Chapter Sixteen
The timing was awful, as of course, timing must be when one’s life was becoming a complete shambles.
“It’s my step-mother,” Jacaranda said, barely containing her tears. “She’s leaving, and Mrs. Dankle is quitting in truth, and Daisy can’t step in because she still has a child at the breast. They need me.”
Mr. Simmons’s expression was gratifyingly miserable. “Family is the worst. If my grandda hadn’t shouted my dam down, I’d still be back in Rabbit Hollow, mooning after Miss Sophie Dale—except Sophie’s dead these ten years and more. Grandda said I was tall enough and handsome enough for service.”
Half a century ago, that might have been true. “More biscuits, Mr. Simmons?”
“Biscuits make my teeth ache.” He took two anyway. “Why must your step-mother up and leave now?”
Yes, why, why, why? Jacaranda wanted to burn Step-Mama’s letter, though the summons it brought was inevitable.
“She says she’s lonely, and she refuses to grow old shouting at grown men to leave their muddy boots in the hall. Without her or Dankle, the house will soon be a ruin, my brothers’ clothing a disgrace. Grey must spend part of the year in Town, and Will hasn’t the temperament for exercising authority. Step-Mama says she’s worn out, and they can all go to blazes. She says if I won’t take them in hand, I’ll regret it all my days, for they’re my family.”
Simmons took a nibble of biscuit, leaving a trail of crumbs on Jacaranda’s carpet. “Can’t argue with that. Not all ladies are like you, Mrs. Wyeth. Most of them are cursed with delicate nerves.”
“Step-Mama’s nerves are very delicate, from so many births, she says. Mr. Simmons, when you left Rabbit Hollow, did you think you’d never return?”
Simmons was not always nice, but he was old, and Jacaranda had no doubt he was capable of kindness.
“Rabbit Hollow is the English. In my grandda’s day, we still used the Gaelic for it, even in Cumberland. I went back a time or two, and one of my sisters used to live in Hampshire before she died, but my family is here now, at Trysting.”
And she’d be leaving that family, leaving Worth, to preserve her brothers’ lives from chaos. She’d promised.
Jacaranda began to cry. Simmons passed her his uneaten biscuit, patted her shoulder, and left.
* * *
Worth went in search of Jacaranda, taking the better part of an hour to track her to her own sitting room rather than resort to interrogating the maids and giving himself away.
“Wyeth, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“W—Mr. Kettering, you startled me.”
“That is a box, Jacaranda Wyeth.” Worth closed the door quietly by sheer effort of will. Mr. Kettering? “You are putting your personal collection of books into a box suited to conveying the books over a distance.”
“They are my books,” she said, a volume of Wordsworth held to her chest. “I can do with them as I please.”
“What is it you’re doing?” He took the Wordsworth from her and opened it, then closed it with a snap. How dear to his heart, indeed.
“Packing.” She snatched the book back. “To leave.”
Her words weren’t a surprise, but they still stung like a clean, sharp knife, sliding silently between his ribs, taking a palpable moment before the pain built toward blackness.
“Leaving me?”
“Leaving Trysting.” She put the book in the bloody bedamned box, calm as you please. “And you.”
“Why Jacaranda?” He kept his hands at his sides, opening and closing his fists. “Why now?”
“Why not now?” Another book, then another. “I’ve promised my family over and over that I’ll return to Dorset, and I’ve broken my word repeatedly. Now my step-mother is abandoning her post, and I suspect she talked the housekeeper into quitting as well. You abhor dissembling of any kind, surely you can understand that my siblings expect me to keep my word eventually. I’ve been your housekeeper for five years. That’s long enough to polish your silver, air your sheets, and beat your rugs, don’t you think?”
Her attempt at a practical tone was a form of dissembling, and he did, absolutely, abhor it. “No, damn it, I do not think. You shall not leave me.”
“Yes, I shall.” Her tone was gentle, painfully so. “I’ve told you repeatedly I could not remain at my post indefinitely.”
“I had hoped you’d take up a different post. As my wife.” Though Jacaranda had told him often enough that she hoped to return to Dorset. Perhaps she had not only a child in Dorset, but a husband.
