“Do you suppose that’s the problem?”
“Or perhaps the vicar doesn’t want to impose on you when you’re enjoying time with your family. I get the sense you and Sir Jack do not have many interests in common.”
Another pat to Jeremy’s hand softened that delicate observation.
“Jack is nearly ten years my senior, and he was off to India before I even went to public school. I beat him when we raced into the village the other day, though. We’re neither of us good at being idle for long.”
Perhaps Jack had allowed Jeremy that victory?
“I remarked to your dear mama just this morning that you’re a very robust specimen for a vicar, Jeremy Fanning. I’m sure all the young ladies enjoy coming to services when you’re preaching.”
None of Jeremy’s flock had been exactly young, but the ladies had done a good job of remaining awake during his sermons. The old fellows… not so much.
“Would you like to go riding with me?” Jeremy ventured. “A robust specimen can absorb only so much Scripture at a sitting, and the weather has turned agreeable.”
For the dead of winter the morning was mild, meaning the sun was out and the wind wasn’t too bad. Very little of the snow had melted.
“Perhaps later,” Miss DeWitt said.
She was stroking Jeremy’s hand now, probably out of nerves, for clearly something weighed on the young lady’s mind.
“You must tell me how I might be of service, Lucy Anne. I know Miss Hennessey is good company for Mama, but that leaves little company for you.”
Miss Hennessey was a saint when Mama fell prey to one of her restless moods. No request was unreasonable, no riposte too acerbic to dislodge Miss Hennessey’s equanimity. Even Lucy Anne occasionally retreated to compose letters to her sisters, while Jeremy retired to pray, and Jack… Jack went off on the king’s business.
Or something.
“I don’t want to impose,” Lucy Anne said, “but lately, I have become concerned.”
She was very pretty when she was concerned, with her fine blond brows drawn down, her blue eyes filled with anxiety. She had a firm, concerned grip on Jeremy’s hand too.
“My calling is to bear the worries of others, Lucy Anne. It’s no good to listen to the bishop grumble in his palace, or Mama fret about misplacing her third silk shawl of the day, when somebody else suffers in meek silence with a genuine problem.”
Most of being a vicar was common sense. Be kind, set a good example, don’t put on airs, and in this regard, Jeremy would put his depth of vocation up against the most learned scholars and devout archbishops.
“I fear I do have a problem,” Lucy Anne said, worrying a nail between rosebud lips. “A very personal problem, but I don’t know to whom else I might turn.”
Jeremy patted her knuckles, for she seemed to be the sort of female who was comforted by tactile measures.
“You may confide in me, Lucy Anne, and I will never betray your trust.”
Jeremy had heard many confessions, another part of vicaring that came easily. People talked to a man who had no expectations of them other than that they try their best to be decent to each other. All the brimstone and hellfire tactics did was make folk quick to judge one another and slow to admit their own shortcomings.
Lucy Anne beamed at Jeremy as if he’d waved his hand and brought spring to the shire. “I knew I could trust you. You’re such a good man.”
Even a good man was allowed to notice what a fine figure the Almighty had bestowed on a lady. In fact, temptation was a part of life, and a good man welcomed the opportunity to practice restraint… or some such rot.
Jeremy’s focus was not on a recollection of the bishop’s complicated theological contortions, but rather, on how Lucy Anne’s eyes shimmered when she was in the grip of strong emotion.
“I am a man pleased to be of aid to a lady in need.” That sounded about right, not too preachy, and not like a fellow flirting with his brother’s intended.
Though Jack didn’t flirt with Lucy Anne at all that Jeremy could see. Puzzling, that.
“My need is personal,” Lucy Anne said, her lashes drifting down. “Very personal.”
“Trust me, Lucy Anne,” Jeremy said, despite the warning bells chiming in the belfry of his gentlemanly honor. He was alone, sitting quite close to, and holding hands with, the woman Mama had chosen for Jack.
And Jeremy was enjoying himself far too much.
“I fear I have ruined my chances with Sir Jack,” Lucy Anne said. “Your mother all but ordered me to accost him beneath the mistletoe, but, well… you were there. It didn’t go well.”
