My Favorite Rogue: 8 Wicked, Witty, and Swoon-worthy Heroes

by Courtney Milan, Lauren Royal, Grace Burrowes, Christi Caldwell, Jess Michaels, Erica Ridley, Delilah Marvelle

  He went for a long swim, diving frequently to the coldest reaches of the pond, and eventually sheer fatigue took the edge off his mood. He arrived to his rooms tired, chilled, and no clearer in his mind than he’d been earlier. While part of him was certain Jacaranda would dither and prevaricate on his offer for the rest of her natural days, another part of him wondered if she was waiting for some sign from him, some subtle indication of worth he’d failed to give.

  So he fell into a restless sleep and dreamed of the Drummond coming to grief on rocky shoals within sight of port.

  * * *

  “Why is my stable master waltzing about the garden with Miss Snyder?”

  “Good morning, Mr. Kettering.” Jacaranda rose from her place at the table to stand beside him at the window to the breakfast parlor. “Roberts and Miss Snyder do not appear to be waltzing.”

  Simply standing near Worth had Jacaranda’s pulse leaping, had her leaning infinitesimally closer to catch his scent.

  “Promenading, then. Are they enamored of one another?”

  “If they are?” she asked, resuming her seat.

  “Then good for them,” he said, taking his own. “At least somebody on this benighted estate is finding some pleasurable company.”

  She took a sip of tea and scalded her tongue. He’d very nearly hurt her feelings, though she wasn’t good company.

  “My apologies.” Worth reached for the teapot. “I’m on tenterhooks regarding an investment, and my nerves are unsettled.”

  “You usually take it with cream and sugar,” Jacaranda said as Worth winced at the taste of his tea.

  Worth spooned the sugar in generously. “Does anything on this property escape your notice, Mrs. Wyeth?”

  Her wits, her common sense, her ability to be honest with the man she’d come to love.

  “Much,” she said, wondering—hoping?—he was in this foul mood because he’d not come to her bed last night.

  She’d missed him, missed him badly, and tossed and turned for hours. She’d made the decision to return home to Dorset, but longed to consummate her dealings with Worth Kettering before she did.

  A woman already sunk in falsehoods might as well steal some memories, too.

  “I take leave to doubt you miss anything of significance, madam. Is that all you’re eating?”

  Toast and butter. Daisy’s breakfast in the early weeks of her pregnancies. “My appetite is off.”

  His gaze narrowed. “Is it really? What a pity.”

  “You are not a mean man. What has got into you?”

  “Do you recall telling me I could have your coin?”

  Not an answer, and he was busy putting more omelet onto Jacaranda’s plate.

  “I recall that, yes.”

  He stopped heaping eggs before her. “Why won’t you marry me?”

  “Oh, Worth.” She stared at her plate, trying to form an answer as tears welled. “Not fair.”

  “What isn’t fair,” he said, his voice low, “is that you pleasure me like a siren in the night, find bliss in my arms, and then turn up diffident and prim at the breakfast table. Am I really such poor husband material, Jacaranda?”

  She fell back on the truth.

  She dabbed at her eyes with her serviette. “I honestly do feel an obligation to my family, but you and I also hardly know each other. I am not the ideal wife for an earl’s heir. You would agree with me if you knew me better.”

  “The earl’s heir? I’m not asking you to marry Grampion’s unborn children,” Worth said. “Trust me, Hess is getting up the nerve to find himself a countess. I know the look, and he’s a smart lad. Winters are long in the north, and families tend to be large.”

  “Hush.” Jacaranda rose. I love you, I love you. “One doesn’t pick a husband like a new mount at Tatt’s. You and I suit in one regard, I’m confident of that, but I sense others have suited you as well, and you know you’re not my first.”

  He rose. “Dear heart, that can hardly matter to me when you won’t even permit me to be your second.”

  His eyes held puzzlement, hurt, and not a little determination, so Jacaranda left the room at the fastest walk dignity would allow.

  * * *

  Worth pushed the remains of his breakfast away and went in search of his brother, resisting the urge to chase after his unwilling intended. Instinct suggested that if he pursued Jacaranda too tenaciously, she’d flee not simply to her sitting room, but clear back to that cottage in Dorset she seemed so fond of.

