Jack (The Jaded Gentlemen Book 4) (21 page)

“Yes, yes. You’ll call me out. Reluctantly, of course, but with deadly intent. What are these plants?”

“Roses.”

Sir Jack used a light hand, not too much water, not too little. “One arrogant young cock sends three women into penury. If you were one of those
women, what would you do, Belmont?”

Axel gave the matter some thought as he transferred the last seedlings.

A life in ruins, all because a man’s casual pleasure had been thwarted by a girl with the backbone to reject his unsolicited advances. The topic did
not make for happy contemplation.

“I might set a streetwalker upon him who’d give him an incurable disease.”

“Remind me not to cross you, Belmont.” Jack finished with the watering can and set it on the floor. “You see my point though, don’t
you?”

Axel saw that in allowing a guest into his glass house, he’d been able to keep working, so the plants had the benefit of sunlight throughout the
transplanting process. Grafts were best done at night, while—

“I beg your pardon, Fanning. What is your point?”

“When I took Madeline calling on Theodosia, Mrs. Hickman all but bragged about being able to make a coal delivery last longer than her neighbors
could.”

“Coal.” The same commodity stolen from Hector McArdle’s yard. “Not good, Fanning. Old women aren’t supposed to lark about,
committing crimes by the full moon.”

“And Hattie Hennessey has every reason to ameliorate her circumstances by stealing coal from the McArdle family business.”

Axel wiped his hands on a rag, though rich, black dirt remained under his fingernails. “Hattie and Theo will benefit from the darts revenue too, and
between the two of them, they could easily have moved that money to the church.”

Sir Jack paced back to the end of the table, where the white blossom peeked from between lush foliage.

“Both of them keep livestock, Belmont, and they are quite hale. Either of them could have pulled that prank with the darts jar, simply to aggravate
Bartholomew Tavis.”

The poor of the shire would applaud that notion. Axel rather admired whoever had moved that money too.

“What will you do?” he asked. “You can dismiss the miracle of the darts jar as a prank, but taking coal from Hector McArdle is thievery,
plain and simple.”

“And I am the king’s man,” Sir Jack said. “Which is your fault.”

Axel used his penknife to clean the fingernails of his left hand. “Squire Rutland had a hand in matters.” An incompetent hand, which was how
both Axel and Jack Fanning had been press-ganged into taking the job.

“Don’t blame a man who had the sense to remove to Bath permanently. As I see it, you are the reason this problem has landed in the middle of my
family’s visit, so you must help resolve it.”

“As I see it, you haven’t any evidence with which to make arrests. All you have is supposition and coincidence.” Damned convincing though
they might be.

“Mrs. Abernathy saw my butler carrying Madeline’s boots to the kitchen for a cleaning. She concluded he was stealing these boots, though they
are the most disgraceful excuse for footwear I’ve ever seen. Without even talking to Pahdi or to Madeline, Mrs. Abernathy, as judge, jury, and
executioner, expected me to turn Pahdi off without a character on her word alone. You’ll cut yourself if you keep that up.”

“I will not. You’re saying, if these antics don’t stop immediately, public opinion will convict two old women of wrongdoing whether you
bring charges or not.”

“Precisely, and Madeline would never forgive—
I
would not forgive myself, if that happened, which is why you will assist me to resolve
the situation before recourse to the law is unavoidable.”

“
Ouch
—damn it.”

Sir Jack had the sense to remain silent while Axel tucked the penknife away.

Somebody—or some
thing
—was in the kitchen.

Madeline knew that Teak House had a pantry mouser, a gray tabby more interested in dreaming of mice than snacking on them. Few cats would take on prey
larger than a mouse, though, and the rustling down the corridor was larger-than-a-mouse in nature.

She set aside her list of medicinals, despite her reluctance to leave the herbal. The space was cozy, private, and peaceful. The winter moon beamed through
the mullioned window, and dried plants and flowers hung from the rafters.

The noise came again, a scrape, a bump… Unlike some households, nobody slept in the Teak House kitchen, except possibly the cat.

Mrs. Abernathy’s departure had resulted in a general lightening of household morale, though the tweenie was feuding with the scullery maid, both of
whom were enamored of the head stable lad.

