Worth; Lord Of Reckoning

by Grace Burrowes

  “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 live 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.”

  “Yes, I shall.” Her tone was gentle, painfully so. “I’ve told you repeatedly I could not remain at my post indefinitely.”

  “I had hoped you’d take up a different post. As my wife.” Though Jacaranda had told him often enough that she hoped to return to Dorset. Perhaps she had not only a child in Dorset, but a husband.

  She tossed a volume of Sir Walter’s Waverley into the box like so much old crockery. “I value you…your friendship, Worth, but marriage must have a firmer foundation.”

  “The hell it must.” The temptation to dump out her bloody box was nigh overwhelming. “You can’t leave this house without its general.”

  She stopped filling the box, a minor relief to his nerves. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Do you already have your next post lined up?”

  She nodded, having the grace to look chagrined.

  “Was it something I said?”

  “It’s time, Worth. You are traveling north. Sooner or later, our encounters would have come to the attention of your family, and I miss my siblings.”

  In all their dealings, she’d never once mentioned a family member by name other than the one brother—Blue or something—and now she had to be with family?

  How was he to compete with family? He barely knew Yolanda, and yet he was willing to beat a gardener’s lights out for her.

  Worth had negotiated successfully with angry princes and irate, titled nabobs. He calmly fired his biggest cannon directly at her overactive sense of duty.

  “Leave then if you must, but Trysting does not deserve to be abandoned this way.” And neither do I. “Simmons’s knees are acting up, Cook can’t plan a menu to save herself, and Reilly will forget to repair Hunter’s bridge if you turn tail on us now.”

  Her posture grew two inches taller. “What do you mean? I manage the maids only, and that other… Those matters are not within my purview.”

  She was a great believer in honesty, so he’d be honest.

  “Right. You don’t make a weekly list for Carl, printed large enough for Simmons to read and fuss over? You don’t plan the menus, right down to Avery’s breakfast por
ridge? You don’t choose the wines to serve with dinner? You don’t meet at least daily with Roberts to learn of the doings in the stable? You don’t have the maids spying on the footmen, the footmen on the maids, and Reilly relying on you for his every move?”

  She sat, a woman whose wind had dropped abruptly from her sails, though this was his Jacaranda, and not even guilt would becalm her for very long.

  “I’m sorry. If I’ve overstepped, I’m sorry.”

  “You’ve overstepped,” he said, desperation making him merciless. “You’ve charged past every limit ever put on a housekeeper’s authority and made all and sundry dependent on your guidance. You owe me and this household the time I need to find a successor, Jacaranda Wyeth. I’ll write you a bad character and run it in the Times if you bolt on me now.”

  “I wouldn’t bolt,” she said, sounding contrite—as if mere contrition would serve. “I’m preparing for the transition.”

  “Preparing to bolt.” She was leaving him now, now when he had to get to London post-haste. “You ought to be ashamed.”

  “Oh, I am. I ought to be and I am.”

  His resolve nearly faltered at the sheer misery in her tone. “I want your promise you’ll be here when I return.”

  Her head came up. “Where are you off to?”

  “Bloody London. It’s always damned Town and my damned clients, and I want your last damned groat, Jacaranda.”

  “You want my funds?”

  “I want the authority to invest them as I please, your power of attorney, and a signed note of hand for the sum.” At least he could prevent her having the coin to take ship or remove herself to the ends of the earth.

  “You need it?” She sounded more curious than concerned, but all Worth knew was that she’d stopped packing and she wasn’t leaving—yet.

  “I need it.” A lie, and the God’s honest truth. “I’m leaving as soon as Goliath is saddled. Meet me in my room in fifteen minutes.”

  He left before he could start kissing her silly, or throwing things of value, or tossing more useless proposals at her. She was leaving him, leaving him, and when he ought to have locked the door and pleasured her senseless, he was getting on his damned horse and wearing his arse out over blighted, blasted, bedamned, benighted business.

  Never again. He’d deal with whatever the mess of the moment was, report to his Regent, and get the hell out of the endless demands that comprised his business. Jones could deal with the opera dancers, Lewis could peddle the lace, the titled clients could go pester some other man to make them wealthy while they sat on their pampered, drunken backsides.

  He silently ranted on as he retrieved the power of attorney and promissory note he’d drafted earlier on the strength of earlier discussions with his deserter of a housekeeper. He summoned Carl and Hess to witness the signatures, then ordered them from his sitting room.

  “I would have told you,” Jacaranda said, eyeing the closed door. “I wouldn’t have disappeared like a thief in the night, but I’m worried about my family.”

  “Like a thief in the day then. Will you at least give us your direction?”

  “We can talk about that later,” she said, moving toward the door. He beat her there, holding it closed with a hand over her shoulder as she lifted the latch.

  They stood like that for a moment, her back to his front, until Worth swept her hair from the side of her neck.

  “You’re stronger than I, Jacaranda, to turn your back on this.” He pressed a kiss to the spot below her ear, the skin so warm and fragrant and tender he had to linger there, breathing her in. “Promise me you’ll be here when I return.”

  She nodded as her breath caught.

  “Jacaranda?”

  “I’ll s-stay.”

  “Oh, love.” He turned her gently and took her into his arms while she pressed a teary cheek to his shoulder. “You won’t tell me what these tears are for?”

  “For us.”