  He could not fathom why. Some secret tormented her or some familial obligation. Perhaps she had a child in her brother’s care in Dorset—

  Walking by the library, Worth was surprised to hear an otherwise peaceful morning punctuated by Yolanda’s voice, nearly raised at her older brother.

  “You said you wouldn’t drag me north against my will!”

  Hess’s voice came next, civil, but tense from the tone, the words indistinguishable.

  Worth debated mentally, then pushed the door open. He loved them both, and they were clearly in difficulties.

  “Greetings, siblings. A pleasant day for a disagreement, is it not?”

  “We weren’t disagreeing,” Hess began, as Yolanda crossed her arms and declared, “Wonderfully so.”

  “What seems to be the trouble?” Though for once, no part of Worth relished a touchy negotiation, no part of him was eager to see if he could untangle the Gordian knot of Hess’s sense of duty, Yolanda’s injured pride, and his own desire to remain as close to Trysting as possible.

  Yolanda’s chin jutted in Hess’s direction. “He says we need to think of repairing to Grampion. He wouldn’t invite me home when I was desperately homesick, but we must hare off there now when you’ve perfectly lovely accommodations for us all here in the south.”

  “She wants to make sheep’s eyes at that dratted farmer,” Hess retorted. “If I leave her here, you’ll need to post a watch on her.”

  Yolanda’s eyes glittered ominously. “Unfair, Hessian. If I’d wanted to misbehave in that manner, I would have accepted all the invitations I received to join the school’s gardener in his charming little shed, wouldn’t I?”

  “What?!” Both brothers spoke—bellowed, more like—at once. Worth recovered first.

  “What invitations, Yolanda Kettering? And don’t think to prevaricate with us now.”

  Her expression was chillingly blank for such a young lady. “His name was Arnold, and he was a nuisance, but he was Mrs. Peese’s nephew, so my complaints weren’t considered noteworthy.”

  “Of what exactly,” Hess asked, “did you complain?”

  Yolanda’s gaze traveled from one brother to the other. She settled on the sofa, in the same manner the accused takes the dock. “Promise me you won’t yell at me?”

  “We promise.” In unison.

  “You won’t throw things?”

  The brothers exchanged a look.

  “We won’t throw things of value at you,” Worth said. “Stop fretting and tell us.”

  “He started with a few little touches, at first,” Yolanda said, staring at her hands. “The other girls thought it was daring, because he’s not…he’s not spotty. Some of them said he was handsome in a common sort of way.”

  “Famous,” Hess hissed. “You’ve been subjected to the attentions of a not-spotty gardener in the one place a girl should be free of such bother.”

  Worth sent his brother a quelling look. “Go on, Lannie. We’re listening.”

  “He must have known he wouldn’t get in trouble, because he started leaving me notes then, in personal places.”

  “Personal places, Lannie?” Hess asked.

  “Under my pillow, among my clothes.”

  “With your unmentionables,” Worth said. “He’s a dead gardener, this spotless wonder.”

  “You mustn’t,” Yolanda wailed quietly. “All the girls knew, and to them, daring progressed to amusing.”

  “But not to you.” Worth settled beside her. “To you it became
frightening.”

  “He waited in my room one night and k-kissed me.” Yolanda grimaced at the memory. “It was horrid. He was horrid, and he said things.”

  Hess took a cushioned chair, his fingers drumming on the arm. “Things?”

  “Things he wanted to do to me. You didn’t answer my letters, and Mrs. Peese said I was imagining it all, but I wasn’t.”

  “God in heaven.” Worth brushed back a lock of Yolanda’s hair. “Did he manage to do more than threaten you, kiss you, and scare you witless?”

  “He had better not have,” Hess said, back on his feet. “I’ll see the place shut down, I will.”

  “You mustn’t.” Yolanda leaned into Worth. “When Mrs. Peese asked the other girls, they said they’d seen nothing, heard nothing, but they all knew he’d treated another student the same way the previous year. She was a by-blow, too.”

  “So, little lunatic that you are, you cut yourself,” Worth guessed. “Beat them at their own game, brought me running, and got free of the scoundrel. Well done.” He kissed her forehead and glared at Hess over her shoulder.