She tossed a volume of Sir Walter’s Waverley into the box like so much old crockery. “I value you…your friendship, Worth, but marriage must have a firmer foundation.”
“The hell it must.” The temptation to dump out her bloody box was nigh overwhelming. “You can’t leave this house without its general.”
She stopped filling the box, a minor relief to his nerves. “I beg your pardon?”
“Do you already have your next post lined up?”
She nodded, having the grace to look chagrined.
“Was it something I said?”
“It’s time, Worth. You are traveling north. Sooner or later, our encounters would have come to the attention of your family, and I miss my siblings.”
In all their dealings, she’d never once mentioned a family member by name other than the one brother—Blue or something—and now she had to be with family?
How was he to compete with family? He barely knew Yolanda, and yet he was willing to beat a gardener’s lights out for her.
Worth had negotiated successfully with angry princes and irate, titled nabobs. He calmly fired his biggest cannon directly at her overactive sense of duty.
“Leave then if you must, but Trysting does not deserve to be abandoned this way.” And neither do I. “Simmons’s knees are acting up, Cook can’t plan a menu to save herself, and Reilly will forget to repair Hunter’s bridge if you turn tail on us now.”
Her posture grew two inches taller. “What do you mean? I manage the maids only, and that other… Those matters are not within my purview.”
She was a great believer in honesty, so he’d be honest.
“Right. You don’t make a weekly list for Carl, printed large enough for Simmons to read and fuss over? You don’t plan the menus, right down to Avery’s breakfast porridge? You don’t choose the wines to serve with dinner? You don’t meet at least daily with Roberts to learn of the doings in the stable? You don’t have the maids spying on the footmen, the footmen on the maids, and Reilly relying on you for his every move?”
She sat, a woman whose wind had dropped abruptly from her sails, though this was his Jacaranda, and not even guilt would becalm her for very long.
“I’m sorry. If I’ve overstepped, I’m sorry.”
“You’ve overstepped,” he said, desperation making him merciless. “You’ve charged past every limit ever put on a housekeeper’s authority and made all and sundry dependent on your guidance. You owe me and this household the time I need to find a successor, Jacaranda Wyeth. I’ll write you a bad character and run it in the Times if you bolt on me now.”
“I wouldn’t bolt,” she said, sounding contrite—as if mere contrition would serve. “I’m preparing for the transition.”
“Preparing to bolt.” She was leaving him now, now when he had to get to London post-haste. “You ought to be ashamed.”
“Oh, I am. I ought to be and I am.”
His resolve nearly faltered at the sheer misery in her tone. “I want your promise you’ll be here when I return.”
Her head came up. “Where are you off to?”
“Bloody London. It’s always damned Town and my damned clients, and I want your last damned groat, Jacaranda.”
“You want my funds?”
“I want the authority to invest them as I please, your power of attorney, and a signed note of hand for the sum.” At least he could prevent her having the coin to take ship or remove herself to the ends of the earth.
“You need it?” She sounded more curious than concerned, but all Worth knew was that she’d stopped packing and she wasn’t leaving—yet.
“I need it.” A lie, and the God’s honest truth. “I’m leaving as soon as Goliath is saddled. Meet me in my room in fifteen minutes.”
He left before he could start kissing her silly, or throwing things of value, or tossing more useless proposals at her. She was leaving him, leaving him, and when he ought to have locked the door and pleasured her senseless, he was getting on his damned horse and wearing his arse out over blighted, blasted, bedamned, benighted business.
Never again. He’d deal with whatever the mess of the moment was, report to his Regent, and get the hell out of the endless demands that comprised his business. Jones could deal with the opera dancers, Lewis could peddle the lace, the titled clients could go pester some other man to make them wealthy while they sat on their pampered, drunken backsides.
He silently ranted on as he retrieved the power of attorney and promissory note he’d drafted earlier on the strength of earlier discussions with his deserter of a housekeeper. He summoned Carl and Hess to witness the signatures, then ordered them from his sitting room.
“I would have told you,” Jacaranda said, eyeing the closed door. “I wouldn’t have disappeared like a thief in the night, but I’m worried about my family.”
