“Then you married the Marquess of Marital Duty and learned to hide your dreams from even yourself. Is something else troubling you, my lady?”
Jeanette set aside the pillow she’d been toying with. “Viola called on me yesterday. She is married to Lord Beardsley, my late husband’s younger brother. Trevor’s only male cousin is their son, Jerome.”
“Whom I have had the pleasure of meeting. They could be brothers, so closely do the cousins resemble each other.” Though Trevor was taller and not as much of a dandy as Jerome, nor did Trevor curl his locks à la Byron. Trevor had no need to be the center of attention, while Jerome always had a pack of fawning cronies with him when he came to the Coventry.
“They are friends, which is a mixed blessing.”
“Family can be like that.” Sycamore’s siblings doubtless considered their connection to him a mixed blessing.
“Jerome isn’t awful, but he’s a typical ornament. His means are too modest to allow him to marry, and why should he? He’s kicking his heels from quarterly allowance to quarterly allowance, and now that Trevor is on hand, he can ride Trevor’s social and financial coattails.”
Jerome was nearly awful, in Sycamore’s expert opinion. He was vain, idle, and jealous of his cousin’s title. Sycamore had seen that in the first half hour of play, and Ash had confirmed his impressions.
“Go on, and perhaps a spot of tea would be in order?” Sycamore did not care for any tea, but he suspected Jeanette would be soothed by a familiar activity.
“The tea. Of course, and please do forgive me. With a drop of honey?”
“I am flattered that you’d recall my preferences. What about Viola’s visit bothered you?”
Jeanette unswaddled the teapot from its linen wrap. She poured with a steady hand and served herself a cup as well.
“Viola threatened me,” Jeanette said. “I was feeling quite on my mettle for a change, unwilling to meekly accept her scolds. When she told me Trevor will come to a bad end by spending time at the Coventry, I replied that Beardsley, who is Trevor’s legal guardian, ought to have a talk with his nephew if Trevor’s doom is so close at hand. Moreover, Jerome was in a better position than I to influence Trevor’s behavior. Viola suggested if I were unwilling or unable to intercede, I would soon find myself consigned to the dower house.”
“Where is the dower house?”
“Derbyshire, at the edge of the Peak.”
Nearly two hundred damned miles from London. Sycamore sipped his tea, an unremarkable and surprisingly weak blend. If Jeanette removed to Derbyshire, he’d… buy an adjoining property?
“How can that threat be carried out?” he asked. “You are a widow, and this house belongs to Trevor. He isn’t about to order you off the premises.”
Jeanette had not tasted her tea, which was probably a surer sign of agitation than if she’d paced and ranted.
“Trevor might send me off—politely, but he has the authority. Why keep me around when he and Jerome could share this house? Viola has never liked me, nor I her, but something about her air was more confident, more dire. She still has two daughters to fire off, and that weighs upon her. She’d like Trevor to marry one of his cousins, and with me out of the way, that scheme would have a better chance of succeeding.”
“For the nonce, Trevor should not be marrying anybody.” Not until he’d met a woman who made him think of leaving all he’d worked for to move to benighted Derbyshire.
“Something is changing, Sycamore. For the past two years, I’ve been the widow out of mourning. I occupy myself with my charities. I socialize enough that I can be a competent hostess for Trevor when the time comes. Until recently, I would have said the dower house was a lovely property, and I could be content there.”
“But?”
“But I have the sense of forces in motion, perhaps because Trevor refused to serve his full sentence at Oxford, or Viola is having trouble launching the younger girls, or Beardsley is tired of my meddling with the solicitors, but something is afoot.”
Sycamore moved to sit beside her. “It’s worse than that. Your staff is behindhand, Jeanette. The tea leaves have been reused, the ferns in the foyer are choking to death in those pretty pots, and somebody is spying on you. You aren’t willing to even close a door in your own home for fear that your behavior will be reported to Viola. Come driving with me.”
“I would have to change my dress.”
“No, you wouldn’t. Find a shawl, don your half boots, and meet me in the foyer in five minutes.”
“You are ordering me about, Mr. Dorning.”
“Pleading with you.”
A hint of her usual self-possession returned. “Very well. Ten minutes.” She kissed his cheek and left him with the tea tray, in which he had no interest. Instead, he used the time to snoop about the residence of the current Marquess of Tavistock.
What he found pleased him not one bit. Boring art, lax housekeeping, lumpy chairs, and no place where a lady might secret herself with a gent bent on stealing so much as a kiss.
Chapter Eight
Driving out with Sycamore Dorning had been a revelation.
He’d called early enough that the park was not yet thronged, and yet, the hour was sufficiently advanced that Jeanette’s excursion had been noticed. To each passing carriage or equestrian, Sycamore had offered a tip of his hat, a nod, a smile.
And he’d received many smiles in return, not only from the ladies.
For Jeanette, there had been other smiles—not exactly friendly, but rather, appraising, assessing, envious. Why is a glorious specimen like him driving out with a Puritan like her?
Jeanette wasn’t a Puritan. She gambled, for pity’s sake, mostly for the mental exercise of working through probabilities and also to get out of the blighted house. She did not, however, engender envious glances from matchmakers, or curious smiles from the eligibles. Not unless Sycamore Dorning was at her side.
Simply
