“Madeline, Hattie’s situation is not your fault.”
She made an odd noise, and her shoulders hitched.
Jack pulled the horses up right in the middle of the lane. “It’s not your fault,” he said again, fishing a handkerchief from his pocket. “Please don’t cry, love.”
Madeline pressed his handkerchief to her eyes, like a blindfold. “You don’t understand. It is my fault. Every bit of it. It’s all my fault.”
* * *
To say those words aloud—It’s all my fault—only made audible the defining misery of Madeline’s existence, and yet, her admission unloosed a torrent of tears.
And in front of Jack Fanning, of all people.
“Such a dire pronouncement,” Jack said, wrapping his scarf around Madeline’s neck. Unlike her scarf, which was coarse wool, his was soft and bore the fragrance of sandalwood.
“It’s the truth,” Madeline said. “I hate to cry. That’s true as well.” Unfortunately, every word Hattie had spoken had also been factual.
“When you can look upon injustice and undeserved poverty and feel nothing, then you should be concerned. Your tears are evidence of a caring heart.”
He faced straight ahead, the wind ruffling his hair. His tone was severely reproving.
“You don’t say what I expect you to say,” Madeline replied. “I do care about my aunts, and their situation is my fault.”
The offside gelding stomped a hoof in the snow. Jack took up the reins and asked the horses to walk on.
“You are at fault, because you did not allow young McArdle to lift your skirts?”
“Yes.” No sense prevaricating about this when Madeline was withholding information in so many other regards.
“I take it you sought another position?”
Jack was very much the magistrate, interrogating rather than conversing, and that helped Madeline put aside her tears—for now.
“Without a solid character reference, a girl who has only a few weeks’ experience in service would never find another position. Aunt was let go for stealing, and the new housekeeper regarded me suspiciously as a result. Caleb was determined to make me regret my stubbornness—his word—and thus I was frequently disciplined for offenses I did not commit.”
“Beaten,” Jack said. “To encourage you to look more favorably on rape by comparison. Why haven’t you delivered a few stout blows between my legs, Madeline?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“How am I different from Caleb McArdle?”
And men accused women of going off on queer flights. “You’re alive, for one thing, and you mean me no disrespect, for another.”
“I want under your skirts, and I’m not offering marriage.”
He’d already been under her skirts, and Madeline’s entire view of erotic intimacy had undergone a sea change. If she had any sense, she’d tell him their dalliance was over before it had begun.
Madeline had no sense, not where Jack Fanning was concerned. If her lot was to grow old fretting over hens and ewes, she wanted one experience of passion with a man who knew what he was about.
“If you did offer marriage, I’d turn you down, sir. To become invisible in the eyes of the law, lose all authority over myself, and subject myself to the dubious guidance of a man holds no appeal. Am I a strumpet?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You are a mature, healthy woman who harbors no romantic illusions.”
“I’ll take that for a no. Let’s agree you’re a mature, healthy man who also harbors no romantic illusions. Caleb was a rutting, spoiled little bore to whom a new maid was simply a toy to be played with until it broke or got with child.”
The sleigh flew along, the horses’ breath puffing white in the winter air. Jack turned the vehicle up the Teak House drive and was soon assisting Madeline to alight.
“He didn’t, did he?” Jack asked, quietly.
As the groom led the team around to the carriage house, Madeline stood in the drive, her hands on Jack’s shoulders, his at her waist.
“I beg your pardon?”
“McArdle—nothing broken, I hope?”
What was he asking? “Aunt intervened before I’d suffered more than bruises and a bad fright.”
“And thereafter? You said you’d endured a year at your first post, before you removed to Candlewick.”
What did that matter? Madeline had left the McArdle household nearly ten years ago, far wiser at sixteen than she’d been at fifteen, and yet, Jack was apparently… concerned.
“Nothing broken, Jack. A bad patch, we all have them. The other maids and footmen looked after me when the king’s justice did not. I came right, as you did.”
