Worth Lord of Reckoning (6 page)

“I have not the least idea what you mean, sir, except for a general notion that siblings ought to know and care for each other. Family ought to. I can and will make an effort to befriend the girl, and I can take Avery to play with the neighbor’s children, provided you visit them first and send the requisite inquiring notes.”

“I have to visit before my niece can even take her
damned doll
calling on other children?”

“You must make the girls think you’ll enjoy it,” Jacaranda added, just for spite. “I suggest you start with Squire Mullens immediately beyond the Millers’ tenant holding. He has six daughters.”

His eyes narrowed, and Jacaranda found her crepe wasn’t merely good, it was delicious.

“I have taken a viper to my bosom.” Mr. Kettering slathered butter on a piece of toast, then jam, then sliced it in half and put a triangle on Jacaranda’s plate. “Six daughters?”

“The Damuses have eight girls, but only two are marriageable age.”

“We’ll start with the Damuses, and you will join me for breakfast regularly, Wyeth. I’ll need your familiarity with the parish to plan the girls’ social calendar.” He bent to take a bite of his toast, while Jacaranda was sure he was hiding another smile.

He’d cornered her neatly, making her attendance at breakfast a show of consideration for the children, not an order.

“I will join you for breakfast.” She took another bite of a crepe so light it nearly levitated off of her fork. “And only breakfast.”

“Oh, fair enough, for the present. Now finish your meal. I’ve a notion to look at that bump on your head.”

As if Worth Kettering’s
notions
bore the same weight as celestial commandments or royal decrees.

“No need for that. I’ve quite recovered.” Jacaranda chewed her toast carefully, for even toast required mastication, and the effect was to pull on that area of her head still lightly throbbing.

“You’ve put every bite to the same side of your mouth, my dear. Your injury pains you. Did you sleep well?”

“I did.” After a time. “I usually do.” Particularly when her pillow was swathed in silk.

“I usually don’t,” he said, frowning at his tea cup.

“Perhaps the country air will agree with you.” She’d meant to say it maliciously, because he was so great a fool as to think correspondence from Town more important than a newly discovered sister.

“Intriguing thought. So what would a conscientious landowner do, were he facing my day?”

Papa had been nothing if not conscientious about his acres, and Grey followed very much in Papa’s footsteps.

“A conscientious landowner would ride out. He might take his land steward, particularly after an absence, or take a few of his favorite hounds.” Or he’d take a few of his more boisterous sons, and the house would, for a few short hours, be blessedly peaceful. “He’d look in on his tenants, especially those with new babies or a recent loss.”

“I like babies.”

Oh, he
would
. Jacaranda finished her toast.

“Will my steward know of such things? Babies and departed grannies?”

“The Hendersons lost a child this spring, a bad case of flu,” Jacaranda said, pushing her nearly empty plate away a few inches. “A little girl named Linda. She had always been sickly, but they’d got her through the winter and were hoping she’d turned a corner.”

He took a bite from the half crepe she’d left on her plate, chewed and arranged his fork and knife across the top of his plate. “You want me to call on these people?”

“I’ll pack you a hamper. They’ve many mouths to feed.”

“I can’t ride over with a hamper on Goliath’s quarters.” He lifted his tea cup, examined the dregs, set it down. “Come with me?”

A request, not an order. Good behavior must always be rewarded. “To call on a tenant, I can accompany you. Their wives will be glad of another woman to chat with.”

“You know their wives?”

“When your tenants have illnesses or particular needs, they send to us here and we provide what aid we can. The English countryside remains a place where one’s neighbors are a source of support, and of course I know their wives.”

He folded his serviette in precise thirds and laid it by his plate. “Where else do I need to show the flag?”

“These calls, the first you’ve made in years, aren’t showing the flag.” She regarded him with some displeasure, for the crepes had been very good, while the company was vexing. To deal with this man, she’d need her strength. “These people labor for your enrichment. Their welfare should concern you.”

