Worth Lord of Reckoning (26 page)

She didn’t truly want to chase her visitor away, and she had told him they would talk, so she rolled up against his side and let her head fall to his shoulder. Maybe they could even talk about her upcoming return to Dorset.

“I blush to admit it,” he began, his arm encircling her, “but I’ve treasured a sense of injury regarding the way I left Grampion all those years ago, and while I blamed my father, Hess had the last clear chance to thwart Papa’s machinations.”

“How old would he have been?” She set aside the question of what the young lady had been about—the young lady who’d had an understanding with Worth Kettering but had fallen out love with him “posthaste,” to use his word. Jacaranda had reason to know no gently bred Englishwoman could be married against her will, thank God.

“Hess was all of twenty. No Town bronze, no tour of the Continent. He might have gone grouse hunting up in Scotland a time or two, but he was a stripling more than a man.”

“You’re having trouble clinging to your anger?”

He kissed her temple and spoke against her hair. “Worse than that. I feel sorry for him.”

Oh, that was much worse. Jacaranda felt sorry for Step-Mama, whose situation was far from difficult. “Sorry, how?”

She aspired to feel sorry for Daisy, some distant day.

Worth snuggled her closer, and something tense and tired inside Jacaranda eased up, gave up. To be held, to have Worth’s warmth and scent all around her in the dark, was lovely. Better than lovely, wonderful in fact, to cuddle up and chat in the depth of the night.

“Hess is so alone up there,” Worth said, stroking Jacaranda’s hair in an absent-minded caress. “I may not have bosom bows twelve deep, but I like my clients. Some of them could be friends. I like my staff, I like the neighbors you’ve introduced me to here. I have Avery, I have you, I have people moving about in my life. Hess has his stables and nobody to share them with. No wonder he missed Yolanda and wants to take her home with him.”

I have you.
As flummoxed as Jacaranda was by his casual claim, she did not allow herself to tarry over it.

“You have me for now, as a housekeeper, but we need to discuss that. Will you allow Hess to retrieve Yolanda?”

Worth heaved a mighty sigh, and this time he kissed her ear. “Hess is Yolanda’s guardian. I can’t stop him, but in his mind, I think he regards such an arrangement as fair somehow: I have Avery; therefore, he should get Lannie.”

“Why can’t you all have each other?” Jacaranda posed the question rhetorically, because her mind would not let go of those earlier words…
I have you
.

“We haven’t the knack, my dear. Does your neck still trouble you?”

Not as much as her heart.

“That was not a gracious change of subject, Mr. Kettering, but because you won’t desist and it’s too dark for my blushes to affect you, yes, my head aches. I suspect the blooming flowers affect me badly.”

“Poor lady. You’re reduced to Mr. Kettering-ing me. On your side, and let’s see if I can’t help out.”

Her complicity in this scheme was irrelevant, because he gently maneuvered her into the position of his liking, while he angled himself behind her.

“Close your eyes, my dear,” he instructed, “and tell me more about your cottage. You had a name for it.”

“Complaisance Cottage,” she said, surprised he’d recall. “What on earth are you doing?”

“Relax, love.” Lips brushed her nape. “My hand is warmer than that brick. You might as well put it to use.”
He
put his hand to use, massaging her neck, a firm combination of stroking and squeezing that…

She groaned with the relief of it, and he had the good grace not to gloat aloud.

“What do your back gardens look like, Jacaranda, or does this cottage nestle against a wood?”

She explained how the cottage was situated, how informal plots rioting with flowers ringed the pitch of grass, and the stately old dowager oaks stood at the edge of the home wood as a backdrop. She told him about the sea birds who nipped up any scraps or crusts that fell—or were tossed—from a tea tray taken on the terrace, and about the particular scent of the breeze, depending on whether it was a sea breeze, a land breeze, or some brewing combination of both.

“You long for it,” he said, his voice low and lazy in the moonlight.

“I ache with missing it,” she replied, because it was dark, and that was the honesty she could give him. “Don’t you miss Grampion?”

