Worth Lord of Reckoning (36 page)

Yolanda’s chin jutted in Hess’s direction. “
He
says we need to think of repairing to Grampion. He wouldn’t invite me home when I was desperately homesick, but we must hare off there now when you’ve perfectly lovely accommodations for us all here in the south.”

“She wants to make sheep’s eyes at that dratted farmer,” Hess retorted. “If I leave her here, you’ll need to post a watch on her.”

Yolanda’s eyes glittered ominously. “Unfair, Hessian. If I’d wanted to misbehave in that manner, I would have accepted all the invitations I received to join the school’s gardener in his charming little shed, wouldn’t I?”

“What?!” Both brothers spoke—bellowed, more like—at once. Worth recovered first.

“What invitations, Yolanda Kettering? And don’t think to prevaricate with us now.”

Her expression was chillingly blank for such a young lady. “His name was Arnold, and he was a nuisance, but he was Mrs. Peese’s nephew, so my complaints weren’t considered noteworthy.”

“Of what exactly,” Hess asked, “did you complain?”

Yolanda’s gaze traveled from one brother to the other. She settled on the sofa, in the same manner the accused takes the dock. “Promise me you won’t yell at me?”
“We promise.” In unison.

“You won’t throw things?”

The brothers exchanged a look.

“We won’t throw things of value at you,” Worth said. “Stop fretting and tell us.”

“He started with a few little touches, at first,” Yolanda said, staring at her hands. “The other girls thought it was daring, because he’s not…he’s not spotty. Some of them said he was handsome in a common sort of way.”

“Famous,” Hess hissed. “You’ve been subjected to the attentions of a not-spotty gardener in the one place a girl should be free of such bother.”

Worth sent his brother a quelling look. “Go on, Lannie. We’re listening.”

“He must have known he wouldn’t get in trouble, because he started leaving me notes then, in personal places.”

“Personal places, Lannie?” Hess asked.

“Under my pillow, among my clothes.”

“With your unmentionables,” Worth said. “He’s a dead gardener, this spotless wonder.”

“You mustn’t,” Yolanda wailed quietly. “All the girls knew, and to them, daring progressed to amusing.”

“But not to you.” Worth settled beside her. “To you it became frightening.”

“He waited in my room one night and k-kissed me.” Yolanda grimaced at the memory. “It was horrid. He was horrid, and he said things.”

Hess took a cushioned chair, his fingers drumming on the arm. “
Things?
”

“Things he wanted to do to me. You didn’t answer my letters, and Mrs. Peese said I was imagining it all, but I wasn’t.”

“God in heaven.” Worth brushed back a lock of Yolanda’s hair. “Did he manage to do more than threaten you, kiss you, and scare you witless?”

“He had better not have,” Hess said, back on his feet. “I’ll see the place shut down, I will.”

“You mustn’t.” Yolanda leaned into Worth. “When Mrs. Peese asked the other girls, they said they’d seen nothing, heard nothing, but they all knew he’d treated another student the same way the previous year. She was a by-blow, too.”

“So, little lunatic that you are, you cut yourself,” Worth guessed. “Beat them at their own game, brought me running, and got free of the scoundrel. Well done.” He kissed her forehead and glared at Hess over her shoulder.

“Right,” Hess said, “well damned done indeed. I’m surprised you didn’t call the idiot out, or entice him into his lowly garden bower, then wallop him with a shovel where it counts.”

Yolanda dropped her forehead to Worth’s shoulder. “I thought about it, but nobody supported my version of events, and a violent lunatic is worse than a hysterical female. I didn’t know if Worth would come fetch me or not.”

“Worth came,” Hess said.

“I will always come when you ask it. You’re my sister.”

“You didn’t know that.” Yolanda took Hess’s proffered handkerchief. “You were so dark and stern and brisk. You never said I was your sister until recently.”

“You’re my sister.” He hugged her, pushing the words past an abruptly tight throat. “Hess is my brother, you are my sister. Avery is our niece. We’re a family.”

“I will not drag you north,” Hess said, clearing his throat. “I will, however, offer a medicinal tot all around.”

