The Last True Gentleman: The True Gentlemen — Book 12 Read online

  He stepped closer, and she held her ground, though he had the sense it was a near thing. “If I should in any way menace or insult you, you drive your knee into my cods, hard. No mercy, your ladyship. Jab your fingers into my eyes, stomp your heel for all you’re worth onto my instep. Fight as if you mean it, not as if we’re having a polite disagreement over afternoon tea, then leave the scene at a dead run.”

  “Your… cods?”

  “My stones. Testicles are the Creator’s joke on male hubris. Funny looking, delicate, and ever so vulnerable. A single well-placed kick, and I will be retching on the floor.”

  She brushed a glance south of Sycamore’s waist. “Why are you telling me this?”

  Because I want your trust, and I want to kill whoever abused it. “You seek to learn to throw a knife, so I gather personal defense generally is of interest to you. Knives are lovely, but not always practical. You never know when a few back-alley tactics might come in handy.”

  She studied his eyes, then assayed an inspection of his boots. “Back-alley tactics. I like that.”

  “Delightful. Might I remove my shirt?” He was careful to inject more impatience into the question than he felt. For her permission to disrobe, he would wait eons.

  “You may remove your shirt.”

  Sycamore hung his shirt on the cork of a wine bottle protruding from the nearest rack. While he bleated on about the characteristics of good throwing knives—not to be mistaken for daggers, kitchen knives, or skinning blades—he realized that he and the lady had just made substantial progress, though he could not have said toward what specific goal.

  Sycamore Dorning did not preen, and his physique was spectacularly preen-worthy. The late marquess, by contrast, had strutted about the bedroom in his silk dressing gowns as if reasonably fit forty-year-olds—complete with thinning, graying hair, knobby knees, and slightly protruding ears—were the secret dream of every young bride.

  Mr. Dorning discoursed about balance points, weight distribution, stance, and spin, all without any apparent awareness of his own state of undress.

  Jeanette was aware of him. The ever-present caution afflicted her, because she was alone with an adult male, but so, too, did reluctant appreciation. The marquess had ridden frequently and fenced on occasion, but Sycamore Dorning’s body seethed with muscle as an ocean seethed with energy.

  From broad shoulders that rippled when he shoved barrels around like so many ninepins, to biceps that flexed and bunched with power, to hands… Jeanette was supposed to study his hand, to attend how he seated the hilt of the knife right against the base of his thumb, but in those hands, she saw competence and skill.

  An alarming degree of competence and skill.

  “Your turn,” he said, passing her a knife, hilt first. “Don’t think too much. Just let fly and start getting a feel for the blade.”

  Knives for throwing had smooth hilts so that nothing impeded the hand’s release of the blade. They were weighted more toward the blade and less toward the handle, and they were sharpest at the point. The feel of the knife in Jeanette’s hand was warm from Mr. Dorning’s grip, heavy, and exotic.

  “This is a weapon,” she said, “not a tool. I can feel the difference.”

  Sycamore moved behind her. “Much like conversation can be a tool or a weapon. Try to get the knife stuck in the target, your ladyship. Don’t be concerned if it bounces off the first few times.”

  The target lay on the floor, a circular surface about a foot and a half thick. Jeanette was two steps away, and she knew she would somehow contrive to miss the target. She was not a quick study, as her late husband had frequently informed her.

  “I don’t like you lurking back there, Mr. Dorning.”

  “Would you like me better with a blade protruding from my handsome foot?”

  “No.”

  “Focus is an important part of success with a knife, your ladyship. You have a goal: Get the knife to stick in the target. Ignore me, as dazzling as I am. Pretend my magnificent form is somewhere in the Peak District. My sparkling wit and joie de vivre have removed to Paris. My towering intellect and visionary instinct for—”

  Jeanette let fly with the knife, which embedded itself in the wood with a satisfying thump. “I hit it!”

  “Dead center.” He removed the knife and passed it to her. “Take a step back and try again.”

