But she did sleep.
Eventually.
Chapter Three
“They’ll be forever in there.” Yolanda flopped back against the squabs and knew she was setting a bad example for her niece. Young ladies did not flop, and they did not gripe.
She had a niece, whom she hadn’t known about, just as her brother Worth hadn’t known he had a living half-sister. Having a niece was peculiar, when Avery seemed more like a younger sister and Worth Kettering more like an uncle. A grouchy uncle.
“Wickie won’t tarry,” Avery said in French. “She’s devoted to me, and now she’ll be devoted to you, too.”
“Miss Snyder has that honor,” Yolanda said, happy to practice her French on a native speaker. “At least until Michaelmas term. I wonder how much Mr. Kettering paid her for the trouble of babysitting me for three months.”
Mr. Kettering. Worth. Her brother.
“Uncle has pots of money.” Avery grinned as if Uncle had chocolates in his pockets. “Spending some on Miss Snyder won’t hurt him. She looks sad to me, or angry.”
“She’s nervous,” Yolanda said, switching to English. “She’s one of those mousy little women who toils away in thankless anonymity in the classroom, and dithers over which new sampler to start as if it’s a significant decision.”
“Uncle thanks Mrs. Hartwick, but I don’t know those other words you used—anom de something and blither,” Avery said, peering out the window. “They’re coming now.”
“With food, thank the gods.”
“Uncle says that. Thank the gods.”
Uncle this and Uncle that. The little magpie worshipped the ground the man strutted around on. Yolanda had heard in great, dramatic detail in at least two and a half languages why Avery had reason to appreciate him. Avery had been orphaned in Paris for almost a year after her mother, Moria, had died, but had memorized Worth’s direction, and eventually, thanks to the kindly intercession of her mother’s friends, had been sent to her uncle.
A tale worthy of one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s novels, right down to the way Worth doted on his niece.
Had he asked darling Avery for proof she was related to him?
To them?
Yolanda tucked into a hot, savory cottage pie, silently admitting that her brother may not have believed her, but he’d taken her in, bribed Miss Snyder to chaperone, and now they were off to the country.
He’d apparently bribed the coaching inns along the way, too, because the food was excellent, and the relief teams in harness in mere minutes.
Miss Snyder gave Yolanda a hesitant smile from the other bench. “It’s good to see you eating, my dear. Soon we’ll be at your brother’s estate, and you and Avery can have a nice stroll.”
She patted Yolanda’s knee and took a careful bite of her meat pastry. Miss Snyder slowly, thoroughly chewed her bite, patted her lips with a serviette, then took another slow, small bite.
Another hour, the coachman had said. One more hour, a mere ten miles, and they’d be free to leave the coach.
Had it been more than that, Yolanda doubted anything in the world could have stopped her from running screaming down the road. Miss Snyder, mousy, anonymous, and whatever else could be said about her, had at least chosen her path in life. She could have been a governess, a laundress, a paid companion, or some lusty yeoman’s wife—she was by no means ugly—while Yolanda was reduced to begging a berth from a brother nigh twice her age.
An earl’s daughter with a small fortune in trust—though not a lady by title—and she’d had nowhere to go.
She chewed mechanically, lest the lump in her throat rise up and humiliate her before the brat and the mouse. A young lady with nowhere else to go could not indulge in dramatics, not in the middle of the king’s highway, and not in her brother’s handsome traveling coach.
* * *
“Yolanda had nowhere else to go, you see,” Mr. Kettering said. “May I top off your tea?”
“Was your upbringing so backward you believe an employer should wait on his staff?” Jacaranda’s tone was meant to be prim, condescending even, but what came through was sheer puzzlement. She’d been given to understand a title hung not too distant on Mr. Kettering’s family tree, and here he was, dragooning her into breakfast tête-à-tête and pouring her tea.
“You’ll take sugar with that, to sweeten your disposition,” he said, pushing the sugar bowl toward her. “My upbringing was the best that good coin and better tutors could pound into me, but my mother died when I was quite young, and her civilizing influence soon became a distant memory. Have another raspberry crepe.” He portioned one off his own plate and onto hers. “You’re too thin, Wyeth. Eat.” He sliced off a bite from the crepes remaining on his plate and gave every appearance of enjoying it.
Well. They were very good, the crepes, the fluffy omelet, the crispy bacon and golden toast. A piping-hot teapot nestled under embroidered white linen, and the room was redolent with the scrumptious scents of a kitchen determined to make a good showing before a long-absent master.
When had anybody, anybody ever, accused Jacaranda Wyeth of being too thin?
“Better,” Mr. Kettering said, when Jacaranda started on her crepes. “Back to Yolanda, if it won’t disturb your digestion?”
Rather than speak with her mouth full, Jacaranda made a small circle with her fork, and for some reason this had her host—her employer—smiling at her over his tea cup.
Gracious saints, that smile was sweet. Mr. Kettering was a dark man, dark-haired, dark-complected, dark-voiced, but that smile was light itself, crinkling the corners of startlingly blue eyes, putting dimples on either side of his mouth, and conveying such warmth and affection for life that Jacaranda had to look away.
Lewis had written that even ladies liked to have Mr. Kettering handle their private business, and in that smile, Jacaranda saw part of the reason why. Mr. Kettering was, damn and blast him, tall, dark and handsome, and blessed with that smile as well.
Thank heavens her term of employment at Trysting would soon be up.
“Your sister seems a typical young lady to me,” Jacaranda said. “Your family hails from the north, do they not?”
“They do, what few of us there are,” Mr. Kettering replied. “My older brother has had the keeping of the girl, but he’s managed it by shuffling her from one exclusive boarding school to another, and he’s lately seen to it she joined schoolmates on holidays and breaks.”
“I gather she will holiday with us here for the summer?”
“Just so.” His first name was Worth, Jacaranda recalled, apropos of absolutely nothing. She’d never met a man named Worth before, much less Worth Reverence.
“What can I do to make her summer more pleasant?” Jacaranda asked. “Young ladies in the area would enjoy meeting her, I’m sure.”
“Then you should take her to meet them.”
“Mr. Kettering, it might have escaped your shockingly egalitarian notice that I am your housekeeper, but your neighbors know my station. You will take your sister calling, not I.”
His tea cup was set down with a little plink! of…not surprise, but disgruntlement, perhaps.
“I hardly know my neighbors in these surrounds, dear lady. Between trying to keep up with my correspondence from Town and seeing to my property here, I do not intend to make time to remedy the oversight.”
Jacaranda had seven brothers, and Mr. Kettering’s tone had the effect of battle trumpets summoning an experienced war horse at a dead gallop.
“You’ve neglected this estate for years, and we’ve managed well enough in your absence,” Jacaranda shot back. “Your sister needs you, and no one else can see to her in this regard.”
He put another half a crepe on her plate. “You don’t spare your heavy guns, do you, Wyeth?”
“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 pl
ay 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 Favorite Rogue: 8 Wicked, Witty, and Swoon-worthy Heroes Page 48