“The title is not your fault,” Sycamore said, “and we are all ninnyhammers on occasion.”
Tavistock smiled at that, revealing a dimple the ladies would positively swoon over, and slid down the bannister to the landing below. “Until tonight, Mr. Dorning!” He attempted a bow, tripped over the carpet fringe, and nearly upset a tower of drinking glasses stacked on the bar.
“Until tonight,” Sycamore said, saluting with two fingers and offering up a prayer for fortitude.
Chapter Six
“How is Tavistock doing?” Jeanette asked, passing Sycamore her cloak. Typical of spring weather, Sunday morning had dawned brisk and sunny, while noon had seen clouds gather, and the afternoon skies had offered a sleety drizzle.
“You should ask him,” Sycamore replied, giving her cloak a shake, “and we should hang this in the kitchen.” He strode off toward a pair of swinging doors, the sodden cloak leaving a trail of droplets on the bricks of the hallway floor.
Jeanette followed with her umbrella, curious to see the kitchens where so much good food was produced. The space was larger than she’d imagined, being half sunken and high ceilinged.
“Somebody is neat as a pin,” she said, admiring gleaming knives, sparkling tiles, and a black behemoth of a range set against the outside wall. Three turnspits inside an enormous open hearth created a forest of cast-iron gears and chains, while no less than four Dutch ovens had been built into the bricks surrounding the hearth.
“I enter here at my peril after sundown,” Sycamore said, draping Jeanette’s cloak on hooks before the hearth. “Your bonnet could do with drying out.”
Jeanette passed over her millinery, among her plainest, and peeled off damp gloves as well. “I don’t mind that London is often cold,” she said, “but I mind that it’s so dirty when it’s cold.”
“And smelly when it’s hot—smellier.” He hung her hat on another hook, her gloves draped over the brim. “Shall we to the cellar, my lady?”
Jeanette had hoped that familiarity with Sycamore Dorning would reduce his appeal. She had dreamed of him, as if she were a schoolgirl smitten by one of Sir Walter Scott’s brave knights. Dreamed of him walking away, and worse, she had daydreamed of him naked from the waist up, muscles rippling as he let fly with a knife. She was haunted by the memory of his chest, his back, his taut belly, and the roped strength of his arms and shoulders.
Worse yet, she could not get the memory of his smile—naughty and sweet at the same time—from her mind. His mouth was made for smiling, his eyes for flirtation, and his hands…
Jeanette was not smitten, she was merely aware of him as a man. While this occasioned some relief—she was not dead yet, not the Puritan widow she wanted Society to believe she was—she was also at a complete loss for what to do about the persistent desire.
“How are you today?” he asked, leading her through the doorway to the cellar steps.
“I am pleased to see my step-son regularly appearing at breakfast, though he then proceeds to bed and does not rise until it’s time to rejoin you here.”
“Tavistock isn’t stupid,” Sycamore replied. “He has honestly been helpful to me. His lordship notices when a patron is bothering a dealer beneath the table, for example, and he notices when a lady is imbibing too quickly. His youth means the older women find him harmless and easy to talk to, a role that I, in my advancing years, can no longer fulfill.”
“You were never harmless.”
He set the knife case on the head of a barrel and undid the locks. “I am harmless to you, my lady.” He opened the case and passed her a knife, his gaze direct and knowing.
The target was set on a chair a few yards down the corridor. Jeanette took the knife and held it, the hilt now a familiar shape against her palm.
“You are not harmless,” she said, rolling the hilt between her hands. “You disturb my peace by the hour.”
Sycamore stepped behind her. “Focus on the target, your ladyship. If you are frustrated, direct that sentiment at the target, not at my hapless self.”
Frustrated. Was that the word for burning curiosity about a man’s kisses, about the texture of his hair, and the look of him without a stitch of clothing?
“Right,” Jeanette said, forcing herself into the routine her instructor had shown her. Focus, relax, breathe, throw. She cycled through the focus-relax-breathe sequence several times, and yet, Sycamore Dorning’s presence behind her was a weight on her awareness.
She had virtuosic ability to ignore men, a skill developed of necessity during her marriage. She had learned how to mentally sort linen while her husband rutted, to plan a guest list while he snored atop her, to revise a menu while he fumbled himself into a state of arousal and pawed at her breasts.
She could separate mind and body as effectively as Sycamore’s knives sliced through the shadowed cellar to bite into the waiting target.
“Just throw the damned thing, Jeanette. You’re thinking it to death.”
Jeanette. She hurled the knife and was surprised it hit the target.
“You released too soon,” he said, and even that factual statement took on sexual connotations. How often had the late marquess spent only two instants after he’d effected a joining of his body to his wife’s?
“Right,” Jeanette said. “Knife.”
Sycamore slapped the weapon into her hand. “The release is your farewell caress to the blade. Linger a bit.”
Thoroughly indecent images came to mind. This throw also hit the target only a few inches off center.
“Better,” he said. “Less force this time, more precision. Watch the knife as it sails into the wood. You can build up to both speed and force later in the session. Start with accuracy.”
“Knife,” Jeanette growled.
He obliged and stepped back.
She wanted to murder not the target, but her preoccupation with