  “Right,” Hess said, “well damned done indeed. I’m surprised you didn’t call the idiot out, or entice him into his lowly garden bower, then wallop him with a shovel where it counts.”

  Yolanda dropped her forehead to Worth’s shoulder. “I thought about it, but nobody supported my version of events, and a violent lunatic is worse than a hysterical female. I didn’t know if Worth would come fetch me or not.”

  “Worth came,” Hess said.

  “I will always come when you ask it. You’re my sister.”

  “You didn’t know that.” Yolanda took Hess’s proffered handkerchief. “You were so dark and stern and brisk. You never said I was your sister until recently.”

  “You’re my sister.” He hugged her, pushing the words past an abruptly tight throat. “Hess is my brother, you are my sister. Avery is our niece. We’re a family.”

  “I will not drag you north,” Hess said, clearing his throat. “I will, however, offer a medicinal tot all around.”

  Yolanda sat up. “Brandy? For me?”

  “It’s medicinal.” Hess passed her a scant portion and Worth a more generous serving. “I really do want to see that school closed.”

  “But what will the girls think?”

  “What will their families think, to know such a situation wasn’t dealt with appropriately?” Hess countered. “Consider another girl, Lannie, younger than you, not as resourceful, not as brave. She won’t think of a scheme to get herself sent down. She won’t even protest.”

  “Like the girl last year,” Yolanda said. “She didn’t come back for Hilary term, and nobody said anything.”

  “Ketterings don’t meekly allow such injustices, and they don’t quietly tolerate another’s dissembling,” Worth said. “Either the gardener takes a post where he can’t prey on girls or the school will be closed. Between Hess and me, we’ve the connections to see to it.”

  “We do,” Hess said. “I’ll give it a day, then draft a letter for you two to look over. It’s the right course, Lannie.”

  “It is,” she agreed, taking a shuddery breath. “This brandy does help with one’s nerves.”

  Worth downed his at a swallow, more proud of his siblings than he could bear. “Having family helps, too.”

  “Here, here.” Hess held up his glass, as did Yolanda. A knock on the door interrupted Yolanda’s maiden attempt at a toast.

  “A note for Mr. Kettering,” Carl said. Worth took the folded and sealed missive, dreading any news that took him away from Trysting

  “A pigeon up from Devon,” he said, crumpling the paper into a ball.

  “It’s urgent?” Yolanda asked.

  “Pigeons generally are. The timing is miserable.”

  “You fear for the Drummond?” Hess asked.

  “I do.” And, worse, he feared for his future as Jacaranda Wyeth’s husband. “Somebody should have passed along some gossip by now, something from one of the Cape Town ships, or Lisbon. Some-damned-where between here and the Antipodes, somebody has to have seen the Drummond under way and headed home.”

  “Unless it came to grief again,” Yolanda said. “Oh, Worth—”

  “I’m for Town,” Worth interrupted her. “Hess, I’d appreciate it if you’d hold the reins here. Lannie?”

  “Worth?”

  “You did the right thing. You defended yourself the best you knew how, and I am sorry as hell I haven’t been a better brother to you.”

  “You needn’t—” Yolanda began, but Hess interrupted.

  “We need to, both of us, Lannie. I’m sorry, too. I should have paid attention, should have protected you. I am sorry. I won’t let you down like that again.”

  He aimed a look at Worth as he said that last, a look that implied unspoken apology, and a full complement of Kettering determination. A fraction of Worth’s anxiety eased.

  “Does this mean you’ll invite Mr. Hunter to dinner?” Yolanda asked.

  “I’m leaving,” Worth said. “Hess is the head of our family, he can deal with the difficult decisions.”

  Worth all but ran from the library, knowing Hess faced no decision at all. At this rate, Yolanda Kettering would soon be vying with Jacaranda Wyeth for honors as queen of the parish, if not the shire. The gardener had been lucky she hadn’t taken a knife to his parts.

  He put away for another time the self-flagellation resulting from the knowledge that Yolanda had resorted to self-harm to get herself rescued. What if the knife had slipped? What if the wound had become infected? What if Peese’s letter had gone astray?

