day, dodging out of Sunday services, lurking in the window. You missed breakfast and luncheon today, and you are freshly shaved at midafternoon. I know the signs of impending doom, and without putting too fine a point on matters, you are not at your best.”
“True, but Chastain will underestimate me as a result. I suspect I have underestimated myself.” Ash had come to this conclusion while swaddled in Della’s shawl, his cheek pillowed on her breast. A good place to think, that, sprawled over his wife’s luscious, drowsing, sated form.
Sycamore helped himself to a sandwich. “How can you underestimate yourself?”
“Della trusts me to see this through. I trust Della to support me in the endeavor. She has been struggling with her own demons, and Chastain has been preying on her insecurities. If I don’t stop him, he will simply continue his bad behavior and very likely make an attempt to wreck the Coventry’s reputation too.”
Sycamore paused, the remains of the sandwich halfway to his mouth. “He’d go after the Coventry? That is the bleeding outside of bloody too much, Ash. Tresham is still a partner in the club, and Tresham won’t take kindly to a baby baronet spreading schoolyard rumors.”
Ash ladled a tot from the men’s punchbowl and passed the glass to Sycamore. “I tell you Chastain has twice threatened Della with rape, and you urge me to caution. I mention the Coventry, and you are up in arms. You disappoint me, Sycamore.” Not a sentiment Ash had often voiced, though he’d frequently experienced it.
Sycamore sniffed at the glass and set it aside. “I am upset, and I beg your pardon. Chastain of course deserves to be called out on Della’s behalf, or soundly thrashed at least, but you won’t allow me that pleasure, nor indulge in it yourself. This ordeal by cards will go on for nerve-racking days. Why not simply lure Chastain to the stables and sort him out with your fists?”
“I might do that as well, if Della permits it, but Chastain’s comeuppance must be public and by using the weapons he himself has chosen. I can handle myself at the tables, Cam, but you are not to create any unnecessary drama.”
Sycamore resumed demolishing his sandwich. “I never create unnecessary drama.”
“Two duels that I know of. Sent down from university twice in the same term, which cost Casriel dearly in academic donations. Horse races without number. A rotation of upset ladies in and out of your bed, some of whom air their grievances at the club. Rows with everybody from our sommelier to our dessert chef to the second coachman. I could go on.”
“Not rows, pointed discussions, and no aggrieved ladies have aired their disappointments at the club for months. Avoid the men’s punch, by the by. Lady Wentwhistle is trying to mask inferior spirits with an abundance of treacly cordial. Tell me about Della’s insecurities.”
Ash and Della had discussed what exactly should be said to family regarding her infirmity. Della had been reluctant to disclose her ailment, but Ash had pointed out that his whole family knew of his difficulties and had only tried to help.
As much as he’d allowed them to help.
“Della is prone to fits of intense dread, to anxieties that she knows are out of proportion to any rational fear, though they overtake her mind nonetheless. In the grip of her panic, she feels shaky, she has difficulty breathing, her imagination comes untethered from logic and sense.”
“And,” Sycamore said, ambling over to the ladies’ punchbowl, “she never knows when this ailment will strike. She can be fine for weeks, then from nowhere, her thoughts race, and the dread wells from some mental oubliette. Perhaps this affliction is common to those stuck at the bottom of a huge pile of siblings, though I know Daisy is free of it.”
A quarter hour remained until the tournament resumed, and people would doubtless start taking their seats any minute. Ash took his brother by the arm and steered him through balcony doors that had been opened to admit fresh autumn air.
“Sycamore, explain yourself.”
Sycamore gave him a mulish look appropriate to an intransigent six-year-old. “You taught me how to shave.”
“You had nearly cut your throat, and while one didn’t want to offend your delicate pride, somebody had to show you how to go on.”
Sycamore tossed the last of his sandwich into the garden below and gazed out over the front drive, which the double row of lime trees had carpeted in golden leaves.
“There are books that will show