“One hoped that was the case. I’ll await you in the stables.” He bowed politely to Jacaranda, gave each man a nod, and withdrew.
“She’s safe,” Worth said, directing his comments to his brother. “She didn’t intentionally alarm anyone, and she’s safe.”
“She’s safe, but we don’t know she turned her ankle. She might have concocted this whole debacle to spend time unchaperoned with your tenant. Yolanda is clever if nothing else.”
“Do you have a reason to accuse her of such dramatics?” Worth asked, which was fortunate, because Jacaranda would not have put the question half so civilly.
“Wasn’t it you who had to retrieve her from an exclusive boarding school for trying to do injury to herself?”
Jacaranda could keep silent no longer, for brothers would chose the most vexatious times to be difficult. “Can’t you sort through that later? Right now, we need to retrieve her from that cottage, and assure her she’s loved and that her absence mattered.” Why could they not see this? “If you two want to continue this argument, I will happily fetch her with Mr. Hunter.”
She’d carry the girl from the cottage herself if need be, though Thomas would likely appropriate that honor.
The earl’s eyebrows rose, then crashed down, making him look very much like his brother. He bowed and withdrew without another word.
“You’re not going with him?” Jacaranda aimed the question at Worth, who’d settled on the sofa near the tea and scones.
“I am not,” he said, buttering a scone. “Hess and Lannie have matters to work out, and they’ll need privacy to do it. They’re both monumentally shy, and my hovering won’t help.”
“Eating a scone will?” Though Jacaranda was hungry, and another cup of tea wouldn’t go amiss either.
“Come sit with me.” He beckoned with the hand holding the scone. “And, yes, because I’ve been in the saddle for much of the day, I intend to eat every last scone on this plate. The jam is about gone, though.”
Jacaranda sat, needing to be near him, which made no sense when the crisis was past. “I was so relieved to see you. Your brother was doubtless scandalized.”
“My brother has other things on his mind just now.” Worth held up the scone for her to take a bite. “A little scandalizing will be good for the fellow. He’s grown Puritan in his northern wilderness.”
“Puritan?”
“Lonely, but he doesn’t seem to know it, or what to do about it.” Worth took a bite for himself, then offered the scone to her again. “We need some tea to wash this down.”
She let him ply her with tea and scones and let herself sit right next to him, absorbing his warmth and calm.
“You didn’t panic,” she said. “I was ready to scream, and you didn’t panic.”
“She isn’t your little sister,” Worth said. “Inside I was screaming, but you kept looking at me as if I’d know what to do, and Hess couldn’t very well step in, because it isn’t his property, and he was too busy blaming himself.”
“You didn’t blame yourself.” She let her head rest against his shoulder, and he obligingly looped an arm around her.
“I most assuredly did. You simply didn’t hear me. I will always bear responsibility for Moira’s death, and I was fully prepared to be at fault if Yolanda had been set upon by bears, or pirates, or pixies.”
Jacaranda lifted her head to glare at him. “You did not cause Moira’s death. If anything, your generosity gave her a few years of happiness.”
He was silent, not a brooding silent. Then, “Marry me.”
“What?”
“I said…” He drew his finger along her arm. “Please marry me. Please.”
Jacaranda watched his finger trail down her forearm, having difficulty connecting the sight with sensation, just as Worth would not be able to connect Lady Jacaranda Wyeth Dorning with his practical, plain housekeeper.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said, please marry me. This raspberry jam is worth putting my foot in parson’s mousetrap. Did you make it? I think you did. No wonder Avery was abandoning all manners for a mere taste. You could sell this, you know, retire from this life of gay abandon and buy that cottage.”
She blushed hotly, probably turning nearly the color of the jam itself. “You will not bring up cottages, if you please.”
“You have such a way with the imperatives, my dear.” He munched away on his scone, the wretched man. “What did you mean when you said you’d once been a foolish girl?”
“Weren’t you once a foolish boy?”
“Hell, yes. For years and years.” He chewed more slowly, and Jacaranda hoped his teasing about marriage was done—for he had been teasing, this time.
Or he’d turned his proposal into a joke rather than endure her rejection.
The sooner she returned to Dorset, the better.
“In some ways, I’m only now getting over the tendency toward foolishness,” he said, “but that doesn’t answer my question, dear heart. Tell me of your foolishness.”
“My past is not a fit topic.” Jacaranda rose, and she could see she’d surprised him. Her past and her future were both not fit topics. “I must ensure that Cook has dinner underway, given the upheaval of the day.”
“Jacaranda?” He was on his feet, too, and clearly done with his teasing.
“Sir?”
He paced across the room to join her near the door, his gait unhurried, as if he knew she wasn’t about to leave until she’d heard him out.
“Thank you,” he said, speaking distinctly. “I neglect to give you these words often enough, not because I don’t feel grateful—I do—but because they make you uncomfortable, just as talking about your cottage does. Thank you for turning the house and staff upside down to look for my sister. Thank you for making this house a home my family can feel welcome in. Thank you for raspberry jam.”
She wanted to cry. He wasn’t even touching her, he wasn’t teasing, and she wanted to cry.