  Another half-dozen throws all sank into the wood, though, granted, Jeanette was standing nearly on top of her target. Mr. Dorning propped the target against the wall, still resting on the floor, and two of her next six knives bounced off.

  She had hit the target most of the time. Her joy was eclipsed only by her surprise.

  “Your aim is good,” Mr. Dorning said, “and the knife bouncing off has to do with your release, not with your accuracy. Watch me, watch my hand in particular, and the index finger that rests on the balance point. I will try for a slower throw.”

  Even with him moderating his speed, Jeanette found it difficult to discern when in the downward arc of his arm the knife left his hand.

  “You put your body into it,” Jeanette said. When armed, that body was a lean curve of lethal male.

  “You can throw from the wrist, the elbow, or the shoulder, but we all have a natural throw. I do best over longer distances, with more of my body behind the motion, but the most powerful knife strikes are usually in close quarters. Give it another try.”

  As they moved gradually farther and farther from the target, he demonstrated, he corrected, he watched and commented, and slowly, Jeanette’s awareness of him as a man faded into her determination to master the knife.

  Which, apparently, was not an impossible objective.

  “Your shoulders, being female, are designed differently from mine,” he said, passing her the knife yet again. “But that doesn’t affect how accurately you can throw. Your throw will simply look different from a man’s.”

  Imagine that. The female version was simply different, not weaker or worse. Jeanette threw again and buried her blade a few inches off-center in the target, which was now sitting on a chair several yards away. She and Mr. Dorning had a rhythm now. He passed her a half-dozen knives, one at a time, and then retrieved them for her.

  “I can see why you enjoy this,” she said as he ambled forward to pick up the one knife that had bounced off the target and pulled the other five free. “It’s entrancing, like an intricate passage at the pianoforte. You work your way through it slowly, over and over, until you can add a touch of speed, but only a touch. You can feel the music, but you can’t produce it, not until you’ve paid the price in patience.”

  Though, according to Jeanette’s late husband, she’d never demonstrated any feeling for the music, no matter how perfect the notes.

  Mr. Dorning resumed his place behind her. “My lady is a philosopher. This is your last set—win, lose, or draw.”

  “But we’ve barely started.”

  “Enjoying yourself?”

  She glowered at him over her shoulder and accepted a knife. “I am, and I am making progress.” Already. Immediately. How she wished she’d embarked on this activity years ago.

  “You are off to a good start,” Mr. Dorning said, “thanks to the superb quality of your instruction.”

  She hit dead center, a result that so pleased her that she then missed twice in succession. “I want to do another set after this.”

  He passed her the fourth knife. “Throwing requires a gambler’s discipline, my lady. You quit before your senses grow dull, because to practice poorly only ingrains the bad throws that much more deeply in your mind. You toss sixty knives, then stop, or ninety and then stop. Exercise restraint. Besides, you will be sore tomorrow if we keep at this all evening.”

  Nothing in his tone made the comment naughty, and neither did anything in his expression. “I cannot believe a few more minutes of practice would overtax me.” Jeanette had tasted unanticipated success, a rare and heady treat, and she did not want the session to end.
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  “We’ve been down here for an hour and a half. Dinner will soon be ready, and I keep the kitchen waiting at my peril. Three more throws, and we finish for this week. Make them count.”

  The time had flown, along with the blades, and Jeanette had enjoyed every minute. Her shoulder was in truth protesting mildly, but every time the knife sank into the target, her heart rejoiced. Take that, and that, and that.

  She mentally toed her mark, relaxed on an exhale, and let the knife fly on the silent count of three. Mr. Dorning slapped the hilt of the next blade into her hand, and she repeated the throw in the same rhythm, then finished with a third throw.

  A triangle of blades protruded from the center of the target, the knives several inches apart.

  “That,” said Mr. Dorning, “is exactly how you want to conclude a session. Well done, my lady. Very, very well done.”

