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.
Jacaranda sipped her wine—a rare treat—and listened to the conversation without saying much. The food was good and the company congenial, but her day had been long. When the fruit and cheese were removed, she realized the entire table was waiting for her to signal the end of the meal, almost as if she were—
Well.
She rose, her chair drawn back by Mr. Kettering. He thanked Wickie and Miss Snyder for the company, kissed Yolanda and Avery on the forehead, and wished them all pleasant dreams. Jacaranda had slipped in behind the children to make her escape when a large, male hand landed on her arm.
“A word with you, Wyeth, though I don’t suppose I should be c
alling you plain Wyeth now that we’re dinner companions.”
“I am plain Wyeth,” she said, frowning pointedly at his hand. “What did you wish to discuss?”
“I wished to invite you for a stroll in the garden,” he replied, leaving his hand exactly where it was. “The last of the light remains, and I’d like to air a certain topic where nobody can overhear us.”
That sounded sufficiently ominous that Jacaranda let him usher her from the room.
“You won’t need a shawl?”
“Our stroll will be brief.” Then too, her escort had a penchant for lending her his jacket.
His lips quirked up, though he said nothing, and then Jacaranda was on the back terrace, her hand wrapped around his forearm.
“You will give my compliments to the kitchen,” he said as they perambulated across the flagstones. “Dinner was excellent and the menu such that both Avery and I found much to enjoy. Please tell Simmons the wines were well chosen, too.”
“I will pass your praises along.” Of course, she’d chosen the menu and the wines. Still, his appreciation lit a small flame of pleasure in the place inside her that sought notice, a pat on the back every once in a blue moon.
“Let’s move away from the house. I do not want an audience.”
“This sounds serious.”
“Not serious, but sensitive. Or maybe I’m sensitive.”
Many people assumed—wrongly—that size and sturdy physique precluded sensitivity. She’d been at risk of making the same error where Mr. Kettering was concerned.
How lowering.
He walked along beside Jacaranda in the fading light, and to her, he looked as tired as she felt. When they’d returned from their outing to the Hendersons, he’d disappeared into the library with a morocco leather satchel and not come out until they’d sat down to dinner.
A groom had been dispatched to Town with a pile of documents, with the expectation that the full moon would allow the entire journey before the man saw his bed.
“Shall we sit?” Mr. Kettering gestured to a folly several yards off the garden path. Jacaranda knew it well, because the folly was one place she could escape to on those rare, lazy afternoons when she had a few hours to read, or nap, or write a letter or two. Afternoons when the owner of the house and his family were properly ensconced in London.
Where they belonged.
“Cushions in my gazebo? What a decadent fellow I am.”
She sat, and he took the place immediately beside her.
“I’m trying to guess how you’d broach this topic, Wyeth, and I think you’d plunge in, no shilly-shallying, no dithering. I have an older brother.”
“A blessing, usually, to have a sibling.”
“Usually,” he said, resting his arm along the bench behind them. “This brother is a fellow of some consequence, or so he thinks. We are not, as the saying goes, close.”
“I am sorry to hear it.”
“He and I are sorry as well, or so I think in my more charitable moments. I stormed away from the family seat as a hotheaded young idiot, and we haven’t had much to say to each other since.”
“These things happen in the best of families.” Had nearly happened in her own.
“We need to get over it. I lost one sister to the idiot French and their inability to police their own streets. Hess lost the same sister, and yet…”
“Yet?”
“He and I lost each other long before Moira died. We can’t do anything about her death, but we have Avery and we have each other. He didn’t even tell me about Yolanda. I learned of her from the school, when they couldn’t reach Hess and needed to expel her somewhere safe.”
This was news. “She was sent down?”
“Don’t suppose I mentioned that, did I? I don’t have all the details, but I will be damned if I’ll let another sister of mine fight battles she’s too young and innocent to fight alone.”
Not a one of Jacaranda’s seven brothers had ever adopted that fierce, determined tone where she was concerned.
“Yolanda was fighting battles at school?”
He made a gesture Jacaranda recognized as a sign that he was fatigued, rubbing his hand over his face, top to bottom.
“Have you noticed she always wears long sleeves?”
“I had not. In a girl her age, that would be unusual this time of year.” Also uncomfortable, given the heat.
“Look at her left wrist. The old besom from whom I collected her intimated that Yolanda tried to take her own life. I cannot believe this, but neither have I found a way to talk to my own sister about such a demented notion.”
“You don’t expect me to have that talk, do you?” She was surprised her voice was steady, for these revelations were shocking—and sad.
