And yet, Madeline felt less out of place here than in the bedroom she’d been assigned in the family wing.
Reading for an hour anywhere before retiring was a guilty pleasure, because a servant’s candles were rationed, while a lady’s companion could squander candles, lamp oil, coal, and even firewood without comment.
“What absorbs you so thoroughly?” Sir Jack asked.
He stood near the closed door, though Madeline hadn’t heard him come in. “How long have you been spying on me?”
“Since I started attending the quarterly assemblies. I suspect you’ve been spying on me for nearly as long, espionage being the primary purpose for such gatherings. Would you care for a brandy to ward off the evening’s chill?”
He was in riding attire, the toes of his boots damp from the snow, his hair tousled by the wind. Doubtless he’d come to the library to get warm, much as Madeline had.
“No brandy, thank you. I’ll bid you good night.” A servant would wait to be dismissed. So much about being a lady’s companion was at once odd and familiar.
“No need to run off, Miss Hennessey,” he said, crossing to the sideboard. “I see my absence was not an occasion for idleness here at Teak House.”
By the standards of a chambermaid, Madeline had been scandalously indolent since returning from Aunt Theo’s.
“I mean the decorations,” Sir Jack said, leaning back against the sideboard and crossing his arms. “You’ve hung mistletoe in my front entrance among other places, though the holidays are all but behind us, thank the benevolent powers.”
“We had extra mistletoe,” Madeline said, closing her book and rising. She should go. She should stop gawking at Sir Jack, stop wondering what he was thinking.
“Mr. Belmont was at the Weasel, defending the honor of Candlewick’s darts team. He said he’d call me out if you’re unhappy here.” Sir Jack pushed away from the sideboard. “Nonetheless, I could not answer him, because I must first inquire of you directly: Are you happy?”
“I’m a paid companion, Sir Jack. My happiness is of no moment.”
“Your happiness matters to me.”
Based on his disgruntled expression, he was not pleased by this development, while Madeline was more flattered than she should have been.
“I’m well-fed, comfortably housed, and luxuriously clothed.” For now. “Why wouldn’t I be happy?”
He stalked closer and picked up Madeline’s book. “Miss Austen?”
“Miss DeWitt didn’t care for it, so I was intrigued.” What a pleasure, to sink into a world of elegant prose, deft irony, and merciless honesty.
“You were missed at the Weasel. Belmont sends his regards. We’re to dine with him tomorrow at Candlewick.”
That would be… awkward. “How is Mr. Belmont?”
“Bearing up under the strain of new fatherhood. His team won’t win the tournament if he continues to play so indifferently.”
Many a night, Madeline had watched the coins piling up in the winnings jar, while Tavis couldn’t pull the pints fast enough. He’d close the tavern early tomorrow night, just so he’d have time to reorganize his inventory and tap a fresh set of kegs. Vicar Weekes considerately scheduled Bible studies for the evenings the Weasel closed early.
“The championship is next week?” The championship was always the first Saturday after Twelfth Night, a consolation for the conclusion of the holiday season. The winter assembly was intended to serve the same function, lifting spirits when winter was at its worst.
Sir Jack set her book on the desk. “You never answered my question. Are you happy here?”
No employer would ever pester a maid with such a question. “I am content. I’m grateful.” And in the most luxurious bed Madeline had enjoyed in years, she was dreaming of Sir Jack Fanning.
“I’m grateful as well,” Sir Jack said, propping a hip on the desk. “I am living the life I longed for when I was locked in a prison cell. My fervent prayers have been granted, for the most part, and yet… I am not content.”
This was also Madeline’s fault, apparently. “Perhaps you’re tired.”
“Weary to the bone. Kiss me, Madeline.”
She wanted to, trumpeting winged cherubs, she wanted to. “A gentleman does not order a lady to participate in such an undertaking. In fact, no employer should presume on an employee’s compliance with unsolicited overtures, and I would rather be beaten than coerced—”
Sir Jack touched a finger to Madeline’s lips, then pointed straight overhead.
A sheaf of wilted mistletoe hung from the crossbeam, white berries peeking from between pale green leaves.
