“And now?”
Sycamore took up Jeanette’s hoop and traced his fingers over pretty butterflies and blooming buttercups. Winter in London was a dark, noisome prospect compared to the open air and sweeping, snowy vistas of Dorsetshire.
“Now, one person gives notice after years of loyal service, and I face hours of interviews to replace her, the delicate task of finding somebody who can do the job without offending Jules’s sense of indispensability, and the inevitable jostling about in the kitchen pecking order when staff changes… Better now than in the spring, but the whole prospect is tiresome. I wanted to spend much of this winter kitting out the house in Richmond.”
Also snuggling with his wife, of course.
“Has Miss Pearson said why she’s leaving?”
The satin threads were smooth and luminous against the white linen, and Jeanette’s skill with the needle exquisite. She was equally adept at picking loose the threads of a problem.
“No, and that bothers me too. Miss Pearson doesn’t mention career advancement, matrimonial ambitions, or an aging cousin in the north. She is held in near veneration by the staff, which I’m sure contributes to Jules’s sense of discontent in the kitchen, and unless I miss my guess, most of the food we serve is the result of her recipes.”
“Nearly all of it.”
“Jules says English tastes aren’t sophisticated enough for his best creations.”
Jeanette took her embroidery from him and stashed it in a wicker workbasket. “Jules talks a lot. How much is he actually cooking?”
Sycamore ventured into the kitchen during working hours only occasionally, and that bothered him as well. He owned the damned club, or owned much of it. Why was he hesitant to roam anywhere on its premises at any hour?
“I love the Coventry,” Sycamore said. “I love the complexity of it, the challenge.”
“You love being able to show your family that you can make money—something Dornings do not excel at generally—and entertain the highest society night after night. You take pride in that club.”
“Well, yes, but I also simply like the work. I like charming the dowagers and consoling the bachelors on their loneliness. I like providing employment for a lot of good folk who seek only a decent wage and the occasional thanks in exchange for hard work. I like how the whole place works together—from the cellars to the buffet to the tables to the staff to the ledgers—to create something fine. Nobody needs the Coventry, and yet, London is a little more dashing for featuring such a venue.”
Jeanette shifted to straddle Sycamore’s lap. “But?”
“But I have proved my point, Jeanette. The Coventry is a business to be proud of, and now I would like to spend more time with you, making the Richmond property into a profitable garden farm. Looking in on the nieces and nephews, taking you to Paris.”
“While I would like to take you to bed.”
“Bed is a lovely destination, provided you join me there.”
She kissed him, which had the delightful effect of putting the whole complication of Miss Pearson’s leaving at a slight distance. Married life involved the occasional midafternoon nap with Jeanette, though such naps—while highly restorative—involved little sleeping.
“You should talk to Miss Pearson,” Jeanette said when she’d allowed Sycamore to come up for air. “Or I can talk to her.”
“I’ve already told her I will need time to find a replacement. Mrs. Dorning, you aren’t wearing stays.”
“While you are still in full morning attire.”
“I’m sure you will remedy my error. What exactly should I talk to Miss Pearson about?”
“Why is she leaving now? Something is brewing in your kitchen, Mr. Dorning.”
“Something is brewing in my breeches. Shall we to the bedroom, Jeanette?”
She rose and took him by the hand. “I could do with a nap and a cuddle, now that you mention it.”
“When is a nap and a cuddle ever a bad idea?”
A nap and a cuddle with Jeanette was, in fact, a very good idea, leaving Sycamore feeling drowsy, sweet, and in charity with the world, despite the upheaval afoot at the club. As he drifted off in Jeanette’s arms, a last thought floated through his mind.
He would try to have a word with Ann Pearson about her sudden desire to quit the Coventry, but he would assuredly have a much more pointed word with Orion Goddard.
Chapter Fifteen
“Children aren’t like foot soldiers,” Alasdhair said. “You cannot simply tell them to march this way one day and back the other way the next. They need for life to make sense.”
The reading room offered its usual sense of sanctuary, a particularly English sort of haven that came from comfortable chairs arranged around a venerable hearth on a chilly evening. That the brandy was French also somehow made the Aurora Club’s ambience more British, and more dear.
“This lot of children has never been the pampered darlings of anybody’s nursery,” Rye said. “They are tough and resilient.”
“They are loyal, Goddard,” Dylan said, propping his feet on a hassock. “They won’t want to be parted from you or from one another.”
Nor I from any of them. “The separation cannot be helped.” Ann had seen what Rye had tried to hide from her: For him to remain in Town would endanger innocents—more innocents—and that he was unwilling to do.
“How will you choose which children go with you to France and which remain here with us?’ Alasdhair asked.
Rye sipped his brandy and pondered that conundrum. His cousin Jacques had faced such a choice under more fraught circumstances and sent his most vulnerable child, the infant Nettie, to safety.
Who among the children was most vulnerable, and should that boy stay in London or go to France?
“Theodoric will want to protect you,” Dylan observed. “Choose another boy who gets on well with Theodoric. I’ll take the youngest two, and MacKay can take whoever’s left over.”
“You’ll send the youngest two to your sisters,” Alasdhair retorted. “You want the easy ones.”
“I’ll think about who goes and who stays.” Rye would probably air his ideas before the boys and see what they had to say. A competent general held a council of war and listened to his subordinates.
And then he alone made the hard decisions.
“What of your émigrés?” Dylan asked, toeing off his boots and crossing his feet at the ankle. “I know of at least a half-dozen old ladies who recall you nightly in their prayers to le bon Dieu.”
“There’s also Angus and Angie,” Alasdhair murmured, getting up to add a half scoop of coal to the fire. “Angus is getting on, and a coachy’s hands don’t last forever.”
Angus had been with Rye in Spain and France, and a tougher, more irascible batman—and kinder, more conscientious horseman—had never cursed the London traffic.
“I’ll ask if he and Angie want to go with me.” Though neither one spoke even passable French.
The fire leaped up at the addition of fresh fuel, while Rye’s spirits were sinking to new depths.
“Are we to start calling on the fair Mrs. Dorning?” Dylan asked. “Comporting ourselves like the doting cousins we’ve never been? Sending you regular reports?”