Chapter Nine
“You’re the oldest daughter, right?” Worth put the question to Mary as she sat at his kitchen table, her feet up on a chair. “You were probably your mother’s right hand.”
“From little up.” Mary sipped her tea, her rapturous expression suggesting she was savoring the first real tea she’d had in days. “I took as much burden from Ma as I could, until my sisters started coming along, and they’re good workers. What was needed was more coin, so here I am.”
“How are you feeling?” He dreaded her reply. She looked tired and pale and thinner in the face. That couldn’t be good, but Jones hadn’t yet discovered the name of the father. He would, though. Jones had yet to let Worth down.
“I’m doing well enough,” Mary said, taking another sip of tea. “This settles my nerves, it does. I can feel myself coming to rights, to have a good cup of tea.”
“Tea helps the digestion, which I would hazard has been troubling you?”
“A mite.”
He topped up her cup and waited while she poured cream and sugar into it in quantity.
“I’ve a proposition for you,” he said, pouring himself a cup and taking a seat at right angles to her. “Hear me out before you laugh in my face. I want to accomplish two things, and I think you can do both. The first matter relates to this household.”
His plan was the best way to keep her safe, to get her the hell off her feet so the child she carried had a chance at health and a decent start in life. Then too, he’d become irrationally critical of the job his house steward was doing.
The back stoop sported mud from the mews and worse, for pity’s sake.
The window in his bedroom stuck and screeched when he pried it open.
The kitchen floor near the sink was sticky, and when he thought back, it had always been sticky.
“Wants a hands and knees scrubbing,” Mary said, rubbing her toe over the offending location. “Grease gets on it, then it half works into the wood, and it takes lye soap and hot water to lift it.”
He toured the house with her, pointing out dozens of small lapses Jacaranda Wyeth would have set right in a heartbeat.
“I was in service for a few months when I first came to Town,” Mary said when they were again gathered around the teapot. “Most of the girls make a try for service before they start dancing, though it’s hard work. At least you have a roof over your head and some victuals.”
“What happened?”
“Footmen, the man of the house, his sons, the tradesmen, a pack of humping louts, the lot of them, and a girl doesn’t have to so much as flirt to be given the sack for the way a man looks at her. Don’t suppose you’ve a biscuit on hand?”
“Finish your tea.” He patted her hand and scavenged up a plate of shortbread that was less than a day old and brought up his second idea. She listened, munched her shortbread, and agreed to consider his offers.
What was it with women that they were all overcome by the need to deliberate perfectly sound propositions of late? Worth’s musings were disturbed when Lewis came in looking like he’d distasteful news to impart.
“What is it?”
“We’ve a beggar in the mews, or I think he’s a beggar, and he’s asking for you.”
“He’s not asking for food or money?”
Lewis scratched his chin. “Claims he’s not. Said he knows you’re here, because your great, black beast is in the mews, and he’ll keep coming back until you talk with him.”
“You still think he’s a beggar?” Worth turned down his cuffs as he rose. Some of his clients were from the highest tiers of society—he’d been to Carlton House that very morning—and some were not.
Still, he didn’t recognize the weathered old salt at his back door.
The man stuck out a hand. “Name’s Noonan. I used to sail with Captain Spicer, of the Drummond, years and years ago.”
“I know Spicer,” Worth said. “He’s a good man, but the Drummond should have made port last week, and we fear for him.” This was part of what he’d had to tell his regent earlier in the day. The meeting had lacked sorely for good cheer.
Noonan slapped a dusty cap against his thigh. “Fret not. Spicer was swilling rum at the same little out-of-the-way port where I laid up on Madagascar while his ship put in for repairs. They took bad storm damage, but lost not a hand.”
“This is very, very good news,” Worth said, thinking quickly. “The best news.”
Noonan tugged the cap back on a balding pate, his grin conspiratorial. “The best news is that your cargo is in fine shape as well. Drummond said to tell you they should be along in a couple more weeks.”
“Who else have you told?”
“Cap’n swore me to secrecy. Said to tell you myself and only you, and he’d consider his account with you even.”
“Even it is,” Worth said. “For your discretion, I’m prepared to offer you a one percent share in the venture, if you’re interested?”
“As one old sailor who’s weathered too many gales, of course I’m interested.”