He—a young, black-haired behemoth burdened with the name Apollo—was flirting with both girls every chance he got, and a deserted kitchen was an
excellent place to flirt on a winter night. Madeline took a last whiff of rosemary—the herb for remembrance—picked up her carrying candle, and
blew out the flames in both mirrored sconces.

She made her way down the corridor to the kitchen quietly, but not stealthily. She who had behaved scandalously in the library had no wish to embarrass
others in the kitchen.

“Where is the damned butter?” Jack pulled out one drawer after another, then started opening cupboards.

“In the window box.”

He ceased his plundering. “I thought you were Pahdi. You’re nearly as quiet, though you’re more fragrant than he.”

“Thank you.”

“That was an observation, not a compliment. Belmont passed along his regards when I called upon him this afternoon, by the way. What brings you to
the bowels of the house at such a late hour?” Jack was in shirt-sleeves and waistcoat, his cuffs turned back. An ink stain on the heel of his right
hand suggested he’d been at his ledgers or his correspondence.

Madeline was in her nightclothes, covered in several layers from neck to ankles, and upon her feet she wore the warmest footwear she had—Jack’s
house slippers.

“I’m organizing the herbal,” she said, fetching the butter. “Mrs. Abernathy neglected the medicinals, and somebody had best set
them to rights before illness visits the house. Shall I put together a tray?”

  “I’m not hungry,” Jack said. “I was tending the fire when a log fell, and the resulting mess gave me a singed
knuckle.”

Hence, his search for the butter.

“You’d be better off with a cold cloth.”

He held up his left hand, which sported a red third knuckle. “You won’t kiss my mishap better?”

 “I might—if you do as I tell you.”

The narrowing of his eyes said he liked that, liked that Madeline would put him in his place.

“Wait here,” she said, retrieving a clean towel from the stack on the counter and retreating down the corridor. Outside the back door, Madeline
scooped a handful of snow into the towel.

“Use this,” she said, passing Jack the towel full of snow. “It will take the heat out more effectively than the butter would, and save
the kitchen stores.”

He wrapped the towel around his left hand. “Better, of course. Your endless competence never fails to impress me.”

“I like you more when you’re comparing my scent to the butler’s.”

“You admit to liking me. I’m flattered. Can you spare me a few minutes of your time?”

Madeline adored that he’d ask her for her time. Jack paid her salary, though Madeline answered to his mother. All of Madeline’s minutes were
his to command, though if she’d declined his request, he would have obliged her.

And in the past few days, as he’d been riding about the neighborhood in search of thieves and pranksters, Madeline had missed him.

“My task in the herbal is not urgent. Shall we talk in there?”

He gestured with his right hand, and Madeline preceded him down the corridor. The house was quiet, as a well-built edifice would be on a calm winter night.

The herbal was about eight feet square, the dimensions of a dressing closet or linen closet, though it had a sizeable window that faced the back gardens,
and a hearth that took up most of one wall.

Jack closed the door, which only made sense on a cold evening. “You have organized this place.”

“What good are medicinals if nobody can find them?” Madeline took an armchair by the fire. “What did you wish to discuss?”

Jack propped a hip against the work table. “Not a what, but a who. I’ve been freezing my ballocks off, dashing all over the shire to ask people
about your family’s past, and it occurred to me—just as my nose had come to resemble an icicle—that I could simply ask you a few
questions.”

Madeline scuffed out of her slippers—Jack’s slippers—and tucked her feet under her. “Why ask questions about the Hennessey
womenfolk?” For that was all that remained of her family. Three women without means, none of whom needed the magistrate asking questions.

“Because you’re a puzzle, confound you, and I like solving puzzles.” He frowned at the discarded slippers. “I like you.”

Liking was… permissible. Madeline had liked every man to whom she’d granted a kiss or a cuddle. That Jack Fanning liked her, and would say so,
was still a problem. He was to be her discreet frolic outside the bounds of propriety, her revenge on haphazardly upheld standards of decency.

Her calculated risk. “I like you too.”

