The less said about Trevor’s sole male cousin, the better. “Have you given any more thought to returning to your studies?” Supper at Jerome’s club would turn into a few hands of cards, which would turn into Trevor owing money to Jerome or to one of Jerome’s dodgy friends.
Trevor set his plate at the head of the table. Jeanette had abdicated that position when Trevor had turned eighteen, though when she was eating alone—which she did most evenings at home—she sometimes moved her place setting to its former location.
Widows were permitted a few eccentricities, after all.
“I don’t know as I shall return to my studies,” Trevor said, setting a full rack of toast by his plate. “Butter?”
Jeanette passed him the dish, knowing it would be empty before Trevor finished eating. He was an active young man, and his appetite was bottomless. His father, by contrast, had been a sybarite, preferring a few elegant pleasures indulged with exquisite focus. Havana cheroots, silk shirts, specific French vintages, and half-wild bloodstock.
“You have never said exactly why you left university, Trevor.” And Jeanette hadn’t until now asked him directly.
“Boredom,” he said, scraping butter over his toast. “Two years of Latin, Greek, natural philosophy, mathematics, and great literature after years of same from my tutors and public school were enough to impart a general flavor. Might I have the tea?”
Trevor was such a dear, and such a bad liar. “You are scholarly by nature, sir. You did not leave out of boredom.”
He made himself a sandwich of scrambled eggs, bacon, and buttered toast—university-boy fare. “I did, actually. One can study anywhere, and our library here in Town is ample enough that I will always find something interesting to read, but the company at school…” He munched thoughtfully. “How many times am I to laugh at the same fart jokes? How often should I flirt pointlessly with the same harried tavern maids who smile at me because they would rather earn coin with a smile than through more intimate means? How many references to male anatomy or female anatomy is one conversation supposed to hold? I found it all pointless.”
That, Jeanette could believe. Trevor’s calling lay, if anywhere, in the Church. He was an earnest soul who cared for others. He had a wide streak of decency and was generally liked. He had not, however, referred to making any good friends in his two years among the philistines.
And alas for him, he was a marquess and fated to sit in the Lords.
“Is the company at Jerome’s club so much more sophisticated?” she asked, passing over the teapot.
“A hit, Step-mama, but that lot does occasionally discuss politics. What is the point of passing labor reforms if Parliament won’t tuck along any money for enforcing the new rules? Factory hours can be reduced, but then somebody needs to drop ’round and make sure the place is actually closing when it is supposed to.”
Great Jehovah’s hoary beard. Jeanette mentally chided herself for underestimating Jerome’s choice of companions, a potentially dangerous mistake.
“That’s what you’ll discuss with Jerome?”
“Well, no.” Trevor’s smile was bashful. “Jerome is smitten with the Chalfont heiress. I will have to hear about her ankles and her ears, I’m sure. Noble brows might earn a mention as well, along with a discreet reference to her settlements.”
How different that lament was from Sycamore Dorning’s bewildered late-night confession. He loved his sisters-in-law, clearly, and he resented them to a lady.
“Has your fancy been taken by any particular ears or ankles?”
The Tavistock succession hung by a pair of slender threads, namely, Trevor and Jerome, though Jerome’s father was still extant. Lord Beardsley Vincent was loyally, if not exactly happily, married, and his lady wife was no longer of an age to bear children.
“Allow me some privacy, Step-mama,” Trevor said. “You cannot shoo me back to school one moment and shoo me into parson’s mousetrap the next.”
From Trevor, that was a rebuke, albeit a gentle one. Jeanette was torn between a need to protect Trevor from the heartaches adulthood inevitably brought and resentment of her role as his sole parent, counselor, and authority figure.
“I want you to be happy,” she said, sipping tepid tea and searching for honesty. “I ask about the young ladies because I suspect Uncle Beardsley lectures you endlessly to take a wife and secure the succession. There’s time for that Trevor, time later.”
“Uncle Beardsley’s letters to me at university were… I sometimes think Aunt Viola wrote them. They sound very like the letters she sends to Jerome. She has his allowance all budgeted, right down to which chop shop should have his patronage even though it’s five streets away from his rooms. If he can save tuppence by walking the distance and eating cold hash, then walk the distance he must.”
The Vincent family had profited enormously over the past century from Britain’s preoccupation with conquest and war. Soldiers had to be clothed, fed, armed, and shod, and every phase of that undertaking meant profit for a few and expense for the ratepayers. Six marquesses ago, when the Dutch were still hostile to English shipping, the Vincents had figured out how to stay on the profitable side of the equation.
Two marquesses ago, with the loss to the Americans, the situation had shifted, and not in favor of the marquesses. Jeanette was very comfortably well-off, and Trevor would be considered wealthy, but he’d not have the fabulous fortune his grandfather had enjoyed.
And Lord Beardsley’s situation had honestly become a trifle straitened. “Aunt Viola has two more daughters to marry off,” Jeanette said, “and she is quite particular about whom she will accept as a son-in-law. Jerome would do well to heed his mama’s advice.”
Trevor paused to construct a second sandwich. “Jere says Auntie has me in mind for Cousin Hera. You must not abet that scheme, Step-mama. Promise, and don’t let her throw me at Cousin Diana either.”
In Trevor’s earnest smile, Jeanette caught a glimpse of the slender, curious, soft-spoken boy he’d once been.
“I promise.