“Give me your direction. I’ll send around the paperwork, but if you breathe a word of this to anyone, your share will soon be as worthless in truth as it’s rumored to be now.”
“I can take a secret with me to my grave, but I would like to call on Mrs. Spicer. She’s no doubt heard the rumors as well.”
“Leave that to me, and no matter what you hear, keep your mouth shut, and don’t sell your share to anyone.”
“Righty-o, mate.” He turned to leave with a jaunty wave.
“Another moment of your time, Noonan. Captain Spicer’s man deserves some decent sustenance and a spot of tea, unless you’ve pressing matters to see to?”
“I could do with a plate and pint, but I wouldn’t put you to any trouble.”
“This won’t be trouble.” Though it would be delicate, for Worth would not lie outright. “We’re off to the local tavern, where we’ll lament Spicer’s apparent fate for any with ears to hear.”
Noonan doffed his cap again and held it over his heart. “Too bad about old Spicer. He were a good sort, just took one too many chances.”
“Pity,” Worth said. “A real shame.”
* * *
Worth was glad his schedule allowed for a leisurely midday meal, for old Noonan had done justice to many a pint. Now the game was well and truly on, because Spicer’s sad fate had been toasted vociferously, until a pair of stevedores coming in from a hard morning on the docks had joined in. By next week, shares in the Drummond would be available for a farthing apiece, and shares were held in many, many hands.
Worth wanted to tell Jacaranda what was afoot, but he didn’t dare put such tidings in a letter. He told neither Lewis, nor Jones, nor Mary, nor anybody. Some of his clients had shares in the Drummond, the ones with enough to do a little high-risk investing, and Worth himself had invested heavily. The odds weren’t as long as people thought, for the Drummond was stoutly constructed and the captain both experienced and sensible. The crew was made up of men who’d sailed with him on many occasions.
But still, Worth missed his housekeeper, missed that private smile she’d sent him off with, missed her summery, lavender scent, and her tart, unvarnished rejoinders.
He even missed his niece, and his sister, and the peaceful sense of repose Trysting offered for all who bided there.
When he returned to his town house, he sat at his desk, trimmed a quill pen, and considered what he could say that wouldn’t offend the woman he was missing most.
My Dear Mrs. Wyeth,
That much wasn’t offensive, and she was dear. She wasn’t his, though—not yet. He finished the note anyway, sanded it, and passed it to a groom to take directly out to Surrey. When that task was complete, he contemplated what goal he should set once the Drummond had seen his holdings surpass the million-pound mark.
Oddly enough, that pleasant contemplation did not relieve him from wondering if his note would be answered.
* * *
“Come along, girls, unless you’ve more money to spend?” Jacaranda posed the question brightly, but a normally pleasant day at market had turned into something else.
Thomas Hunter suspected she’d trysted with her employer at that cottage. He hadn’t said anything—he wouldn’t—but already, Jacaranda and the man who wasn’t her lover had been indiscreet.
“Please, Mrs. Wyeth.” Avery gave her a big-eyed, pleading look. “May we not visit the sweet stall once again? I can buy Uncle some lemon drops, and maybe you would like some candied violets?”
“I’ll take her,” Yolanda offered. “We can meet you at the livery.”
“Very well, but don’t tarry, and no violets for me. We make our own at Trysting.”
“Miss Kettering is a nice addition to the scenery,” Thomas Hunter said, his gaze following Yolanda’s retreating skirts with a particular male appreciation.
“She’s sixteen, Thomas. She’s not receiving yet.”
“My wife was fifteen and not receiving when we started walking out. Don’t worry, I know my place. If you’re headed to the livery, I’ll walk you.”
He winged his arm, and Jacaranda had no choice but to take it.
“About our earlier discussion.” He didn’t have to dip his head to talk to her, because they were of a height. “You must pass along something to Mr. Kettering for me.”
“If I can.”
He kept walking steadily, farther away from the market crowd.
“Tell him…” Thomas glanced around. “Tell him I know a man gets lonely and has needs, but he’d best not trifle with a lady who can’t manage what he’s after. Kettering is a Town man and probably thinks the women here are like all those tarts in London—”
Oh, this was worse, much worse, than if Thomas had been scolding her directly.
