Jack (The Jaded Gentlemen Book 4) (25 page)

Jack set both hands on Madeline’s shoulders. “I meant, I will remove them to the byre, where the sheep and goats give off some warmth. The
bitch is doubtless famished too. If there’s enough beef tea, give the hound a serving.”

Besides, the river was frozen solid, much like Jack’s toes, nose, ears, and chin.

He kissed Madeline’s forehead, risked a quick hug, and then forced himself back out into cold and darkness.

Madeline was numb, though the numbness was born of fatigue rather than cold.

Theo’s cottage was snug, the dogs ensconced in the byre. A pot of soup steamed on the pot swing, and late-morning sun streamed through the windows.

The doctor had not come, of course. Madeline hadn’t expected him to, though Jack clearly had. Theo’s cough had quieted with regular
applications of whisky toddies, though low fevers had come and gone throughout the night.

Jack had come and gone too. He’d dealt with the chickens, sheep, goats, and the dogs; brought in a quantity of wood for the wood box; then taken the
sleigh back to Teak House. Around midnight, he’d returned with more coal; food for canines, livestock, and people alike; incense to chase the stink
of dog away; three books; a change of clothing for Madeline; and several pairs of thick wool socks.

Through the rest of the night, he’d taken turns with Madeline sitting with Theo, and dozing in the front room. At first light, he’d left again,
promising to return before noon.

“Maddie?”

“Coming, Aunt.” Madeline pushed up from her chair before the hearth, hips and knees protesting mightily. Being a housemaid was particularly
hard on the joints, and cold and fatigue didn’t help.

“You are here,” Theo said, pushing herself to a sitting position. “I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming or awake. Very odd to dream
about being snug and warm when you’re not, though. I don’t hear the puppies.”

“Jack moved them to the byre—Sir Jack,” Madeline said. “He also brought kitchen scraps for Martha, milk porridge for the puppies,
and corn for the chickens. We owe him much, Aunt.”

Theo plucked at the covers, most of which had been brought over from Teak House.

“He was here too,” Theo said. “I remember that.”

Madeline would never forget how it had felt to have Jack’s company throughout a long night. “Would you like some porridge? We haves honey and
even cinnamon, and milk to go with it. I had some earlier.”

Sometime in the night, Jack had set the oats soaking so a hot breakfast had been a possibility. Madeline had been too preoccupied to think of breakfast,
but oh, that first meal of the day had been sublime.

Also solitary.

“Cinnamon… Sir Jack is a man of parts, Madeline. You did well to join his household.”

Madeline pushed back the drapes, for the fire had had hours to chase the chill from the cottage. “How do you feel, Aunt?”

“Old, grateful, worried about you. You do know I’m going to die, Madeline?”

Madeline kept her back to her aunt. “Must you?” This announcement had begun to find its way into conversations two years ago, when Theo had
last fallen ill.

“You’ll die too,” Theo went on. “I notice your own demise doesn’t particularly concern you.” She coughed delicately,
though Madeline suspected the cough was at least partly manufactured.

The interrogation and exhortation would go on until spring if Madeline allowed that. “Aunt, I have feelings for him. I don’t know what to
do.”

Jack had known what to do, and he’d not made a fuss about it either. Madeline had emerged from a round of spooning beef tea into her aunt to find
Jack on his knees scrubbing the corner of the cottage where the dogs had been penned.

Like a housemaid, but with more muscle and determination. Madeline had been so upset at the sight she’d nearly run from the cottage.

She’d had flowery speeches and flattering toasts from men of lesser station. She’d had promises and even a stray proposal or two. She’d
seen men on their knees spouting ridiculous poetry, but she’d never thought to see a man—much less a knight of the realm—on his knees
beside a bucket with a scrub brush in his hands.

She had wanted to cry, but had instead reminded him that the walls could hold the stink as much as the floor could.

He’d scrubbed the walls too.

On the counter sat oranges, bread, butter, jam, the three books, Madeline’s work basket, a tin of black tea, and a sack containing a loaf of sugar.
The window box held butter, milk, and cheese.

Madeline wanted to cry all over again. “Pity the poor dragon, attacked by a knight who has Jack Fanning for her squire.”

“Don’t mutter, dear. Do I hear horses?”

