Worth; Lord Of Reckoning

by Grace Burrowes

  And a house party bore down on them, arranged by this fiend of an errant step-mother, toward whom Jacaranda no doubt felt buckets of loyalty and guilt.

  “Don’t you lot have another sister?” Worth asked. “I know Mrs.—Lady Jacaranda mentioned a sister.”

  “Daisy.” Sycamore rolled his eyes. “She’s married to Eric and having babies.”

  “Shouldn’t Jacaranda be married and having babies?” Worth certainly thought so. Married to him, having his babies.

  “She isn’t the marrying kind,” Grey said. “Her heart was broken once long ago, and she hasn’t any interest in finding a husband. She told me that herself, though not the particulars. Why else do you think I’d tolerate this housekeeping nonsense from her?”

  Worth searched the gaze of each brother, but it wasn’t until he got to his own brother that he felt some relief. Though Hess’s expression was bland, in his eyes Worth could see his thoughts: What a driveling lot of pathetic fools, kidnapping their only sensible relation so she can rescue them from—horrors!—a house full of heiresses and debutantes.

  “I will confer with Lady Jacaranda to see which rooms we’re putting you in,” Worth said, “and then you’ll be free to freshen up for dinner. We dine as a family, and you’ll be introduced to our sister, Miss Yolanda Kettering, and our niece, Miss Avery, as well as Miss Snyder and Mrs. Hartwick.”

  He bowed and left the room before anybody could prevent him from conferring with his own housekeeper. Jacaranda was his housekeeper, and he’d trade on that for as long as he could.

  Which might be for one more day, give or take a few hours.

  He found her in her room, where she seemed to be spending increasing amounts of time. Her pretty gentian eyes were haunted, and all the ire Worth had felt toward her receded behind genuine concern.

  “You weren’t expecting the entire tribe, were you?” he asked, closing the door.

  “I haven’t seen them since last year. They seem to keep growing.”

  Worth took a seat beside her on the settee. She was hunched forward, so he could only see her face in profile.

  “You must have been in a very great rage to leave so many helpless men behind you.” His words were soft, so was his touch as he smoothed back her hair. “They miss you terribly.”

  “They miss having their every need met without them thinking about it,” she said. “They’re dear, and I do love them, and Grey especially tries, but Step-Mama knew I’d never leave the boys to deal with a house party. You see that, I hope. I can’t allow them to flounder along before half the gossips of Polite Society, bankrupting Grey’s coffers, preyed upon by heiresses, wrecking the house—”

  “Who broke your heart, Jacaranda?”

  She scooted as if to rise. Worth put a hand on her arm.

  “You can tell me. I’ve wondered why you ran away from home, and that was before I knew you were an earl’s daughter.”

  He said it for her, because apparently, she’d never intended to say it to him herself. Some purveyor of confidences, he.

  “An impoverished earl.” She settled back, and when Worth put an arm around her shoulders, she let him have her weight. “Papa had more kindness than sense, and more amateur botanical inclinations than money. I had a small portion left me by a grandmother, though.”

  “Go on,” Worth said, stealing a whiff of her hair.

  “My younger sister, Daisy, was sickly—my half-sister. Of all of us, she’s the only one who isn’t a giant.”

  “You’re not a giant.” Nor was she his housekeeper. The simple sight of those buffoons in the library, and she’d already on some level abandoned her post at Trysting. She’d get them organized for this house party, see that the staff acquitted themselves as if serving foreign royalty, and by then that cottage would have wrapped its ivy tentacles around her heart.

  “Daisy’s lungs were weak as a child,” Jacaranda went on as if Worth hadn’t spoken. “For several winters we feared we might lose her. Papa had the solicitors put my portion in Daisy’s name, because Step-Mama convinced him no man would want a sickly wife.”

  Kind, botanical, and none too bright. No wonder Jacaranda felt she had to fend for her menfolk.