“Thomas,” she interrupted him. “You’ve made your point, but Mr. Kettering is the soul of probity with the maids and so forth. He is a gentleman.”
Tom patted her hand as they approached the livery. “Gentlemen are often the worst of the sorry lot.” Jacaranda saw plain as day in Thomas’s dark brown eyes that he knew exactly who’d been in that cottage with Worth Kettering. He wasn’t guessing, he wasn’t surmising. He knew.
“What gave me away?”
He muttered something low and profane. “The sheets bore your fragrance, lavender and mille fleurs. No other lady in this shire bears quite that scent, and himself left behind a fancy monogrammed handkerchief. I’ll call him out, Jacaranda Wyeth, I swear I will if he’s taking advantage.”
“He’s not taking advantage. How do you know mille fleurs, Thomas?”
“You aren’t the only one rusticating here in Surrey, Mrs. Wyeth, but you’re the one holding my landlord’s estate together, and I can’t have mischief befalling you. I’ll be up to Trysting to meet with Mr. Kettering on Tuesday, if it suits.”
The hustle and hubbub of the town on market day gave them a measure of privacy, for which Jacaranda was profoundly grateful.
“Mr. Kettering may still be in Town on Tuesday, but you mustn’t castigate him, Thomas.”
“Why mustn’t I? You haven’t anybody else to speak up for you.”
“I have many people to speak for me,” Jacaranda countered, though those people were mostly content to dwell in Dorset. “Mr. Kettering does not force his attentions on unwilling women.”
“You tell yourself that.” Thomas untangled their arms, because even walking arm in arm might cause talk now that they neared their destination. “I have little girls of my own, Jacaranda Wyeth, and yet not long ago, I was an overgrown boy full of myself. I know what men are. I am one, and you can’t trust us regarding certain matters. All those people who would speak for you, they’re not here, are they? You’ve escaped their watchful eyes, just as I’ve slipped my uncle’s leash. Now you’re lonely, and Kettering’s crooking his finger.”
“He’s not…” Well, he was, but she could hardly admit to a neighbor she’d turned down marriage to the man. “It isn’t what you think.”
“I would bet my mule it isn’t what you think either.” He stepped back when the grooms brought her gig around. “The day after himself returns from Town, I’ll be on his doorstep, the soul of cordial deference—until you tell me otherwise.”
“Thank you, I think.”
He tipped his hat, and she curtsied in return, but the entire exchange had been disquieting, in several regards.
First, her privacy had already been compromised, though she trusted Thomas Hunter to keep his unsmiling mouth shut.
Second, her other secret—how she operated at Trysting—was also no longer exclusively hers.
Third, she wasn’t entirely displeased about that. She’d seen respect in Thomas’s eyes, liking, and a certain protectiveness that startled her but didn’t disconcert as it might. He was behaving like a brother, and that pattern she understood, could predict, could manage.
Avery came skipping up to the gig, Yolanda a few steps behind.
“We have the lemon drops! And we saw that nice Mr. Hunter, and he had one. He kissed Tante’s hand.” She made a loud smacking sound and clambered into the gig.
“He is a very nice man,” Yolanda said, following more sedately into the carriage, “and he has a lovely smile. He took the lemon drop only to be friendly, though. I know how men are.”
Jacaranda said nothing, for it seemed everybody but she herself knew how men were. As they tooled back to Trysting, it occurred to her that in five years in the shire, she’d never once seen Thomas Hunter truly smile.
Though he’d smiled at Yolanda.
She was still pondering that mystery after supper, when Simmons brought her a note, one he’d apparently been hoarding for a properly dramatic moment.
“From Mr. K, himself, and addressed to you, Mrs. W!” He passed along a folded, sealed note, though a flake of wax was missing from the seal.
She didn’t blame Simmons for trying, but neither would she reward his attempt at mischief.
“I’ll wait until I’ve had my tea to read it,” she said, though this prompted a ferocious scowl from Simmons. “His London house steward is likely asking after something Mr. Kettering has forgotten here and needs us to send along to Town.”
“Then hadn’t you better open it?” He smiled, pleased with himself, and made impatient circles with his hand.
“We’ll send a groom with whatever it is.” She set the note aside, out of Simmons’s reach. “We’d never entrust Mr. Kettering’s request to the public stage, now would we?”
