This lovable gesture. The loan of Goliath was generous and kind, easing their parting and leaving them one detail of business to connect them. She threw her arms around Worth, heedless of Grey clearing his throat on his mount. Worth caught her to him in a fierce embrace, then let her go and stepped back, her gloved hand in his.
“Safe journey home, Lady Jacaranda. Lord Casriel, you will send us word when you’ve seen the lady back to Dorset.”
“Of course.”
Worth held Goliath’s reins while Jacaranda mounted. When her skirts were arranged, he petted the horse’s shoulder.
“She’s precious, old friend, so don’t put a foot wrong.” He looked up at Jacaranda, his eyes the same impossible blue as when she’d first met him, but so much more dear to her. “God-speed.” He blew her a kiss, and then somehow, the horse was cantering down the driveway, taking her away from the only man she’d ever loved.
The only man she ever would love.
* * *
“I am near tears,” Hess said, standing beside Worth.
“Stubble it, Hessian.” Worth turned toward the house. “That is my future wife, though before she admits that, she must face again the choice between her happiness and her family’s dictates. Last time she confronted that reckoning, she chose neither. This time, I’ve every confidence she’ll see she for herself that she can have both—and a fine husband into the bargain.”
Worth was counting on it, maybe the way Hessian had been counting on him to ask for a reconciliation.
Which had taken more than a damned decade to bring about.
“She didn’t even give me her direction,” Worth added, because he and Hess were reconciled. “I am in no mood to be teased.”
“She didn’t need to give it to you,” Hess said, holding up a piece of folded paper. “Casriel generously provided his direction to me, while her ladyship sipped tea and made not the least fuss.”
Worth coasted to a stop, like a ship gliding home to the dock. “Hessian, I love you. I might not have always said as much, or been much of a brother, but I…what?”
Hess passed him the paper.
“I’ve done my part,” he said. “With or without you, I must leave for Grampion in a few weeks. Now what will you do with that address?”
“Nothing, for now. Jacaranda isn’t the only one with some reckoning to do.”
Hess said nothing, but walked with him back to the house where six bleary-eyed young men were rousted, dressed, fed and put on their mounts in record time.
* * *
“I wondered when you would come see me,” Daisy said, hugging her sister.
“I saw you at dinner last week at Dorning House,” Jacaranda replied, though the final dinner of the house party had been more like a mêlée. “I know the children keep you busy, and I didn’t want to intrude.”
“Come.” Daisy took her hand and walked beside her through the tidy manor house. “Her Highness is asleep, and that’s the best time to visit her. Before I can get the tea tray ready, she’ll be up and fussing.”
Daisy led Jacaranda up the stairs to the third floor and quietly pushed open a door left slightly ajar. Still holding her sister’s hand, Daisy crossed the room, stopping beside a white bassinette.
“She’s beautiful, Daze.” The infant had her mother’s perfect skin, a thistledown head of white-blond hair, a perfect Cupid’s bow mouth, and the tiniest, sweetest little fingers.
“She’s beautiful now,” Daisy said. “Give it an hour, and she’ll be a terror. She puts me in mind of my own mother when Mama’s nerves are troubling her.”
They drew back from the sleeping infant, though Jacaranda wanted to linger. She already knew she wasn’t carrying Worth Kettering’s child, and while that was a relief—it truly was—it was also the unkindest cut.
“You’re wool-gathering again,” Daisy said when they’d repaired to a sunny morning parlor.
“I’m sorry. She’s a disconcertingly beautiful child.”
“Eric loves the children, which is why I don’t leave him.”
“I beg your pardon? Daisy Fromm, you aren’t thinking of leaving your husband? You’ve been married but five years.”
Was this why Jacaranda had come home? To prevent her sister from abandoning a marriage Jacaranda had resented for years?
“I know what you’re thinking.” Daisy took one seat and gestured for her sister to take the other. “We have three children, so we must be compatible in the essentials.”