“The sentiments ebb and flow.” His hand moved slowly over her shoulders now, the same way his words threaded through the darkness. “When the first snow falls here and it’s so much later and less hearty than the first snows in the north, I miss Grampion. When the crocuses march forth, no hesitance or backsliding in their arrival, as if spring is a foregone conclusion, I miss Grampion. When the summer weather gets truly hot and miserable, I miss it. Not so much at other times.”

Which left…? “You don’t miss it in spring?” For she missed Dorset in spring.

“Spring in London is a busy time. I receive the courtesy invitations. I’m nominally heir to an earldom, single, and worth a fortune. I accept occasionally, particularly if it’s a client doing the inviting.”

“When you’re twirling some lady down the ballroom, you don’t miss your home?”

“Hush.” He twisted up and over her for a leisurely kiss to her mouth, a kiss that involved

his tongue flirting with her lips, teasing and implying and promising even as he soothed and reassured. “I miss my home. Are you satisfied to have wrung this confession from me? I miss my home almost as much as you miss yours.”

“I do miss my home, and my family. I’ve missed them for years, and that’s why after all this time—”

He must have sensed that her words would be unwelcome, because he kissed her again, thoroughly, lingeringly.

Jacaranda subsided to her back, all thoughts of disclosures and partings tossed out of the bed like so many more cold bricks.

She kissed Worth back, cuddled with him, and conversed for another few minutes, but in truth Worth’s hand, or his company, or something about his visit had relaxed more than Jacaranda’s body. As she drifted off, Worth spooned around her and her discomforts considerably eased, she had the traitorous thought that it was fortunate she was returning to Dorset, for she could grow accustomed to his nocturnal company.

Sheer folly, that, but what wonderful, pleasurable folly.

* * *

“Do you miss having a wife?” Worth put the question to his brother as they rode out, no grooms, no steward to hinder their privacy. Thanks to Jacaranda’s carping, Worth knew how to get around on his own land, knew which bridle path led to what lane and which fields had the best footing before their stiles.

“I do not miss the wife I had,” Hess said. “I’m sorry if that offends.”

Worth shortened his snaffle reins. “You might offend the lady’s memory, but your words can’t offend me.”

“Why haven’t you married?”

Hess might be shy, he did not lack courage.

“I’ve wondered that myself lately.” Worth settled his weight into the stirrups. “Shall we let them stretch their legs a bit?”

They raced the entire three miles remaining to Least Wapping. Hess was at a slight disadvantage because he didn’t know the terrain, but Worth had put his brother up on a former steeplechaser and Hess was an excellent rider.

Hess thwacked his horse’s neck when they trotted into the yard of the posting inn. “What a prime fellow. Don’t tell me he’s for sale. I’ve no need of another gelding and Alfred’s feelings would be hurt. This one has tons of bottom, tons of it.”

“You truly love it, don’t you? The cross-country romp that would frighten the hair off most people?” Worth swung down and handed Goliath off to a stable boy to cool out. “I haven’t let Goliath have his head like that for months, but he enjoyed it.”

“They weren’t put on earth to pace their stalls, looking handsome and bored.” In the hint of wistfulness in Hess’s voice, Worth gathered an insight into his brother.

“Autumn will soon approach. Why not linger here for some of the informal meets and then stay to attend the lords?”

Hess’s features composed themselves into a bland mask. “What of the harvest at Grampion? Is the corn to bring itself in off the fields?”

Why can’t you all have each other?

Jacaranda’s words echoed in Worth’s mind, and he let the subject drop, but in the part of his brain that couldn’t resist a complex negotiation, he began to plot and plan and strategize.

“Let’s grab a pint,” Worth suggested. “The horses can catch their wind before they tackle the five-mile jaunt back to Trysting, and you haven’t told me of the staff at Grampion. Is Homer Gentry still your land steward, and does his wife still make those butter biscuits that melt away all of a small boy’s troubles?”