“Suppose not.” He turned to go, then inspiration struck. “What if it’s urgent? What if he’s waiting for your reply?”
“The missive bears nothing but an address on the outside, no indications of urgency at all. I’ll be sure to let you know what he says, and thank you for making sure this found me promptly.”
“Yes, well…”
Whatever prevarications and warnings Simmons wanted to pass along, at whatever length, were cut off by Carl, the senior footman, who hung panting against the frame of her parlor door.
“Mr. Simmons, sir, a wagon’s coming up the drive, and it’s loaded with baggage.”
“A wagon?” Simmons’s white eyebrows climbed his forehead. “Loaded?”
“Perhaps it’s the earl’s baggage arriving in advance of his entourage,” Jacaranda suggested. “His chambers are prepared. The footmen need only shift the goods to the proper location.”
“A wagon,” Simmons repeated. “Such doings, such doings.”
“I’m sure Carl will round up enough strong backs to see it done right,” Jacaranda said, “provided you’re on hand to supervise, Mr. Simmons.”
“Oh, depend upon it, Mrs. W. Depend upon it.”
He bustled off at Carl’s side, leaving Jacaranda some much-needed privacy to read her note. She closed her sitting room door, retreated to her bedroom and closed that door, too.
The note bore none of Worth’s fragrance, but it was written on thick linen paper, a crest of some sort embossed at the top, a lion sitting and a unicorn bowing and a Greek-looking female standing between them, a hand on each.
My Dear Mrs. Wyeth,
I trust this finds you well, though I know the household yet anticipates my brother’s arrival. I must impose on you for a written version of that tutorial you offered my house steward. Inspired by your example, I have hired a housekeeper here in Town, a young lady who like yourself had a great deal of responsibility for younger siblings and shows a penchant for putting things to rights domestically. My candidate for this post is named Mary, and life has not always dealt kindly with her, but she will benefit from correspondence with you, and perhaps later can make the journey to Trysting to learn at your figurative knee.
Like other propositions I have put before you, this is not an urgent request. Nobody will steal the dust from my parlor, will they? I will soon be underfoot at Trysting again, and we might discuss this situation in more detail. Until then, I remain
Yours,
Worth Kettering
Should she be flattered? He’d noticed his town house and his country house were not maintained to the same standards. Of course, in some ways, housekeeping was more challenging in Town—the dust was awful, the city smells, the noise.
In other ways, Town was simple. Help was easy to hire, supplies and services were close at hand, and the markets, oh Lord, the markets in Town were a housekeeper’s delight. Flowers, citrus fruit, spices, soaps and all manner of exotic and wonderful goods fresh from the docks.
Jacaranda put the letter down.
She hated Town. She’d always hated Town. She’d all but screeched that to her father and Step-Mama, her brothers, anybody who’d listen, that she hated Town, but in hindsight, she saw that what she hated was the Season.
Not Town.
Interesting, but hardly of any relevance.
Jacaranda took herself up to the state chambers on the second floor, where the footmen were arranging a small mountain of baggage.
“Well done, Mr. Simmons,” she said, though the butler was fingering locks and straps, as if he was about to get himself into considerable trouble.
“You don’t suppose we should unpack for the great man, do you? He can’t be bothered to fold his own linen.”
“He’ll have staff, Mr. Simmons, a valet, a secretary, and perhaps even his own footmen. They’ll take umbrage if we presume to know how his lordship likes his things set up.”
“Take what? Umbers?”
“They will be offended,” Jacaranda clarified. “I’m sure the trunks could all use a dusting, because the road between here and Cumberland is long. Then too, you might alert the stables that the baggage has arrived, and the coaches will likely follow soon. You did put the coachy and his porter in the kitchen, didn’t you?”
He flapped a hand. “Yes, of course, in the kitchen. These be brass locks and hinges. Brass and shiny as a new button, they are.”
He was still fingering the locks under Carl’s watchful eye when Jacaranda left to interrogate the new arrivals. The baggage might have arrived days ahead of the traveler himself, or mere hours. In either case, she was ready for the earl’s arrival, while her employer was not. The coachy was no help at all, though, knowing only that he’d accepted this load at the way station just north of London and driven it out to Surrey on hire.
Jacaranda penned a swift note to Mr. Kettering and took it down to the stables.