“Daisy, your unwed sister is not the one to receive these confidences.” Jacaranda took her seat, wondering where her dear little sister had gone, leaving this tired, somewhat resigned-looking young matron in her place.
“Grey pulled me aside at dinner and said you and I are overdue for an honest chat. I thought it might help if you knew Eric and I have already descended into tolerating each other.”
Angels abide. “Of course it doesn’t help. Why would it help? What would it help?”
“Jack…Jacaranda, all those years ago, Eric was about to offer for you. He confided in me when we found ourselves on the garden swing in a shockingly friendly moment, one I am ashamed to say I instigated in part because Mama suggested Eric was trying to choose between us. I told him you weren’t inclined to marry. Otherwise, why would you have given me your portion?”
This revelation should have pierced Jacaranda to the quick. Instead, she stifled a curious inclination to snicker. “Oh, my poor Daisy.”
“I am Eric’s poor Daisy.” She fiddled with the tea service, an everyday Jasperware sporting a chip on the spout of the cream pitcher. “I don’t know how you can stand to look at me.”
“You were seventeen,” Jacaranda reminded her, “and Eric didn’t truly love me or he wouldn’t have been swayed by the money.” She’d taken five years to admit that, to see that she’d had a narrow escape.
Daisy glanced around at the tidy comfort of their surroundings. “Enough to buy this place and keep up the three tenant farms fairly well.”
“You’re doing the managing, aren’t you?” Unlike Jacaranda, Daisy wasn’t comforted by ordering a domestic universe for others.
“Eric isn’t a bad man,” Daisy said, peering into the teapot. The scent of a delicate gunpowder provoked memories of Trysting. “Eric is simply in want of guidance.”
“Do you suppose Francine is providing that exact guidance to her baron?” For Step-Mama’s campaign at Bath had borne fruit, and Daisy had a new step-papa, may God help the man.
“She’s beggaring him,” Daisy said dryly, “or she will soon. Grey says the money he’ll save not having to pay Mama’s bills will exceed what he would have spent on three house parties. I’m sorry you were plucked from Surrey, but Jacaranda, Mama was driving us all to Bedlam.”
“I’ve written her my best wishes and made a few suggestions for how she might curry favor with the baron’s housekeeper. I don’t believe she’ll take my suggestions to heart.”
They shared a sororal smile, then Daisy started giggling and Jacaranda was pouring tea, and five years of distance and hurt were eased aside in an afternoon.
As much as Jacaranda missed Worth, missed him bitterly moment by moment, she took some pleasure in knowing she’d at least put matters right with Daisy, who’d also been manipulated by Francine’s marital schemes. Jacaranda had hired Grey a housekeeper who would not tolerate juvenile behavior from grown men, and she’d written what would likely be her last letter to her step-mother for some time.
Dorning House was again the family home, and yet, the longer Jacaranda missed Worth, the more she realized that home for her was no longer a dwelling, but rather a certain handsome, ruthless, dear and difficult solicitor.
* * *
“You and Daisy must have found something to talk about,” Grey said as Jacaranda rode Goliath into the Dorning stable yard.
“I had to wait for the baby to wake up to properly dote on her.” Jacaranda let her brother help her dismount, a courtesy he wouldn’t have known t
o offer five years ago.
“Did Fromm show his face?”
“He did. He’s aged.” Not matured, aged. Poor Daisy.
“He has responsibilities,” Grey said carefully. He waited until a groom led Goliath away to speak further. “You didn’t call him out?”
“He offered me no dishonor I didn’t invite, Grey.” Jacaranda looped her arm through his, sparing herself his searching gaze. “I see him now, and he’s not an old man, but he’s going soft in the middle, his hair’s thinning, and he still has puny arms.”
“Puny arms? What has that to do with anything?”
“I doubt he could manage Goliath in a snaffle.” She gently guided her brother toward the house. “Eric has no bottom, so to speak, and he’s lucky Daisy will have him.”
“I see.”
“Do you? How much do you know, Grey?”