Yolanda sat up. “Brandy? For me?”

“It’s medicinal.” Hess passed her a scant portion and Worth a more generous serving. “I really do want to see that school closed.”

“But what will the girls think?”

“What will their families think, to know such a situation wasn’t dealt with appropriately?” Hess countered. “Consider another girl, Lannie, younger than you, not as resourceful, not as brave. She won’t think of a scheme to get herself sent down. She won’t even protest.”

“Like the girl last year,” Yolanda said. “She didn’t come back for Hilary term, and nobody said anything.”

“Ketterings don’t meekly allow such injustices, and they don’t quietly tolerate another’s dissembling,” Worth said. “Either the gardener takes a post where he can’t prey on girls or the school will be closed. Between Hess and me, we’ve the connections to see to it.”

“We do,” Hess said. “I’ll give it a day, then draft a letter for you two to look over. It’s the right course, Lannie.”

“It is,” she agreed, taking a shuddery breath. “This brandy does help with one’s nerves.”

Worth downed his at a swallow, more proud of his siblings than he could bear. “Having family helps, too.”

“Here, here.” Hess held up his glass, as did Yolanda. A knock on the door interrupted Yolanda’s maiden attempt at a toast.

“A note for Mr. Kettering,” Carl said. Worth took the folded and sealed missive, dreading any news that took him away from Trysting

“A pigeon up from Devon,” he said, crumpling the paper into a ball.

“It’s urgent?” Yolanda asked.

“Pigeons generally are. The timing is miserable.”

“You fear for the Drummond?” Hess asked.

“I do.” And, worse, he feared for his future as Jacaranda Wyeth’s husband. “Somebody should have passed along some gossip by now, something from one of the Cape Town ships, or Lisbon. Some-damned-where between here and the Antipodes, somebody has to have seen the Drummond under way and headed home.”

“Unless it came to grief again,” Yolanda said. “Oh, Worth—”

“I’m for Town,” Worth interrupted her. “Hess, I’d appreciate it if you’d hold the reins here. Lannie?”

“Worth?”

“You did the right thing. You defended yourself the best you knew how, and I am sorry as hell I haven’t been a better brother to you.”

“You needn’t—” Yolanda began, but Hess interrupted.

“We need to, both of us, Lannie. I’m sorry, too. I should have paid attention, should have protected you. I am sorry. I won’t let you down like that again.”

He aimed a look at Worth as he said that last, a look that implied unspoken apology, and a full complement of Kettering determination. A fraction of Worth’s anxiety eased.

“Does this mean you’ll invite Mr. Hunter to dinner?” Yolanda asked.

“I’m leaving,” Worth said. “Hess is the head of our family, he can deal with the difficult decisions.”

Worth all but ran from the library, knowing Hess faced no decision at all. At this rate, Yolanda Kettering would soon be vying with Jacaranda Wyeth for honors as queen of the parish, if not the shire. The gardener had been lucky she hadn’t taken a knife to his parts.

He put away for another time the self-flagellation resulting from the knowledge that Yolanda had resorted to self-harm to get herself rescued. What if the knife had slipped? What if the wound had become infected? What if Peese’s letter had gone astray?

God’s toothbrush.

And now, now of all times, Worth did not want to leave Trysting. He had a miserable, low-down hunch that Jacaranda was up to something, looking for another post, taking a permanent leave to see her family, somehow withdrawing from the field and refusing his several offers.

He couldn’t let that happen. Could not.

Chapter Sixteen

The timing was awful, as of course, timing must be when one’s life was becoming a complete shambles.

“It’s my step-mother,” Jacaranda said, barely containing her tears. “She’s leaving, and Mrs. Dankle is quitting in truth, and Daisy can’t step in because she still has a child at the breast. They need me.”

Mr. Simmons’s expression was gratifyingly miserable. “Family is the worst. If my grandda hadn’t shouted my dam down, I’d still be back in Rabbit Hollow, mooning after Miss Sophie Dale—except Sophie’s dead these ten years and more. Grandda said I was tall enough and handsome enough for service.”