“And leave him with a bellyache into next Tuesday,” Hess finished the thought.

To Worth’s surprise, Hess allowed himself to be interrogated about each and every person Worth recalled from his boyhood.

Two and a half pints later, Worth mentally conceded it had more likely been a matter of Worth allowing himself to ask.

* * *

“What is Francine up to?” Grey hated having to ask his brother, but her ladyship’s correspondence had reached flood stage.

Will tossed a stick dutifully dropped at his feet by a brindle mastiff larger than some of the ponies used in the mines.

“I am not in Step-Mama’s confidence, Grey, for which I give daily thanks to my Creator. I did see her casting spells over the teapot with Mrs. Dankle.”

The dog waited at Will’s feet, adoring gaze turned on its owner. When Will gave some signal visible only to the beast, it bounded off across the green between the gardens and the home wood.

“Francine is ever imposing on Dankle’s good nature,” Grey said. “You need Ash to invent you a machine for pitching sticks into the next county, lest you tire your arm.”

The dog was back in a half-dozen happy, ear-flapping bounds, the stick deposited at Will’s feet as the hound dropped to its haunches.

“Step-Mama wants to spend the rest of the summer in Bath,” Will said, petting the dog’s great head. “If not Bath, then Lyme Regis. The older set likes to congregate where they have fond memories and to leave the house parties to us.”

Where were Will’s fond memories? He was a handsome fellow in the tall, dark-haired, violet-eyed cast of his siblings and had read law with the same ease some people read the Society pages of the
London Gazette
.

“I cannot afford to send Francine to Bath, and I’ve told her as much on several occasions.” Painful occasions, for them both.

“I know that. Good boy, George.”

“You name the largest dog in the realm after our sovereign?”

“I named the largest bitch in the realm after our sovereign. Her full name is Georgette. You should ask Daisy what her dear mama is up to. If Francine burdens anybody with her schemes, it’s her own daughter.”

At the mention of her name, the dog’s ears swiveled, for she, like most females, was apparently eager to do Will’s bidding.

“I’d be nervous, were I you, Will.”

“She won’t eat me, will you, Georgie dearest? She eats only meddling older brothers who won’t send Step-Mama away for a few weeks so we can all enjoy some peace and quiet.”

“Which is why I’d be worried,” Grey said, letting the dog sniff at his hand. She was surprisingly delicate about it, for all her size. “I fear Francine’s scheming again to get one of us matched with an heiress. I’ve the title to protect me, because Francine won’t presume to choose our next countess. You’re the next oldest, the best looking, and too fond of the ladies to tell Step-Mama to mind her own business.”

Will tossed the stick again, sending it clear into the home wood. “You’re saying if you deny Mama a house on the Crescent in Bath, she’ll seek revenge by flinging heiresses at me?”

The dog disappeared after the stick, her path marked by rustling bushes.

“I don’t know what exactly Step-Mama’s about. Francine is a woman who’s been discontent with her station for some time, and I haven’t the knack of divining her plots. She was after me to bodily fetch Jacaranda home, claiming that this time Mrs. Dankle truly will leave us for the charms of her son’s small holding.”

“Dankle has earned her rest, and four grandchildren is rather a temptation.”

Three grandchildren had done nothing to improve the lure of home for Francine. With each of Daisy’s babies, her ladyship seemed to grow more desperate to distance herself from her children.

“Be careful, Will. If you’ve a notion to attend some house parties, I won’t stop you.”

Will gave him an odd look. “I thought you hated house parties.”

“I most assuredly do. They are the delight of the unhappily married and the downfall of many a contented bachelor. You’d best see what’s keeping that puppy of yours. Mr. Springboth’s hound occasionally gets loose, and as far as he’s concerned, your Georgie would make a prime bit of sport.”

“I’ll be careful, and I’ll keep an eye on Step-Mama. See that you do likewise. You’re not bad looking, you have the title, and for some women, that’s enough.”

Will loped off, his expression promising severe consequences for any presuming hound who trifled with his Georgette.