  “Let me guess,” Worth said. “Dear Daisy used her portion to snabble a swain, and she’s been in the pink of health ever since, while you’ve been slaving away here in Surrey for a man who doesn’t even bother to learn what his housekeeper looks like.”

  “You rather know what I look like.”

  “So now you leave me?”

  She turned her face into his shoulder. “I’m not leaving you. Well, I am, a little, maybe. We were only dallying, Worth.”

  “We weren’t even dallying.”

  She fell silent, and again, he wanted to kick something fragile and bellow obscenities, but he knew when to let a negotiating opponent stew, and this little tale was more complicated than Jacaranda had disclosed.

  “I did dally, once,” she said. “I do mean once. One time.”

  “Not a memorable occasion?” Whoever he was, Worth wanted to kill him, not for despoiling Jacaranda—she was free to dally where she chose, thank the Deity—but for disappointing her.

  She tucked closer, as if to hide. “Eric was so sweet, not loud and ribald like my brothers, but mannerly and soft-spoken. When he kissed me, I felt pretty. He’s handsome, Eric is, refined.”

  The bastard was shrewd, too. “He had the sense to pay you some attention.”

  If Jacaranda tucked herself any closer, Worth would give in to the temptation to haul her into his lap.

  “His attentions befell me when no one was about—I thought he was exercising gentlemanly discretion. My brothers trusted him, because we’ve known the family forever. They trusted me because no man in his right mind would bother flirting with me.”

  “In God’s name why not? You’re gorgeous, brilliant, tireless—”

  She kissed his cheek, a scolding, hushing kiss, and Worth had the uncomfortable suspicion his words wounded her.

  “I didn’t know any better,” she said. “I thought Eric was courting me, and I was pleased to think it so.”

  “You would have married him?”

  “At the time, I would have rejoiced to marry him. I was infatuated.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Past twenty. I’d had my Seasons and was facing yet another year as the tallest, plainest, most awkward woman in every ballroom. Marriage to Eric would have spared me that. He hasn’t a title, but his father is gentry and prosperous.”

  Gentry, prosperous, and conniving as hell. “This lovely, discreet gentleman married your sister.”

  She was a ball of hurting female against his side, and Worth kicked himself for not having the patience to prompt this story from her before. This part of her past mattered to her, so it should have mattered to him.

  “I was increasingly willing to permit him liberties. I thought we were anticipating the vows.”

  Oh, my love. “What happened?”

  “I let him…have me, and it was awkward and untidy, and he was so pleased with himself over it, I said nothing. He hadn’t finished buttoning his falls before he was explaining to me that his father believed a married man should make his own way, so it was Daisy he’d have to marry—she had that nice little settlement, after all—but there was no reason he and I couldn’t continue to enjoy each other’s company.”

  “He got your portion, and your sister got him.”

  “She’s welcome to him,” Jacaranda said. “I’ve saved some money working for you, a fair bit for a housekeeper, and if I invest it well, I’ll manage. And as for Eric…”

  Worth had invested that money for her, lest she forget—a discussion for some other day. “He deserves the French pox, at least, for how he treated you. Do your brothers know?”

  “Grey suspects.” Jacaranda fell silent for a moment, still leaning on him. He wanted to store the moment up like a happy memory, except it wasn’t happy. Not for her, not for him, but
it was important. “When he wanted to demand answers and create a fuss, I argued him out of it. He made them have a long engagement, but my oldest nephew was born four months after the wedding.”

  “Eric is a randy bugger, isn’t he?”

  “He seems devoted to Daisy.” Jacaranda was trying to convince herself, because how could she know this when she dwelled far from her family—unless her sister tortured her by correspondence? “Leaving was far easier than staying and watching them raise their children, but now it has been five years, and I still haven’t put things right with my only sister.”

  “One can understand that a reckoning would be important to you. If it makes any difference, I am sorry.” Particularly when wounded pride had also sent one fleeing his own home more than a decade ago.

  “Sorry? For?”

  “For what you went through. I’m not sure I would have importuned you if I’d known.”

