Her ladyship tried to spear another raspberry and missed. “I beg your pardon?”
“His stones, his cods. The little bits you are to kick hard if a man ever menaces you. If Tavistock had a bad bout of the mumps, his stones could have been involved in the inflammation. That occasionally makes it difficult for a man to get children thereafter, though he functions well enough otherwise.”
Her ladyship speared her berry on this try. “I did not examine his lordship—had no wish to—though he exercised his marital rights vigorously and often, especially at first.”
Sycamore let a silence build, the better to torment himself watching her ladyship consume the second berry. He wanted to consume her, to put various parts of her into his mouth and delight in their textures and tastes, and to bring her delight too.
And he wanted to keep her safe, which talk of the late marquess’s tiny cods would not do, though as a distraction, the topic had served well enough.
“What business is it of yours if somebody is following me?” she asked, putting down the fruit fork.
She was stalling, and because Sycamore was in no hurry to either part from her or attempt to coerce her, he allowed it.
“Would you believe gentlemanly honor motivates my interest in your safety?”
She made a skeptical face. “Maybe in part, but you allow women to come to grief at your tables night after night. Your gentlemanly honor is bounded by self-interest.”
“The rule we apply is, a patron can lose badly once, but they are quietly informed that further adventures at our tables will be ill-advised until all debts are cleared. When the debts are cleared, we will be overjoyed to welcome them back, but not until that day. A woman can come to grief at our tables, she cannot be ruined.”
He chose a berry, speared it with the fork, and offered it to her ladyship—because he was an idiot, and she really did have a luscious mouth.
“You apply the same rule to men and women, Mr. Dorning?”
Sycamore, please. “Yes, and the same limits. If you don’t believe gentlemanly honor compels me to inquire into your situation, then perhaps I’m motivated by vulgar curiosity.”
She took the fork from him, her fingers brushing his hand, and if Sycamore’s privy parts had had powers of speech, they would have groaned.
“You have too much self-possession, sir, and you are too busy to indulge in idle curiosity where I am concerned,” she said, consuming the berry. “So what does that leave, Mr. Dorning?”
“It leaves me in the novel and slightly uncomfortable position of admitting that I like you, my lady. I am flattered to think there is some modicum of trust between us, and I hope we can be friends. Friends look out for each other.”
She chose a berry and held the fork out to him. He took the fruit from the tines with his mouth, as she had.
“Uncomfortable because I am difficult?” she asked.
“I adore that you know your own mind and do not suffer fools. The people who call you difficult would have you keeping silent and holding still. You are done with such as that.”
“I am,” she said, putting down the fork. “I quite am. The truth is, I do not know who is watching me, but I think it started at last autumn’s house parties. I had the sense that my behavior was monitored, sometimes by the guests, sometimes by the staff, but I dismissed my feelings. Trevor attended the house parties with me, and perhaps the gossips were speculating about my relationship with him.”
Sycamore’s body was clamoring for her ladyship to feed him more fruit, to touch him, to show somehow that desire was wreaking the same havoc with her composure that it was with his. His mind, however, realized that she had not argued with his proffer of friendship, had neither mocked nor rejected it.
And his mind, by the slimmest of margins, was still the ascendant faculty. “Your relationship with the marquess is familial and protective. Anybody can see that.”
“Anybody can see what they want to see. I am somewhat well-heeled, and if I could be caught out in a scandal, I could be blackmailed.”
“My dear, you are far beyond somewhat well-heeled. You have invested shrewdly, you live frugally for your station, and whatever else was true of old Tavistock, his pride demanded that you have decent settlements.”
Her ladyship finished her wine. “Not his pride, my father’s solicitors. I was sold to the marquess in exchange for considerable coin, enough to see Papa’s debts paid and Rye’s commission purchased. I was given the merest pittance of pin money, and Tavistock handled the expenses necessary to keep me. Papa allowed that, but his solicitors demanded a larger widow’s portion, and the Tavistock attorneys agreed. They believed his lordship would live to enjoy a vigorous old age, so I would never see a penny of that settlement.”
“Because you would have expired after delivering the eighth or eleventh son?”
Hurt flickered in her gaze, quickly replaced by that cool self-possession she could summon at will. “Two or three healthy boys would have sufficed, as his lordship told me on many an occasion. He’d saddled himself with a seventeen-year-old bride precisely so the children could be spaced every eighteen months, the better to ensure I carried and delivered them properly. That timing ensured the first one could be weaned shortly after the second had been conceived. I was to provide sustenance to my children—his lordship did not want strange women of low origins nurturing his babies—and besides, he was paying for the whole damned cow, he might as well have the milk.”
“How did you not hate him?” Sycamore hated him, and he’d never met the man.
“I made excuses for him. He was of a different era, he was frustrated. He was paying for the whole damned cow… I stopped even wanting children, and now I am glad I was spared, for children would only involve me with solicitors and trustees for years