“If you ever tell me who your first employer was,” Sir Jack said, “I will have him bound over for the assizes on as many charges as imagination and a shred of gossip will support. I mean you no disrespect, Madeline.”
Madeline.
For years, at Candlewick, she’d been Hennessey.
Hennessey, where did I put my spectacles? Hennessey, can you pop out to the stables and remind Mr. Chandler it’s time to eat? Hennessey, could you finish mixing the biscuits while I rest my old bones?
And occasionally, when Mr. Belmont was being particularly dunderheaded, Hennessey, you forget your station.
He’d been mistaken. Madeline never forgot her station, but standing beneath the mistletoe with Sir Jack using her Christian name, she forgot for a moment why she must not encourage his interest.
Sir Jack gave her every opportunity to dash away, to snatch up her book and dodge off to her lovely bedroom. He rested his hands on either side of her neck, brushing his thumbs over her cheeks. Her common sense might as well have gone wafting up the chimney, as Madeline’s mind became boggled by sensations.
Sir Jack’s hands, warm and callused, gently angling her head. His scent, fresh night air, along with a whiff of horse and pine. The muted roar of the fire, and the lovely warmth of the library, and then…
A soft brush of his mouth over hers. Madeline’s eyes drifted closed on a plea. Do that again.
He obliged, the wretch, twice more. Three warnings, and then his mouth settled over hers.
Madeline had been kissed, rather a lot. Footmen, farm lads, grooms, the occasional blushing son of the local gentry, a curate two summers ago, and she’d allowed a few men more than kisses. Her experience had been in aid of gathering information.
What could possibly transpire between a man and a woman that resulted in lifelong devotion, poetry, scandal, dynasties, battles, babies, contented old age, or endless regret? Proper young ladies were not permitted to know, but within reason, and with appropriate caution, women in service could ask.
Madeline had asked, and been disappointed every time. The kissing and cuddling was fine as far as it went. The swiving afforded momentary pleasure amid a lot of awkwardness and false promises, but on the whole…
On the whole, she’d been conducting her investigations with the wrong men.
Jack Fanning could cherish a woman with his mouth, could imbue his kisses with such slow wonder, a lady’s knees went fluttery and her whole focus became him. His warmth, his taste, his textures.
Silky fine hair, a little cool and damp from the elements. Chin a long day away from contact with a razor. Lean muscles wrapped on long bones, fine tailoring covering the lot. His arms came around her, and everything inside Madeline rearranged itself into a more comfortable configuration.
Sir Jack was growing aroused, and was unselfconscious about letting Madeline know it. At the same time, she felt no compulsion to quell his desire, nor to explore its potential.
She’d been kissed. She’d finally, finally been well and truly kissed.
Sir Jack’s hand settled at her nape and kneaded gently. “You’re not running off.”
“Neither are you.”
He stepped back, taking Madeline by the hand and leading her to the sofa. “We must come to an understanding.”
Madeline would rather indulge in more kisses, because an understanding sounded
damnably close to a disappointment. She took a seat on the sofa, and Sir Jack came down beside her.
He looped an arm around her shoulders and drew her close. “Your kisses leave a man muddled. I do not muddle easily.”
Madeline muddled more easily than she’d realized. “You needn’t make any stirring declarations, Sir Jack. I’m a housemaid playing at paid companion. When your mother goes back to London, I’ll put off my borrowed finery and return to Candlewick, assuming they still need me.”
Sir Jack was as accomplished at cuddling as he was at kissing, which was beyond unfair. “I was a prisoner once. I didn’t care for it.”
“I’m sorry.” Worse than that, Madeline wanted to hunt down the scoundrels who’d mistreat a man so egregiously, even given the indignities attendant to all war.
“What I mean, Madeline, is that I cannot abide the thought that my attentions… You must tell me if I’m imposing. Don’t humor me, tolerate me, or otherwise accede to overtures contrary to your own preferences. You are not chattel, no matter what the law says. Your wishes do not simply matter, they will control the course of our dealings.”
He meant this. From a different man, these lofty words might be just so many false promises, quickly tossed aside behind the door of some empty pantry.
