He read the paper, a cup of tea at his elbow. Whether the difference was a few weeks of boxing at Jackson’s and fencing at Angelo’s, or a few nights at Sycamore’s side at the Coventry, Jeanette’s step-son was growing into his consequence.
On his smallest finger, he wore a signet ring that Jeanette had last seen on her late husband.
“Good morning,” she said, looking over the offerings on the sideboard. “Will you go for a hack after breakfast?” No small omelet in the blue-flowered dish, just the larger variety prepared for his lordship.
“I think not,” Trevor said, putting the paper aside and rising. “How are you?”
Trevor’s plate held the detritus of ham, bacon, eggs, and toast, but Jeanette’s belly wasn’t up to such adventures. She set an empty plate at her place on the table.
“I am well, and you?” She was not well, but she was determined, which was nearly the same thing.
Trevor held her chair, not a courtesy he typically showed her. “Your digestion still troubles you.”
“Mr. Dorning has been telling tales.” Jeanette spread her table napkin on her lap and wondered if toast and butter could be poisoned. She’d left the Coventry barely able to walk unassisted, thinking only to find some peace and quiet in which to think.
In the light of a new day, her list was revealed to be inadequate. Peace and quiet were all well and good, but peace, quiet, and safety would have been better. Sycamore had been quite right about that.
But safety for her alone would not suffice.
“Mr. Dorning refused to leave your side,” Trevor said, “to hear the undercook tell it. He sent for a physician who was as knowledgeable as he was discreet, and no effort was spared to keep you comfortable.”
“Are you scolding me for eating some bad eggs, Trevor?”
Trevor set the teapot by her elbow. “No, Jeanette, I am not scolding you. I am simply curious as to what in blazes you think you’re doing here, at the self-same table where you consumed those bad eggs? Dorning knew precisely how you were poisoned, and a larger dose of the same plant has occasionally been fatal.”
“Do not take that tone with me, Trevor.”
“Do not engage in the sort of stubborn display of bravado that results in young men expiring in their beds from drinking too many bottles of spirits on a bet.”
Jeanette put two pieces of toast on her plate and made no move to add butter or jam. “You sound exactly like your father, and that is not a compliment. I merely ate breakfast, Trevor. That is not a stubborn display of bravado.”
“You threw Sycamore Dorning’s proposal back in his face.”
Abruptly, Jeanette felt miserable in a whole different way. Her head still hurt, and her belly was tentative, but now her heart joined in the sense of leaden doom.
“He wasn’t proposing for the right reasons, Trevor. He was upset and flailing around for a means to bring the situation under control. Though I like Mr. Dorning, his behavior wasn’t that different from your papa’s, marrying solely to address a lack of heirs.”
She had tried that reasoning out on Sycamore, and he hadn’t been much impressed by it. Neither was Jeanette, but then, that was hardly her whole argument for leaving the Coventry—and him.
“Mr. Dorning deserves to marry a woman who can reciprocate his affections,” Jeanette said, pouring herself a cup of tea.
“You reciprocate his affections,” Trevor said, watching the teapot tremble in Jeanette’s hand. “He is wild for you.”
“Mr. Dorning is wild for a different woman every fortnight. That’s part of his charm.” Forgive me, Sycamore.
Trevor took the toast from her plate and applied butter, as a nanny might do for a charge in the nursery. “Either the poison affected your reasoning powers, or you are hatching up some machination which I cannot fathom. Dorning loves you. He would die for you, he would kill for you. He’d take a torch to the club he depends on for his livelihood and turn his back on all of Society for you.”
Precisely what Jeanette did not want. She stared at the cold, buttered toast on her plate. “You used to be such a sweet boy.”
Trevor sat back, his gaze holding nothing of that sweet boy. “Did you reject Dorning’s overture because you sought to guard me, Jeanette?”
The sweet boy had become a shrewd young man. “You are alone here, surrounded by aging staff of questionable loyalty. You can use an ally.”
Trevor rose—when had his height become so imposing?—and aimed at Jeanette the first contemptuous look she could recall him turning on anybody.
“Don’t protect me, Jeanette. I’m not yet of age, but neither am I the motherless child you took up for so many times with Papa. I heard you arguing with him, and I told myself I would never be like him—shouting and insulting a woman I was supposed to esteem. So I won’t shout and insult you, but neither will I stand idly by while you put your life at risk, supposedly for my sake. If you have any sense, you will send Dorning a note of apology and marry him by special license.”
He stalked out of the breakfast parlor, the silence all the louder because he’d not raised his voice.
Jeanette managed one slice of toast and two cups of plain tea before Peem brought her the morning mail. No note lurked among the usual invitations and correspondence, though Peem dithered for a good five minutes while Jeanette sipped tea and read through the solicitor’s latest report.
She was debating whether to attempt another discussion with Trevor when Jerome came sauntering into the parlor, his hair windblown, his riding boots less than pristine.
“Have I missed Tav already? I thought the day too nice to remain abed and hoped to join him for a hack.”
“Tavistock has broken his fast and has likely gone up to catch a nap,” Jeanette said, assaying a cordial smile. “Feel free to help yourself to the buffet, Jerome, and tell me how your dear sisters