“Roberts?” She peered around, seeing not one soul, which wasn’t that unusual, it being after sunset.
“Here, Missus.” He came slowly down the ladder from the hayloft.
“Good evening, Roberts. Have you a groom to spare for a quick trip to Town?”
His bushy dark eyebrows knit, and he heaved a mountainous sigh. “Another quick trip to Town? I suppose his Royal Importance needs his paperwork moved hither and thither again?”
Everywhere, either insubordinate or impertinent men awaited.
“His Royal Importance feeds you, your horses and your grooms, so I suppose we’d best saddle a horse.”
Roberts’s white teeth flashed. “Now, Missus, I’m only grumbling. It’s a long ride for a note that could be carried by a bird, isn’t it now? An even longer ride when the note could likely wait for tomorrow’s post, but no, we must all dash about, will we, nill we, and keep the master pleased.”
Jacaranda had never heard such talk from him. “Roberts, the last time I considered it, keeping the master pleased was part of the definition of being in service, unless I mistake the matter?”
She let the question hang, but Roberts was an ally of sorts, and she had no wish to antagonize him. The outside staff, grooms, gardeners, groundsmen and so forth all took their direction from Roberts, and Reilly depended on the stable master as well for his animal doctoring.
“You do not mistake the matter,” he said, giving a shrill, two-fingered whistle. “We’ll get the man his note. You’re right: We take his coin, we do his bidding, up to a point.”
“You’ve grown rebellious in the summer heat, Mr. Roberts. Have you something to say?”
His size meant nothing to her, for Jacaranda understood he wouldn’t use it against her. Roberts wasn’t a bully, but he was his own man.
“No.” He gave directions to a skinny groom who’d also come down the ladder from the hayloft, then turned back to her. “Yes. Walk with me a minute while the horse is being readied?”
Walk with him? Perhaps it was the appointed day for odd men to take her arm, except Roberts didn’t, he merely paced off with her in the direction of the pond.
“A lot of excitement brewing up at the house,” Roberts said, his gaze traveling to the manor’s fa?ade. “Having Mr. Kettering in residence, the young ladies, all this coming and going.”
“I’d hardly call it excitement. Activity, perhaps.”
“Activity, then. Now this earl fellow is down from the north to visit.”
“His baggage has arrived, and my note to W—Mr. Kettering is to that effect,” Jacaranda said, keeping her eyes front lest her horror at that slip show in her expression.
“I supposed it was so. You are managing well enough at the house?”
“We’re doing splendidly.” What on earth was he about?
“That’s all right then.” He patted her shoulder, an avuncular gesture that had her even more puzzled. First, Thomas Hunter now Roberts?
She withdrew her note from a skirt pocket. “Please give this to the groom. I expect Mr. Kettering will return post-haste, because he wants to greet his brother in person.”
“He should. They’re family, and Cumberland is a long way off.”
“You’ll be able to accommodate the teams and two more wagons?”
“We’ve cleaned out the whole carriage house and moved the work wagons to the home farm, and yes, we’ll be ready. You?”
“We’re ready but for Mr. Kettering’s absence. I’m sure this note will remedy that situation.”
“We’ll see to it.” He waved, then left Jacaranda standing in the garden, the scent of lavender rising all around her.
* * *
Considering His Royal Highness was tall, quite stout, and leader of one of the most powerful nations in the world, Prinny was deucedly hard to locate. Worth wasted most of the afternoon tracking him to a lawn tennis match, where the Regent was observing casually and flirting madly in the company of his familiars.
In no etiquette book Worth had read did it describe how to part a sovereign from his toadies to discuss delicate financial matters. Worth was thus reduced to whispering in the royal ear, as if imparting a morsel of salacious gossip, at which point the royal brain demonstrated the savvy for which it was occasionally known. The prince dragged his loyal subject off to the buffet, waving the hangers-on away like so many pesky mosquitoes.
Then it took still more whispering, and explaining, and assuring, and reassuring before Worth had the direction needed from His Royal Highness, and the signed documents necessary to carry it out.
By the time Worth returned to his town house, the summer moon was well up in the sky, and Lewis looked to be approaching apoplexy.
