Jack (The Jaded Gentlemen Book 4) (10 page)

“Have someone gather up these dishes,” Miss Hennessey added, “and the head footman should also be introduced to Mrs. Fanning along with
you, Mrs. Abernathy, and Cook. The maids will need clean aprons and tidy caps, and the footmen should have on their best gloves.”

Pahdi bowed and nearly ran from the room.

“Your slippers,” Miss Hennessey said, bracing herself on Jack’s desk to scuff out of his footwear.

“Keep them,” Jack said. “And in answer to your question, I would not let you leave this household now if Axel Belmont crawled through the
snow to beg you to rejoin his staff at Candlewick. The invasion has begun.”

To emphasize that point, or perhaps to demonstrate his complete loss of sense, he kissed her again, a proper smack on the lips.

“No more of that with your mother nearly at the door,” Miss Hennessey said. “We’ll finish this discussion later.”

Jack decided on a tactical retreat rather than argue details with Miss Hennessey, because
later
might mean spring, or summer, or next Christmas.
At the very least, they were agreed she ought to remain under his roof for the present, and that felt damnably like a victory.

A buxom redhead in domestic service got kissed, fondled, teased, and flirted with, until she learned to handle herself and the men who would presume on her
person. Madeline had grasped the basics by the time she was sixteen.

Dress like a shabby nun, which wasn’t difficult. Never look a man in the eye, especially not when angry—and Madeline had been angry a great
deal. Pretend gross stupidity, while keeping a sharp lookout in all directions. Never mistake a man’s desire for respect, regardless of his sweet
words or fervent promises.

By the time she’d turned seventeen, she’d permitted the occasional liberty—on her terms or not at all—but a sampling of male charms
confirmed that nothing a man had to offer compared with the security of a position in a household like Candlewick.

Jack Fanning wouldn’t jeopardize Madeline’s position, but he had very much upended her reason.

As Madeline changed into her best pair of house slippers, and an enormous coach came jingling up the snowy drive, she struggled to make sense of Sir
Jack’s kiss.

His kiss, his embrace, his presumption with her stockings, and her own acquiescence in all of it.

“Not mere acquiescence,” Madeline admitted to the room at large, “participation. Enthusiastic participation born of wanton inclinations
and sheer loneliness.”

She’d been lonely all of her adult life, that wasn’t news. The problem was, Sir Jack was lonely too, and worse, Madeline was attracted to him.

He was well regarded in the neighborhood and among the staff, for all he didn’t go out of his way to be liked. He was his own person, and in a gruff,
charmless way, perceptive about what mattered.

Madeline checked her appearance in the cheval mirror, and saw a woman who could never be mistaken for a shabby nun. In Abigail Belmont’s discarded
finery, the hopeful, happy girl Madeline had been shone through, a girl Madeline had never thought to see again.

Not simply a buxom redhead, but a woman with a sparkle in her eye—a woman who’d been kissed without being presumed upon. Her dress was amethyst
velvet with blue trim, and Abigail had given her a peacock paisley shawl to match the shade of the trim.

Madeline wrapped the shawl about her shoulders, decided against a cap, and left her room no more settled than she’d arrived.

Which was another part of the problem. She was unsettled, and in her bones, she knew that Sir Jack had been unsettled too. He hadn’t planned that
kiss, hadn’t stepped back with smug satisfaction in his eyes while he adjusted himself behind his falls.

He’d been as surprised as Madeline, and a long winter loomed ahead of them both.

“Please come down to the library, miss,” Pahdi said, when Madeline encountered him at the top of the steps. “Sir Jack would like to
introduce you to his respected, lovely, most gracious mother.”

“One adjective will do, Pahdi. You wouldn’t want anybody to think you’re less than confident of your station.”

Pahdi’s dark brows rose. “Excellent point, Miss Hennessey.”

“Mrs. Fanning will order you about, trying to provoke a reaction from you,” Madeline continued as they descended at a pace far slower than
Pahdi would likely have set. “You make a game of it. The more she goads you, the more polite and solicitous you become.”

He silently repeated the word
solicitous
. “Have you been to India, Miss Hennessey?”

“No, though I hear it’s lovely and fascinating, if something of a challenge to the average Englishman. When you bring in the tea tray,
don’t let Sir Jack take it from you. Wait for him to tell you where he’d like you to set it down.”

