“Della notices my mood in much the same way,” Lady Susannah said. “When we attend a social event, if I am in good spirits, if Nicholas and his countess are in a congenial mood, then Della worries less.”
“Lady Della doesn’t strike me as the nervous sort.” In truth, Will hardly noticed Lady Della when she was in Susannah’s company.
“She’s…canny, almost deceptive. I love her dearly, but Della seems to know what’s afoot before anybody else does, and she always has an air of private plans in train. I fear she’s up to something even now, under the very noses of her siblings.”
“Deceptive isn’t good,” Will said, though walking beside Lady Susannah, the park in its vernal glory, the dogs happily padding along, was a slice of heaven.
Also a slice of hell, for Will was simply showing another aristocrat how to get on well with a dog. He’d done this dozens of times, and at no point did the proceedings allow him to steal kisses from his pupils.
“Della is the soul of discretion,” Lady Susannah said. “Whatever she’s about, she won’t be caught. Is this the extent of my schooling today, Mr. Dorning? Strolling the paths and sniffing at bushes?”
They’d returned to the clearing where they’d started, but Will did not want to part from the lady, even though they’d done much more than stroll along and sniff at bushes. They had started leash manners, they’d got the dogs accustomed to her ladyship.
They had also sorely tried Will’s ability to focus on anything other than the soft curve of Lady Susannah’s cheek, and how she smiled with her eyes rather than her mouth.
“Let’s try some commands,” Will said. “If you’re working with dogs, you’ll want to have a few nibbles of cheese with you at all times. We can’t explain with words when a dog has guessed correctly or behaved properly, so we explain with affection and rewards.”
“I am not affectionate by nature, Mr. Dorning. This undertaking could prove challenging.”
Lady Susannah was affectionate by nature, and the undertaking had already proved to be a challenge ten times over.
“We’ll start with down,” Will said. “A very useful command, though one many dogs have trouble perfecting.”
* * *
“That’s Comus,” Sycamore hissed. “I’m almost sure that’s him.”
Ash remained on his horse, gaze on the dog, who was being half dragged, half led down the alley behind the Earl of Casriel’s town house.
“Comus isn’t that large,” Ash said. “He’s brindle, but his coat is smoother.”
Cam trotted ahead, while Ash kept his horse to the walk. Cam tipped his hat to the man wrestling with the dog, but didn’t pull up until his horse had reached the street.
“I told you: not Comus,” Ash said when his horse was alongside Cam’s. “But a very large and unhappy dog, nonetheless. Willow would have known what to say.”
“The stupid blighter should stop yelling at the poor beast for starters, though Will never interferes uninvited. There’s two of them now.”
The last thing, the very last thing Ash Dorning wanted to do was play nanny to the younger brother who’d nearly got himself called out the night before.
Again.
“I have no idea what ‘two of them’ you’re talking about, Cam, but if anybody asks you how you’re feeling today, you tell them you’re much improved.”
The fellow with the dog disappeared around the corner, down the alley that ran at right angles to the one housing the Dorning mews. The animal had had all four paws planted, and the leash between its jaws as it was dragged along.
Even Will might have intervened, for the beast was clearly close to attacking its handler.
“I’m to say I’m much improved? Hard to improve on perfection,” Cam said, taking a sniff of the rose affixed to his lapel. Cam was a bit of a dandy, and aspired to become more than a bit of a rake.
“Especially if perfection is lying dead in some woodland clearing,” Ash observed. “Why the hell would you antagonize Lyle Mannering?”
Why antagonize anybody? The Dornings were an old family, but not a particularly prosperous or influential one, drat the damned luck. Cam was one of a herd of younger sons who’d be lucky to find work as a steward, factor, clergyman, or man of business. Casriel refused to buy military commissions for his brothers, and subduing the Corsican had left India as the most likely posting anyway.
The heat alone could kill a man there, and the calculus wasn’t of much use against tigers.
“I didn’t antagonize Mannering,” Cam said, turning his horse to the left. “I contradicted him. Mannering was muttering about Lady Della being a trial to her family, and I took exception to that.”