“You’re welcome.” She put her fingers on the door latch and walked out from under the hand he’d settled on her shoulder—one of the more difficult departures she’d asked of herself.
“I’ll see you at dinner.” His words floated after her, pitched so she’d hear them, but she made good her escape and reached her room before the tears fell in quantity.
Chapter Fourteen
“It has something to do with why you’re housekeepering here in Surrey,” Worth mused as he climbed into Jacaranda’s bed.
Her worst nightmare and her fondest dream had come to call once again. Jacaranda buried her nose in her pillow. “You infernal man, what do you think you’re doing here?”
“I’ve come to talk about cottages and jam pots,” he said, going through the ritual of bouncing around to get the pillows and covers just so. “You would not discuss them with me earlier, and my curiosity is piqued. I would also like to know if you missed me sufficiently that you’re willing to dispense certain favors in my direction.”
“My curiosity is burning to experience a good night’s sleep.” Jacaranda gave him her back, putting a convincing show of sincerity in her words, almost enough to compensate for lying in bed for more than an hour, wondering if he’d join her.
He spooned himself around her. “Yolanda seemed fine at dinner.”
“I think she was surprised his lordship would fetch her, and whatever he said, it seemed to clear the air between them.” Worth was in Jacaranda’s bed, where at least part of her wanted him, and she’d missed these late-night conversations and the simple cuddling and petting he lavished on her.
Missed them a lot, and would miss them more soon.
“Why the sigh, Jacaranda Wyeth?”
“Your hand. I am a fool for the way you rub my back.”
“It relaxes me, too,” he said, pausing to kiss her shoulder, “to rub your back. May I ask you about something?”
“No, Worth. For once, you may not pose whatever question comes into the vast, busy manufactory tha
t is your mind.”
“Do you need money?”
“What sort of question is that?”
“An honest one.” He sounded embarrassed. “My housekeeper in Town sends a portion of her wages home, and it occurred to me your family might be in some need.”
She hadn’t foreseen this, couldn’t quite fathom where it was coming from or where he was headed with it, though she should have known he’d put together the pieces easily enough.
“We’re not in particular need, though I haven’t been home to visit for nearly two years. I have a large family, but the land is good, and we work hard.” Then too, they no longer had to endure the expense of London Seasons for a young lady who did not take. “Why do you ask?”
“My manufactory specializes in producing idle curiosity. Would you trust me with your money, Jacaranda?”
Another kiss, though she had the sense her answer mattered far more than his casual tone suggested.
“If you needed it, yes, I would trust you with my money.”
She’d have been better advised to give him her money than her heart—more fool her.
“I might need it,” he said, and the relief in his tone was unmistakable. “Give me another week or so to sort matters through. I’d give you a note of hand, or a promissory note, if you preferred.”
“I don’t need any notes.” She rolled over to try to see him, but the moon was either behind its clouds or not up yet. “I’ll withhold your raspberry jam if you game it away.”
“My word is good with you?”
“You’re in my bed, after dark, without benefit of clothing, so yes, I’d say a modicum of trust lies between us.” Not as much trust as he deserved, though.
“Hess is nearly rolled up.”
A sterling example of the trust going both ways and part of the reason why Jacaranda would quit Trysting at summer’s end. Better to end their dalliance than let Worth Kettering know he’d climbed into bed with a dissembling woman.
Because whatever lay between him and his brother, Jacaranda was certain a dissembling woman had been part of it.
“Was he mortified to seek your help?” She put an arm under his neck and stroked her hand through his hair—which soothed her.
“I was mortified. Jacaranda, I wanted to put my hand over his mouth and push his words back into silence. He’s been struggling away up there in Cumberland, selling off his beloved hunters, the art he enjoys so much, and God knows what else, and it’s pathetic. Papa left him a cocked-up mess and not one clue how to go about fixing it. He refuses to raise the rents, and I have to applaud him for that, given the price of corn lately.”
Jacaranda kept her hand moving slowly through his hair. “You suspected he’d traveled alone out of economy, and you were right. He probably doesn’t entertain for the same reason.”
“I wish I’d been wrong.” Worth closed his eyes, his lashes glancing delicately against her palm. “We’ll get him sorted out, eventually.”
She kissed his forehead, nuzzling his hair to catch a whiff of his scent. “If anybody can straighten out a monetary situation, it’s you, and that you’re willing to try likely means more to his lordship than that you succeed.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He misses his brother. Money grows behind every hedge compared to brothers.”
She realized too late how much truth, how much homesickness her words held, but Worth kissed her breast, and all thoughts of cottages and brothers flew from her head.
“Jacaranda? You never answered my question: Did you miss me? For I assuredly missed you, dear heart.”
* * *
Worth needed to hear the words, which was silly, insecure and unbecoming, but he wanted at least some words from Jacaranda: I missed you. Every night when he climbed into her bed, she put up her token protest.
He accepted that and bantered and teased and cuddled his way past it.