“More than I want to. Enough to know the topic can be dropped now and forever.”
“It can,” Jacaranda said, and what a relief that was, not to have to dodge and cringe and tiptoe around the past with either her sister or her oldest and dearest brother. The past was the past, and the future… Jacaranda had decided to return Goliath to his owner in person.
Maybe Worth had known she would?
And yet, Grey looked worried. “Does this mean I can bring up your former employer?”
“If you must.”
“Roberts will be returning to Surrey,” Grey said as he held the front door to the house for her—another small, dear courtesy he hadn’t shown her five years ago. “You could send along a note.”
“A lady does not correspond with a single gentleman to whom she is not related, unless to offer condolences or other socially acceptable sentiments.”
“Jacaranda, the poor blighter’s in love with you,” Grey said when they reached the family parlor. “For once in your life, have pity on the male of the species. Write to him.”
She was well and truly done having pity on the males of the species.
“What I have to say to Worth Kettering can be said in person, Grey. I’ve made the mistake once before of thinking my sentiments were returned, and I was egregiously in error. Now I know my sentiments are shared with the object of my affections, and I owe the man an honest recitation. His affection for me was not in doubt when I left Trysting, I can only hope he still holds me in high regard.”
Vaguely, she heard somebody clearing his throat behind her, but she went on even in front of some embarrassed footman, because Grey needed to let this drop once and for all.
“I have come home, I’ve seen you through the house party, I’ve sorted out matters with Daisy. I’ve put your house to rights, and even dispensed advice to Francine, but it’s time I put my own house in order, Grey.”
She’d known she loved Worth Kettering when she’d left Surrey. Now she knew that she needed him as well. She didn’t need him as a large household needed organization and effort to run smoothly, she needed him as a woman needs to love and be loved.
“Er, Jacaranda?” Grey, who never dithered, was dithering.
“You must simply learn to muddle along without me,” she went on, because this was something Grey should understand. “I have my own life to live, my own matters to tend to. I never told Worth Kettering I loved him. I didn’t think I deserved to impose my feeling on him, didn’t want to risk that he might not—what?”
Grey looked like he’d swallowed bad fish, but he managed to point over Jacaranda’s left shoulder. She turned and saw Worth Kettering standing in the family parlor, his expression arrested while the butler beside him wrung his hands.
“Lady Jacaranda has a caller. Mr. Worth Kettering,” the butler explained, his ears as red as the fall mums gracing the sideboard.
“Worth?” There he was, looking just as handsome and fit as ever, though not particularly happy.
“I’m sure you two have things to chat about.” Grey sketched a bow and escaped right behind the retreating butler, leaving Jacaranda ready to melt into a puddle of mortification.
Joyful mortification, if such a thing were possible.
“Have you come for your horse?” she asked, taking two steps into the family parlor.
Worth walked right past her and pulled the door shut with a definitive bang. The next thing she knew, he was kissing her like they’d been parted for years, not mere weeks.
Though weeks could be eternities when a woman was in love.
“So give me the words,” he growled. “Don’t make me drag them from you, because I haven’t come for the damned horse. I’ve come to retrieve my heart.”
“Your h-heart?”
“Say the words, Jacaranda, and then, by God, it’s my turn.”
“I’ve missed you,” she said, searching his face, for his mood was not that of a man glad to hear a lady’s declaration. His mood was like nothing she’d observed in him before.
He dropped his hands from her arms. “I’ve brought you a bank draft.”
“Thank you.” Because he could have resorted to the mails or to a messenger. He hadn’t, and Jacaranda’s heart rejoiced simply to see him.
“Don’t you want to know the amount of the draft?”
“You don’t owe me interest, Worth, not for a few weeks’ loan of such a paltry amount.”
Still his expression gave away nothing.
“I wanted you to have your cottage, Lady Jacaranda. I can go home again to Grampion in part because of you, and I wanted you to be able to buy your cottage, though that’s not all I want.”
He passed her an official-looking paper. Jacaranda couldn’t spare it a glance.