“Lady Della is not a trial to her family,” Ash said. “What could Mannering have been about? He’s not only harmless and decorative, but also usually benign.” Of late, Mannering had also been a very poor card player, though he could afford to be.
“My point exactly, as I’ve already explained to Willow, who, in a rare and dazzling show of fraternal common sense, has agreed with me. What does it mean to be a gentleman, after all, if a woman you know, a woman to whom you’ve made your bow, can be maligned in the men’s retiring room, as Mannering was maligning Lady Della, while all the other fellows do nothing but stand around waving their—that’s the same dog.”
Such was the labyrinth of Mayfair’s streets that the man with the disobliging mastiff was emerging from the mouth of an alley.
The dog was now bleeding from a gash to its head.
“I don’t like this, Ash. You beat a great beast of a dog like that, and the dog won’t like it either.”
“We’re not Will, and that’s not our dog. We’re supposed to pay a call on Jacaranda and Kettering, then I’d like to drop in on the Haddonfield sisters. Sycamore, what the hell are you doing?”
Cam was already off his horse and passing Ash the reins.
“There are two rewards,” Cam said, shoving his gold watch at Ash, but keeping his riding crop. “Two rewards for missing dogs, both great brutes. That man is not the dog’s owner, and whatever is afoot, somebody will get hurt much worse if it’s allowed to continue. Do you have any cheese?”
Ash fished in his pocket and passed over two misshapen, linty lumps. “For God’s sake, be careful and do not bring that damned dog home unless you want Casriel to send you back to Dorset at the cart’s tail.”
“My regards to the ladies,” Cam said as the dog was dragged across the street thirty yards ahead. “Don’t worry about me.”
“Right,” Ash said as Cam fell in step with the throng of people bustling about in the middle of a Mayfair day. “You’re impulsive, temperamental, on your own, without much coin, and pursuing a man who beats dogs—oh, and you’re in pursuit of a large, hostile canine in a foul mood too. Why should I worry?”
Ash turned his horse around, Cam’s gelding coming along docilely. Before paying any calls, he’d have to drop the horse off, and hope neither Will nor Casriel was around to notice.
Two rewards would be enough to send the last pretention to sense Sycamore Dorning possessed clear to France.
* * *
As You Like It weighed down Susannah’s reticule, an awkward anchor that bumped against her leg as she and Georgette strode along. She’d carried the book with her for most of the last week, never quite finding time to finish the play.
Walking with a dog was different from mincing about by oneself. Georgette turned heads, drawing notice with her sheer size, but she also gave off an air of happy dignity, of being a lady about her business with no time to tarry over polite chitchat.
Susannah approved of that approach to life, and walked beside the dog, in charity with the day. Then too, Willow Dorning made a handsome picture with Samson, who was an all-black, shaggy mastiff-mongrel with an enormous head and substantial paws. His coat was longer than Georgette’s, and he took greater notice of his surroundings.
Which was to say, he lifted his leg frequently and sniffed the ground, th
e bushes, and himself at every opportunity. He fascinated Susannah, and intimidated her a little.
Samson was larger than Georgette, which should not have been possible, but Will Dorning controlled the dog easily. Or maybe he didn’t control the dog, but used some other means of conforming the dog’s behaviors to the owner’s desires.
“Let’s review a few commands,” Will said when they’d made their usual circuit of the path. “Did you bring your cheese?”
This business of conversing with the dogs by means of rewards and affection sat awkwardly with Susannah. Some people explained matters to a pet with stout blows and scathing set-downs. While Susannah abhorred such behaviors, she did not relish the moment when she half tossed, half dropped a morsel of food in the vicinity of Samson’s jaws.
Will set his hat on the only bench in the clearing as Georgette settled on her haunches and rested her weight against Susannah’s side. The dog leaned casually, as if Susannah were as solid and dependable as a cast-iron hitching post.