“It should,” he agreed easily enough, giving Jacaranda the sense he’d lost interest in her scolds. “Let’s have a look at that knot on your head, hmm?” He rose to stand beside her chair, clearly prepared to hold it for her, as if she were…a lady.

He’d love nothing more than if she fussed at him for that while he stood over her, so she held her tongue.

“Over by the window.” He drew her to her feet and tugged her by the wrist to the light pouring in the east-facing window. “Turn yourself, just”—he took her by the shoulders and positioned her to his liking—“like that.”

When he stepped close, she got a fat whiff of delicious, clean man. He used some sort of shaving soap that made her want to lean closer and intoxicate her nose on his woodsy aroma. The fragrance had spicy little grace notes, as well—even his scent held unplumbed depths.

“You must have a busy day of your own,” he suggested, carefully tilting her head in his big hands.

“Industry is its own reward.” He had offered the gambit to distract Jacaranda from his fingers tunneling through her hair, and that was decent of him, so she rallied her manners. “In truth, I have done as much preparation for your visit as I possibly can, but the house is always kept in readiness, so the burden of additional work is not great.”

“Then you might enjoy coming along with me on these tenant calls?” Gently, gently, Mr. Kettering moved his touch over the knot at her temple. “Hurts, doesn’t it?”

“A little.” While his touch was lovely.

“The bleeding did not resume,” he said, slipping his fingers from her hair, but not stepping back. “I’m glad you won’t mind showing me about the farms.”

He was smiling down at her again, pleased with himself, the lout, and before Jacaranda could beg to differ with him, he patted her arm.

“We’ll wait until after lunch, so I can fire off a few letters first, otherwise I’ll never be up to dandling babies and pinching grannies.”

“Please say you would never pinch a grandmother!”

Now he did step back, his eyes dancing.

“My dear Mrs. Wyeth, I would pinch a granny, but only because she pinched me first. I know a number of grannies who aren’t to be trusted in this regard. A shameless lot, for the most part. Complete tarts. Makes one look forward to his own dotage. Shall we say, one of the clock?”

“I’ll have luncheon moved up to noon,” she said, not taking the bait no matter how succulent, no matter how close to her nose he dangled it while looking the picture of masculine innocence. “In deference to the fact that the girls traveled for much of the day yesterday, I’ve planned luncheon as a picnic meal on the back lawn.”

“I’m dining on the ground with children, being pinched by grannies,
and
acquiring a lot of smelly, drooling hounds, and you expect the country air to agree with me? You are an admirably cruel woman, Jacaranda Wyeth. I’ll meet you at the coach house at one.”

* * *

“How are you ladies settling in?” Worth put the question to his sister and his niece, who both looked quite pleased to be eating outside amid bugs and breezes, not a tablecloth in sight.

Avery, as was her habit, went chattering off in French, lightened by a dash of Italian, with the occasional foray into her expanding English vocabulary. The coach ride had been interminable; the horses had been very grand, but not as grand as Goliath; the coach fare had been very good, if difficult to tidily consume in a moving vehicle; and Miss Snyder had been as quiet as a moose.

“Mouse,” Yolanda corrected, smiling—the first time Worth had seen that expression on his sister’s face since her arrival at Trysting.

“What is the difference? Mouse, moose, you know I refer to a little creature for the cat to eat.”

“There is a difference,” Yolanda said. “Worth, have you pencil and paper?”

He passed over the contents of his breast pocket, and Yolanda started scribbling.

“Where have you seen a moose, Yolanda?” he asked, selecting a cold chicken leg to gnaw on.

“In books, unless you count Harolda Bigglesworth. Poor thing had a name like that and dimensions to match, but she was very merry.”

“Shall we invite her out to the country with us?” Worth had to admit the chicken was delicious, and with a serviette wrapped around one end, not so very messy.