  Jeanette stared at the circle of wood, at the blades so snugly biting into the grain, and wanted to twirl and clap and laugh—and also to cry. For years, her life had been consumed with not offending her husband and trying to exorcise the memory of the many times the blade of his judgment had embedded itself in her soul.

  Today, she’d done something different, taken a new path, and applied her mind to a puzzle other than pleasing his lordship, avoiding his lordship, and enduring or recovering from his lordship’s nasty remarks. The man had been dead for three years, and she’d yet to truly put him to rest.

  “Thank you,” Jeanette said, and that felt good, to thank a man sincerely. Not for a stupid courtesy like handing her down from a coach, but for making her a more confident and formidable person. “I wasn’t sure I could do it.”

  She had been convinced, in fact, that the task would be all but hopeless, another skill—like polite conversation or a graceful quadrille—that she would acquire only by grueling, protracted effort.

  Mr. Dorning wrapped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed her in a casual half hug, as Orion might have offered such affection to his little sister in his younger, better years.

  “With me for a teacher, my lady, your success is assured.”

  Jeanette elbowed her instructor in the ribs—good-naturedly—and met a solid wall of muscle. “You are awful.”

  “No need to be jealous of my talent,” he said, letting her go. “You will soon be throwing like Astley’s finest marksman, or markswoman. I do advise some liniment for your shoulder, arm, and wrist tonight. Eventually, you can become proficient with both hands, but that’s a challenge for another time.”

  He pulled his shirt over his head and began doing up the buttons.

  “Why did you become so skilled with knives?” Jeanette asked, passing him his waistcoat.

  “Because I am the youngest of thousands of siblings, and I wanted a means of besting brothers who were all taller, stronger, and smarter than I. I thought I was the runt, but I could at least be the runt with a blade in my hand. As it is, the passing skill I acquired only made me that much more different from the brothers I longed to emulate.”

  Jeanette considered one of the most purely attractive men she’d ever encountered. That he’d at any time suffered a sense of inadequacy intrigued her.

  “You do realize you are no longer the runt?”

  “The Creator saved the best for last,” he said, his smile dazzling. “Might you help me with my sleeve buttons?”

  Jeanette complied. His sleeve buttons were plain gold, though his cuffs were edged in blond lace. “Your neckcloth.” She passed him linen also edged in lace.

  He tied the knot himself, a complicated series of twists and folds that resulted in the lace cascading just so. “Where did I put my—?”

  Jeanette held up a cravat pin topped with a small amethyst very nearly the color of Mr. Dorning’s eyes. “Allow me.”

  She positioned the pin amid the lace and linen and held Mr. Dorning’s coat for him. The tailoring was exquisite—and free of padding across the shoulders.

  “Will I do?” he asked, buttoning the coat and taking up Jeanette’s hat and cloak.

  “Passably.” He was stunning, of course, but then, he’d been stunning without his shirt too. “Thank you for an informative lesson, Mr. Dorning.”

  “You are welcome, and now you must pay the piper, my lady. Dinner awaits.” He swept her a bow, gesturing with his arm, and she preceded him up the stairs. When they arrived at a private dining room on the first floor, Jeanette found a table set, the food warming in trays on the sideboard, and the wine breathing beside a bouquet of daffodils.

  “I hope you are hungry,” Mr. Dorning said, closing the door and holding a seat for Jeanette near the hearth. “I enjoy hearty appetites and make no apology for that.”

  The room was well lit, considering that darkness had fallen. The aromas of roasted beef, buttery potatoes, and subtler scents—tarragon? oregano?—had Jeanette’s stomach growling.

  Mr. Dorning’s comment—about his hearty appetites—might have been another attempt at naughty innuendo, but Jeanette sensed he was simply being honest.

  “I am famished,” she said as Mr. Dorning took the place at her elbow. “I had not considered that knife throwing is a particularly athletic activity.”

  “You didn’t think it would be so enjoyable, did you?” He poured them both a glass of claret. “You can be honest with me, my lady. Your secrets are safe here.”

