobby,” just as their mother had been presented with an exotic orchid or perfume from time to time.
“Who is this potential investor, Sycamore?”
“What do you know of the late Marquess of Tavistock?”
Kettering wrinkled his aquiline beak. “I turned him down as a client. Too high in the instep, too old-school, too… I simply did not care for him.”
“Can you be more specific?”
Kettering rose and strolled the parlor, hands in his pockets. “I don’t know as I can. Much of my success has resulted from paying as close attention to my instincts as I do to the gossip on ’Change or from Horse Guards. Tavistock would have expected me to toady, to put his affairs ahead of anybody else’s. I am temperamentally incapable of toadying.”
“For which,” Sycamore replied, “though it pains me to say it, I respect you.”
“One is compelled to note that you suffer the same deficit. What brings Tavistock to mind?”
“What do you hear of his widow?”
Kettering paused in his perambulations to sniff the cluster of lemon blossoms in a plain glass vase on the mantel.
“Jacaranda knows her ladyship or knows of her. The former Jeanette Goddard of the Somerset Goddards. Excellent lineage, but the trouble in France affected the family fortunes. The English Goddard sons tended to marry their French second cousins and increase wealth by leaving management of orchards, vineyards, and such in French hands. Jeanette was married off to Tavistock right out of the schoolroom, and her brother’s commission was purchased shortly thereafter. Her brother rose to the rank of colonel, but I seem to recall mention of some scandal in the ranks as well.”
“Why do you know all of that about a family you declined to do business with?”
Kettering nudged a white blossom closer to the center of the bouquet. “I just do. I research, and the information stays with me. How does Lady Tavistock behave at the tables?”
“She eschews the more complicated games and prefers vingt-et-un, which is prudent, because the house hasn’t as much advantage with vingt-et-un. She is a serious player, but not grim, and can keep an entire deck in her head, or nearly so, though she never tries to win a fortune at the tables. She walks away from winning streaks and losing streaks alike, which is the mark of a sensible gambler.”
Kettering set the flowers on the windowsill, where they would have more light. “She won a fortune off of Ash at the Wentwhistle house party last autumn.”
Kettering would bring that up. “Ancient history, and for the most part, she was simply recouping losses incurred by young Lord Tavistock earlier. Would you consider bringing her into the pineapple scheme?”
Kettering left off fussing with the flowers, or trying to look harmless, long enough to send Sycamore a puzzled glance.
“Why? The more investors, the less profit either of us makes. We don’t need her capital, and I rather like keeping money in the family when I can. It’s your father’s hothouses that gave me the idea, after all.”
Sycamore pretended to admire the open lid of the pianoforte, which had been decorated with a scene of some shepherd boy serenading his lady while strumming a lute. An apple tree heavy with fruit arched over the couple, and lambs cavorted at the lady’s feet.
What utter twaddle. “Her ladyship enjoys pineapple.”
“Those few who’ve actually consumed the fruit do tend to enjoy it,” Kettering said, resuming his lounging posture on the Queen Anne tuffet. “And if she had that opportunity, you gave it to her. What are you about, Sycamore?”
“She is a patron at the club, and I enjoy her company.”
“I can be discreet,” Kettering said, “even within the confines of the Dorning family. Jacaranda does not want to know every peccadillo and scrape you lot get up to. She trusts me to sort them out if Casriel isn’t up to the challenge.”
Sycamore rose. “Don’t be obnoxious. We are not a pack of schoolboys constantly embroiled with the local constable. Every one of us has found meaningful employment and a way to make some contribution to society, no thanks to you or Casriel.”
Kettering’s expression shuttered. “I seek to aid a passel of impecunious younger sons, the despair of the sister who loved them—”
Sycamore held up a hand. “Jacaranda had not reached her majority when she ran out on us, and while she had her reasons, her opinion of her brothers was fixed nearly ten years ago, when we were a very different family. I cannot persuade you or her to see us as we are rather than as we were, and neither will I take up any more of your time.”
Sycamore reached the door before Kettering spoke. “Wait.”
Sycamore lifted the latch.
“Wait, please.”
He turned. “So that you can cajole and insult me by turns for another quarter hour? I think not. Lady Tavistock, whom I esteem in every particular, asked me about pineapples as an investment. I told her I would inquire of you accordingly, but you don’t deserve to invest her money. You can’t see the family you’ve pretended to call your own for the past five years. My love to my sister and my nieces. I’ll see myself out.”
Kettering prevented him from making a grand exit by physically pushing the door closed. The prospect of fisticuffs loomed temptingly close at hand, but Sycamore would not give Kettering the satisfaction. Sycamore was younger, faster, and fitter than Kettering, and Jacaranda would take it amiss if Sycamore broke Kettering’s nose.
“Jacaranda has to occasionally pin my ears back,” Kettering said. “I don’t enjoy it, and I suspect she doesn’t either, but I benefit from her guidance.”
Sycamore turned, which put him in very close proximity to his brother-in-law. Close enough that a left uppercut—always lead with