  God’s toothbrush.

  And now, now of all times, Worth did not want to leave Trysting. He had a miserable, low-down hunch that Jacaranda was up to something, looking for another post, taking a permanent leave to see her family, somehow withdrawing from the field and refusing his several offers.

  He couldn’t let that happen. Could not.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The timing was awful, as of course, timing must be when one’s life was becoming a complete shambles.

  “It’s my step-mother,” Jacaranda said, barely containing her tears. “She’s leaving, and Mrs. Dankle is quitting in truth, and Daisy can’t step in because she still has a child at the breast. They need me.”

  Mr. Simmons’s expression was gratifyingly miserable. “Family is the worst. If my grandda hadn’t shouted my dam down, I’d still be back in Rabbit Hollow, mooning after Miss Sophie Dale—except Sophie’s dead these ten years and more. Grandda said I was tall enough and handsome enough for service.”

  Half a century ago, that might have been true. “More biscuits, Mr. Simmons?”

  “Biscuits make my teeth ache.” He took two anyway. “Why must your step-mother up and leave now?”

  Yes, why, why, why? Jacaranda wanted to burn Step-Mama’s letter, though the summons it brought was inevitable.

  “She says she’s lonely, and she refuses to grow old shouting at grown men to leave their muddy boots in the hall. Without her or Dankle, the house will soon be a ruin, my brothers’ clothing a disgrace. Grey must spend part of the year in Town, and Will hasn’t the temperament for exercising authority. Step-Mama says she’s worn out, and they can all go to blazes. She says if I won’t take them in hand, I’ll regret it all my days, for they’re my family.”

  Simmons took a nibble of biscuit, leaving a trail of crumbs on Jacaranda’s carpet. “Can’t argue with that. Not all ladies are like you, Mrs. Wyeth. Most of them are cursed with delicate nerves.”

  “Step-Mama’s nerves are very delicate, from so many births, she says. Mr. Simmons, when you left Rabbit Hollow, did you think you’d never return?”

  Simmons was not always nice, but he was old, and Jacaranda had no doubt he was capable of kindness.

  “Rabbit Hollow is the English. In my grandda’s day, we still used the Gaelic for it, even in Cumberland. I went back a time or two, and one of my sisters used to l
ive in Hampshire before she died, but my family is here now, at Trysting.”

  And she’d be leaving that family, leaving Worth, to preserve her brothers’ lives from chaos. She’d promised.

  Jacaranda began to cry. Simmons passed her his uneaten biscuit, patted her shoulder, and left.

  * * *

  Worth went in search of Jacaranda, taking the better part of an hour to track her to her own sitting room rather than resort to interrogating the maids and giving himself away.

  “Wyeth, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “W—Mr. Kettering, you startled me.”

  “That is a box, Jacaranda Wyeth.” Worth closed the door quietly by sheer effort of will. Mr. Kettering? “You are putting your personal collection of books into a box suited to conveying the books over a distance.”

  “They are my books,” she said, a volume of Wordsworth held to her chest. “I can do with them as I please.”

  “What is it you’re doing?” He took the Wordsworth from her and opened it, then closed it with a snap. How dear to his heart, indeed.

  “Packing.” She snatched the book back. “To leave.”

  Her words weren’t a surprise, but they still stung like a clean, sharp knife, sliding silently between his ribs, taking a palpable moment before the pain built toward blackness.

  “Leaving me?”

  “Leaving Trysting.” She put the book in the bloody bedamned box, calm as you please. “And you.”

  “Why Jacaranda?” He kept his hands at his sides, opening and closing his fists. “Why now?”

  “Why not now?” Another book, then another. “I’ve promised my family over and over that I’ll return to Dorset, and I’ve broken my word repeatedly. Now my step-mother is abandoning her post, and I suspect she talked the housekeeper into quitting as well. You abhor dissembling of any kind, surely you can understand that my siblings expect me to keep my word eventually. I’ve been your housekeeper for five years. That’s long enough to polish your silver, air your sheets, and beat your rugs, don’t you think?”

  Her attempt at a practical tone was a form of dissembling, and he did, absolutely, abhor it. “No, damn it, I do not think. You shall not leave me.”