“Your butler referred to me as Mr. Doorknob. This suggests both his hearing and his eyesight have suffered the ravages of time.”
“Mr. Doorknob?”
“In all seriousness, while peering at my handsome little calling card.”
Jeanette’s lip twitched. “Mr. Doorknob. Peem is the soul of dignity. He wasn’t being insulting on purpose.”
“Of course not, but given the contents of my latest note, you might want to consider replacing him with somebody a little more…”
“Peem has been with the family for ages,” Jeanette said, “and it’s not for me to suggest he retire.”
“Yes, it is. Tavistock doesn’t think it’s his place, so that leaves you, and don’t tell me that a gentleman doesn’t argue with a lady. Where your safety is concerned, I am prepared to impersonate a barbarian.”
“You are a barbarian,” she said, smiling at the silk roses.
Finally, a smile. “Your barbarian.”
Her expression became complicated, a little exasperated, a little bewildered. “I have missed you.”
“Thank God. I’d hate to think I’m the only one staring off into space at odd moments, wondering what day it is, and forgetting where I put the spectacles perched on my nose.”
Before Sycamore could embarrass himself with further confessions, a footman who might have gone to sea on the Ark pushed a tea trolley into the parlor.
“Shall I pour, your ladyship?” he asked.
“No need, Elliott. Thank you.”
“Will there be anything else?”
“No, thank you.”
Elliott perused Sycamore with the gravity of a disapproving bishop, offered a stately bow, and withdrew at a similarly unhurried pace.
“Please tell me,” Sycamore said, “that you have at least one footman under the age of thirty who could be dispatched hotfoot to rouse the watch should the household catch fire.”
“You aren’t worried about the household catching fire.”
“When I behold you, my lady, I worry about my privities catching fire, for my imagination is already ablaze.”
He’d hoped to make her smile again with that riposte, but her expression was, if anything, nonplussed.
“Forgive me,” Sycamore said. “I am not flirting, I am stating the truth. I will put aside further disclosures regarding how utterly smitten I am with you and focus on the business I came to discuss.”
“Please do.” Jeanette made no move to pour the tea, suggesting her calm was manufactured at the cost of considerable self-control. “I do not care for the notion that I’m being followed.”
“I loathe it. Did you suspect somebody was keeping an eye on you before you sought to learn the use of the knife?”
Jeanette toyed with the fringe of a blue velvet pillow. “I had a feeling, a vague sense of unease. I went out to the stables one morning to check on my mare—she’d shown a little soreness the day before, though she’d not been lame—and a stable boy I’d never seen before was raking an aisle that was already perfectly raked. I haven’t come across him since.”
This was bad, and yet, this was information Sycamore should have asked for two knife lessons and one passionate coupling ago.
“Go on.”
“I was shopping for a memento to remark my niece Diana’s come out and picked up several other items for her sisters. A set of beaded gloves, an embroidered silk reticule, a silver bookmarker with the Tavistock coat of arms etched upon it. The same young ticket porter was on hand at each shop to take my purchases home for me.”
“He followed you rather than take the first item home when your maid passed it to him.”
“Or he knew how ladies go from shop to shop and was being sensible, but I’ve never known a ticket porter to carry three items when he can earn his coin carrying one.”
Neither had Sycamore. “Is there anything else I should know?”
“I told myself I sought to learn to use knives mostly out of boredom, but I have been uneasy too. As you note, the staff here is aging and not exactly loyal to me. I wanted a project of my own, and you… you tempted me. Since the Wentwhistle house party, I tried to put you from my mind, but you refused to be banished.”
Sycamore was torn between pleasure that he’d attracted her ladyship’s notice months ago and the need to look more closely at the unease she’d referred to.
“You are uneasy, you decide to learn to use a knife, and then you find out you’re being followed from the Coventry and elsewhere. Now other incidents that caused you little concern at the time are appearing in a less sanguine light. Do I have that right?”
Not a cheering recitation.
“You do,” she replied. “My mare is recovered from whatever ailed her—a stone bruise, apparently—and Trevor and I went for a rare hack together this morning. I was so pleased to be doing something enjoyable with him again, and yet, I suspect we were followed.”
“Did you get a look at your pursuer?”
She shook her head. “I heard hoof beats on the path behind us. My mare whinnied, and another horse responded. When Trevor and I picked up the pace, so did whoever pursued us. The only place for a truly good gallop is along Rotten Row, but we were not followed there. Please tell me I am being fanciful.”
“You are the least fanciful woman I know. If your instincts are telling you to be wary, my lady, be wary. Is there more?”
She wore no jewelry, and her hair was done up in a simple chignon. How Sycamore would have loved to have started his day watching her rise and dress, to have brushed out her hair for her and tied the slippers on her feet.
The intensity of his feelings should have been alarming. Instead of alarm, what he felt was fascination—with her, with the deep sense of yearning and protectiveness she inspired.
“I can be fanciful,” Jeanette said. “I said nothing to Trevor this morning because of course somebody else might simply have been taking the same bridle path we were, and maintaining a polite distance. I used to
