for the door rather than find herself caught up in a marital intrigue. “Of course, though you must know my first loyalty is to the club.”
“My second loyalty might well be to the club, given what it means to my husband,” Mrs. Dorning replied. “Jules has asked that another undercook be hired, a Frenchman, and they do not come cheaply. Mr. Dorning assented on a trial basis, because he felt that sop to Jules’s dignity necessary after taking on Hannah at my brother’s request. My question relates to the boys in my brother’s household. Has Hannah said anything about them?”
What manner of intrigue was this? “She mentions them by name from time to time. Theodoric—she calls him Otter—likes buttered turnips. Bertie forgets to wash his hands.” John knew all manner of filthy songs. Louis was their scout. A new boy, Victor, seemed to have Debrett’s off by heart as a result of watching from his street corner and memorizing the crests of passing coaches.
“Would they make passable clerks?”
“Mrs. Dorning, I hardly know. Hannah describes the boys as lively. Colonel Goddard has them attend to various chores and activities in the morning because they can’t sit still for lessons in the afternoon otherwise. They are not scholars by nature, to hear her tell it.”
Mrs. Dorning rose and went to the window, which overlooked the street running between her home and her husband’s place of business.
“I want to lighten my brother’s load, Miss Pearson. Orion would never confide in me, never hint that I might be of use to him, but I hear things.”
Orion Goddard confided in Ann, some. She hoped as time went on, he’d confide in her more, but then what? He had domesticity written all over him, while Ann’s ambition was to run the Coventry’s kitchen some fine day. Passion was lovely for an interlude or an affair, but where did Ann see her dealings with Orion Goddard ending?
“What have you heard, Mrs. Dorning?”
She twitched at the curtain sashes, though the two sides of the drapery hung in perfect symmetry. “I haven’t been Jeanette Goddard for ten years. Ladies new to Town know me only as the Marquess of Tavistock’s widow, recently married to the youngest Dorning brother.”
And thus they did not know of her connection to the colonel. “Somebody cast aspersion on Colonel Goddard within your hearing?”
Mrs. Dorning left off fussing the curtains and faced Ann. “Somebody referred to him as the disgraced colonel, which occasioned knowing glances and a slight shake of the speaker’s head, as if to say, ‘What a pity, about poor Goddard.’ Minerva Dennis has no business spreading talk like that, but everybody else in the group appeared to know what and whom she alluded to.”
“Minerva Dennis has been pretending to know all the latest talk since she first flirted with the drawing master at finishing school. She comes around the Coventry with her brother and claims her papa doesn’t mind in the least.” Jules would say such a woman needed marrying, but from Ann’s perspective, Minerva would have been better served with a cauldron and some otherworldly familiars.
“Miss Pearson, how do you know her?”
“We are to trade confidences, then?”
Mrs. Dorning nodded once.
“I attended two years of finishing school with her. She is a cat, and she likely knows nothing about the colonel save some snippet she overheard her brother repeat. Dexter Dennis was in the military, as were many of his friends.” Dennis came to the Coventry to lose money, in the opinion of the waiters, for he was more skilled at draining the champagne glasses and decimating the buffet than placing his bets.
“You took Hannah to call upon Colonel Goddard’s household last week,” Mrs. Dorning said. “Have you any idea what disgrace Miss Dennis might have referred to?”
The colonel himself did not know, but it wasn’t Ann’s place to reveal that. “You should ask your brother, ma’am. In my experience, he is both honest and honorable.”
Mrs. Dorning returned to the sofa. “He is also my brother and unfailingly careful with me. Rye blames himself for my first marriage, but Rye had nothing to do with it. Papa wanted his darling daughter to have a title, and I wanted to make my papa proud of me. If I’d known my vows would result in my brother spending years at war…”
What was wrong with English fathers that their daughters longed so desperately for paternal approval?
“The colonel was a good soldier, ma’am. I believe he regards his years of service with pride.”
“Then why is somebody