My lady,
The same unfortunate sequence of events transpired as you made your way home last evening as happened the previous week. I am available to discuss this development at your convenience and will call upon you accordingly.
Your obed serv,
SD
She’d been followed again, which meant she was not imagining things and that somebody knew she was regularly spending time alone with Sycamore at the Coventry.
“How did your call upon the fair Jeanette go?” Beardsley Vincent asked, taking his wife’s cloak.
“We should discuss it, sir, if I might have a moment of your time.” Viola passed her bonnet and parasol to the waiting butler, who had been with the family long enough to send Beardsley a discreet sympathetic glance.
The staff respected Viola, they did not like her, and for reasons Beardsley could not fathom, she preferred it that way. They did like Beardsley and showed him a thousand courtesies and kindnesses as a result, such as keeping their mouths shut about his personal business.
“I am at your service, my dear. I trust Jeanette is in good health?” The late marquess had often grumbled about Jeanette’s good health. If she had to be so damned robust, he’d lamented, why the hell couldn’t she produce a son or three?
His late lordship had stopped short of praying for a tragic accident to befall Jeanette, at least in Beardsley’s hearing. In a stroke of divine irony, the tragic accident had befallen the marquess instead.
Such a pity.
Viola led Beardsley—did not take his arm, did not walk at his side, did not accompany him, but rather, sailed forth before her own husband—to her personal parlor. Beardsley found the room both amusing and slightly unnerving.
Viola’s favorite pastime was collecting dolls, stuffed animals, and dollhouses. In one corner of her private parlor, she’d set up a miniature tea table, the service laid out for two dolls, a bear, and a hedgehog. The glassy-eyed stares of the assemblage, their unchanging postures, and the perfection of the tiny tea service put Beardsley in mind of pharaohs buried with their households.
“Jeanette is in great good health,” Viola began as soon as Beardsley had closed the door, “but, my lord, she is utterly indifferent to the dangerous ground upon which the young marquess treads. Jerome tells me Trevor is all but indentured to those dreadful Dornings at the Coventry. Who knows how much he owes them and where this will end?”
The dreadful Dornings were brothers to an earl, meaning they could not be all that dreadful in the eyes of Society. The sovereign himself occasionally dropped by the Coventry, as did any number of notables.
Jerome, loyal lad that he was, had warned Beardsley of Trevor’s ill-fated sortie to the tables, and Beardsley himself had suggested Jerome also inform Viola. She would take upsetting news better from her son than from her husband.
“Darling wife,” Beardsley said, “calm yourself. Trevor’s tour at the Coventry will end one of two ways. He will either learn much in a short time and emerge a wiser fellow, or he will be drawn into a world for which he is ill-prepared.”
Viola marched up to him, eyes blazing. She had looked after herself over the years and was still a handsome woman. When impassioned like this, Beardsley could almost recall the younger Viola, the one who’d shared a bed with him and hopes for a rosy future.
“And which of those outcomes,” Viola demanded, “do you believe the more likely? He is eighteen, my lord. He hasn’t even finished university, and his wealth is enormous.”
“The family’s wealth is enormous,” Beardsley said. “Tavistock’s access to that wealth is limited until he turns one-and-twenty, and debts of honor are personal. He can gamble himself into dun territory, and beyond a certain point, his only recourse is to take a repairing lease on the Continent.”
“I wouldn’t like to see that,” Viola said. “Though I suppose for a year or two, until he comes of age, some travel might do him good. Diana deserves to enjoy Society with Hera for a bit, after all.”
Viola thought of her unmarried daughters, while Beardsley thought of the larger picture. “Here is how I expect matters will be resolved: Trevor will get in over his head. I will point out to the solicitors that Jeanette not only failed to intervene, but has also socialized with the Dornings and in fact introduced Trevor to them at some house party or other.”
Viola patted Beardsley’s lapel and stepped back. “That is true. Lady Wentwhistle’s gathering caused a fair amount of talk. She held a tournament at the card tables, and Tavistock lost badly, while Jeanette won a significant sum. Both Mr. Ash Dorning and Mr. Sycamore Dorning were present at that house party.”
Viola could have doubtless recited the guest list in order of precedence.
“Jeanette is getting above herself, but, Viola, I tell you honestly that anything that coaxes Tavistock out from under her watchful eye is a good thing. She exercises far too much influence over his lordship, and she is not even a blood relation to him.”
Viola moved to her tea tableau, adjusting one doll’s braid, straightening the other’s pinafore. “We are in agreement in that regard, Husband. Jeanette ought by rights to content herself with a placid existence at the dower house. It’s nobody’s fault but hers that she has no children to occupy her, and yet, here she is, hanging on to Tavistock’s coattails like a governess with a toddler.”
Beardsley had suggested Jerome court the woman. Jeanette was wealthy, and much of that wealth had been provided by the Vincent family, after all.
“Exactly as you say,” Beardsley replied. “Jeanette is de trop and hasn’t the grace to quit the scene. I am confident that she will shortly be forced to heed my direction to take herself off to Tavistock Hall, leaving Trevor free of her meddling.”
Viola sat the bear up higher on his little chair and stroked the hedgehog’s quills. “Forced how?”
“Lady Tavistock’s brother is a man with