Yes, thank God.
“Jack’s returned, and he has somebody with him.”

“Not that dreadful Ralph Higgans, I hope. That man couldn’t quack a healthy piglet.”

“A woman,” Madeline said, leaving the window. “You’ll not talk of dying before company, Theodosia Hickman.” Madeline might
start to cry again, and she’d already endured that mortification twice with Jack Fanning as a witness.

“I’m old and sick,” Theodosia said. “I can say whatever I please, and I say you could do a lot worse than Jack Fanning.”

“You are old and scandalous.”

Madeline did a creditable flounce from the bedroom, but came to an abrupt halt in the kitchen as Florentia Fanning entered the cottage, Jack at her heels.

“Oranges are all well and good, but lemons quiet a cough much more effectively,” she was saying. “A bit of lemon juice with honey and
whisky, heated to steaming with a dash of cinnamon and nutmeg. Miss Hennessey, you poor thing. You look a wreck. How you must be worrying for your dear
aunt. You did the right thing to send for me. I know Jack must have protested awfully, but I’m here now despite Jack’s grumbling, and all will
be well.”

Jack had overseen many a troop movement in India, and transferring Theodosia Hickman to Teak House required the same skills—patience and a talent for
heavy lifting. The traveling coach had been pressed into service for Mama, Theodosia, Martha and the pups, while a quantity of clothing and personal
effects had been packed into the boot. Jack and Madeline had remained behind, tidying up the provisions brought over from Teak House, making the bed, and
banking the fire.

“I’ll establish one of the grooms here temporarily,” Jack said, “and if Theo’s recovery is prolonged, I’ll find a
tenant’s son ready to try his hand at running a smallholding.”

Madeline was moving slowly, wrapping up perishables, organizing staples in the cupboards.

“Theo’s recovery might be… she might not recover entirely,” Madeline said. “When your mother departs for London, I might have
to move in with my aunt.”

And Jack might lose his temper in the next instant. “Your aunts need the coin you earn in service.” Though Madeline had a point as well. Theo
had been barely keeping up, clearly putting off tasks that mattered—scrubbing the water trough, mucking out the byre, periodically draining and
cleaning the cistern, among others.

One good spring storm, and Jack suspected the roof would start leaking, which spelled doom for a small, elderly domicile.

“I like my position at Candlewick, but selfishness on my part won’t solve what’s amiss here, Jack.”

Coin would solve what was amiss, but instinct warned Jack not to point out the obvious. He had coin, and the Hennessey females had enough pride to tell him
to keep every penny of it.

“Vicar Weekes needs a puppy,” Jack said. “The pups are certainly old enough to leave their mother.”

Madeline closed the cupboard and eyed Jack as if he’d spoken in Urdu. “Vicar Weekes, who’s seldom seen outside his study or the church,
needs a puppy?”

“Certainly. Mrs. Weekes is occasionally alone at night when her husband must comfort a family dealing with illness or the death of a loved one. A dog
provides both company and safety, and those pups will be enormous.”

They’d eat enormous amounts too, and Theo had barely been feeding herself.

“I’m sure you must be right,” Madeline said. “But I’m tired and out of sorts. I’ve never known Vicar to have a
pet.”

She was asleep on her feet, while Jack felt the roiling energy he associated with anticipation of a battle. For Madeline to move to this mean, tiny cottage
would be wrong, and for Jack to tell her what she must do or not do would be wrong as well.

Also stupid.

“If you’re through here,” Jack said, putting the tin of tea in the cupboard, “then I’ll take you back to Teak House.”

Jack stood immediately beside Madeline, close enough to see the fatigue leaving shadows beneath her eyes. Her hair had been tidily pinned earlier in the
day, but beating rugs, remaking the bed, and dusting every inch of the cottage had imperiled her coiffure.

This was what love looked like—tired, anxious, disheveled, but willing to soldier on indefinitely.

Jack tugged loose a pin threatening to abandon her coiffure entirely and handed it to her. “I sent Higgans a note last evening before we set
off.”

“I know.”

“I had a note delivered to Hattie this morning, alerting her to the situation as well. You haven’t received a reply from Higgans, have
you?”

“He’d reply to you, wouldn’t he?”