  Jeanette had bet her reputation on that assumption. “Knives are serious business,” she replied, “and no, I did not think I would enjoy my lesson half so much as I did.”

  He touched his glass to hers. “To enjoyable lessons. Shall we start with the soup?”

  As her host prattled on about temperamental kitchen personalities and the upset caused when the sovereign spent an evening at the Coventry’s tables, Jeanette reflected that she had indeed enjoyed her lesson. She had enjoyed Sycamore Dorning’s instruction, even as she’d been puzzled by his combination of jocular arrogance and sexual indifference.

  She thought of her last three throws, an equilateral triangle of success, and of how much that pleased her. To her consternation, she was even more pleased to have spent nearly two hours in the company of a handsome, half-clad man and felt no threat or impropriety from him. She had no use for men, generally, and particularly not for the half-clad, handsome variety.

  That Sycamore Dorning could be a perfect gentleman when naked from the waist up and alone with a lady was a pleasant surprise, and one which, oddly, made Jeanette curious about their next encounter. Mildly curious, but curious nonetheless.

  Dinner with Lady Tavistock did not go as planned.

  Sycamore had intended to continue drawing upon previously untapped stores of acting talent to lull her ladyship into viewing him as a charming raconteur, gracious host, and an all-around harmless—albeit handsome—fellow.

  He was not particularly handsome. His eyes were an off color, shading lavender rather than Nordic blue or dark and dreamy. His hair was merely brown and prone to wave rather than fashionably curl. Whereas the older Dornings, including Jacaranda, made height look majestic, Sycamore felt gangly. After years of longing for his siblings’ stature, he still occasionally forgot to duck when wearing a top hat that brushed the lintel of a doorway.

  He had inherited Grandpapa’s stately nose and Grandmama’s imposing eyebrows, meaning his features were less than refined.

  But the Coventry had taught Sycamore many lessons, the first being that handsome was more a matter of presentation than looks. He was scrupulous about his toilette, he observed the courtesies, he paid his tithes to Bond Street, and he carried himself as if he should turn heads.

  And thus heads turned.

  Lady Tavistock had learned the feminine version of the same lesson, apparently, for she ate with exquisite manners, consumed only half a glass of wine with each course, and generally exuded the air of a proper widow.

  How Sycamore hoped that was at least partly presentation rather than substance.

  Somewhere between the sou
p and the roast, Sycamore forgot to be charming and instead turned up contemplative. How this had happened, he did not know, but he suspected his guest was to blame. She had a habit of putting a question to him, then regarding him gravely, as if she would be disappointed in him for replying with a superficial witticism.

  “I disliked university,” Sycamore said after she asked how he’d come into managing the club. “I had no meaningful role at Dorning Hall, and thus I was at loose ends.”

  She dabbed butter on a slice of bread. “You did not take to the curriculum of wine, women, and song?”

  “One need not go to university to enjoy those subjects, but because my family is titled, that seemed to be all that was expected of me. That and wagering, cards, and whining about allowances that never stretched far enough. I suspect the true purpose of university is to establish places where young men can act like jackasses without embarrassing their families.”

  The marchioness tore off a bite of bread and considered it. “Why do young ladies have no such freedom? We are watched over and guided from infancy right up until we speak our wedding vows, and then a husband decides exactly how foolish we are permitted to be.”

  Interesting question. “Because when a young man makes an ass of himself, the worst that can happen is that the world is short one foolish young man. Tragic, but the consequences land mostly on the person being reckless. If a young lady is foolish, babies can result, and the ruin spreads to her family and offspring.”

  Lady Tavistock put down her bread. “Why do you assume that a young lady’s version of foolishness must include partaking of what young men—and old men, too, for that matter—are ever so eager to impose on her? Why can’t she ride astride in a moonlit steeplechase? Make wagers involving hot air balloons and the coast of Normandy? Why can’t she stay up late with her friends, drinking and singing lewd songs? Why must everything a lady does be fashioned to ensure some man gets a piece of her joy?”