She took up a shawl rather than bother with a cloak and saw her guest out through the back garden and across the alley.
“Tavistock was not set upon in an alley,” she said as Sycamore’s earlier comment came back to her. “He was right on the street, and some of his friends weren’t far behind him.”
Sycamore led her around to the back of the stable, to the dusty yard where horses were often groomed, the farrier did his work, and barn cats lounged in the sun.
“Tavistock was very clear that he’d ducked into an alley to have a nip from his flask. While I know the use most gents will put an alley to—the uses—I believe the lad because the fragrance of brandy was strong on his person in the middle of the day.”
Sycamore walked off a distance from the side of the carriage house. No windows broke up that wall, and he used a penknife to scratch three concentric circles at chest height on the wooden siding. From the stable across the yard from the carriage house, curious horses munched hay and watched over their half doors.
“Sycamore, what are you going on about? Tavistock’s mishap occurred late at night, on the street, and the only brandy involved had been consumed over cards at Jerome’s club.”
Sycamore used the heel of his boot to draw a line in the dirt. “Tavistock told you he’d sparred a little too enthusiastically at Jackson’s?”
The cramps in Jeanette’s belly were joined by a feeling of general unease. “He did, and knowing young men, I believed him. He lied to me, didn’t he?”
Sycamore passed her the knife and moved behind her. “He apparently did, though with the best of intentions. Focus on the throw, Jeanette, and aim for the center of the target. We will discuss Tavistock’s little mishap later, but for now, focus on the throw.”
She toed the line and tried to relax and breathe, but when the knife left her hand, it ended up a yard above the ground, buried in a post six feet away from the damned target.
Chapter Nine
Sycamore had in fact brought three knives, all of the same design. Jeanette’s first throw was a predictable disaster, but a dozen more attempts, and she was wielding the blades with reliable accuracy—and no little temper.
“I believe we’ve established that the design works for you,” Sycamore said as another set of three throws clustered toward the middle of the makeshift bull’s-eye. “Do you like it?”
Jeanette glowered at the blades embedded in the carriage house wall. “I suppose I must if I hit the target so consistently.”
“Not so,” Sycamore said, retrieving the knives. “Just as you accommodated the old marquess in every wifely sense, hating the whole ordeal, you can competently throw a knife you don’t care for, or throw well at one distance and fail at every other. Did you enjoy wielding these knives, my lady?”
He slipped one blade into each boot and passed the third to her.
“They fit my hand,” she said, running a finger over the elegant curve of the metal. “The other knives were too big and heavy for me, though I would never have known that without throwing these.”
Sycamore busied himself scratching the ears of a muscular bay gelding rather than watch Jeanette caress the blade.
“Just as this design is an improvement for you over my own knives,” he said, “another design, even lighter, or finished to a smoother grip, might be better still.”
“I like these,” Jeanette said. “May I keep this one?”
“Of course, and I’ll have a case made for the set. Are you calm enough to discuss Tavistock’s lying yet?” He offered the slight to her self-control deliberately as a test of that calm.
She retrieved her shawl from the half door of a pretty chestnut mare. “You throw knives to calm your temper?”
“And my worry.” Sycamore took the shawl from her and draped it over her shoulders, because he needed the excuse to touch her. “Also to help me think. My father would go on long walks to help him solve problems, though his practice was to note all the flora and fauna, the state of the crops, and the condition of the tenant cottages. By the time he came home, the walking had often jostled a solution loose in his brain box.”
“One cannot safely go for long walks in London. Hence, you play with knives.” Jeanette gestured to a bench in the shade of the stable’s overhang. The location was outdoors yet private, a good place to have a difficult conversation. “You are about to present a case for the defense of his lordship, to put a gentlemanly gloss on Trevor’s dishonesty.”
She sank onto the bench a little gingerly, and Sycamore’s wayward imaginings were pushed aside by a reminder that the lady was uncomfortable.
“I hate that you hurt,” he said, taking the place beside her. “I hate even more that you’ve nobody on hand to commiserate with you and cosset you. I want to hold you and pet you and bring you hot water bottles and tisanes while I rub your feet and read you Byron’s poems.”
“Instead, you bring me a sharp blade and a thorny dilemma. I understand why Trevor would keep a fight in an alley to himself. He does not want me to worry, and that is a kind impulse. I have not wanted him to worry, and thus I haven’t been entirely forthcoming either.”
A sparrow lighted on the cobbled walkway ten feet away. Sycamore produced a butter biscuit pilfered from his morning tea tray, broke it in half, and offered one portion to Jeanette.
“Thank you,” she said, taking the treat and popping it into her mouth.
The rest he crumbled up and tossed at the sparrow, who moved from crumb to crumb according to some map known only to the bird.
“Do you refer to general reticence, my lady, or have you, too, been set upon by brigands