Jack turned Madeline by the shoulders and drew her into his embrace. “I signed the note with your initials:
Aunt Theo quite ill. Please come
. I didn’t want to explain why a neighbor three miles distant from this cottage would be notifying the physician, and we were in a hurry.”

Madeline rested against him, which helped quell the anger building inside Jack.

“I never expected him to come, Jack. The last time Aunt was ill, it took us three months to pay Higgans’ fee, and all he did was glance at her
and suggest we send for the surgeon to bleed her.”

Nowhere in this cottage could two people sit side by side except on the freshly made bed, so Jack remained in the front room, arms around Madeline.

“I am the king’s man, and Higgans’s cavalier disregard for a helpless old woman should be a crime. I can do nothing to hold him
accountable though.” The groom who’d delivered last night’s note to Higgans had assured Jack that the doctor had been home preparing to
sit down to a hot, hearty supper.

Madeline slipped from Jack’s embrace. “This is when Vicar would tell you to leave Higgans’s fate in God’s hands.”

“Vicar Weekes’s living is generous, his manse snug, and his duties congenial. When Mrs. Weekes is ill, Higgans will come at a smart pace. I
like Weekes generally, but he’s lazy, and in this case, his guidance is ridiculous.”

Ah, finally. A small, tired smile. Madeline kissed Jack’s cheek and surveyed the cottage. “Weekes is lazy, but not mean, and you are fierce.
I’ve done what I can here. If you’d take me back to Teak House, I’d appreciate it.”

The emergency of Theodosia’s illness had passed, and for Jack to be alone with Madeline under these circumstances—no family under the same
roof, no servants hovering, no exigent circumstances—was courting scandal.

Jack would rather court
her.

Life was just full of frustrations lately. Take, for example, the positive loathing Jack had developed for Madeline’s cloak and boots, about which he
could also do little.

“The damned darts tournament is tonight,” Jack said when he’d assisted Madeline into the sleigh and turned the horses onto the lane.
“Will you attend?”

“Of course not.”

“Half of Belmont’s staff will be on hand to cheer their team along. Your presence wouldn’t be unusual.” His request came not from
any male need for her to admire his prowess at the dartboard—if any prowess he still had, after the past twenty-four hours—but rather, from a
need for Madeline to put down her burdens for a few hours and cast off her responsibilities.

Madeline twitched at the lap robe and pulled up the collar of her worn cloak.

 “You told your mother that I begged for her to attend Aunt Theo, and made it sound as if you loathed the idea. Why?”

Even tired, Madeline would not have neglected to explore this topic. “Mama might have refused me a direct request, and I couldn’t have that.
She is toweringly competent in the sickroom, and her presence at the cottage provided chaperonage, of sorts. The woman is endlessly contrary, though. If
I’d asked, she would have told me I was presuming, interfering, and otherwise neglected to use sense.”

Jack had been terrified his mother would refuse to help.

“Thank you for interfering,” Madeline said. “My aunt could well be dead or dying if you’d been less willing to interfere. Your
mother simply wants you to appreciate her, to notice her, and all she’s learned in life.”

Madeline’s perspective bore the unmistakable odor of unwelcome truth. “I notice and appreciate that my mother, like present company, can be
stubborn and contrary. If Mama hadn’t been willing to come, Jeremy would have accompanied me without a second thought.”

Because Jeremy was a good man. Jack had reason to hope that Jeremy was an accomplished kisser as well.

Madeline yawned behind her gloved hand. “I like your family, Jack Fanning. You ought to get to know them sometime. Your mother isn’t the only
one who’s stubborn and contrary.”

That was the last thing she said before falling asleep with her head on Jack’s shoulder. The better to spare her from the bitter wind, Jack slowed
the horse to a walk, and took the roads home, rather than the shortcuts across the farm lanes.

“Well?”

Jack Fanning had a way of making a single syllable into an entire interrogation. Too bad the king’s man hadn’t any
children—yet—who’d show him the futility of that imperious tone and arched eyebrow.

“Well, have a seat,” Axel said, beneath the noise of the Weasel’s championship-night crowd. “I vow, Fanning, this is the last year
I’m leading a team. I will sponsor entire legions, but when a man hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in weeks, this nonsense pales. My
attendance at the assembly is looking none to assured either.”