“Of course. Sir Jack forgets.”

“They all forget, and then they scold us for their lapses. Or worse, they don’t scold and then we wish they would so we could muster a little
resentment.”

Pahdi’s eyes began to dance, though his countenance remained as smooth as Mr. Belmont’s farm pond on a cloudless day.

“India would be no challenge for you, Miss Hennessey, provided you took care with the brilliant sun.”

He tapped on the door of the library.

“How do I look?” Madeline asked, for Pahdi was the only person she could ask.

“Lovely, but not too lovely,” Pahdi said with a wink. “The mother will find you pretty, and Miss DeWitt will want to make a friend of
you.”

He opened the door before Madeline could ask,
Who’s Miss DeWitt
?

In Jack’s experience, the ambush was a tactic preferred by native forces when outgunned by the British army. His Majesty’s armed services were
too brave for such a craven approach to combat, and that courage—or blundering on the part of their officers—often earned His Majesty’s
soldiers an early grave.

Mama had the instincts of a maharani protecting an imperiled throne when it came to ambushing her eldest son.

“You might have warned me,” Jack muttered to his younger brother as Miss Hennessey swept into the library.

“Mama didn’t let on Miss DeWitt was joining the party,” Jeremy replied. “I climbed into the coach and found not one lady but two on
the front-facing seat. Who is this?”

Yes, who was this? Gone was the field marshal of mistletoe-gathering missions, and in her place was a demure, shyly smiling young lady who wore lavender
and blue quite well.

“Mama, Miss DeWitt, may I present Miss Madeline Hennessey, who has graciously joined the household to ensure you ladies have some agreeable female
companionship while enduring the dreary months of winter in Oxfordshire. Miss Hennessey, my estimable mother, Florentia Fanning, and Miss Lucy Anne DeWitt,
of the Dorset DeWitts.”

Miss Hennessey’s curtsey was interesting. She didn’t bob with the nervous deference of a maid meeting a new employer. She dipped with relaxed
grace, first to Mama, then to Miss DeWitt, who had apparently misplaced her smile.

“A pleasure to meet you both,” Miss Hennessey said. “May I enquire as to your journey? The weather has abruptly become disobliging,
hasn’t it?”

“We managed,” Miss DeWitt said. “Reverend Jeremy found us the loveliest inn, and Mrs. Fanning’s coach is a marvel of
comfort.”

Jeremy cleared his throat, which was probably a vicar’s equivalent of elbowing his brother in the gut. Jack battled a reluctance to introduce Miss
Hennessey to his brother, based mostly on the ridiculous thought that they’d like each other.

And make a beautiful couple.

Jeremy was nearly as tall as Jack—handsomely tall in Jeremy’s case, not awkwardly tall—and his hair tended more to auburn than
Jack’s nondescript sandy blond. Then too, Jeremy was nine years Jack’s junior, and had never subjected himself to tropical sun and wind, much
less to torture, captivity, and army rations.

“Miss Hennessey,” Jeremy said, bowing over the lady’s hand. “Very kind of you to join us. I’m sure we’ll make a lively
foursome at whist, if nothing else.”

That foursome apparently did not include Jack.

“Miss Hennessey, you shall pour out,” Mama said, taking the chair nearest the fire as Pahdi entered the library bearing yet another enormous
silver tray.

“I would be happy to, ma’am,” Miss Hennessey replied, and that was a mistake.

One didn’t graciously consent to Mama’s directions. One submitted in meek silence. Miss DeWitt took the place between Jack and Jeremy on the
sofa, while Miss Hennessey took the second wing chair near the hearth.

When Jack would have risen to take the tray from Pahdi, his butler shot him a warning glance.

“Miss Hennessey will do the honors,” Jack said, gesturing to the low table. “Thank you, Pahdi.”

Without so much as a tinkle of china, Pahdi set the tray before Miss Hennessey.

Heaven defend her if she didn’t know how to preside over a tea service.

Miss Hennessey picked up the lid to the teapot, checked the strength of the tea, and prepared the first cup for Mama—a dash of sugar, a splash of
milk—then went smoothly around the circle dispensing tea and small talk.

When she came to Jack, he made sure their fingers brushed at the exchange of the tea cup, which was juvenile of him. Miss Hennessey served herself last,
taking her tea as Mama did—a dash and a splash—but looking ever so much more elegant than Mama managed to.