  “Is there someone else? A Mr. Wyeth?” A mere husband was an obstacle he could surmount, for divorce was simply a matter of influence, exorbitant sums, and vast patience. The patience might be a challenge.

  “No Mr. Wyeth, no one else.”

  A weight lifted from Worth’s heart. “Then why?”

  A silence measured the distance between his plea and her answer. “You could not respect me if I betrayed a trust placed in me by someone who loves me.”

  She’d got her female brain fixed on some emotional star he couldn’t begin to sight—something to do with her long-lost, useless brothers, and he couldn’t change her mind in the next five minutes. She at least hadn’t tried to deny her feelings for him.

  To hell with siblings who didn’t understand that a woman was entitled to a family of her own—an encouraging thought. “You’ll stay until I return?”

  He had to hear the words again.

  “Only until then.”

  “I won’t have a replacement hired that soon.” Pathetic, to suggest the household Jacaranda had run for five years wouldn’t be able to soldier on a while without her. Twenty years from now, the footmen would still be quoting her.

  “Mary can manage here for a bit. You should go.”

  “Promise me. I need to hear your promise, love.”

  “I promise…I promise I won’t leave until you return, but Worth? Don’t tarry in Town.”

  “Dear heart, I never have.” He kissed her gently and lingeringly, when he wanted to put a wealth of fire and possession into their parting intimacies. If he gave into that impulse, he’d have her on the bed in the next room in about two heartbeats, and haste and desperation would not do.

  Not for their first time, not for their last time, and certainly not for their only time.

  * * *

  “Where’s the damned note?”

  Worth fired the question at Benjamin, Earl of Hazelton, a sort of neighbor in Town, and a sort of business associate. Maybe even a sort of friend. More to the point, Hazelton kept a dovecote full of homing pigeons connected with all points of the realm. Nothing stopped the birds save truly ugly weather. Hazelton claimed his pigeons could cover up to thirty miles in an hour, which meant word of a ship’s passing Land’s End could reach Town in a day, rather than a week.

  “Here’s the damned note.” Hazelton tossed a small, folded piece of paper to him. “Hello to you, too.”

  “Apologies for my attire,” Worth said, for he was muddy, rumpled, and the hour was late.

  “Read your note. Shall I ring for a tray?”

  “Please.” Worth read the few words on the page, and felt…nothing. The fate of the Drummond and all the risk connected to it made no difference.

  “Bad news?”

  “Nothing of any moment.” Hazelton could be trusted, but Worth had no reason to burden him with confidences. As far as Worth knew, his lordship held no shares in the Drummond. The source of Hazelton’s wealth was mysterious, and Worth had no interest in unraveling the mystery, though Hazelton’s pretty countess likely had a hand in matters.

  Jacaranda Wyeth had done this to him. Taken a fine solicitor and investment manager and turned him into a walking ghost.

  “Kettering?” Hazelton stood not two feet away, holding out a tumbler of whiskey in Worth’s direction.

  “My thanks.” Hazelton had connections that ensured he offered only the finest spirits. Worth suspected a certain marquess among Hazelton’s associations, but had never pried. “When did the bird arrive?”

  Hazelton poured himself a drink and held the glass under a nose more bold than aristocratic. “Noon. He left Devon yesterday midday.”

  “You’ve a slacker in your mews, then.” Worth let a swallow of very fine old whiskey slide down his throat.

  Hazelton shrugged. “Or there are storms on the coast. Do you want word sent anywhere in particular?”

  “No. The truth of the matter will be readily apparent in due course. Where do you find your libation, Hazelton?”

  Hazelton smiled faintly and took a delicate
sip. “I took that in trade for services. If I tell you from whom, I’ll violate a client confidence.”

  “Bloody clients.” Worth threw himself into a well-upholstered chair as a patter of rain spanked the library windows.

  “For many years, clients paid my way in this life.” Hazelton took the sofa facing a crackling fire, and they drank in silence until a footman appeared with a laden tray.

  “Your kitchen dotes on you,” Worth said.

  “My countess dotes on me, and I on her.” Hazelton gestured to the tray. “You look peckish.”

  Worth ate, swilled more whiskey, and let Hazelton detain him until there was a break in the showers, then walked Goliath home through the remaining drizzle, the weather suiting his mood.

  He’d make various arrangements tomorrow at the office, track down his regent, send a messenger to Hess, who would be on tenterhooks until he got word, and then…

  Then he’d go home, for Trysting was home now, because of her. When he got there, he’d beg if he had to. He’d plead, he’d cry. Well, he wouldn’t cry, perhaps, but he would feel like crying.

  He already did feel like crying.

  And when he dreamed that night, he dreamed the Drummond had sunk, her cargo tossed about on the waves for the scavengers to salvage.

  * * *

  “What is that damned dog doing in the house?” Grey snapped.

  The beast looked anxious, until Will stroked a hand over her head. “You’ll hurt George’s feelings, and that’s not wise when I bring a warning that trouble has come to call.”

  Grey marched off in the direction of the Dorning family wing, where Trouble was a permanent guest.

  “Trouble cannot come to call. Nobody should call, for Mrs. Dankle has gone and done it this time.”

  Will fell in beside him, the dog trotting at his heels, tail waving merrily. “Dankle killed Francine? I’d say you should double her wages.”

  “I cannot afford to double her wages again, and I won’t be paying her wages in any case. She’s taken French leave, decamped for the charms of her drooling grandbabies. I don’t think she’s coming back either, Will.”