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