“Like a thief in the day then. Will you at least give us your direction?”
“We can talk about that later,” she said, moving toward the door. He beat her there, holding it closed with a hand over her shoulder as she lifted the latch.
They stood like that for a moment, her back to his front, until Worth swept her hair from the side of her neck.
“You’re stronger than I, Jacaranda, to turn your back on this.” He pressed a kiss to the spot below her ear, the skin so warm and fragrant and tender he had to linger there, breathing her in. “Promise me you’ll be here when I return.”
She nodded as her breath caught.
“Jacaranda?”
“I’ll s-stay.”
“Oh, love.” He turned her gently and took her into his arms while she pressed a teary cheek to his shoulder. “You won’t tell me what these tears are for?”
“For us.”
“Is there someone else? A Mr. Wyeth?” A mere husband was an obstacle he could surmount, for divorce was simply a matter of influence, exorbitant sums, and vast patience. The patience might be a challenge.
“No Mr. Wyeth, no one else.”
A weight lifted from Worth’s heart. “Then why?”
A silence measured the distance between his plea and her answer. “You could not respect me if I betrayed a trust placed in me by someone who loves me.”
She’d got her female brain fixed on some emotional star he couldn’t begin to sight—something to do with her long-lost, useless brothers, and he couldn’t change her mind in the next five minutes. She at least hadn’t tried to deny her feelings for him.
To hell with siblings who didn’t understand that a woman was entitled to a family of her own—an encouraging thought. “You’ll stay until I return?”
He had to hear the words again.
“Only until then.”
“I won’t have a replacement hired that soon.” Pathetic, to suggest the household Jacaranda had run for five years wouldn’t be able to soldier on a while without her. Twenty years from now, the footmen would still be quoting her.
“Mary can manage here for a bit. You should go.”
“Promise me. I need to hear your promise, love.”
“I promise…I promise I won’t leave until you return, but Worth? Don’t tarry in Town.”
“Dear heart, I never have.” He kissed her gently and lingeringly, when he wanted to put a wealth of fire and possession into their parting intimacies. If he gave into that impulse, he’d have her on the bed in the next room in about two heartbeats, and haste and desperation would not do.
Not for their first time, not for their last time, and certainly not for their only time.
* * *
“Where’s the damned note?”
Worth fired the question at Benjamin, Earl of Hazelton, a sort of neighbor in Town, and a sort of business associate. Maybe even a sort of friend. More to the point, Hazelton kept a dovecote full of homing pigeons connected with all points of the realm. Nothing stopped the birds save truly ugly weather. Hazelton claimed his pigeons could cover up to thirty miles in an hour, which meant word of a ship’s passing Land’s End could reach Town in a day, rather than a week.
“Here’s the damned note.” Hazelton tossed a small, folded piece of paper to him. “Hello to you, too.”
“Apologies for my attire,” Worth said, for he was muddy, rumpled, and the hour was late.
“Read your note. Shall I ring for a tray?”
“Please.” Worth read the few words on the page, and felt…nothing. The fate of the Drummond and all the risk connected to it made no difference.
“Bad news?”
“Nothing of any moment.” Hazelton could be trusted, but Worth had no reason to burden him with confidences. As far as Worth knew, his lordship held no shares in the Drummond. The source of Hazelton’s wealth was mysterious, and Worth had no interest in unraveling the mystery, though Hazelton’s pretty countess likely had a hand in matters.
Jacaranda Wyeth had done this to him. Taken a fine solicitor and investment manager and turned him into a walking ghost.
“Kettering?” Hazelton stood not two feet away, holding out a tumbler of whiskey in Worth’s direction.
“My thanks.” Hazelton had connections that ensured he offered only the finest spirits. Worth suspected a certain marquess among Hazelton’s associations, but had never pried. “When did the bird arrive?”
Hazelton poured himself a drink and held the glass under a nose more bold than aristocratic. “Noon. He left Devon yesterday midday.”
“You’ve a slacker in your mews, then.” Worth let a swallow of very fine old whiskey slide down his throat.