“Messenger from Trysting, sir,” Lewis said, taking the documents from Worth’s hand. “Mrs. Wyeth is alerting you to the arrival of a baggage coach. She expects the earl will soon arrive.”
Worth stifled a curse, because his day had been long, hot and trying, but Wyeth would not have sounded the alarm on a whim. “You fed our man and saw his horse stabled?”
“We did.”
“Goliath is saddled?”
“Waiting in his stall, a flask in his saddlebags.”
“You’ve canceled tomorrow’s appointments or shuffled them to the senior clerks?”
“Shuffled. You had only three, and Jones knows all your kitchen clients.”
“Good enough. Did anyone think to pack me a supper?”
Lewis ran his finger around his wilted collar. “A sup…per?”
“No matter,” Worth said, heading for the kitchen. “Have Goliath brought around, and I’ll be out front in a few minutes. Tell Jones to get Mary Flannery moved in here by week’s end, will you?”
“Of course, sir.”
Worth ate cheese and buttered bread in the kitchen standing up. He stuffed an extra sandwich in his pocket, drained a tankard of summer ale, mounted his horse and headed out of Town shortly after midnight.
His arse hurt from making the journey into Town a few days earlier. Not his arse, exactly, his hip joints, and the bones upon which he sat. He was too old to be haring about like this, though as a young man, he’d ridden from Cumberland to Oxfordshire several times a year and felt nary a twinge.
So why had he come charging back into Town, when he’d known damned good and well his brother was soon to make an appearance?
To escape the nigh constant ache caused by proximity to one Jacaranda Wyeth, goddess of his rustic hearth. To see her was to desire her, and that unflattering reality had been most of what sent Worth galloping for London. Not to give her time to ponder their dealings, not to tend to the press of business, not to receive old sailors at his back door, and not to have Jones take samples of fancy lacework around to the shops for competitive bids.
And he hated—hated—this effervescent, anxious, hopeful feeling in his chest, the one caused by the thought of seeing her again, of climbing into her bed, pressing his lips to her soft, fragrant skin and having her roll over to wrap herself around him in welcome.
God in heaven, he was far gone. He brought Goliath down to a spanking trot, trying to pretend he wasn’t eager to get home and failing to fool even the horse, who leaned on the bit right up to the foot of Trysting’s drive.
* * *
Jacaranda rolled over in her bed as hoof beats pounded up the drive. A big horse, its footfalls reverberating in the dewy night air outside her open window.
The arrival was either Worth or his brother, but the earl was supposedly traveling in state, and Jacaranda had sat behind Goliath on enough outings to have an ear for the horse’s gaits.
A sensation of relief swamped Jacaranda, of thanksgiving that the man should be safely arrived to his home. Not set upon by highwaymen, not crumpled in a ditch when his horse took a misstep, not retching his life away after partaking of bad ale at the coaching inns, not racketing about London, pursuing women who cared nothing for the man and only for the pleasures he might bestow on them.
Angels abide, where did such insecurities come from?
In any case, she was glad he was home. She rose and grabbed her prettiest night robe. By the time Worth came in the back door, she had the tea steeping and a tray of cold sandwiches assembled.
“There you are.” He paused at the archway to the back hall, dusty, road-weary, and smiling such a smile, Jacaranda was warmed by it across the breadth of the kitchen. He held his arms wide, and she couldn’t refuse such a sincere invitation.
Didn’t want to, didn’t care to know why she should.
“How is it possible to smell as good as you do at all hours of the day and night?” he asked, nuzzling her hair. “I could retire next week as the wealthiest man in the realm if I could bottle your scent.”
“The scent comes in bottles,” she said, not stepping back. “Are you hungry?”
“I am as hungry as a great white bear of the north emerging in spring after months of deprivation, and some food would be nice, too.”
He was being naughty already. She withdrew from his embrace, not wanting to deal in innuendo and prurient double meanings. Not with him, not tonight, probably not ever.
“Did I say something wrong?”
“You said you were in want of food.” She checked the strength of the tea. “I’ve put together some sandwiches and biscuits and sliced a peach from your walled garden.”
“Is the hour too ungodly for a man to have a bath? If it is, I can take a swim, though you will probably slap me when I ask you to join me, won’t you?”
“Not slap you, but I wouldn’t join you, and no, it isn’t too late for a bath. We’ve doubled up footmen on the night shift in anticipation of your brother’s arrival.”