“Then tell me who you are, Madeline Hennessey. You arrived in this area at the age of fourteen, joined your Aunt Hattie in service at age fifteen.
That leaves more than half of your life unaccounted for.”

As well it should be. “I had parents, one of each, in the usual fashion. They were fond of each other, and of me, as best I could tell. My father was
also fond of gin.”

Jack twiddled a sprig of rosemary, the piney scent perfuming the herbal. “Opium by another name.”

“For some,” Madeline said, trying to ignore how firelight cast Jack’s features into planes and shadows. He’d be attractive into old
age, drat him. “Papa drank to excess and gambled, and that’s a fine way to go on for those who are either titled or blessed with infinite
wealth. He was a well-born commoner who lived beyond his means on a good day. When my mother died, he sent me to my aunts, assuring them he’d mail
regular sums for my expenses.”

“And the regular sums never arrived,” Jack said, “while a need for decent boots and the onset of winter are painfully predictable. One
can see why you’re reluctant to repose your trust in the male of the species.”

What was he—?

Well.
Madeline considered Jack’s reasoning, because in her efforts to earn her wages, look after her aunts, manage presuming footmen, and favor the
occasional sore knee, she hadn’t made time to reflect much on her upbringing.

Why invite misery? “Papa wasn’t a bad man, but he was weak. He ended up in the Marshalsea prison, where he was beloved by all despite his
enormous debts. Consumption took him, and that was a mercy. My aunts had nothing good to say about him.”  

“And yet,” Jack said, “he was charming, handsome, witty, well-liked, and he adored your mother and you. You couldn’t even resent
him very effectively when he broke promise after promise.”

Had Jack tossed the cold, wet towel at her, Madeline could not have been more surprised at his observation.

“We worried for him. When Papa was ill from his excesses, when he’d disappear for days at a time, when we found him asleep in the stable, we
worried for him.”

And now, years later, in a quiet little herbal, Madeline could resent her papa like blazes.

And resent her poor mother, and the stupid English laws that required a woman to cleave to her husband even when he was wrecking the futures of all
concerned.

Madeline had been five years old the first time she’d found her papa asleep in the garden before breakfast. Seven when she’d realized nobody
worked for them very long. Eight when she’d lost her pony.

“This discussion makes me want to break something,” Madeline said. “Something delicate and valuable.” The herbal was full of glass
jars, crockery, mixing bowls… She clutched her shawl lest her hands find something fragile to hurl against the hearthstones.

Jack rose and knelt before her. “I’m not delicate, and I’m not asking for your trust, except in so far as I’m willing to give you
mine.”

He kissed her, and that… that helped. Madeline could refocus disproportionate upset over old business onto the new passion of kissing Jack Fanning.
He tasted of mint tea, and kneeling as he was, Madeline could wrap her arms around him and control the progress of the kiss.

She needed to be the one to say when teasing escalated to a dare—
taste me back
—and when she opened her knees so Jack could wedge
himself between them. She winnowed her hands through his hair and scooted closer, caught in the grip of both physical desire and rampaging emotion.

“Your damned clothes—” Jack muttered, rearranging bunches of fabric.

“Lock the damned door,” Madeline shot back, even as she clutched at his shoulders.

Jack sat back, his hair disheveled, his grin diabolical. “You can think at a time like this. Truly, I am in the presence of a formidable
woman.”

He levered to his feet and crossed the room, while Madeline wallowed in the pleasure of watching him move.

Jack paused at the door. “I want a bed for this.”

“I don’t. Maids, footmen, your brother, anybody could see us going upstairs.”

Miss DeWitt might see them,
or Jack’s own mother.

Worse, Madeline might lose her nerve somewhere between the cozy understory and the drafty upper floors. Bringing up the past, with all its heartache and
betrayal, had set loose in her a determination to have her pleasure of Jack Fanning. If she was given even five minutes to consider the folly of what she
contemplated, she might never have that pleasure.

Jack fastened the lock, a quiet click of metal on metal that made Madeline want to shout with triumph.

“We do it your way, then,” he said. “This time.”

“Enough talk,” Madeline retorted, rising from the chair and dragging the curtain across the window. “And you’d better have more
than chatter to offer, Jack Fanning, or there won’t be a next time.”