Worth Lord of Reckoning (9 page)

“He strikes me as the sort of fellow who will notice.” He’d notice if his sister adopted a fragrance, too, more evidence that he leaned in the direction of being a good brother. “He doesn’t hole up in the estate office, or spend the day riding out with his steward and his hounds. He’s restless, I think, and unpredictable.”

Yolanda paced off to study a miniature of Jacaranda’s mother, a cheerful, competent woman who’d stood nearly six feet tall.

“My brother Hess said Worth has always been prodigal, a vagabond. How can he say that when Worth left home at age seventeen and has been well established in London since finishing at university?”

“Siblings sometimes see each other more clearly than anybody else.” Though sometimes siblings were blind. “When will you be available for a tour of the house?”

Yolanda went back to studying the cutwork, a project Jacaranda had taken on when Daisy had become engaged, and snipping something nearly to bits had appealed strongly.

“Me? Why would I tour the house?”

“You are the closest thing your brother has to a hostess here. Some girls your age are married and presiding over their own homes, children on the way. I’d be remiss in my duties if I didn’t at some point show you about the place.”

“Avery will want to come.”

The words held such a mix of resignation and resentment, Jacaranda smiled. How many times had she felt the same way about Daisy? Dear, little, innocent, bothersome, pesky, adorable Daisy.

“Avery will play with the Hendersons’ boys some fine morning later this week, and she will adore their riding pig.”

“A riding pig?”

“For small children, the beast is quite impressive, and we can use that time for more mature pursuits.” Though Mr. Kettering had made a lovely fuss over William, too—perhaps because the pig was female?

“Good heavens, a riding pig. Well, yes, a tour of the house sounds preferable, if more sedate. Shall we say the next sunny morning?”

“We shall, and Mrs. Hartwick and Miss Snyder will be grateful for a break, I’m sure.”

“They will.” Yolanda’s smile was dazzling, a more innocent version of her older brother’s. “I wanted to ask you something.”

Jacaranda made a mental note to regard any smiling Kettering with caution. “Please do ask.”

“We’re to take supper
en famille
, with Wickie, Miss Snyder, Worth, Avery and myself all together. Will you join us?”

Jacaranda hadn’t seen this coming and could barely stand the expectation in Yolanda’s blue eyes. “Join you?”

“Avery is comfortable with her precious Uncle Worth, but I hardly want to spend the entire meal hearing about French mice or German mice, for that matter. Wickie and Miss Snyder are both in awe of Worth because he’s quite…well, he’s different from their usual fare. They didn’t exactly put me up to asking, but they noted you seem to deal with him comfortably.”

A little too comfortably, at least in the midst of rainstorms. “What about you, Yolanda? Does the prospect of dinner conversation with your brother loom uncomfortably for you?”

“I’ve known him less than ten days,” Yolanda said, sounding both annoyed and perplexed. “And yet we have the same laugh, the same sibling, the same niece. He got me out of that awful school the first time he was asked, which is more than I can say for our benighted brother the earl. I don’t know Worth well, but I have an opportunity to change that now, so yes, dinners with him will be important to me.”

She had her brother’s careful diction, his rational mind, and his ability to mask true emotion behind an articulate façade. On a young girl, those abilities struck Jacaranda as a little sad.

“I’ll join you, provided your brother doesn’t object to eating with the help,” Jacaranda said. “For the first week, anyway, and then we’ll see how it goes.”

“Oh, thank you!” She fired off another one of those dazzling smiles, threw her arms around Jacaranda’s neck in an exuberant squeeze, then whirled and disappeared, all in the same instant.

While Jacaranda wondered firstly what she’d got herself into, and secondly, how Worth Kettering was brother to an earl and not one of his staff or his tenants seemed to know it.

* * *

Grey was a dutiful boy in some regards, also stubborn. Francine resolved to be more stubborn still.

“You must put a stop to Jacaranda’s latest nonsense,” she said. She’d chosen her moment well, catching him in the propagation house, where few of the servants and none of the siblings would venture without his permission.

“Good day, your ladyship.” He didn’t so much as glance up from the plant on the table before him, didn’t offer her a bow or a smile. “If you’d give me a moment.”

She’d given him years, and had he so much as bothered to set a handsome foot in the London ballrooms? No, he had not. He remained bent over his plant, some sort of knife in his hand and a smock—a servant’s smock—tied about his person.

“The matter is urgent, sir, or I would not endure the heat and stench you seem to think your precious roses need.”

How much coin was spent keeping this glass house heated in winter? Paying for gardeners they could ill afford?

He sliced at one branch, affixed it to the stem of the plant standing in a pot on the wooden table, and held the two together.

“If you could pass me that length of twine?”

She snatched up a piece of string about a foot long and flung it at him.

“The fate of this family’s good name hangs in the balance, and you’re playing in the dirt. What would your father say?”

He finished tying the two plants together with a small, symmetric bow. “He’d say, ‘Good luck with the grafting, because the crosses aren’t amounting to anything.’”

“Your sister is courting ruin. What will your roses matter when none of you can find wives because of Jacaranda’s foolishness?”

His gaze lingered on the rose bush, and for a moment, Francine missed her late husband. He’d gazed at his roses in the same besotted fashion, and occasionally at her, too.

“Jacaranda is not foolish. Of all my siblings, she’s the least foolish, and we’re none of us looking for wives.”

The very problem. Until one of the boys married, and married well, Francine was doomed to dwell in poverty, in a house of chaos, noise, and social obscurity—but no longer. Jacaranda would come home, the boys would be married off, the finances would prosper, and all would be well.

“You should be looking for wives. If you boys would do your duty, this family’s fortunes would come right. You and Will have had plenty long enough to sow wild oats, or graft roses, or whatever it is young men do. If you won’t marry, then you must at least snatch your sister from the jaws of scandal.”