The great hero had botched that encounter entirely. “You must be patient with Jack. I don’t think he’s had much practice kissing lovely women.”
For an instant, Lucy Anne’s gaze reflected incredulity, but only an instant. Perhaps Jeremy had misread her expression, or worse, perhaps nobody had told her she was lovely.
“I rather think the problem is he’s had too much experience,” she said. “One hears things, about the conditions in India.”
Indeed, one did. British Army officers had been known to intermarry with the local women—sometimes more than one local woman at the same time—wear native dress, and adopt native customs if posted far from civilization. Jack had doubtless departed on occasion from the strictest dictates of his upbringing, but that had all been years ago in a land far away. An exotically different land.
“Jack endured a lot of bad treatment in India, Lucy Anne. He doesn’t say much about it, and it is all very much in his past. You must be patient with him. He really is a splendid fellow.”
The impatience in her gaze was unmistakable, though she was trying mightily not to show it. Jeremy didn’t blame her for being exasperated, and much of the blame belonged at Mama’s feet for presuming to matchmake under Jack’s very roof.
“What if the problem isn’t Jack?” Lucy Anne wailed softly. “What if it’s me?”
An immediate show of manly sense was in order, lest the poor dear dissolve into tears. From thence would follow concern about her nose turning red, or her eyes being puffy, and all manner of related horrors for a fellow who grasped that neither the truth nor a kindly meant prevarication would untangle the lady from her upset.
“Lucy Anne, Jack is a bumbling, gormless bachelor.” All bachelors were bumbling and gormless, to hear Mama tell it, as were most married men. “If he fails to appreciate a woman as lovely, kind, delightful, and sweet-natured as you, then the fault is not yours.”
“You really think I am lovely, kind, delightful, and sweet-natured?”
“Most assuredly.” Also pretty, and—Jeremy accounted himself an honest fellow in the privacy of his thoughts—well-endowed.
“Then you won’t mind kissing me, will you?”
She was appallingly hopeful about her conclusion—also entirely in the right.
“Kissing you?”
“Of course. You saw that incident beneath the mistletoe. I swear Sir Jack would rather have been kissed by a hedgehog. He’s a man of experience; therefore, the problem must lie with my inexperience. I have concluded that I must apply to you for kissing lessons.”
“That’s quite… quite logical.” Also utterly daft, though Jeremy wasn’t about to tell her that when she was beaming at him so hopefully.
“I knew you’d oblige me, Jeremy. With a little practice, I’m sure I can do better next time.”
A brother was born for a time of adversity. Jeremey would check his sources, because it might well be that Proverbs was a warning that a brother was born to cause a time of adversity.
He rose and locked the door. “Let’s come away from the window, Lucy Anne, and take this slowly, step by step.”
* * *
“I heard you sent that Abernathy woman packing,” Hattie Hennessey said to Jack. “What took you so long?”
Jack had to admit the question was fair, if rude.
“Aunt,” Madeline muttered from across the room tha
t served as Hattie’s kitchen, parlor, and dining room.
“One doesn’t discharge an employee on a whim,” Jack said, shifting on the hard chair at Hattie’s table. “To do so invites employees to quit on a whim, and the entire household suffers from the resulting chaos.”
Hattie’s cottage was neat as pin, and unlike her sister’s dwelling, free of the smell of dog. A spinning wheel sat near the hearth, dried flowers hung in bunches from the exposed rafters, and a braided rug covered the middle of the plank floor.
And yet, the cottage was frigid, and Hattie’s teapot was a small jasper-ware version with a chipped spout. The chair Jack occupied was missing a slat, the table did not sit evenly on the plank floor. Her tea cups did not match each other or their saucers. Over the mantel, however, was a portrait of a lovely young girl in the garb of the past century.
The girl was willowy, with auburn hair peeking out from a lacy cap. Her bodice was decorated with fanciful embroidered flowers. Her hair was unpowdered and adorned with strings of pearls, and her pose exposed an amount of bosom that the present day would consider daring, if not scandalous, for such a young woman. She bore a girlish resemblance to Madeline, though her eyes lacked Madeline’s sharp intelligence.