He offered his arm and escorted her to the house by way of the side garden. Madeline thanked him for the outing, did not kiss his cheek, and repaired to her bedroom to trade her boots for his house slippers.
* * *
Axel Belmont wished he could rouse his dearest wife from her nap, but a new mother needed her rest, and Sir Jack Fanning needed a sympathetic ear—this instant.
“Madeline was new to service,” Jack said, pacing the length of Axel’s larger glass house. “Little more than a girl, recently bereaved of both parents.”
Madeline, not Miss Hennessey. Certainly not Hennessey, as Axel had addressed the young lady for years.
“I hadn’t known she was an orphan,” Axel said, gently transferring a seedling to its own pot.“And new to service. Have you been in Hattie Hennessey’s cottage, Belmont?”
Axel straightened and braced his hands on his lower back. The worktable was low enough that the plants upon it were away from floor drafts, but still had room to grow. Having a newborn in the house had prompted Axel to a frenzy of propagation among his plants, for after winter, came the spring.
Sir Jack was looking at him expectantly, so Axel cast back over the remnants of the conversation.
“I have not had the pleasure of being a guest at Hattie Hennessey’s hearth.”
“Hattie has a painting over her fireplace,” Jack said, taking a sniff of a white rose blooming on a lovely specimen at the end of the table. “A portrait rather than the usual pastoral scene. It’s skillfully done, and the subject is a young Hattie Hennessey.”
Axel preferred botanical prints and floral still lifes. “What is the significance of the painting?”
Sir Jack paced along between the rows of plants, and Axel wished he’d received his guest in the library. Twenty-four hours after visiting Hattie’s cottage, Jack Fanning was still in a taking, and plants—roses especially—did not thrive in the presence of human acrimony and strife. Axel would not admit that sentiment to any save his wife, who could be trusted not to laugh at him for such fancies.
“Have you had any portraits done, Belmont?”
Axel transferred another seedling to its own pot. “I will have one done of my wife, when she’s not as preoccupied with an infant.” Abigail might want a portrait of her husband, and Axel would indulge her, despite his loathing for inactivity.
Jack shot him an assessing over-the-shoulder glance. “You will pay handsomely for a professional painting. Poor families have no portraiture, unless somebody has an aptitude for sketching. This was an oil, beautifully framed, of a young lady with pearls in her hair.”
Six more fledglings to go, roses all. “So Madeline’s people had money at one point.”
“A great deal of money, and then they lost everything.”
“Fanning, you cannot—half the banks in Scotland failed because of the Darien scheme. Many a family has come to grief with bad investments, gambling, intemperate spending. Hattie and Theodosia are nearing their three score and ten. What do the family’s circumstances half a century ago matter?”
Sir Jack came marching down the aisle so quickly his passing stirred the foliage on either side of him.
“You don’t know when they lost their money. I’ve been asking about at the Weasel and elsewhere. Both sisters came to this area as a result of matrimony. First T
heo, then Hattie, when their parents got wind that Theo’s husband was neighbors with a distant Hennessey cousin. The ladies had dowries.”
Four more left. “Most families try to set aside a portion for their daughters. What is your point?” For Sir Jack was leading up to some conclusion, some hypothesis that had him more animated than Axel had ever seen him.
“The ladies live one step above dire poverty now,” Sir Jack said, peering at the seedlings Axel had planted. “Theo’s husband squandered her portion. Hattie, being the younger sister, had less to begin with. She went into service with the McArdle family when she was widowed some twenty years ago, and when Madeline needed work, Hattie vouched for her.”
To gather up this kind of detail, Sir Jack had probably spoken with half of Vicar’s prayer group, a notably venerable gathering.
“Now comes the part I don’t want to hear,” Axel said, patting dirt around the roots of a tender little specimen. Not all seedlings survived transplanting, and there was no telling which would fare well and which would wither.