“Is she tired?” Susannah asked, stroking a palm over Georgette’s head. Georgette was hard not to pet, for her height put her head and shoulders in the same vicinity as Susannah’s hand.
“Georgette isn’t tired, she simply likes you,” Will said. “Samson will lean if he’s especially happy, but that doesn’t happen often. Samson, sit.”
The command was accompanied by a movement of Will’s hand, from about an inch in front of Samson’s nose to the spot between his ears.
Down he sat.
“Good lad.”
Susannah had to look away when Will tugged on Samson’s ears. Fortunately, when working with a dog, Willow Dorning was oblivious to all else, much like Susannah when in the grip of good literature. She’d learned the commands for sit, stay, down, and come, all of which Georgette dealt with amiably.
“Shall we try some fetch the stick?” Will asked.
Willow Dorning had a well-thought-out progression of exercises for his dogs, and a highly structured approach to their education. The sons of lords were not tutored with any more care, and the orderliness of the undertaking reassured Susannah that all was in hand.
More than the logical sequence of the commands, she liked Will’s patience, liked the endless effort he took to make sense of everything from the dog’s perspective.
“Fetch the stick will suit,” Susannah said, for she enjoyed these outings with Will. “Though I know Georgette to be accomplished at it.”
From the standpoint of Susannah’s indoctrination into dog appreciation, fetch was a big step. The big steps were vaguely worrisome, because at some point, Will would pronounce her a bona fide facsimile of a dog fancier, and then…
Then she’d thank him.
“Fetch the stick seems much like ‘fetch me a glass of punch,’” Susannah observed. “You toss out a compliment, allude to a task, and the fellow who wants more compliments goes off on his mission. When he comes back, glass of punch in hand, you pet him, verbally at least, and he’ll sit at your feet, wagging his tail for the rest of the evening.”
Though the gentlemen of Polite Society were not as well trained as Will Dorning’s dogs. The fellows also nipped from a lady’s drink on occasion, or got lost in the card room en route to the punch bowl.
“We can conclude our session now if you’ve had enough for today,” Will said. “Perhaps you’re missing the Bard?”
The dogs panted gently, the rhododendrons were nearly in bloom, the squirrels were jabbering and leaping overhead. Shakespeare would be waiting for Susannah, even when Will Dorning was once again immured in the Dorset countryside, teaching another young collie “Away to me” and “come by.”
Even when Susannah had read through all of dreary Milton and silly Sheridan.
“I’m happy to toss a few sticks,” Susannah said, “though I’m sure you have other places to be, Will Dorning.”
Quimbey and his pet had come along at the conclusion of Susannah’s sessions twice in the past week. Comus seemed to grow between one day and the next, while the duke’s affection for the dog came along more slowly.
Will ceased casually tugging on Samson’s ears and Susannah’s sanity. “There is no place I’d rather be, Lady Susannah, nobody I’d rather while away the morning with, and fetch is a reward for the dogs. They enjoy it, and so do I.”
The same breeze that snatched away errant kites tousled Will’s hair, and the same affection he frequently turned on his dogs laced his voice. Susannah pretended to survey the nearby hedgerow rather than try to fathom what she saw in Will’s lovely eyes.
“Shall we find the very best sticks in the entire park, Mr. Dorning?” She marched over to the bracken beneath the rhododendrons, Georgette at her side.
Willow Dorning even had requirements for a fetch stick. Sturdy, not too heavy, still a bit green, not long enough to cause difficulty for the dogs. Susannah nudged a toe through last year’s leaves beneath the ferns and bracken, pretending to look for a stick when she was instead trying to gather her wits.
Why must Will Dorning be poor and honorable? Why must he be devoted to his younger siblings at the expense of his own ambitions? Why must he be so handsome and dear and kind?
“This one will do,” Will said, plucking a stout length of wood from the undergrowth. Samson hopped about as Will passed Susannah the stick. A little hop from a dog of that size was enough to make a lady uneasy.