“I know all about discharging employees,” Hattie said. “When I was in service, finding housemaids and footmen willing to work for their pay and remain sober on their half day was as much effort as tending to the laundry. Mr. McArdle tolerated no slacking, and his butler was worse than he was.”
As both a magistrate, and as an officer of the crown in India, Jack had learned to listen to the prompting of instinct. Why had Madeline chosen to visit Hattie, after purportedly dropping in on her on earlier in the week?
And why hadn’t Jack asked Madeline’s aunts about the Hennessey family history?
“Have a biscuit,” Madeline said, setting the tray before Jack. “Aunt’s favorites are ginger, while I prefer the shortbread.”
Jack took a cinnamon biscuit, but he wasn’t about to be distracted from Hattie’s disclosures.
“You worked for Hector McArdle?” he asked, holding the plate out to Hattie.
Hattie deliberated, though Jack counted four ginger biscuits among the dozen left on the tray.
“Not Hector,” she said, taking a piece of shortbread. “His father, Abner McArdle. I was his housekeeper, until he turned me off without a character. This is the best shortbread I’ve had in ages.”
Very likely, the only shortbread she’d had in ages, unless Madeline had included some on a previous visit.
Madeline poured the tea all around, though there was no question of adding sugar or milk, for Hattie apparently hadn’t either. The irony of wealth had impressed Jack during his first year abroad. The poor would graciously share what little they had, while the nabobs hoarded treasures untold, and made elaborate provisions to protect silver, gold, jewels, and art that would never see the light of day.
“Why would Abner McArdle turn you off without a character?” Jack asked.
“Perhaps we might discuss that another time?” Madeline murmured.
“Nonsense,” Hattie retorted. “Sir Jack isn’t an unbreeched lad, unwise to the ways of the world. Hector’s youngest brother, Caleb, couldn’t keep his hands to himself. One of the maids wasn’t of a mind to accommodate him, and I intervened. Two weeks later, Caleb accused me of stealing a spoon, and it was found in my bedroom, right under my pillow. Now I ask you, how did Caleb know where to look for that spoon, and what fool keeps a stolen spoon under her pillow?”
Madeline took a biscuit for herself. “Let’s not bore Sir Jack with the details, Aunt.”
“I am ever interested in the workings of the law,” Jack said, and these were by no means details. “If the spoon was found in your quarters, why weren’t you charged?”
“Because rape is a crime too,” Hattie said, dunking her shortbread in her tea, “and that’s exactly what would have happened had I not boxed young Caleb’s ears. Abner had spoiled the boy for years, and knew his youngest son well. Hector was paying a call on his papa that day and saw the whole little drama, but he knew better than to peach on his baby brother. I was loudly denounced as a thief, though Abner sent me on my way with a packet of cash too.”
She ate her shortbread in philosophical silence, while Jack wanted to break something. This tale was likely enacted in households all over the realm, when the reputation of a strutting boy was threatened by the dictates of common decency.
“You never sought employment again?” Jack asked.
“What would have been the point?” Madeline replied, before Hattie could speak up. “A domestic dismissed without a character has no hope of finding decent employment. Doubtless, Caleb would claim the maid enticed him, and more spoons would have turned up in curious locations. This is how the world works for those in service. More tea, Aunt?”
“No, thank you. Madeline, you mustn’t be disagreeable, or Sir Jack will think you don’t appreciate your position.”
“What I think,” Jack said, “is that Caleb McArdle ought to be charged with attempted rape, provided I can find the maid in question. Hector might not have spoken up before his father, but to dissemble under oath is perjury. The statute of limitations on felonies is twenty-one years, and rape is a felony.”
Madeline’s tea cup hit her saucer. “You would charge a man ten years after the offense occurred?”
She looked dismayed rather than impressed with Jack’s suggestion.
“The law is the law, Miss Hennessey. A young woman was taken advantage of, and when your aunt tried to intervene, the retaliation was severe.”