“Which means we have two?” He sat and waited until she’d poured his cup of tea.
“Which means we have four until ten of the clock, then two until morning,” Jacaranda said, bringing him his tray.
“Join me, please?” He didn’t reach for his food, and he had to be starving, but she hesitated. His eyes held no flirtation, only banked patience.
He dropped his gaze to the food as if composing a blessing. “I won’t order you to take a seat, Wyeth, but I am asking. I’ve missed you.”
“For pity’s sake, you mustn’t say such things.” She sat quickly, scowling at him for his indiscretion rather than admit she liked hearing the words.
“I’ll put food in my mouth, then, to avoid the terrible endearments that might slip out.” He reached for a sandwich. “When is my brother expected?”
“We haven’t the first notion.” Jacaranda had missed him, too, mightily. She could say it to herself, now that he was home safely, but to say it to him seemed unwise.
In the kitchen, unwise.
In private, disastrous.
“I would have been here sooner, but a client was in need of immediate services, and he is someone I avoid offending. Have something to eat. You’re making me nervous, glowering at me. I’ll suffer dyspepsia, and you’ll glower at me for that, too.”
He offered the last with a smile, a crooked, subtle version of the earlier great, beaming invitation.
To get away from that smile, Jacaranda rose. How was it she spent three days listening for Worth’s arrival and now she had no idea how to go on.
“I’ll get the footmen busy with your bath.”
He let her go, which was a relief and a disappointment. She also stopped by Worth’s chambers, finding no candles lit, his bed not turned down, not a single window open to the night breezes, and his flowers a tad thirsty.
Someone, or maybe several someones, required closer supervision.
By the time she returned to the kitchen, her employer was finished eating, but still sitting at the table, a cup of tea cradled against his flat belly. Now he looked not only road-weary but exhausted.
“I gather you’d already put in a long day when my note found you?” She bent to take the tray, and his fingers, cradling his tea cup one moment, were circling her wrist the next. She tugged, and he let her go.
“My days were long and my evenings longer.”
She did not ask him where he’d spent his long evenings. She would never ask that, no matter how badly she wanted to know.
“My dear, you are not in charity with me,” Worth said, frowning. “Is it something we can discuss?”
Put like that… She dropped to the bench beside him.
“Your offer?” she began.
“We’re not bringing that up now. It’s the middle of the night. Anybody might come seeking a late-night snack here in the kitchen, and you’re in a mood. It can wait.”
She was in at least eight different moods at the same time. “But your brother will be here, and I want this resolved.”
“Beg pardon, sir, Mrs. Wyeth.” Carl trotted down the kitchen steps, the jacket of his livery buttoned askew. “One of the grooms came staggering home from the pub and says there’s a gent what talks like Mr. Kettering and looks a bit like him had a meal in the private dining room of the Bird in Paradise.”
Worth started to rise, but Jacaranda caught him with a hand to his shoulder and pushed him back to his seat.
“His lordship is five miles away, if it’s even the earl,” she said. “Finish your tea while your bath is filled. Let the grooms know, Carl, and take up your post at the front door.”
“He’s only my brother,” Worth muttered, dutifully draining his tea cup.
“Who has traveled two hundred miles in the summer heat to see you,” Jacaranda replied. “You are here to receive him only because you came out from Town at a punishing pace, if I guess correctly.”
“You do.” He smiled a little. A very little. “You usually do.”
“Then go enjoy your bath. I’ll tidy up here and make sure the state chambers are in final readiness.”
“I bow to your common sense.” He rose and captured her hand in his to kiss her wrist. “I don’t plan to make a habit of it, though, so stop feeling so smug.”
“I do not feel… Oh, be off with you, lest your brother catch you with your hair sticking up in all directions and your feet bare.”
He looked interested in that picture, so she took the tray, carried it to the sink, and began putting the tea things away, only to feel long arms slip around her waist.
“I missed you.” A soft kiss to the place where her neck and shoulder joined, a tender, private, much-taken-for-granted place with a mysterious connection to her knee joints. “Every hour I was gone.” Lips again, soft, sweet, warm. “I missed you.”
He swept his fingers over her jaw, and then he was gone, and Jacaranda had to brace herself on the counter to remain upright.