“The wedding night was a horror?” Sycamore asked, taking her hand.
“My worst memory. I so wanted to please him, and I was utterly shocked by what he expected of me. I found the whole business uncomfortable on every level. I do not mean to be difficult, but I am what he made me.”
Sycamore wrapped his arm around Jeanette’s shoulders, which ought to have struck her as a terrible presumption rather than a great comfort.
“You are not a bride ill-used by a cretin of a husband,” he said. “You are wonderfully fierce. The old bugger did not make you fierce, you did that yourself. I treasure you for it, and I am sorry for my brusqueness. I should not have presumed.”
Ill-used by a cretin of a husband. Jeanette’s marriage in a nutshell. “I don’t believe a man has ever apologized to me before.” Much less so swiftly and sincerely.
“Then I’m your first true gentleman, a signal honor for me and a long overdue pleasure for you.” He half hugged her, a friendly squeeze that bewildered Jeanette.
The late marquess had touched her only to exercise his marital rights or, when unavoidable, to observe a public propriety, such as escorting her up the church steps. Her lovers had been uninspired—she’d suspected as much, and Sycamore had confirmed her hunch—and Rye… Rye’s affectionate impulses were distant memories.
Very distant. “I will call on my brother,” she said, swiping the back of her glove against her cheek. “The suggestion has merit, and I do worry about him.”
Sycamore passed her a handkerchief. “Would you like my escort when you pay that visit?”
She’d just scolded him, blurted out horrid confidences, and behaved like a ninnyhammer, and his response was to apologize, hug her, and pass her his linen.
“I don’t know if I should take an escort,” she said. “I need time to think. I appreciate the offer.” She appreciated the hug more, the arm around her shoulders, the hand holding hers. These overtures disturbed her, but they met a terrible need that all the dignity and self-possession in the world could not quench.
They also blended with the low, insistent hum of desire that had started up when Jeanette had first noticed Sycamore Dorning lounging by the steps at the Coventry months ago. She had ignored the desire—pesky annoyance, desire—but she could not ignore him.
“I give a lot of orders at the club,” Sycamore said, gaze on the coach lamp. “I make demands rather than requests because I am afraid nobody will listen to me if I’m polite instead of politely overbearing. Do you suppose the marquess was prone to the same insecurity?”
Jeanette let her head rest against Sycamore’s shoulder. He could not know how such a capacity for self-examination awed her and unnerved her. To him, his own responses were a puzzle to be understood, not a citadel of masculine dignity to be defended.
“The late marquess,” she said, “was an entitled ass, spoiled from birth, and indulged in every regard. Perhaps on some unspoken level, he sensed he had not earned his privileges, and he blustered to distract anybody from noticing that fact. The result was still a miserable staff, a miserable wife, and a son who barely knew him.”
“Are you miserable now, my lady?”
She was snuggled against a man who apologized, a man who’d made no unwelcome overtures and who’d offered to take on her troubles out of simple decency. He also threw a lethally accurate knife and admitted to being plagued by worry and nostalgia.
“I am not miserable, Mr. Dorning.”
He relaxed against her. “Then neither am I. But, my lady?”
“Hmm?” She was abruptly drowsy, and he made a comfortable pillow.
He shifted again and dimmed the coach lamp. “Never mind. The rest of our discussion will keep. Have a nap, and I will look forward to hearing your decision regarding a call on Orion Goddard.”
Chapter Five
“Lady Tavistock was married off to a rutting martinet who wanted only obedience and sons from her,” Sycamore said, pacing around the hazard table as morning sun slanted through the Coventry’s windows. The windows were too high to afford a view into the place, but they provided good ventilation. “Now somebody is following her ladyship intermittently, and she can’t bring herself to consider motives and malcontents.”
Ash Dorning, looking relaxed and a little bored on a dealer’s stool, watched Sycamore pace. “So Lady Tavistock asked you to sort out the business for her? What aren’t you telling me, Cam?”
Sycamore wasn’t telling Ash a great deal. The head waiter had vexed the undercook and nearly caused a kitchen war. Mrs. General Higginbotham had played too deeply and offered ruby earbobs in repayment, but an appraisal revealed the jewels to be paste. The champagne merchant, Monsieur Fournier, was being coy about the date of the next delivery.
So much Sycamore could tell Ash, the point of which would have been to emphasize… what? How necessary and important Sycamore was to the club? To his brother? To avoid admitting how much he missed Ash?
“Not here,” Sycamore said, taking the stairs two at a time. The cleaning crew came through at dawn, but the junior kitchen staff would soon arrive, and like the rest of the Coventry’s employees, they enjoyed a good gossip among themselves.
Ash followed more slowly, his mood apparently sanguine. His darling wife, the former Lady Della Haddonfield, had hauled Ash by the ear off to warmer climes for a winter holiday and honeymoon. Sycamore knew the look of a brother wondering if his wife was already on the nest.
Fast work, even for a Dorning in love. But then, a former Haddonfield had also been involved in the situation, and the Haddonfields were not retiring by nature.
Sycamore closed the office door and remained on his feet. “Lady Tavistock’s step-son lost a fair amount here Saturday night. She is agreeable to having his lordship work off his debt to us.”
Ash peered at the new