Hazelton shrugged. “Or there are storms on the coast. Do you want word sent anywhere in particular?”
“No. The truth of the matter will be readily apparent in due course. Where do you find your libation, Hazelton?”
Hazelton smiled faintly and took a delicate sip. “I took that in trade for services. If I tell you from whom, I’ll violate a client confidence.”
“Bloody clients.” Worth threw himself into a well-upholstered chair as a patter of rain spanked the library windows.
“For many years, clients paid my way in this life.” Hazelton took the sofa facing a crackling fire, and they drank in silence until a footman appeared with a laden tray.
“Your kitchen dotes on you,” Worth said.
“My countess dotes on me, and I on her.” Hazelton gestured to the tray. “You look peckish.”
Worth ate, swilled more whiskey, and let Hazelton detain him until there was a break in the showers, then walked Goliath home through the remaining drizzle, the weather suiting his mood.
He’d make various arrangements tomorrow at the office, track down his regent, send a messenger to Hess, who would be on tenterhooks until he got word, and then…
Then he’d go home, for Trysting was home now, because of her. When he got there, he’d beg if he had to. He’d plead, he’d cry. Well, he wouldn’t cry, perhaps, but he would feel like crying.
He already did feel like crying.
And when he dreamed that night, he dreamed the Drummond had sunk, her cargo tossed about on the waves for the scavengers to salvage.
* * *
“What is that damned dog doing in the house?” Grey snapped.
The beast looked anxious, until Will stroked a hand over her head. “You’ll hurt George’s feelings, and that’s not wise when I bring a warning that trouble has come to call.”
Grey marched off in the direction of the Dorning family wing, where Trouble was a permanent guest.
“Trouble cannot come to call. Nobody should call, for Mrs. Dankle has gone and done it this time.”
Will fell in beside him, the dog trotting at his heels, tail waving merrily. “Dankle killed Francine? I’d say you should double her wages.”
“I cannot afford to double her wages again, and I won’t be paying her wages in any case. She’s taken French leave, decamped for the charms of her drooling grandbabies. I don’t think she’s coming back either, Will.”
“Dankle has to come back. She loves us.”
The hound looked worried again—smart dog.
“No, she does not. Between my muddy boots, your hounds, Cam’s mischief with the maids, and Ash’s mechanical experiments, Dankle would probably prefer Bedlam to another month at Dorning House.”
“At least she won’t have to put up with Francine,” Will said as they reached the double doors opening on the family wing. “That should be good for morale among the domestics.”
An itching that had started up between Grey’s shoulder blades weeks ago, nagged at him.
“What do you mean, we won’t have to put up with Francine?”
Grey stayed where he was, because forewarned was forearmed, and he had every confidence Francine was behind Dankle’s defection to the ranks of contented grannies.
For which, he would make his dear step-mama pay.
“Some baron fellow is pacing about the front parlor,” Will said, “clearing his throat, and muttering about fetching his bride. I told the footman to bring him the very best brandy we’ve been able to hide from Cam, because any fellow who’s meeting Franny at the altar is a friend of mine.”
The dog remained obediently by Will’s side, her tail still waving gently as if she shared her owner’s sanguine outlook. Behind Will, a mirror with a crack across the bottom hung slightly askew, and a bouquet of roses had long since needed replacing.
“This is not good, Will. Without Dankle, Francine might have at least tried to hold the staff together until I could hire a replacement.”
Though the baron was welcome to Francine, for she created a lot of work for the staff.
“This is not bad, either,” Will said, streaking a finger through the dust on the mirror. “Francine is unhappy, and an unhappy female is the definition of trouble.”
True enough. While an unhappy earl was the definition of one whose damned roses wouldn’t cross.
Or something.
“Come with me,” Grey said, resuming his progress. “We can ask Francine about this fiancé she neglected to let anybody know she’d attached.”
When they reached her ladyship’s suite of rooms, they were met by footmen hauling a series of trunks from the room.
“Those are my trunks,” Will muttered.
“Think of your friend in the parlor,” Grey replied, leading the way into a chaos of gowns, hats, and boxes strewn about the room. “Your ladyship, what’s afoot?”
