“Has it occurred to you, brother darling, that your low spirits might be made worse by leaving Town?” Sycamore asked. “There’s nothing in Dorset that we can’t arrange for you to have here.”
“I’ve tried spending winters in Town, Cam. It didn’t work.”
“You tried it once, and you tried it all on your lonesome. I won’t neglect you as you allowed Casriel and Willow to do. I can hire quacks to bleed you, pretty young nurses to bathe you, or a cheerful mistress to suck some life into—”
Ash served him a quick backhand to the gut, which slowed Sycamore down not at all. “None of that helps.”
Sycamore strolled along, swinging his closed umbrella like a walking stick. “I really must get back to Dorset more often, if Dorning Hall now boasts ladies of easy virtue to cheer a fellow past his low moods. I’m sure morale among the male staff has improved noticeably if that’s the case.”
“I’ll continue on to Angelo’s,” Ash said, though he’d probably instead detour to Jackson’s. “You need to spend some time with Monique.” Sycamore had many lady friends, the latest of whom was a baronet’s widow ten years his senior.
“Mone tossed me over,” he said, twirling his umbrella like a baton. “Said I was great good fun for a fling, but too intense to have underfoot regularly. I doubtless wore her out. She’s off at some house party in Cow-turd-shire.”
“Sorry, old boy. I know you liked her.”
“I like them all. I love a good, hard fuck. Settles me down for at least a day.”
Ash was reminded of his discussion with Lady Della, about how a fight settled him down. “Your attempts to shock with bad language would impress, were you still in the nursery. You doubtless bored Monique with your constant importuning. Do you ever think about settling down in truth?”
Sycamore tucked his umbrella under his arm, a cavalry officer striding along with his riding crop.“I think about it all the time,” he said. “To delight in a lusty romp is simply how the Creator made us, and may heaven be thanked for His generosity both to us as a species and to me in my particulars. But to share life with somebody who loves me… That would be… One can hardly fathom the joy.”
“One can hardly fathom the fortitude such a lady would possess.” Ash refrained from harsher teasing, because Sycamore sounded so wistful. “Tell me, Sycamore, do you fancy Della Haddonfield?” The question was mostly idle. Mostly.
Sycamore’s fist plowed into Ash’s arm. Layers of thick wool blunted the blow, though it stung pleasantly nonetheless.
“Do not think to procure a husband for her,” Sycamore said, “as her family has been trying to procure for her. I understand why you are playing the devoted swain, but the better question is why you don’t marry her yourself.”
Ash had toyed with that question in a theoretical, had-he-overlooked-something sort of way. “I won’t marry, and you know why. Lady Della accepts my reasoning.”
“I suspect she would accept your occasional fit of the dismals too.”
“It’s more than a fit of the dismals. You’ve seen me.”
“No, actually, I haven’t. When you are overcome by your malady, you disappear to your room, like a bear in winter. Nobody sees you. Trays go up, trays come down barely touched. Thrash me for saying so, but you seem to just give in to it, as we all give in to cold weather. Nasty and inconvenient, but it passes eventually. That’s the extent to which you combat your malady.”
Ash would have slammed his brother to the walkway, but Sycamore’s lecture came from frustrated worry rather than judgment.
“What would you have me do, Cam?”
“Spend the damned winter in Egypt for a change. Try closeting yourself with those pretty nursemaids I could hire. Employ a madam to thrash you with fresh nettles once a week if that’s what it takes, but don’t just… Don’t lie in a ditch like a fallen soldier hoping the invading army passes before anybody notices he’s still breathing.”
“Waiting for the enemy to march on by has saved many a man from a bullet.”
Sycamore paused on the steps of Angelo’s establishment. “Two years ago, you would have been long since returned to Dorset, the drawbridge up, the portcullis lowered. Last year, you made it through September, and this year, you’re doing at least that well. Why the hell won’t you be encouraged by the obvious? Why the hell must you hoard your misery as if it’s your only valuable possession?”
Sycamore trotted up the steps before continuing. “Della Haddonfield is fierce and smart. She might bring something to the fight you lack, and she would never desert you. Maybe you’ve been going about this all wrong, Ash, and it’s loving company you need rather than a badger’s lair to hide in.”
Ash would have followed him up the steps, but Sycamore stopped him with the tip of the umbrella pressed to his chest.
“Not today,” he said. “I’ll slice you to ribbons if we fence today. Provoke one of Jackson’s Corinthians into pummeling you, but please recall you’re escorting Della to a musicale tomorrow. It won’t do to appear in public with two black eyes, Ash.”
Ash nudged the umbrella sword aside with a single finger. “I will fence with somebody else if you’re truly in the grip of an ungovernable temper, but you’ve pinked me before, and I’m none the worse for your bumbling.” Far from it.
“I feel guilty when I pink you,” Sycamore said. “And you know it, so you always let me draw first blood. If you used one-tenth the guile outwitting your melancholia that you use twitting me, you’d be the happiest of men.”
Among Sycamore’s older brothers, it was holy writ that Cam was brave to the point of recklessness. Ash knew Sycamore better than their older siblings did, and thus he knew that Cam was rarely reckless. He was, however, shrewd to the point of genius.
“If you must cut me,” Ash said, keeping his voice casual, “try not to scar my face. As noted, I am to appear at Lady Della’s side tomorrow evening. One wants to look presentable.”
One wanted a good deal more than that, alas. Though Ash had begun to wonder if maybe Sycamore didn’t have the right of it: Melancholia was an ailment, not God’s judgment. If Ash couldn’t beat it entirely, could he maybe do a better job of fighting it?
Chapter Six
“You’re sure you want to attend the musicale?” Nicholas asked, propping a shoulder against the doorjamb to the family sitting room.
Since Della’s misadventure with Chastain, she’d been less comfortable in any confined space, and Nicholas effectively blocked her only means of egress from the parlor. He was the dearest, sweetest, most tenderhearted older brother a woman ever had, but he was still enormous and impossible to move unless he chose to move.
She set aside her embroidery hoop. “I will be branded a coward or worse if I fail to appear at tonight’s musicale, Nicholas.”
He ambled into the room. “I could go with you. George is still underfoot. He loves music and would be happy to take you.”
There was time—barely—for either Nick or George to dress in their evening finery without making Della too late.