“Hector McArdle’s brother, Caleb, made a nuisance of himself to young Madeline. Hattie put a stop to it, and Caleb saw Hattie accused of theft. Hattie lost her post, for which Madeline blames herself. Instead of having a housekeeper’s salary plus the rent from the freeholding, Hattie had neither. I gather Hattie was all but supporting Theo by then.”
“And so the house of cards came down.” Having occasionally served as magistrate, Axel had a nodding acquaintance with the law. As a man who might someday be raising a daughter, he did not much respect the legal treatment of women in England.
The realm had prospered spectacularly under a female sovereign, one who’d disdained to take a spouse, and maintained control over her throne as a result. How long were the women of England to be punished for the slight Elizabeth had dealt to English manhood?
“Shouldn’t you water the transplants?” Sir Jack asked.
Everybody was an amateur botanist. “My hands are dirty, and I’m not done here. You are welcome to wield the watering can, but drown my posies and—”
“Yes, yes. You’ll call me out. Reluctantly, of course, but with deadly intent. What are these plants?”
“Roses.”
Sir Jack used a light hand, not too much water, not too little. “One arrogant young cock sends three women into penury. If you were one of those women, what would you do, Belmont?”
Axel gave the matter some thought as he transferred the last seedlings.
A life in ruins, all because a man’s casual pleasure had been thwarted by a girl with the backbone to reject his unsolicited advances. The topic did not make for happy contemplation.
“I might set a streetwalker upon him who’d give him an incurable disease.”
“Remind me not to cross you, Belmont.” Jack finished with the watering can and set it on the floor. “You see my point though, don’t you?”
Axel saw that in allowing a guest into his glass house, he’d been able to keep working, so the plants had the benefit of sunlight throughout the transplanting process. Grafts were best done at night, while—
“I beg your pardon, Fanning. What is your point?”
“When I took Madeline calling on Theodosia, Mrs. Hickman all but bragged about being able to make a coal delivery last longer than her neighbors could.”
“Coal.” The same commodity stolen from Hector McArdle’s yard. “Not good, Fanning. Old women aren’t supposed to lark about, committing crimes by the full moon.”
“And Hattie Hennessey has every reason to ameliorate her circumstances by stealing coal from the McArdle family business.”
Axel wiped his hands on a rag, though rich, black dirt remained under his fingernails. “Hattie and Theo will benefit from the darts revenue too, and between the two of them, they could easily have moved that money to the church.”
Sir Jack paced back to the end of the table, where the white blossom peeked from between lush foliage.
“Both of them keep livestock, Belmont, and they are quite hale. Either of them could have pulled that prank with the darts jar, simply to aggravate Bartholomew Tavis.”
The poor of the shire would applaud that notion. Axel rather admired whoever had moved that money too.
“What will you do?” he asked. “You can dismiss the miracle of the darts jar as a prank, but taking coal from Hector McArdle is thievery, plain and simple.”
“And I am the king’s man,” Sir Jack said. “Which is your fault.”
Axel used his penknife to clean the fingernails of his left hand. “Squire Rutland had a hand in matters.” An incompetent hand, which was how both Axel and Jack Fanning had been press-ganged into taking the job.
“Don’t blame a man who had the sense to remove to Bath permanently. As I see it, you are the reason this problem has landed in the middle of my family’s visit, so you must help resolve it.”
“As I see it, you haven’t any evidence with which to make arrests. All you have is supposition and coincidence.” Damned convincing though they might be.
“Mrs. Abernathy saw my butler carrying Madeline’s boots to the kitchen for a cleaning. She concluded he was stealing these boots, though they are the most disgraceful excuse for footwear I’ve ever seen. Without even talking to Pahdi or to Madeline, Mrs. Abernathy, as judge, jury, and executioner, expected me to turn Pahdi off without a character on her word alone. You’ll cut yourself if you keep that up.”