“We’re to have dealings?” she asked.
“That is entirely up to you.”
She should kiss him one last time—a parting kiss—and scamper off to bed to dream of him. He was Sir John Dewey Fanning, in line for an earldom, decorated veteran, and the chosen, if unenthusiastic, future fiancé of Miss Lucy Anne DeWitt of the Dorset DeWitts.
Also the magistrate.
“I am not looking for a husband.”
“I am not looking for a mistress, much less looking to impose on a woman in my employ.”
What did that leave? Lovers, possibly. Much to think about, definitely. This kiss, unlike its predecessor, had made matters too complicated to untangle in the space of a late-night cuddle.
“Your kiss…” Madeline wasn’t sure she ought to confess what his kiss had done to her.
“Yes?”
Sir Jack was smiling, the first true smile Madeline had seen from him, and it was every bit as potent as his kisses. Charming, shy, mischievous, male, male, and male… He knew what his kisses did to her, and was pleased with himself for it.
“You should smile more often, Jack Fanning.”
“I should kiss you more often, but right now, I’ll light you up to your bedroom instead.”
A prudent plan. Sir Jack pulled Madeline to her feet, fetched a carrying candle from the mantel, and escorted her straight up to her bedroom door. When she might have risked another kiss, Sir Jack instead pressed his lips to her forehead, bowed, and withdrew.
Leaving Madeline standing in the dark, chilly corridor, trying to recall where else in the house she’d told Pahdi to hang mistletoe.
* * *
“Did I, or did I not, tell you Sir Jack’s darts game was off?” Axel Belmont asked, climbing into bed beside his wife.
The baby slept in a bassinet in the nursery across the corridor, which was Abigail’s scheme for maximizing parental sleep in the face of a newborn’s schedule. When a nursery maid tapped on the bedroom door, Axel would bring the baby to Abigail. At the conclusion of the pantry raid, he burped the child and returned him to his slumbers. Axel had even acquired the skill of changing the baby’s linen, much to his wife’s amusement.
“Sir Jack was notably quiet at dinner,” Abigail said, tucking close.
Her shape had changed with pregnancy, and so had Axel’s regard for her. Love had turned to something so vast and tender, words failed. In his first marriage, he’d loved with the joy, tenacity, and conscientiousness of a young man. This time, love owned him, heart, mind, soul, and body.
“Sir Jack was allowing the voluble Miss DeWitt to have the floor,” Axel said. “I’d forgotten how young women chatter.”
“Are you calling me old?”
“You are sensible. I fear the young lady was nervous. Mrs. Belmont, mind your hands.”
They had agreed that marital relations would not resume until after the assembly, and Axel was determined that their children would be reasonably spaced.
Abigail was determined to turn him into a lunatic. “Reverend Jeremy Fanning was something of a surprise.”
“A handsome, if rather innocent, surprise. Madam, if you keep that up—”
Abigail had a bold touch where Axel very much enjoyed being touched.
“You were saying, Mr. Belmont?”
“I was saying that I did not take our Hennessey for a coward.” Madeline had declined to join the dinner party, which was troubling.
“Madeline is shy, and being a guest in a house where she’s been in service would be a challenge for anybody.”
“Abigail…”
“Hmm?”
She’d developed a rhythm, slow and sweet, her grip on Axel that perfect blend of relaxed and snug that made a fellow give thanks for a cozy bed and a generous wife—also for a sleeping baby.
“Candlewick is not a formal household,” Axel managed. “Madeline has friends here, and they miss her.”
Abigail’s caresses slowed. “I miss her. You do too, as do Mrs. Turnbull, Cook, Mr. Chandler…”
Axel covered Abigail’s hand with his own, though whether he was urging her on, or simply participating in his own torment, he could not have said.
“Our staff has grown elderly,” Axel said. “I hadn’t noticed until Madeline left us to take Sir Jack in—to organize Sir Jack’s household.”
“Maybe she’ll take him in hand too,” Abigail said, kissing Axel’s cheek. “If I see the right moment, I’ll explore the notion of retirement with Mrs. Turnbull.”