“If I thought you could, I’d try to foist it off on you, because I hardly have the knack of being brother to an adolescent female, but no. When Yolanda and I know each other better, I hope she’ll trust me with her confidences.”
He wanted his sister’s trust. If Jacaranda hadn’t respected him previously, she’d respect him for that alone.
“You’re wise not to force the matter,” Jacaranda said, though complimenting him felt awkward. “She strikes me as having a full allotment of Kettering stubbornness.”
He sat back, his arm still resting along the bench behind her. “Which raises the earlier topic. My brother will pay us a visit sometime in the next few weeks, and at my invitation.”
“We’ve plenty of room, and the house is in good trim. I wish you’d let me know the dates of his visit, though. Certain of the staff have been given holidays to see family and the like.”
“Isn’t that Simmons’s business?”
“We cooperate, with the maids and footmen, the laundresses and grooms, so we’re never too short-staffed in any one regard.”
“Hessian is only one person,” Mr. Kettering said. “He shouldn’t be too inconvenient, though he’ll doubtless travel by private coach, so that means grooms, a valet, a secretary, a coachman, and an outrider or two. He’ll likely bring a second coach, so the help won’t violate his privacy en route.”
“So I should expect his lordship and eight to twelve other mouths to feed?”
“Everlasting powers.” He rose, taking his warmth from her side. “He’ll expect the state chambers, because the man bears a title.”
“Was that the hard part?”
He stood on the other side of the gazebo, facing out across gardens all but shrouded in darkness. “I beg your pardon, Wyeth?”
“Admitting your brother has a title. Was that difficult?”
“Must you?”
“We are having this discussion where there’s no possibility of being overheard,” she said. “By your design. You and this brother do not speak, and yet you want me to ensure his visit is in every way comfortable.”
“Of course I do.” He turned to face her, but the moon wasn’t up yet, and the sun had fled. In the gathering shadows, Jacaranda couldn’t see anything of his expression.
“You aren’t commanding his comfort simply as conscientious host, though.”
“Wyeth, you are a managing damned female if ever there was one. Hess and I are distant for very good reasons. In hindsight, he did me a favor, and himself a disservice, but it lies between us, a great gaping awkwardness that arose before I’d even reached my majority.”
“Will his countess accompany him?”
He abruptly gave her his back and resumed studying the garden. “She’s dead, has been for five years.”
Nothing in his voice gave away any emotion, but something about the lack of emotion spoke volumes.
“You were in love with her.”
“You are beyond overstepping.”
“I am observing a truth.” One that raised as many questions as it answered, none of them happy.
“I was seventeen years old and callow as only a young man can be, though the young lady and I had an understanding. My brother dangled his title before her, and she
fell out of love with me post-haste, so I obligingly did the same regarding her. That is as much explanation as you will have from me, and we will not discuss this again.”
His voice had taken on a chilly, flat quality, and Jacaranda wished she’d brought a shawl after all. What sort of young lady could have fallen out of love with Worth Kettering, even in his most callow incarnation?
“Here.” His coat, redolent with his scent and his warmth, dropped over her shoulders. He snugged it around her, then resumed his place beside her. “Youthful follies have a particularly potent ability to make one feel like a flaming idiot even years later.”
Idiot folly was not entirely the province of youth, though Jacaranda had indulged in her share. She ought not to enjoy the warmth and luxury of his coat, or its scent, but she was making a bad habit of it.
“You are extending an olive branch to your brother now.” Or was the overture more in the direction of Mr. Kettering’s youthful self?
“I don’t know about an olive branch.” He ranged an arm along the top of the padded bench again. Jacaranda had been hoping he’d do that. “Yolanda will have to be launched in some fashion, even though she’s a by-blow. She’ll need to snare a fellow, need a settlement, and her brothers must put aside their petty squabbles for her sake.”
“Right.”
“Wyeth… Jacaranda…”
“Hush.” She kept her eyes on the part of the far horizon glowing faintly with the promise of moonrise. “I have many siblings. Do you think I am in great charity with all of them?”
“Yes. You wouldn’t countenance anything less, particularly from the males.”
“I was seventeen once, too.” Twenty even. Twenty, plain, too tall and more lonely than she’d even known. “My oldest brother is not at all happy that I choose to remain in service. None of my brothers are. My step-mother is nearly hysterical in her demands that I return home.” Though Jacaranda’s continued absence didn’t seem to bother Daisy.
“And you have a deal of brothers. You must have been very foolish, to need to defy them all so badly.”
Perceptive man. “I was almost foolish, which amounts to the same thing.”
My Favorite Rogue: 8 Wicked, Witty, and Swoon-worthy Heroes Page 51