“We will merely call upon little Nettie,” Jeanette said. “Introduce ourselves. Would she like a new doll?”
Rye studied the botanical print of some seven-petaled white flowers blooming amid dark green foliage. “She has a half-dozen dolls.”
“A stuffed pony?” Dorning suggested. “Some mighty steeds for the dolls to charge about on?”
“She has several of those.”
“A little tea set?” Jeanette asked. “A hobby horse?”
Rye shook his head, feeling abruptly very foolish. “She needs books in English, the sort of books girls might like to read.”
Jeanette acquired a determined expression that Rye recalled from her earliest youth, one that accentuated her resemblance to Nettie. “I will consult my sisters-in-law, and we will make a list.”
“The child will need a library to house the results,” Dorning said. “Trust me on this, Goddard. I notice you did not answer Jeanette’s question about other French relatives hiding in the hedges. Have we only the one small cousin to spoil?”
“Yes.” Jacques hadn’t been able to get any of his older children to safety, and his wife had refused to abandon them. “Nettie has siblings in Provence, and they are well provided for.”
“No parents?” Dorning asked quietly.
Rye shook his head. “Nor grandparents. I’ll take my leave and send around the direction if Lucille is willing to receive us on Friday.”
“If not Friday,” Jeanette said, taking up the knife Dorning had put on the table, “you ask her when, Rye. Nettie has lost much, but she has us.”
Jeanette threw the knife with as much force as Dorning had, and her throw landed closer to the center of the target than his.
“Please do not think to furnish the child with weapons,” Rye said. “She’s five, as best I can figure.”
“No knives,” Dorning said, “yet. I will see you out.”
The moment turned awkward, for how did a brother take leave of the sister whom he’d all but scorned for several years?
Rye took the six steps necessary to reach for Jeanette’s hand, but she rose and wrapped him in a hug instead.
“I have missed you, Rye. Missed you sorely and worried over you. I never wanted you to go to war, and I wish…”
He gave her a gentle squeeze, and it hit him with a hard pang of the heart that she was not the seventeen-year-old girl who’d seen him off to Spain. He and Jeanette had missed much, while he’d been soldiering and she’d been enduring a difficult marriage. They had missed much since he’d come home as well, and that was also his fault.
“I wish too, Jeanette. But we have today.” A refrain among the refugees who gathered around Lucille’s pretty tea service.
“We also have business to discuss,” Dorning said when Rye stepped back. “Come along, Goddard, and tell me when I might have my champagne.”
Rye had already sent Dorning a specific date by letter, and Dorning had provided a deposit as a show of good faith by return post. Dorning kept silent until Rye was at the front door, coat buttoned, walking stick in hand, and the butler had withdrawn belowstairs.
“You did not tell Jeanette you’d come upon Nettie in my garden months ago,” Rye said. “I appreciate your discretion.”
“The encounter slipped my mind until recently,” Dorning replied. “I have been preoccupied with getting off on a sound marital foot with my wife. Which I am, by the way. A splendidly sound marital foot.”
Rye peered through a spotless window to study the traffic passing on the street beyond. “Your foot has nothing to do with Jeanette’s air of contentment, Dorning.”
“Noticed that, did you? Jeanette does seem to be truly content. She’s learning the bookkeeping for the club from my brother Ash, she’s a dab hand at correspondence, and she talks recipes with Miss Pearson. Even Delacourt seems to like Jeanette. They speak French so quickly I cannot tell if they are arguing or teasing, but Jeanette says I need not worry, so I don’t.”
“You worry,” Rye said, finding a backward humor in the realization. “You worry like a commanding officer worries for his recruits and a mama bear worries for her cubs.”
Dorning smiled, all charm and self-satisfaction. “A papa bear, please. Shall Jeanette and I take little Nettie driving in the park if the weather’s fine?”
“No, you shall not.”
Dorning’s smile became a smirk. “Don’t be peevish, Goddard. You have neglected to show the little dear the wonders of London, but Jeanette and I can correct your oversight and take her for a treat or two at Gunter’s. The menagerie would doubtless delight a child of such tender years, and one must not neglect to feed—”
“Pour l'amour de Dieu, chut.”
Dorning looked Rye up and down. “And why should I hush?”
“Because a discreet call upon the girl is one thing, but now is not the time to announce that Jeanette has established ties with a long-lost French cousin.”
Dorning glanced back in the direction of the parlor and heaved a put-upon sigh. “This is complicated?”
“The matter requires discretion.”
“Shall I call on you this afternoon?”
Nothing and nobody—least of all Sycamore Perishing Dorning—would come between Rye and the afternoon’s call from Ann Pearson.
“Join me at the Aurora for dinner. We can dine early in deference to your responsibilities at the Coventry.”
“We will dine at the usual hour, lest Jeanette fret because you and I are off in the corner being discreet. I have no secrets from my wife, Goddard.”
A state of affairs about which Dorning was inordinately proud. “Nor would I ask you to keep any, but you do apparently claim a modicum of discretion, despite all press to the contrary. I will see you tonight.”
Dorning held the door for him. Rye checked the street to ensure Louis was in sight, then trotted down the steps and made for home.
Chapter Eight
“We are de trop, Colonel.” Ann tugged gently on Orion Goddard’s arm. “Leave the infantry unsupervised for a moment.”
He tarried in the doorway to the servants’ hall, his gaze on the children clustered at the end of the table nearest the hearth.
“She looks happy,” he said, gaze on Hannah and the boys enjoying the butter biscuits Ann and Hannah had brought from the Coventry’s kitchens. “She looks rosy and proud and happy. Thank you.”
“She was even happier to make her first batch of butter biscuits this morning,” Ann said. “The cinnamon aroma in the kitchen, the taste of the first batch warm from the bake oven, the longing glances from the waiters and footmen… She reveled in all of it. Hannah will make an excellent cook, if early days tell the tale.”
Though they often did not. The absconding apprentice was a caricature in British humor, but all too often a reality as well.
“I am in your debt,” Goddard said, “and you are correct. My hovering presence isn’t necessary. I would invite you up to the guest parlor there to lament the weather with me, except I forgot to light the fire until you were on my doorstep, and the room is quite chilly. My office is warmer, if you can bear the slight to good manners.”