For long sweet minutes, Axel let go of whatever important, sensible point he’d been about to make, and instead held on to his wife. The next weeks could not pass quickly enough, though Axel withstood satisfaction as long as he could.
“I tell myself I’m not a rutting university boy anymore,” he said, taking his wife in his arms several blissful moments later. “I tell myself that with maturity comes a certain self-restraint. I tell myself all manner of fairy tales.”
“Not too long from now, you can test my self-restraint to the breaking point,” Abigail said. “You are worried about Madeline?”
Grown men with vast stores of self-restraint did not worry over errant domestics. “What do we know of her, Abigail? One day I looked up, and there was this tall, pretty girl sweeping the ashes out of the library hearth. When Caroline fell ill, that girl had become a young woman, and kept the household together despite the owner’s determination to work all night and drink all day. Madeline has been at Candlewick for nearly ten years, and yet…”
“I know,” Abigail said, turning over to nestle her backside against Axel’s hip. He turned on his side too, and spooned himself around his wife. “She was my lady’s maid for a short time, and yet, I have no idea who her people are—beyond a pair of difficult aunts—or how she learned to do such fine embroidery. If you rub my back like that, I will fall asleep.”
The infant would wake her up at least twice during the night. Sometimes the little fiend was at his mother more than he was in his bassinet, and yet, Abigail never complained.
“Go to sleep, Mrs. Belmont. Dream of spring.” Axel certainly did.
“I believe I shall, but soon you must call on Sir Jack. He needs reinforcements.”
Already, Abigail’s tone had become sleepy. Axel kneaded her shoulders in a slow, soothing rhythm. “You think Miss DeWitt is besieging Sir Jack’s bachelorhood.”
His widowerhood, in truth. That revelation had explained a few things.
“If so, she’s armed with nothing more than a pea-shooter. I suspect Madeline’s artillery has turned Sir Jack so quiet and thoughtful.”
Good for Madeline, good for Jack Fanning.
“Go to sleep. I’ll gather intelligence for you later
in the week, even if I must listen to more chattering in service to my queen.”
Abigail fell silent, her breathing slowing to the regular pattern of well-deserved sleep. Axel remained awake for a few moments more, rubbing his wife’s back, and wondering what, besides Madeline Hennessey’s artillery, might have wrecked the hero of Parrakan’s legendary skill with darts.
* * *
Madeline sat at Jack’s desk, a pair of gold, wire-rimmed glasses perched on her nose. The sight was both scholarly and… erotic, damn it. No matter where Jack laid eyes on her—over a hand of whist, or waving good-bye to the party last night as they’d departed for Candlewick—she called to the part of him he’d successfully ignored since leaving India.
“You have recovered from your megrim,” Jack said. He’d wondered, when she hadn’t come down to breakfast that morning.
She jumped to her feet, a hand at her throat. “You surprised me.” Her expression was both flustered and self-conscious, possibly even guilty.
“Obviously.” Surprising her was only fair, when she surprised him at every turn. “Are you prone to headaches?”
“Yes, though they aren’t usually as severe as the one I had last night. I trust the evening at Candlewick was enjoyable?”
Jack let the change of subject pass, for the lady did seem truly unnerved. “Dinner was good, English fare. Beef done to a turn, potatoes whipped with butter, green beans in sauce, and so on. Mrs. Belmont was disappointed that you did not join us.”
Jack had been disappointed at Madeline’s last-minute excuse too.
She resumed her seat—Jack’s seat, come to that. “I will visit them on my half day.”
“Whom did you visit last night?” Bad of him, to ambush her like this, but she’d taken the dog cart out after making excuses for the dinner engagement. A small, pestilentially insecure part of him wondered if she’d gone to meet a beau.
“I dropped in on Aunt Hattie,” she said. “I’d only been able to see Aunt Theo on my half day, and I had another hoard of biscuits to share. The fresh air helped clear my head, and a full moon on snow is so pretty.”
Madeline Hennessey was pretty. She wore a burgundy velvet day dress that showed off her figure to a distracting degree.
Jack (The Jaded Gentlemen Book 4) Page 11