The dog sniffed at a stocking dangling from her ladyship’s vanity, then padded over to Will’s side, her tail no longer wagging.
“You might knock before entering a lady’s chambers,” Francine said. “What is that dog doing in my rooms?”
“She’s sitting,” Grey said, as a maid stacked three hat boxes in a tower and departed with the lot. “While you appear to be going somewhere.”
For all Francine was unhappy, as Will had said, Grey was still uneasy to see her boxing up her every slipper and glove.
Particularly without a word of warning to the head of her household.
“I’m leaving for Bath,” Francine said, closing the doors to an empty wardrobe. “Baron Hathaway has offered to share his coach with me.”
“Will says the baron has offered to share a bit more than that with you,” Grey observed, “and when were you planning to tell me yesterday was Dankle’s last day?”
Francine turned, the wardrobe at her back. “When were you planning to get that sister of yours to come home, so my existence here was not an endless round of feuding housemaids, lazy footmen, and ridiculous economies?”
Francine truly was leaving, else she would not have been as obvious about her motivations. If her departure to Bath were merely temporary, then she’d resume fretting over Jacaranda’s good name, or natter on about missing dear Jacaranda, or coo over family needing to be together.
“Do you hate Jacaranda?” Will asked, his tone for once sharp.
“No, I do not,” Francine said, snatching up the dangling stocking and rolling it into a tight ball. “I’m in truth fond of the girl and have only her best interests in mind, but you lot seem content to turn Dorning House into the largest gentleman’s club in England. Jacaranda can manage you, and she’ll likely even be able to find wives for you. I wash my hands of you all. She is not plagued by delicate nerves—not yet.”
Francine pitched the stocking into an open hat box with an accuracy many a cricket team would envy, and while she tried to hide it, Grey detected a gleam of triumph in her eyes.
“Francine, you may elope with your baron, and I will wish you all the very best. I hope for Daisy’s sake and the sake of your grandchildren, we continue to remain cordial. Whatever you’ve done, whatever scheme you’ve concocted, you had best tell us now, or we’ll inform the baron you’ve changed your mind.”
The dog rose from her haunches, her alert gaze swinging from Grey to Francine.
“Hathaway will not believe you,” Francine said. “As for my schemes, I’ve planned a little house party to keep you gentlemen entertained, a few dozen of Society’s finest heiresses and prettiest debutantes selected from the best families. The list is in my escritoire, and while I’d really rather stay and allow you to bid me a proper thanks, I must instead make my farewell.”
She swept out, the last of the maids following with another tower of hat boxes.
With a sense of foreboding, Grey approached the escritoire and opened the top drawer. On a piece of vellum—no foolscap for Francine—in the tidy hand that was likely recognized all over the realm, a list of names marched down one page and onto the next.
“How bad is it?” Will asked.
Grey took the delicate Louis Quinze chair before his knees could buckle.
“I wouldn’t say it’s bad, exactly,” he replied, reading down the third page. “I’d say if we don’t retrieve Jack immediately, we’re facing a bloody damned disaster.”
George strolled over to the vanity, sniffed the skirt, squatted, and peed on the carpet.
* * *
Worth wasted another blighted rainy day chasing down Prinny and whispering the appropriate warnings into the royal ear. With His Royal Highness, a confidence might be kept, or passed along to titillate the inner circle at Carlton House. It made little difference now, in any case.
Worth had seen to his paperwork, made the last arrangements, given his stewards and clerks the appropriate stern but appreciative lectures, and once again put his tired arse in Goliath’s well-worn saddle.
The shift in his finances would make no real difference. He’d never lived extravagantly, and man didn’t arrive to a half million in worth without suffering both gains and losses. The fate of the Drummond should have mattered to him, but it didn’t.
“So this is love,” he informed his horse, when they’d stopped for a drink at one of the better posting inns between Town and Trysting. Worth swilled his ale while Goliath did his best to drain the water trough.
Mostly though, horse and rider were dawdling. Autumn lurked in the shade, in the mud that made the king’s highway slow going, in the yellowing of the undergrowth along the road. In the north, the season would be well advanced.