“I will not. You’re saying, if these antics don’t stop immediately, public opinion will convict two old women of wrongdoing whether you bring charges or not.”
“Precisely, and Madeline would never forgive—I would not forgive myself, if that happened, which is why you will assist me to resolve the situation before recourse to the law is unavoidable.”
“Ouch—damn it.”
Sir Jack had the sense to remain silent while Axel tucked the penknife away.
Chapter Nine
* * *
Somebody—or something—was in the kitchen.
Madeline knew that Teak House had a pantry mouser, a gray tabby more interested in dreaming of mice than snacking on them. Few cats would take on prey larger than a mouse, though, and the rustling down the corridor was larger-than-a-mouse in nature.
She set aside her list of medicinals, despite her reluctance to leave the herbal. The space was cozy, private, and peaceful. The winter moon beamed through the mullioned window, and dried plants and flowers hung from the rafters.
The noise came again, a scrape, a bump… Unlike some households, nobody slept in the Teak House kitchen, except possibly the cat.
Mrs. Abernathy’s departure had resulted in a general lightening of household morale, though the tweenie was feuding with the scullery maid, both of whom were enamored of the head stable lad.
He—a young, black-haired behemoth burdened with the name Apollo—was flirting with both girls every chance he got, and a deserted kitchen was an excellent place to flirt on a winter night. Madeline took a last whiff of rosemary—the herb for remembrance—picked up her carrying candle, and blew out the flames in both mirrored sconces.
She made her way down the corridor to the kitchen quietly, but not stealthily. She who had behaved scandalously in the library had no wish to embarrass others in the kitchen.
“Where is the damned butter?” Jack pulled out one drawer after another, then started opening cupboards.
“In the window box.”
He ceased his plundering. “I thought you were Pahdi. You’re nearly as quiet, though you’re more fragrant than he.”
“Thank you.”
“That was an observation, not a compliment. Belmont passed along his regards when I called upon him this afternoon, by the way. What brings you to the bowels of the house at such a late hour?” Jack was in shirt-sleeves and waistcoat, his cuffs turned back. An ink stain on the heel of his right hand suggested he’d been at his ledgers or his correspondence.
Madeline was in her nightclothes
, covered in several layers from neck to ankles, and upon her feet she wore the warmest footwear she had—Jack’s house slippers.
“I’m organizing the herbal,” she said, fetching the butter. “Mrs. Abernathy neglected the medicinals, and somebody had best set them to rights before illness visits the house. Shall I put together a tray?”
“I’m not hungry,” Jack said. “I was tending the fire when a log fell, and the resulting mess gave me a singed knuckle.”
Hence, his search for the butter.
“You’d be better off with a cold cloth.”
He held up his left hand, which sported a red third knuckle. “You won’t kiss my mishap better?”
“I might—if you do as I tell you.”
The narrowing of his eyes said he liked that, liked that Madeline would put him in his place.
“Wait here,” she said, retrieving a clean towel from the stack on the counter and retreating down the corridor. Outside the back door, Madeline scooped a handful of snow into the towel.
“Use this,” she said, passing Jack the towel full of snow. “It will take the heat out more effectively than the butter would, and save the kitchen stores.”
He wrapped the towel around his left hand. “Better, of course. Your endless competence never fails to impress me.”
“I like you more when you’re comparing my scent to the butler’s.”
“You admit to liking me. I’m flattered. Can you spare me a few minutes of your time?”
Madeline adored that he’d ask her for her time. Jack paid her salary, though Madeline answered to his mother. All of Madeline’s minutes were his to command, though if she’d declined his request, he would have obliged her.
And in the past few days, as he’d been riding about the neighborhood in search of thieves and pranksters, Madeline had missed him.
“My task in the herbal is not urgent. Shall we talk in there?”
He gestured with his right hand, and Madeline preceded him down the corridor. The house was quiet, as a well-built edifice would be on a calm winter night.
Jack (The Jaded Gentlemen Book 4) Page 16