She drew herself up, intending to punctuate her scold with a sniff, but a sneeze caught her instead. Before she could extract a handkerchief from her bodice, Grey waved his at her.

“I notice you do not commend your own sons into the arms of the waiting heiresses.”

His handkerchief smelled of the humid, dirty environs of the propagation house, which meant it bore the same scent Francine’s late husband had often sported. She folded the handkerchief rather than return it to its owner.

“Do you know for whom your sister keeps house?”

“I know
where
she keeps house—a great rambling country house in Surrey, one the owner has benignly neglected for years. He’s a single fellow, reported to have some coin, and Jacaranda has consistently maintained that she enjoys her duties.”

Jacaranda’s ability to run a regiment with a feather duster in one hand and a list in the other was exactly why she must be brought home.

“He’s a single fellow, all right, and not much older than you. A bachelor supposedly raising a little niece who’s half-French.”

Grey took up a broom sized for the hearth and began sweeping the dirt on the table into a small pile in the center.

“This is not news, Step-Mama. I made some inquiries years ago. I myself have a niece. I wasn’t aware this condemned a man to a housekeeper-less existence.”

“The child must be his by-blow, and now it’s said he’s collected an illegitimate half-sister from boarding school.”

He swept the dirt off the side of the table, into a dustbin from which dead rose branches protruded. “Many a duke has provided for his by-blows. I’d think less of the man if he sent this sister into service when he has the means to provide for her.”

Grey had read law, and it had addled his brain. Either that, or he was wallowing in guilt for having permitted Jacaranda’s queer start five years ago.

“Jacaranda’s employer is no duke, and her place is here, with her family.”

“It is,” Grey said, setting the rubbish aside. “I write to her every month and remind her of that, but when I cannot afford to dower her, when she has no interest in marriage, and when her own sister is raising up babies on our very doorstep, Dorset might not be the happiest place for Jacaranda. She has promised to come home, you know.”

She’d always promised to come home, then left her own dear step-mama to contend with more unruly young men than any one lady’s nerves could tolerate.

“Her employer has removed to Surrey with his unsavory relations, sir. Do you think Jacaranda’s reputation will not suffer?” The innuendo in Herodia Bellamy’s letter had been unmistakable. “Jacaranda will be lucky to return with her virtue intact.”

Grey untied his smock and hung it on a nail. Next he’d stride off on some errand known only to him.

“If Jack’s employer attempts so much as an untoward smile in her direction, she’ll geld him. Jack deals well with men and their households.”

He at least sounded wistful. Francine took heart from that.

“She should be with family, and I’ve let you indulge her wayward notions long enough. You have until the end of summer to make her see reason, sir, or I’ll take matters into my own hands.”

He looked at his hands, which were large, elegant, and dirt-stained. “I’d advise you against anything foolish, Step-Mama. We muddle on well enough here without Jack, and she’s entitled to some happiness.”

Francine
was entitled to some happiness. She was entitled to spend her summers in Bath, where Captain Mortimer spent his, where Baron Hathaway spent his, and half of Francine’s correspondents spent theirs.

She was entitled to a single week free of menus and feuding parlor maids and accountings—of which Jacaranda had been prodigiously fond. She was entitled to the occasional new gown, a riding mare of her own, a small equipage. So many things she was entitled to, but they all hinged on Jacaranda bringing order to the household so Francine could get her sons married off and her finances in order.

Running the empire had to be a simpler undertaking than managing a lot of overgrown boys and their muddy boots.

“I am never foolish,” Francine said, though she was growing desperate. Captain Mortimer spent altogether too much time with Penelope Shorewood, and Baron Hathaway had threatened to leave early for the grouse moors.

“You are never content,” Grey said, wiping his hands with a dingy towel. “Your sons love you, you have Daisy near at hand, her babies to dote on, and still, you can’t leave Jacaranda in peace. Haven’t you done enough to jeopardize her prospects?”

Stubborn—as stubborn as his father, his brothers, and his sisters.

“A girl with her limitations never had much in the way of prospects, but what little remains to her will vanish if her employer brings his London cronies to the country with him. You know what house parties can be like for the help.”

His lifted his jacket from the nail beside the one on which he’d hung his smock. “No, I do not know what house parties can be like for the help. My step-mother cannot bestir herself to organize a house party, though we have plenty of room, and such an event would be a simple way to introduce my brothers to any number of eager young beauties without incurring London expenses.”

Good God, he was serious. He expected her,
Francine
, to spend hours planning banquets and archery tournaments and picnics and gracious—

“My nerves are troubling me,” she said, heading for the door before Grey could abandon her to his weeds and mud. “I ask you to take a proper interest in your sister’s welfare, and you fail to act, as usual. What would your father say?”

That parting shot was low, but Francine had seen too many barons and captains and even squires resume marital bliss with her friends and correspondents. If Grey would not take action to bring Jacaranda home, then Francine would.

Chapter Five

Jacaranda had known dinner would be informal, because Avery was joining the adults, but Mr. Kettering hadn’t ventured an opinion regarding the most suitable dinner hour.

So she’d set the time herself.

He ventured opinions on other topics all throughout the meal. First, the issue was whether Yolanda should have a mount despite her refusal to ride out with her niece. Mr. Kettering allowed as how he couldn’t purchase only Avery a mount, or the girl would think she was being favored. Then the discussion turned to whether one should be allowed to eat dessert if one hadn’t eaten one’s vegetables.

While Wickie and Miss Snyder stoutly declared sweets should be saved as incentive to finish more nourishing food, Mr. Kettering, abetted by the young ladies, decided sweets should always be served to create a pleasant association with coming to the table generally, and children well fed enough to be eating sweets were hardly in danger of starving.