Viola left off rummaging in her workbasket. “My lord, I’m impressed. Might you also suggest that our Diana would make Trevor a fine wife?”
Diana was about to make a belated come out, and while pretty enough, she was as stubborn as her mother, also several years Trevor’s senior. She wasn’t keen on marrying anybody until she’d had her Season—young people!—and Trevor would know that about his own cousin. Viola was trying to spare them all the expense of another court presentation and come out, but she was being, as usual, clumsy in her machinations.
Then too, Hera would stage a monumental tragedy if Diana married Trevor, who was closer to Hera in age.
“I have not mentioned marriage to anybody,” Beardsley replied. “Jerome will hint to Trevor that the expenses of keeping an ancillary household are worth the rewards.”
Beardsley had a mistress in just such an ancillary household. A young widow of good family who was practical enough to take a courtesy lord into her bed if that kept her children fed. She was neither resentful of Beardsley’s attentions nor interested in anything more than his coin. He was fond of her, a sentiment he’d felt toward his wife once upon a time.
“If Trevor takes a mistress,” Viola said, “he is that much more likely to marry and displace Jerome in the succession.”
“Just the opposite,” Beardsley said. “If Trevor has a regular source of manly pleasure, then the hunt for a wife becomes merely a business venture, not some tangled-up affair of the heart or impulse driven by his breeding organs.”
Viola closed the lid of her workbasket. “Men born to privilege always want more,” she said. “A mistress is not enough, a wife is not enough. Such a man will frolic with opera dancers when he has both wife and mistress, and frolic yet more at house parties. The world is his sweet shop, and he will never sicken from consuming to excess. You have hastened Trevor’s desire to marry, not put it off.”
“He cannot marry without my consent for three more years, madam. You worry for nothing.”
Viola sent a pointed glance around the parlor. The appointments were elegant, but in an old-fashioned way. Only the candles on the mantel and a sconce by the door were lit, and the fire was burning down rather than blazing up with a final scoop of coal for the evening.
Economies were subtly in evidence, in other words.
“Jeanette is enjoying the last of her influence with the solicitors,” Beardsley said. “I have taken steps to ensure she either flees Town or wishes she had. As Trevor ignores her advice more and more consistently, she’s becoming less of a Puritan herself. The stakes at the Wentwhistle house party were quite high, and her success there literally came down to the turn of a card. That is not the behavior of a prudent widow, my dear, and Trevor will soon see that.”
Viola rose. “Trevor loves her. I tried to be a mother to him, but she championed the boy’s causes to his father, and I could not compete with that.”
“You have been in every way an exemplary aunt to him, and I have been a devoted uncle. That is where matters will stand until Jeanette can be persuaded to yield the reins.”
Viola studied him, and Beardsley had no idea what she was thinking. How could two people have children, live together for more than a quarter century, and still not know each other all that well? But then, Beardsley did not particularly want to know his wife if that meant she intruded on his privacy too.
“Will Jeanette yield the reins before Diana’s come out?” Viola asked. “Town grows only more expensive, and Diana is neither beautiful nor witty.”
“All is in hand, my dear. Between Jerome’s friendship with Trevor and my own humble efforts, all is in hand.”
Viola kissed his cheek and crossed to the door. “Then I will wish you pleasant dreams, my lord, and see you at breakfast.”
“Good night, my lady.”
Viola had removed to her own bedroom within a year of Jerome’s birth, and though Beardsley occasionally visited her of a night, she’d made her wishes known: A single son was all that she had been interested in providing, and now the passage of time had made the question of more children moot.
Besides, one son of marriageable age blessed with an abundance of animal spirits was enough.
Sycamore Dorning was everything Jeanette could never be: at home with violence and vice, blunt to a fault, and aggressive in pursuit of his objectives. He was charming when it suited him, also alarmingly open about his worries and his family’s situation.
With the gossips and tabbies, Jeanette knew to wrap her dignity about her like a velvet cloak. With uncertain young women, she was gracious and kind, but reserved. With the leering bachelors, she was toweringly indifferent. Society was neatly sorted, and with her, Society knew its place.
With Sycamore Dorning, she was all at sea, and had she been asked, she would have said she hated being all at sea, though she did not hate him. Worse—far worse—she was coming to not only like him, but also to trust him.
He handed her up into his town coach, an elegant conveyance with crests turned and footman, groom, and coachy in similarly smart, dark livery devoid of distinguishing flourishes.
“You like your comforts,” she said, taking the forward-facing seat. He settled onto the bench beside her, which was bold of him, also considerate. Sitting side by side, Jeanette would not have to face him as he interrogated her about matters she’d dodged at dinner.
“I cherish my comforts,” he said, “and all the while, I tell myself that I’m merely keeping up appearances. This