“The notion of seeing Caleb McArdle bound over for the assizes is lovely,” Hattie said, “but it won’t happen. He went off to university and died after consuming bad fish, if you can believe the gossip. The boy’s death sent old man McArdle into a decline, and he soon followed his son into the grave. Hector inherited the entire coal yard, which is fortunate when the man has ten children.”
Hector, whose coal thief Jack would likely never catch. Much to ponder regarding Hattie Hennessey’s past, and wrong done her by the late coal man.
“Is that your portrait over the mantel?” Jack asked.
“Yes,” Hattie said, not even glancing at the painting. “I wasn’t a beauty, like Theodosia, but then, my husband was unlucky in business rather than a fool, God rest him. I married a third cousin, which is often the best sort of husband. Madeline, you will please wrap up these lovely biscuits, unless Sir Jack would like another?”
The biscuits were already slightly stale, but Hattie would probably make them last another week.
“I could not possibly eat another,” Jack said, rising. “Miss Hennessey, I will see to the horses, but you are not to rush away. Give me a few minutes to offer the beasts water, while you catch your aunt up on the news from the village.” He bowed to both ladies and withdrew to the chilly yard between Hattie’s sheep byre and her cottage.
His first task was to fill up the water trough for the sheep from the cistern beside the house. Hattie’s wooden bucket leaked, and the cistern was frozen over, so the undertaking was cold and time-consuming. Next, he used a shovel standing beside the door of the cottage to dig a path through the snow between the byre and the cottage, and when those necessities had been tended to, he forked hay to the sheep from the thatched hay rick beside their pen.
“If that’s you, Eloise,” he said to an inquisitive ewe, “I’ll pass along your regards to Charles when next he and I meet.”
The gate still sagged, a length of rusty tin flapped against the roof of the byre, and the hay was far from good quality. If Hattie’s story could be believed, this desperate existence was her thanks for presuming to hold a young man accountable for his actions.
Jack was wrestling a sizeable rock onto the loose tin by virtue of standing on the sleigh bench, when Madeline emerged from the cottage, pulling the door closed behind her.
“You’ve watered the horses?” sh
e asked.
“The horses are all of three miles from home,” Jack said, leaping to the ground. “They didn’t need watering.” Hattie Hennessey needed help, though. Jack didn’t point out the obvious, lest he find himself facedown in the snow.
“I’ve told her to sell that portrait,” Madeline said, stalking off to the sleigh. “I think she keeps it to torment herself.”
“Perhaps she keeps it to recall a happier time?” Jack suggested, handing Madeline up into the sleigh.
“What is the point of recalling a happier time? That happier time is lost, and it can’t be brought back by staring at a picture. Hattie would be better off selling the damned thing and buying sugar for her tea.”
Or paying Mortimer Cotton for the services of his ram?
“Teak House will send Hattie a belated Christmas box,” Jack said, “and she’ll have a crop of lambs in the spring.” Those measures were not adequate to address the penury Hattie endured. “All of the money from this year’s darts tournament should be donated to the Widows and Orphans Fund. Hattie will see a share of that, as will Theodosia.”
He gave the horses leave to walk on, and soon had them trotting smartly in the direction of Teak House. The sun did nothing to moderate the cold. If anything, the temperature was dropping as the morning wore on.
“Madeline, say something.”
She wiped her eyes with the end of her scarf and sniffed. “If you hadn’t watered the sheep, I would have. Breaking the ice out of the cistern and scooping the ice from the trough makes Aunt’s hands ache awfully, and she has no laudanum—” Madeline turned on the seat and braced her forehead against Jack’s shoulder. “I am awful. I’ve wished my aunts would die rather than see them endure another winter. They never have enough to eat. Theo has lately developed a cough. They’re always cold, and they worry so, about the sheep, the chickens…”
While Madeline worried about them.
Jack had abundant coin with which to address Hattie’s and Theo’s poverty, and he’d make every effort to do that, though he suspected they’d rebuff anything resembling charity.
Jack (The Jaded Gentlemen Book 4) Page 15