  “You knew I was used goods; you did not know that I was also a lying baggage of used goods. I’m sorry for that. I could not find the right time to explain my situation to you, and I knew I was bound to return to Dorset soon anyway.”

  She still hadn’t entirely explained her situation to him, though Worth had acquired a fine grasp of the havoc unfinished business between siblings could wreak.

  “Hush, Jacaranda Dorning. You are not used goods any more than I am. We’re adults, we’ve taken some knocks. Are you sure you don’t want to remain here, though? You don’t have to marry me. You don’t even have to see me. I’ll go north, I’ll stay in Town, I’ll buy a few more properties and keep myself from your sight.”

  What was he offering? Lies, certainly. He might try to stay away, but some pressing contrivance would see him on Trysting’s doorstep within a month. He’d ride William the Pig if it meant he could share a roof with Jacaranda.

  “You don’t like it in Town,” she said, smoothing her palm down his lapel.

  “I realize that now, but I don’t want you keeping house for that lot of handsome louts when they couldn’t even see your heart was broken.” Though he did want her to put things to rights with her sister. That was important, when one had only a single sister.

  She looked away, and Worth felt his frustration with her rising again. What had he said? What had he missed? He understood that this house party nonsense required her presence in Dorset for a time, but why was it so important for her to stay away from him?

  “Would you do me a very great favor, Mr. Kettering?”

  “Anything, Mrs. Wyeth.”

  “Hold me.”

  And while she cried as if her heart were breaking all over again, he held her and knew for a certainty his was breaking, too.

  * * *

  “I’ve been meaning to tell you something.” Hess settled in beside Worth on the library sofa.

  “We have brandy left?” Worth marveled as Hess passed him a drink.

  “Your cellar has been kept in good stock, probably thanks to old Simmons.”

  “Thanks to my housekeeper, who thinks she’s abandoning me.” Hess was turning him into a sot, that was the trouble.

  “That is what I wanted to bring up. I haven’t known exactly how.”

  Worth took a sip of good brandy, the everyday having fallen victim to the Dorset tribe of Visigoths.

  “There’s nothing to bring up. We got through dinner with the plague of locusts, now we’ll go to bed. When I wake in the morning, the only woman I’ve loved will ride out of my life, because assigning beds at some house party is more important than being in my bed. End of fairy tale.” He would muster the determination to fetch her back, of course—Ketterings were determined—but what if she didn’t want to be fetched?

  “Mrs. Wyeth is the only woman you’ve loved?”

  The way Hess posed the question, so delicately, alerted Worth to the focus of the discussion.

  “You loved another,” Hess said. “Years ago, and yet I married her.”

  “Must we?”

  “I was never quite sure why you hared off.” Hess’s voice was meditative. “Did she say something to you?”

  “No words were necessary. She and I had arranged to meet in the stables, and I saw the two of you there. Your attentions to her were not those of a future brother-in-law.”

  “The stables.”

  “In the saddle room, embracing rather enthusiastically.” Consuming each other, or so it had appeared at the time. “This is excellent brandy. My compliments to the host.”

  “Ah.”

  “What does that mean? ‘Ah’? Maybe earls understand such profundities. I can’t fathom them. Perhaps if you refresh my drink my comprehension will improve.”

  “Have you ever wondered why, of all the young ladies in the shire, I chose to single out your intended?”

  Worth slugged back the rest of his drink. “We’re brothers, we were occasionally rivals. She was pretty.”

  “She was neither the prettiest girl in the shire nor the wealthiest.”

  She’d apparently been the most determined—and lo, she’d ended up a Kettering. “She was wealthy enough. Pretty enough.” Except sitting there with good brandy sloshing in his brain, Worth couldn’t exactly recall the lady’s looks. Blond, he was fairly certain of that.

  Only that. He couldn’t say what color her eyes had been or what the texture of her hair had been.

  “I’ve suspected for some time that we were played for fools, Worth.” Hess rose and brought the decanter to the low table before the sofa. The flames from the hearth gave the brandy a depth of color, like a magic potion.

