And that was another courtesy, to treat her own brother to the manners due a caller. Rye took the wing chair facing the parlor door, which seemed to amuse Dorning.
“Shall I ring for a tray?” Jeanette asked, resuming her place on the sofa. Dorning, of course, took the place beside her and possessed himself of her hand, as if Rye might presume so far as to ask his sister to stroll with him in the garden.
“A tray won’t be necessary. I don’t want to take up much of your time, but I did want to thank both you and Dorning for your kindness toward Hannah.”
Dorning left off stroking Jeanette’s wrist. “Miss Pearson’s apprentice has been entered on the wage books as Hannah Goddard. Jeanette saw no reason to keep the girl’s family connection quiet.”
This was not good, and a problem Rye should have foreseen. “As I have never married, and Hannah bears my name, the inferences might redound to Hannah’s discredit.”
Dorning linked his fingers with Jeanette’s. “Not in the kitchen, they won’t. In the kitchen, an association by marriage with the Dorning family will keep my chef from being unduly stupid where the girl is concerned.”
Now was not the time to inform Dorning that Rye’s reputation was undergoing one of its periodic whippings at the figurative cart’s tail, but that discussion would have to take place soon.
“I see your point,” Rye said, “though allowing Hannah to claim that connection might also make her more resented.”
“Stop it.” Jeanette shook her hand free from her husband’s grasp. “Both of you stop circling each other like tomcats in the stable yard. I have asked Miss Pearson to keep me apprised of Hannah’s progress and spoken to Jules Delacourt myself regarding my interest in this particular apprentice. He has assured me that he will do all in his power to see the girl well educated.”
And Jeanette, having little acquaintance with a Frenchman in a temper, would have been satisfied with those reassurances.
“In any case,” Rye said, “you extended a kindness to a member of my household, and I am grateful to you both.”
“You’re welcome,” Dorning said, the words anything but gracious. “Will you blow retreat now that you’ve done your duty? Scamper off to your club for recluses and reappear seven years hence to thank us again when Hannah’s apprenticeship is complete?”
“I have promised Jeanette I will not play least in sight again, Dorning, and I keep my word. To that end, I wanted to acquaint my sister with a family matter that might one day concern her.”
Jeanette passed her husband a knife that had been sitting atop a bound volume on the low table. The blade was designed for throwing, a single dark curve of metal that ended in a lethal point.
“Rye, are you well?”
“I am, actually.” Impending cold weather had caused his hip to stiffen up of a morning, but other than that, the headaches were infrequent, and he was sleeping reasonably well. “I haven’t anything truly serious to impart, but I thought you should know that our cousin Jacques’s daughter is here in London, a child of about five. I’ve placed her in the keeping of Lucille Roberts, whose family owned land near Grand-mère’s farms.”
Jeanette and her husband exchanged some sort of look. “The Roberts family owned quite a lot of land, didn’t they?” Jeanette asked. “They raised the traditional herbs, thyme, basil, rosemary… I forget what else. Mama corresponded with them.”
Ann Pearson would know each of the traditional herbs of Provence and have her own recipe for blending them.
“Jacques married one of the Roberts ladies,” Rye replied. “He managed to send the child here before Wellington made it into France. She was an infant at the time and recalls nothing of the journey.” Thank God.
“I have a cousin in London?”
“A small cousin at some remove, and like you, she is named for Grand-mère. Nettie looks a little like you.”
Jeanette’s husband watched her and said nothing. Dorning had come upon little Nettie in Rye’s back garden just the once, months ago, and apparently had said nothing about the encounter.
“I would like to meet her,” Jeanette said. “Nettie is family.”
That was the response Rye had been hoping for, and yet, to share Nettie with Jeanette also meant a loss. The upbringing of a girl child would more naturally fall to Jeanette, and Rye would no longer be the only cousin visiting Nettie’s household.
“I will happily introduce you to her.”
“Introduce us,” Dorning said, casually hurling the knife in the direction of a cork target on the opposite wall. “I am well versed in the art of doting upon younger female relations, and this Nettie person will benefit from my expertise. She can laugh at my French, and I will let her dance upon my toes.”
Rye would be doubly displaced then, because a married couple would have more to offer an orphaned child than a military bachelor did.
“She is bilingual, though French is still her preferred tongue. I don’t want her to lose the French, but neither do I…”
“You don’t want her to suffer for her heritage,” Jeanette said. “I understand. Are there other relatives lurking on your coattails, Rye?”
“She is not on my coattails. I have inherited more of the family’s French holdings than is my due, and any number of Frenchmen regard that as a gross injustice. Perhaps one day, some of those holdings can be Nettie’s.”
“I have a platoon of siblings,” Dorning remarked, “and yet, they collectively do not haul about half of the complications and secrets that Jeanette’s one brother seems to have acquired. When can we meet the girl?”
That Rye’s visit had achieved its objective should not leave him feeling so empty. “I’ll send a note around to Tante Lucille and see if Friday suits. Please do not think to pluck Nettie away from all that is familiar. She is dear to Lucille and has a circle of little friends among the émigré community.”
Dorning retrieved the knife from the center of the target. If Ann Pearson ever watched Rye the way Jeanette watched her husband merely stroll across the room, Rye dearly hoped that he and the lady were behind a locked door on that happy occasion. Dorning was somehow preening for his wife’s delectation, even in the way he walked, even in the way he stroked the point of the blade with his fingertip.
“The situation is more complicated than simply a child fond of her playmates, isn’t it?” Jeanette asked. “You support Lucille Roberts. She probably supports others with your largesse, or aids them. Removing Nettie to dwell with me here would be like pulling a loose thread that unravels half a garment.”
Rye had forgotten what a noticing sort of female Jeanette was. In a little sister, that trait had been inconvenient.
“Precisely,” he said. “Lucille does not hire a drawing instructor for Nettie, but a neighbor drops by regularly and provides that service over a full tea tray. Nettie’s clothes are stitched up by another neighbor, because Lucille’s eyesight—which misses nothing—is too dim to manage the chore. The nursemaid sends half her pay back to France and so forth. These people cannot go home, so they make a home here as best they can.”
Dorning laid the knife on the low table, which was proof positive this household was not ready to receive a child. That thought begged the question of whether the boys had taken a notion to inspect Rye’s sword without permission, for the damned thing still hadn’t been returned to its proper place.