“This isn’t how it’s supposed to be, Goddard, where you don’t speak to your only sibling, keep a niece hidden from her, and try to manage all on your own. We have family for good reasons. We make more family as we go on, and that’s for good reasons too. Jeanette might have helped you weather that storm, but you didn’t give her the chance.”
The child rose and scampered to a different patch of grass, flopping to the ground without a care for her snow-white pinafore. Her hair had reddish highlights, and something about her bony little knees struck Sycamore as another family trait.
“The child is not my niece,” Goddard said. “Dornings might grow family like topsy, but Jeanette and I… Jeanette knows how to take care of herself. It’s what she does best. I had no business having her followed, but I do not trust Jerome.”
Sycamore clasped his hands behind his back, so great was the urge to plant Goddard a facer. “Jeanette has been taking care of everybody else since she was a girl. She married to see that you had your commission and to keep your father out of debtors’ prison. She took on the raising of the present marquess lest he turn into the same sort of monster as his father. She endured her husband’s pawing and disrespect because she sensed he was a fragile and shallow man. She tacitly manages young Tavistock’s funds because Uncle Beardsley hasn’t the knack.”
Sycamore stepped closer, lest Goddard think to saunter off again. “Of course Jeanette takes care of herself, because she can’t trust her worthless menfolk to help her with the perishing job.”
And when Sycamore had tried to appoint himself to the role of protector…? She’d collected her things and told him to go play with his knives.
A great weight lifted from his shoulders as insight took its place. He was still worried nearly witless about Jeanette’s situation, but he was no longer worried that she cared nothing for him. She cared for him, cared for him a very great deal.
Enough to protect him, enough to put herself in harm’s way for his sake.
Sycamore strode down the walk until he came to the patch of grass. He sank onto his knees beside the child and waited for her to stop searching long enough to treat him to another serious inspection.
“Cousin Rye doesn’t like you, sir.”
“Cousin Rye is having a bad day, as grouchy old fellows sometimes do. I’m Sycamore.” Cousin Sycamore would have been an improvement, but with children, only the literal truth would do.
“I’m Nettie. I’m looking for a lucky clover to give to Cousin Rye.”
“You are very intent on your mission. I need to borrow your cousin for a couple of hours, but I promise I’ll return him in one piece.”
Goddard watched this exchange with the banked wariness of a wild beast, ready to pounce at the least hint of harm to his cub.
Nettie sprang to her feet, nimble as a baby goat, and hugged Goddard about the waist. “Au revoir, Cousin. I will find you a lucky clover the next time I visit.”
Goddard caught her up in a hug. “Be good for Tante Lucille, Nettie. If the weather holds, nurse will take you for an ice on your way home.”
“I will be perfect,” Nettie said, squeezing Goddard about the neck. “Better than perfect. You will see, Cousin!” She skipped away and disappeared into the house, while Sycamore kept to himself entire lectures about perfect little girls who felt it incumbent to find their menfolk some luck.
“Why this urgency, Dorning?” Goddard asked as Sycamore led him through the garden gate and into the alley. “Why intrude into Jeanette’s affairs when she obviously gave you your congé?”
“Jeanette has not given me my congé. Just the opposite.” This visit with Goddard had clarified that much, which was an enormous relief. “She put a challenge before me, though she won’t see it like that.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Jeanette has added me to the collection of men whom she feels she must protect. I am honored to have her devotion, but I must take issue with how she expresses her regard for me. Come along, Goddard. We are off to pay a call on the estimable and insufferable Worth Kettering.”
Chapter Thirteen
The note came one week after Jeanette had recovered from her bout of food poisoning.
Now will you leave?
Four words that created something of a puzzle, considering that Jeanette had agreed to marry Jerome. The prospect was distasteful, though Jerome was amenable to a platonic union. Why would Viola, or Beardsley, or the pair of them still try to drive her off when she’d expressed a willingness to capitulate to their schemes?
“Will there be anything else, my lady?” Peem asked, hesitating by the sideboard.
“No, thank you, Peem.”
He bowed and withdrew from the breakfast parlor, his gait stately. Jeanette had hired two more footmen and a lady’s companion, but that staff would not take up their duties until the end of the week. She was safe until she married Jerome, and then she would, by arrangement with her intended, withdraw to the dower house.
Far from Beardsley, Viola, petty gossips… and the terrible temptation Sycamore Dorning presented.
Then too, Jerome lacked the old marquess’s bitterness, but he had enough of his late lordship’s mannerisms and appearance that Jeanette could never dwell comfortably under the same roof with him.
So she would flee to the shires and hope that her fortune was the only price she was made to pay for dwelling in obscurity. Her fortune, and her heart.
Jeanette no longer ate eggs when she broke her fast. She locked her sitting room and bedroom doors every night before retiring. She refused all invitations. The excuse of record was a spring cold, but she’d also taken to practicing with her knives when the alley was deserted. Until the settlements were signed, she wasn’t safe.
And thus Sycamore Dorning was not safe.
“Pardon me, my