“We shall not,” Yolanda said as she sketched. “She’s been engaged to some viscount since she was a child, and association with the likes of me would not do.”

“Your brother is a perishing earl.” Worth waved his chicken leg for emphasis. “Why not associate with you?”

“Your moose,” Yolanda said, passing the sketch over to her niece. “He’s a grand fellow, nigh as big as Goliath, and he lives in the Canadian woods.”

“My goodness, he looks like a cross between a cow and a deer, but what a nose he has!”

Worth peeked over Avery’s shoulder.

“You are talented,” he said. “Talent is worth money, you know. I have a client who will make a tidy living painting portraits, a very tidy living. You should develop your art, Yolanda.”

“Drawing is one thing they let you do,” she said, tucking the pencil behind her ear.

“They
let
you do?” Worth set aside the chicken bone, for he’d eaten every scrap of meat on it.

“When you’re on room restriction at school, you have your school supplies to entertain you, but only those, so I drew a great deal. Avery, will you eat every bite of that potato salad?”

Avery made Yolanda earn her salad by teaching her a half-dozen German words. Yolanda made Avery try to copy the moose, with comic results. All in all, it was a pleasurable, nutritious way for Worth to pass an hour with his…family, out of doors. On that thought, he pushed back to sit on his heels.

“My dears, I must away to impersonate a country squire. While I’m chatting up the neighbors, I can ask if any ponies are going begging in the surrounds.”

“Oh, Uncle!” Avery’s jubilation at the prospect of a pony knew no linguistic bounds, but Yolanda merely smiled at her niece and toyed with a bite of cheese.

“Yolanda? What say you? Shall we find you a gallant steed so you can canter about the countryside and turn all the lads’ heads?”

Yolanda studied her cheese. “Good heavens, no, thank you. I’ve heard regular riding can make a girl’s figure lopsided.”

“So we’ll teach you to drive,” Worth suggested, “or fit you out with a left-side saddle and a right-side saddle, and you can alternate.”

“That’s what I shall do,” Avery interjected. “I shall ride with Uncle every day.”

Worth drew a finger down her nose. “No, you shall not. This is England, and it rains too frequently for daily hacks. Well, think about it, Yolanda. I must call upon the neighbors, many of whom are possessed of offspring whose acquaintance you should make. We’ll be here for months, and I can’t have the two of you growing lonely or bored.”

Particularly not when Yolanda had been both at her fancy school.

He got to his feet and made for the coach house, but the meal, surprisingly pleasant though it had been, had left him more convinced than ever that Yolanda was hiding a great deal.

* * *

Hess Kettering, more rightly, Hessian Pierpont Kettering, Earl of Grampion, perused the first correspondence he’d received from his baby brother in five years.

Get your lordly arse down to Trysting before Michaelmas or I’ll send Yolanda home on a mail coach.

“You’ll go, won’t you?” Lady Evers’s eyes held concern, but only the concern of a friend. They’d tried a dalliance years ago, but neither of them had put any heart into it, and the friendship remained. Now she was spending a pretty summer morning in his library, sipping tea with him at his desk, and fretting over him—to a friendly degree.

“Worth is telling me the girl is safe with him for at least another few months,” Hess said, “maybe even asking me to give him those months, but he’s also issuing an invitation.”

“He’s hurting, Grampion. You’re head of the family, and that puts the business of reconciliations squarely on your handsome shoulders. If this is the invitation you get, then this is the invitation you accept.”

Surely only a friend would address him with that blend of amusement and admonition?

“Worth was always prone to dramatics, and that’s what got us into this situation in the first place.”

Not quite true. A young woman’s duplicity had done more than a little to stir the pot of familial estrangement.

“You could have gone after him,” Lady Evers said, pulling on her gloves. “He wasn’t even quite an adult all those years ago.”

Hessian came around the desk to scoot her chair back, now that he’d endured tea, scones, and the beginnings of a scold.