“Come along, horse. Your fool master must meet his fate, lest the lady bolt before she’s taken proper leave of me.”
Goliath flicked an ear beginning to grow fuzzy with the approach of colder weather.
Though Worth didn’t travel faster than a relaxed trot, still he made Trysting before tea time. He dreaded the news that Jacaranda had fled, dreaded seeing her, dreaded dinner with his family looking on.
Dreaded the rest of his life without Jacaranda to tease and love and grow old with.
As he bathed and changed, it occurred to him that before, when he’d left Grampion as a much younger man, he’d been this bewildered, hurt and confused.
But he’d been angry, too. He’d been gloriously, righteously angry with everyone he loved, and even with the woman he thought he loved. Somewhere inside, he was angry now at Jacaranda, but he recognized that the anger was driven by hurt and a kind of confused shame that she should reject him.
He was wealthy, relative to her, still.
He was an earl’s heir.
He was not bad looking, if a bit too largish.
He loved her.
Maybe she didn’t want love, he thought as he dragged a brush through his hair. He would have to ask her.
He went to the kitchen, learning that Jacaranda intended to take a tray in her room for dinner. The coward was in the library, cleaning the window next to his desk. The scent of vinegar seemed an appropriate counterpoint to her usual sweet fragrance.
“Mrs. Wyeth, greetings.” He did not cross the room, did not wrap his arms around her.
“Mr. Kettering. I trust your journey was productive?” She didn’t even turn to face him, but kept moving her rag vigorously over the already sparkling glass.
Where the hell were the maids, and why polish a spotless window?
“My journey was an exercise in wasted time, for the most part. You’ll scrub through that glass do you persist much longer.”
She stopped, her shoulders slumping.
“And you’re taking a tray in your room tonight,” Worth went on, “the better to avoid me?”
“Not to avoid you.” She stepped down from her stool. “I’m trying to avoid further aggravation for both of us.”
“By fleeing. I know all about fleeing, Jacaranda. I run off whenever my feelings are hurt, or my pride, or my dignity, but I could not run off this time. I could only run to you, do you understand?”
“Yes.” She folded her rag as if it were pristine linen. “I understand about running, but you must think I’m running from you, when I’m running to something I never should have turned my back on. I’ve finally found the courage to put right some things I put wrong in the past, and you will not lecture or bully me into changing my mind at this late date.”
After five years, this courage just happened to befall her when Worth offered marriage?
“Nobody can apparently change that block of stone you call your mind,” he said, his ire gathering. “Not for love nor money will you consider another’s viewpoint might have more merit than your own.”
She pitched her rag at his chest but missed. “You haven’t the first clue what you ask of me.”
“So tell me,” he said, his voice lowering as he advanced on her. “We’re running out of time, Jacaranda, and I want to know what it is you find so much more compelling than a future with me.”
Tears gathered in her eyes, but Worth could not afford to relent. His happiness hung in the balance, and he would have bet his entire remaining fortune that hers did, too.
“For the love of God, Jacaranda, please tell me what keeps us apart. If it’s a dragon, I may not slay it, but I’ll tame the damned beast until it eats from your hand.”
“You’ll hate me if I tell you why I must leave. I’d rather skip to the leaving part and have you merely wroth with me. I’m trying to find my courage, Worth. I don’t want to leave you, but I fear I left the greater part of it in Dorset.”
She believed that convoluted, inverted, inside-out female pronouncement, and yet, Worth also saw hesitation in her eyes, and longing, and—most encouraging of all—love. The dratted, dear woman had somehow determined that she had to leave for him.
“Jacaranda, I’m a solicitor. I solve problems for a living. I thrive on difficulties and averting scandal. I’m resourceful, persistent, and creative. I have means, and more important than all of that—” He loved her, though one shouldn’t hurl those words at the object of his devotion.
A soft tap, and then the door banged open to reveal an entire crowd of big, dark, windblown young men and a mastiff who might have been a near relation to Goliath.
The tallest of the lot strode into the room, murder in his eyes.
“Whoever you are, get the hell away from my sister now.”