Florentia Fanning was not a young woman, and though Jack had made his duty-visit to London in the spring, she’d aged even in the few months since
he’d seen her. She was blond, so the graying of her hair was an ongoing subtle change, but the lines on either side of her mouth were deeper, and her
complexion bordered on sallow. Jack rummaged around in his emotions, trying to find some reaction to this development, and found only a vague wish that his
mother’s later years be filled with contentment.

“Have you a parish of your own, Reverend Jeremy?” Miss Hennessey asked.

“I am between posts, but the bishop assures me he’s finding me a congregation. At present I’m on his staff, which I’m told is a
necessary step in gaining advancement in the Church.”

“Quite necessary,” Mama said, a bit too fiercely for somebody who had no grasp of Church politics. “And when Jack insists on rusticating
for the entirety of the year, it’s just as well you’re in London, Jeremy.”

Jack had shipped out for India when Jeremy had been a small child, and thus did not know his brother well. He suspected Jeremy’s vocation was
genuine, however, and trotting around at the heels of some bishop was not in keeping with that vocation.

“I’m glad Jeremy’s in London,” Miss DeWitt said. “Else he should not have been available to escort us up here to Oxford,
would he?” Her smile was different from Miss Hennessey’s, at once harder and more gay.

“I’m glad I was able to come along,” Jeremy said, “for many reasons.”

“Mrs. Fanning, would you care for more tea?” Miss Hennessey asked, just as the smiles became blinding.

“No, thank you. Jack, when will you send that native boy back from whence he came?”

Mama had fortified herself with a cup of tea, and the civilities were apparently over.

“Pahdi does an excellent job as butler,” Jack said, mildly, lest Mama have the satisfaction of knowing she’d drawn blood.
“I’m happy with his services and would miss him if he abandoned Teak House.” If he abandoned
Jack
, though Jack had nearly
pitched Pahdi overboard when they’d sailed from India.

Saras’s dying wish had been that Pahdi see Jack safely back to England. Pahdi would have swum the distance behind the ship rather than ignore his
sister’s command.

“I will find you another butler who doesn’t resemble one of those Indian assassins,” Mama said. “You needn’t worry on that
score. When the holidays have concluded, you send him off with a character and a bit of coin. That’s how it’s done, and the rest of the staff
will thank you for it. They cannot possibly enjoy taking orders from this Patty creature.”

The smiles had winked out on all sides. Jack set his tea cup down rather forcefully.

“Now there you would be mistaken, Mrs. Fanning,” Miss Hennessey said. “Are you sure you don’t care for more tea?”

“Of course I’m sure, and I’m never mistaken.”

“Pahdi is not the typical English butler,” Miss Hennessey went on. “This makes him something of a mystery to the rest of the staff,
though they attend services with him every week, and take their orders from him gladly. He’s not in the ordinary way, and you know how servants
are—they take pride in their households, and an exotic butler sets Teak House apart. Sir Jack has a neighbor whose staff boast of their
employer’s roses, of all things. Miss DeWitt, more tea?”

“Half a cup, if you please.”

Mama’s expression was equal parts surprise, indignation, and confusion.

The mistress of the ambush had been ambushed, and Jack wanted to laugh and point like a naughty boy. Jeremy was studying his tea cup, and Miss DeWitt was
deliberating over the choice of a tea cake or shortbread.

“You say he goes to services?” Mama managed.

“Every week, without fail,” Miss Hennessey replied. “Sir Jack runs a proper household, and Sunday is often the only time the help can
socialize between estates. Don’t you find that staff morale benefits from a Sunday outing, weather permitting?”

Deftly done. Mama could not resist giving her opinion, no matter how ill-informed she might be on the subject. She nattered on about setting an example,
community standing, and lapses in decorum, while Jack pondered a question from the magistrate’s portion of his mind.

How was Madeline Hennessey, who’d spent a decade in service, impersonating a lady of the manor so convincingly? True, she’d observed Abigail
Belmont at close range, but Abigail Belmont had come from a well-to-do merchant family, not gentry, and Candlewick was not a pretentious household.

Miss Hennessey presided over the tea tray, deflected Mama’s usual ration of bile, and flattered a woman who delighted in managing everything in her
immediate environs, all without appearing to do more than sip her tea and pass the plate of tea cakes.