Half a century ago, that might have been true. “More biscuits, Mr. Simmons?”

“Biscuits make my teeth ache.” He took two anyway. “Why must your step-mother up and leave now?”

Yes, why, why, why? Jacaranda wanted to burn Step-Mama’s letter, though the summons it brought was inevitable.

“She says she’s lonely, and she refuses to grow old shouting at grown men to leave their muddy boots in the hall. Without her or Dankle, the house will soon be a ruin, my brothers’ clothing a disgrace. Grey must spend part of the year in Town, and Will hasn’t the temperament for exercising authority. Step-Mama says she’s worn out, and they can all go to blazes. She says if I won’t take them in hand, I’ll regret it all my days, for they’re my family.”

Simmons took a nibble of biscuit, leaving a trail of crumbs on Jacaranda’s carpet. “Can’t argue with that. Not all ladies are like you, Mrs. Wyeth. Most of them are cursed with delicate nerves.”

“Step-Mama’s nerves are very delicate, from so many births, she says. Mr. Simmons, when you left Rabbit Hollow, did you think you’d never return?”

Simmons was not always nice, but he was old, and Jacaranda had no doubt he was capable of kindness.

“Rabbit Hollow is the English. In my grandda’s day, we still used the Gaelic for it, even in Cumberland. I went back a time or two, and one of my sisters used to live in Hampshire before she died, but my family is here now, at Trysting.”

And she’d be leaving that family, leaving Worth, to preserve her brothers’ lives from chaos. She’d promised.

Jacaranda began to cry. Simmons passed her his uneaten biscuit, patted her shoulder, and left.

* * *

Worth went in search of Jacaranda, taking the better part of an hour to track her to her own sitting room rather than resort to interrogating the maids and giving himself away.

“Wyeth, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“W—Mr. Kettering, you startled me.”

“That is a box, Jacaranda Wyeth.” Worth closed the door quietly by sheer effort of will.
Mr. Kettering?
“You are putting your personal collection of books into a box suited to conveying the books over a distance.”

“They are my books,” she said, a volume of Wordsworth held to her chest. “I can do with them as I please.”

“What is it you’re doing?” He took the Wordsworth from her and opened it, then closed it with a snap. How dear to his heart, indeed.

“Packing.” She snatched the book back. “To leave.”

Her words weren’t a surprise, but they still stung like a clean, sharp knife, sliding silently between his ribs, taking a palpable moment before the pain built toward blackness.

“Leaving
me
?”

“Leaving Trysting.” She put the book in the bloody bedamned box, calm as you please. “And you.”

“Why Jacaranda?” He kept his hands at his sides, opening and closing his fists. “Why now?”

“Why not now?” Another book, then another. “I’ve promised my family over and over that I’ll return to Dorset, and I’ve broken my word repeatedly. Now my step-mother is abandoning her post, and I suspect she talked the housekeeper into quitting as well. You abhor dissembling of any kind, surely you can understand that my siblings expect me to keep my word eventually. I’ve been your housekeeper for five years. That’s long enough to polish your silver, air your sheets, and beat your rugs, don’t you think?”

Her attempt at a practical tone was a form of dissembling, and he did, absolutely, abhor it. “No, damn it, I do not
think
. You shall not leave me.”

“Yes, I shall.” Her tone was gentle, painfully so. “I’ve told you repeatedly I could not remain at my post indefinitely.”

“I had hoped you’d take up a different post. As my wife.” Though Jacaranda had told him often enough that
she
hoped to return to Dorset. Perhaps she had not only a child in Dorset, but a husband.

She tossed a volume of Sir Walter’s
Waverley
into the box like so much old crockery. “I value you…your friendship, Worth, but marriage must have a firmer foundation.”

“The hell it must.” The temptation to dump out her bloody box was nigh overwhelming. “You can’t leave this house without its general.”

She stopped filling the box, a minor relief to his nerves. “I beg your pardon?”

“Do you already have your next post lined up?”

She nodded, having the grace to look chagrined.