“You mean Complaisance Cottage?”
“If it’s ever for sale, you can afford it now.”
She glanced at the document and saw a sum many times what she’d lent him. “Worth, there’s a mistake. I know you are a conscientious solicitor, but this—”
“Thank the captain of the Drummond. My ship came in, so to speak.”
“Yolanda told me about the Drummond. She was very worried for you.” Jacaranda had worried for him, too, but not about his finances. Never that. “What did you do?”
“May we sit?”
Sitting meant he wasn’t leaving, and Jacaranda would get her turn to speak. “Of course. Shall I ring for tea?”
“Hang the damned tea.”
Hang the damned tea?
“Don’t look at me like I’ve sprouted horns, a tail and cloven feet.” He patted the place beside him. “Sit where my nose at least can plunder your charms.”
That sounded more promising, more like her Mr. Kettering. “Worth, you aren’t making sense.”
“No, I suppose I’m not.” He didn’t say another word until she’d dutifully taken her place exactly where she wanted to be, right against his side. “Better,” he said. “I invested your funds in shares in a ship thought lost at sea. The shares were available for a pittance, the cargo was very valuable, and here you are.”
Here you are, a small fortune, simple as that. “But why?”
“Because when you take your morning tea at your cottage, tossing the crumbs to the sea birds, I wanted you to think of me and the pleasures we shared. I wanted to make you happy, though you’ve said things that lead me to hope I might see this cottage.”
A pure, piercing joy curled up from Jacaranda’s middle. She’d been determined to fight to regain his esteem, but Worth was so generous, so kind, and his actions spoke so very, wonderfully loudly.
“The cottage is leased. Grey has to lease it out when he can, but I’d love to show it to you.”
Worth pushed her hair behind her ear. “Buy out the rest of the leasehold. You can afford it easily, my dear. Put a new steeple on the local church if it suits your whim. You’re modestly wealthy, Jacaranda, and you can do as you please.”
“I have a much better sense now of what will please me.”
“About time you had a care for your own happiness,” he said, glaring at her. “Which brings me to the next neg
otiating point.”
“You look very stern, Worth, but I am grateful for the money.”
“I care that”—he snapped his fingers before her nose—“for the money. You had ten shares, Jacaranda. I had two hundred, Prinny had two hundred, my brother had fifty, and the other forty were owned by other small investors.”
“Two hundred?”
“I did not think it wise to earn more than my sovereign.”
“Angels abide.” Two hundred? She gave up trying to do the math.
“You are stalling, Lady Jacaranda.” Worth still looked ferociously stern. “I overheard your charming diatribe to your brother and must disabuse you of an odd misperception.”
She did not say a word lest the hope beating in her chest find some foolish admission with which to mortify her.
“In some matters, a lady is not allowed to go first. I love you. Does that put your house in order? I want you for my wife and for my lady—I’m to suffer a damned barony for this summer’s folly. A knighthood simply won’t do when Prinny’s in a magnanimous mood. I want to wake up beside you every morning until I’m so old, I know you’re there only because your fragrance assures me it’s so. If I’d known you were willing, I would have brought a special license with me, for God’s sake. I love you, I will always love you. Is that clear enough?”
“You’re quite sure?” How she would love teasing him, and managing his households, and his babies, and his—
“I said…” He was winding up for a shouting match, and then he fell silent. He slid to his knee, and not in any romantically debonair posture. He laid his cheek against her thigh and circled her waist with his arms.
“I love you,” he said, quietly but clearly. “I did not feel it fair to inflict my sentiments on you when all you wanted was a frolic or some comfort when far from home. Then, I did not feel it fair to inflict my sentiments on you when your family needed you so. After that, I did not think it fair to make you choose between my importuning and setting things to rights with your siblings. I finally get up my courage to come here and pluck you from your fairy cottage, and I find you telling your damned idiot brother—”
My Favorite Rogue: 8 Wicked, Witty, and Swoon-worthy Heroes Page 77