Then he cast around for something of substance they could talk about. He could see her cottage clearly in his mind’s eye, so thoroughly had he made her describe it. He could smell the sea, hear the sea birds, feel the piercing brightness of the summer sun blazing in the Dorset sky.
He’d told her as much as he could recall of Grampion.
Told her as much as he could recall of Moira, and even a few things about his long-dead mother.
Jacaranda listened, she asked a few questions, and she answered most questions he put to her. She sometimes even made small overtures, such as stroking his hair.
But Worth could not divine what was in her mind, and increasingly, he suspected his lady was keeping more of herself from him than she shared with him. The last time he’d had this same uneasy feeling, his intended had ended up married to his brother.
“You were hardly gone,” she said against his forehead. “Two days. How could you miss me in such a short time?”
A besotted man missed his beloved when she ventured into the next room, that’s how.
“I simply did.” He shifted up over her. “I think of you far more than is dignified, and I can only hope you suffer a similar preoccupation regarding me.”
He was naked, she was dressed in only her summer nightgown, so he let her feel the blunt length of his nascent arousal by settling his body loosely on hers.
“You are driving me beyond reason, Jacaranda Wyeth.”
She might have been formulating some prim, off-putting reply, but he wasn’t having any of her starch and vinegar. He pressed his lips to hers, determined that if she’d never missed him thus far, in future she’d have a reason to.
She was at first merely passive, just as she never exactly welcomed him into her bed. He was out of patience with her diffidence—had been out of patience for days. Now he was determined. Very, very determined.
So he grazed his lips over hers lightly, again and again, until she parted her mouth on a sigh, and then he slid his tongue over her bottom lip. She drew back against her pillows.
Jacaranda had tasted him before, but perhaps she grasped that he’d recalled his sense of purpose now, because she went still, waiting, until he dipped inside her mouth again. Then her top lip, then the soft folds between her lips and her teeth.
He drew back a quarter inch, enough to make a point. She lapped at his bottom lip and wrapped a hand around the back of his neck, urging him forward.
“No. You kiss me.” His voice held a slight rasp, for he issued not a command but a plea.
Slowly, she raised her mouth to his, eyes open, watching him until she made contact. Then it was his hand anchored in her hair, her eyes closing on a soft, yearning sound.
He kissed her with his whole body, plundering the damp heat of her mouth while his weight gently pinned her to the mattress. He let her feel his cock, rampant now against the softness of her belly, held her hand in his above her head. He set up a rhythm with his hips, slow and insistent, a deliberate call to her body.
God bless the woman, she answered. Her tongue came questing to explore his mouth, and by the smallest degrees, she arched up into him and followed his rhythm.
“Too much,” she whispered against his mouth.
Relief twined through Worth’s arousal, for Jacaranda Wyeth was at least in the grip of a fierce attraction, and he could build on that.
“We’re barely getting started.”
“No.” She brought her mouth back to his without elaborating. Nonetheless, he’d heard that one damnable syllable and was frustrated enough to take his mouth from hers.
“Not no. You may have your no if you’re refusing me your body, but we will have our pleasure. Say yes to that much at least.”
She didn’t understand. He could see bewilderment in her eyes, so he let go of the hand he’d pinned to her pillow and settled his palm over her breast. Through the soft fabric of her nightgown, the fullness of her practically drove him to begging. Her nipple crested against his palm, and she inhaled sharply as he teased at her with his fingers.
“You will let me pleasure you, Jacara
nda,” he said, watching her face. “Or you’ll tell me to leave this instant. Choose.”
The sensible part of him, the part that watched him make a hash of what should have been a protracted seduction, that part understood that forcing any choice on this lady was bound to fail. Stupid—disastrous—any use of coercion. This was a woman who’d turned her back on family for the privilege of ordering about maids and footmen. She would not be forced in any regard.
The man in him, though, the man who’d gone without assurances for too long, the man who’d gone without closeness for far too long, that fellow kissed the hell out of her, surging into her mouth as he surged over her body.
Two passionate instants later, she hauled back on his hair, stoutly, then smoothed her hand over his head.
“Soon, I must return to that cottage, Worth. I’ve made promises to my family.”
What was she going on about? They’d make a damned wedding journey to her cottage.
“And I must return to Grampion. I understand that, and we can discuss our travels at length, some other time. For now, it’s your nightgown that must go somewhere else.” He grasped the hem and lifted it, but something in her bearing gave him pause.
The infernal woman wanted to talk right this minute. He ascertained her intent by the way she shifted back against the gathered fabric of her nightgown, resisting but not exactly protesting.
“We will talk, Jacaranda, I promise you that, but not now.”
She relented, raising her shoulders enough to let him draw her only garment over her head and toss it away.
The pleasure of her naked flesh against his had him sealing his body to hers, wrapping her close simply to indulge himself in the sensation of her skin next to his, belly to belly, chest to breast. They could visit family six times a year, but this—this embrace, nothing between them but honest desire and mutual besottedness—was home.
“God, yes,” he breathed against her throat, though he wanted to give her promises and vows while her whiny family and their musty little cottage could go hang.
My Favorite Rogue: 8 Wicked, Witty, and Swoon-worthy Heroes Page 69