  “No more for me. Tomorrow will be difficult enough without a bad head.”

  Hess sat on the table—did earls sit on tables?—and poured himself another finger.

  “You did not see me kissing Elise.” Hess set the decanter aside. “You saw her kissing me.”

  “A distinction without a difference, as we solicitors say.” He saluted with his now empty glass.

  “Not so. She came to me, claiming your ardor was cooling, so prettily distressed, so young, and so uncertain. I told myself I was comforting her when she threw herself into my arms. She began to throw herself into my embrace frequently.”

  “You were young and lusty.” Worth eyed the decanter with desperate longing. “We really do not need to revisit this.”

  “I was young, lusty and stupid, and so were you.” Hess put his drink down. “She began to kiss me, all the while apologizing for forgetting herself. I was so very like her dear Worth, you know? And what was I supposed to do, peel her off of me and scold her soundly? I did, several times, but by then you’d drawn your own conclusions.”

  “Why not scold her again and send her on her way?” Worth asked, though the question was moot when Jacaranda was leaving with her fraternal forest in the morning. “Why did you have to marry her, Hessian?”

  “She said you’d had carnal knowledge of her and begged me to grant her the clemency of marriage.”

  Silence, while Worth considered his empty glass and his empty life.

  “Were life a stage play, her falsehood would have been hilariously clever,” he said. “I might have once run a glancing hand over her corseted and clothed breast, Hess. Nothing more. I swear it.”

  “I concluded that even before the wedding night confirmed it.”

  “God’s holy underlinen.” Worth set his glass down rather than smash it and earn a scold from his departing housekeeper. “She simply wanted the title and saw a way to get it.”

  “I took several years to come to the same conclusion, and when she was ill, she apologized for as much.”

  “And you were married to her. I’m sorry, Hess. It never occurred to me you were the injured party.”

  “We were both injured parties.”

  Earls did not sit on tables, but brothers did. Brothers also put the past behind them. Entirely behind them.

  “Elise wrote to me,” Worth said. “I carefully opened the letter, read her plea to rescue her from your cold and indiff
erent company, sealed it back up with equal care, and returned it to her, to all appearances unopened.”

  “At least you got that much right.”

  “I know you never be cold and indifferent to your countess.”

  “I came to be.” Hess ran his finger around the lip of his glass in a slow, perpetual circle. “She tolerated my advances with all the warmth of a martyr at the stake, and each time I wondered if she was thinking instead of you.”

  “I stopped thinking of her within a few months.”

  Another silence, equally considering, not as pained.

  “Will you come north with us, Worth?”

  “You want me underfoot when I was the reason you ended up leg-shackled to a brainless, grasping twit?” Who hadn’t even presented Hess with a needed heir?

  “I should have taken the brainless, grasping twit by the hand, dragged her to you, and accused her to her face of scheming behind your back, but I was young, full of my own consequence, and eager to impress Papa. Then you wouldn’t have spent half your life as a stranger to the only home you’ve known. Of course, then Papa would not have got his hands on her settlement, which was likely why he was so happy to bless the union.”

  Worth considered that and admitted Hess had put his finger on a truth, and a relieving truth at that: They were both injured parties. Worth didn’t have to be careful around his brother anymore, didn’t have to suspect Hess’s motives, didn’t have to tiptoe around their past for the sake of the girls.

  If Jacaranda remained at Trysting, she’d never reach this sort of understanding with her sister, much less with the tribe of louts who could not be bothered to keep mud out of their own home. The awkwardness would grow, until the rift affected the next generation, and even the next after that.

  He could not reconcile with her family for her, and he did not want her to choose him simply because he preserved her from dealing with old hurts.

  “I’ll go north with you,” Worth said. “I’m not saying I’ll stay all winter, but I’ll get you home, show Avery the family seat and do the pretty.”

  Hess shifted to sit beside his brother again. “Grampion is beautiful in winter.”