Will, however, took no notice of Samson. Ignoring misbehavior figured prominently in his training scheme. He never raised a hand to the dogs, never shouted, but he ignored mistakes and expressed disappointment on occasion, rather like a very patient governess. He praised good behavior often, even the simple good behavior of quietly waiting.
“Have you ever lost your temper with a dog?” Susannah asked, pushing aside more dead leaves and ferns with her boot.
Georgette snuffled among the leaves as well, and Samson could not seem to hold still.
“Once I lost my temper, when I was about Cam’s age. My dog, the one I’d raised from puppyhood, chewed a corner of the family Bible to bits. I hadn’t realized he was trapped in the library for most of the day, so the fault was mine. My stepmother was in hysterics, and my father—who did not care a whit for the Bible—was wroth with me because of her upset.”
Samson got his jaws clamped around a protruding piece of deadfall twice as long as he was.
“Samson, drop,” Will said.
Samson looked at his owner without turning loose of his prize, mischief and longing in his doggy eyes.
Will met that hopeful gaze. “Drop, Samson.”
With the air of a small boy forced to sit still in Sunday services, Samson let go of the branch.
“You lost your temper over the incident with the Bible?” Under the trees, the morning was cooler, the shade welcome.
“I shouted at my dearest companion,” Will said. “Called him every name a gentleman doesn’t use before ladies. Kicked him hard, once, in the shoulder, and then couldn’t believe I’d done that. He forgave me before the sun went down. Slept at my feet that night, and woke up, tail wagging, ready to join me in the garden the next morning, the same as any other day.”
Let not the sun go down on your wrath was a biblical proscription from Ephesians. Susannah had never had much luck with that one.
“You didn’t forgive yourself,” Susannah said. “Sit, Georgette.”
Georgette obeyed, then leaned against Susannah’s leg. The dog’s weight was comforting, an I’m-here sort of presence, patient and solid.
“Samson, sit,” Will said, though the dog only half obeyed. “I didn’t forgive myself. I’d betrayed the trust of an animal in my care, first by leaving him in the library, where temptation was all around, then by punishing him for behaving simply as a bored dog will. Samson, sit.”
Samson settled in the leaves, but with a quivering, “where’s my stick?!” reluctance.
“We make mistakes,” Susannah said, twitching a wrinkle from Will’s cravat. His dre
ss was conservative to the point of plainness, and yet understated tailoring only made his good looks more apparent. “I made mistakes, in Kent. I thought a fellow was about to offer for me, and I was hasty in surrendering my trust to him.”
She wanted Will to know this. Wanted him to understand that she wasn’t a pillar of virtue, innocent of what went on between men and women.
Susannah was not innocent, and she was not good, for regret had kept her up many a night. She did not regret the loss of her virtue per se, but why, if she had to yield her favors outside of marriage, couldn’t she have yielded them to Will Dorning?
“I’m sorry,” Will said, trapping her hand in his own. “Sorry your trust was abused. You deserve much better than that.”
His eyes, so surprising in their color, were grave, and that annoyed Susannah. “You’re not sorry my trust was given to another, rather than to yourself.”
She was about to berate him for being honorable, berate him for finding Edward Nash’s bumbling selfishness inappropriate.
“You do trust me, Susannah,” Will said, letting go of her hand. “I hope you always will, and as for my regrets—”
Something flashed by immediately overhead. A squirrel, a bird, Susannah knew not what, but Samson lunged straight up from his position at Will’s side, twisting in midair so his leash wrapped around Susannah, and pulled her hard against Will.
Will struggled to hang on to the leash, but Samson kept leaping and whining, and then Georgette abandoned her post by Susannah’s side, tangling her leash around Susannah from the other direction.
As Samson let out one excited bark, Susannah and Will went toppling amid the ferns.
Susannah landed mostly on top of Will, a very agreeable place to find herself. She was like that young dog in the library, temptation on all sides, and nobody to ensure decorum held the upper hand over her instincts.
Knowing she ought not, knowing she’d deserve endless scolding for yielding to her impulses, Susannah bent her head and kissed the daylights out of Will Dorning.
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