Worth; Lord Of Reckoning

by Grace Burrowes

  Jacaranda ate her scone, and the one he’d layered with butter and jam after that, it being far too early to debate what was and was not naughty with Worth Kettering, when she was in danger of losing track of the distinction herself.

  * * *

  The pond had proved a good place to cogitate, so Worth took to swimming nightly. In the water, he thought about his clients and his investments, or at least he told himself that was the purpose of his exertions.

  That other thoughts intruded as he circled the pond in alternating directions was plain bad luck.

  Thoughts of Avery, wreathed in smiles, unable to let go of his neck when he presented her with her blanket, fresh and fragrant.

  Thoughts of Yolanda, admitting she had hopes for him. Hopes?

  And many, many thoughts of Jacaranda Wyeth. The colder water in the deep end of the pond was particularly helpful for reining in those thoughts, but she was a puzzle, and Worth could not resist a puzzle.

  She desired him, of that he was certain, and he desired her, of that he was more than certain.

  But she would not have him, citing fear for her reputation and her well-being.

  A frog set up a repetitive croaking in reeds on the stable side of the water, probably singing the froggy version of a serenade to his lady.

  Wyeth’s fears were reasonable. No matter how careful a couple was, given enough lust—Worth capacity for lust was not in doubt—conception could occur. Women died in childbirth and from the complications that followed.

  No matter how discreet he and Wyeth might be, intimate relations of any regularity took place under the noses of servants, neighbors, and family. Her reputation might suffer, in which case the logical countermeasure on his part would be to—

  He stopped dead in the water, momentarily sinking as his limbs stilled and the frog’s croaking punctuated the stillness of the night air.

  Marry her.

  To consider such a notion ought to have given Worth a fright, but he’d learned that when attempting to solve a problem, no potential solution should be dismissed out of hand. Not on first mention.

  Hessian had no children, hadn’t even taken a second wife. Perhaps that was Hess’s convoluted way of punishing Worth, of loading down a younger brother’s conscience in a battle for the moral high ground.

  High ground be damned. Conceiving children with Wyeth would be an exceedingly pleasant duty.

  As the frog fell silent, and an owl’s hoot floated on the soft, meadowy breeze, Worth turned the idea of marriage to Wyeth over and over in his mind. No matter how often he put the idea aside and told himself to consider some client’s portfolio or financial contretemps, Wyeth-as-wife had taken up residence in his mind. He slogged up the grassy bank, wondering how Hess would react, to know such a fine and beautiful woman had chosen Worth for her own.

  The idea of belonging to her and having her belong to him settled the matter. Marriage for them was right, it would work. The opportunity for a decent match was too practical for her not to leap at it, particularly when her intended was an earl’s heir.

  Worth toweled off, belted his dressing gown, and turned his steps toward the dark outline that was his long-ignored country seat.

  Marriage. Who’d have thought?

  * * *

  With Worth Kettering back underfoot, Jacaranda felt more and more often as if she were being spied upon. He lurked in doorways, watching her at her ledgers; he stopped by her parlor at tea time and helped himself to most of her sandwiches and at least three cups of tea. He found matters to discuss with her, some of which were legitimately related to his brother’s impending visit.

  Many of which were not.

  “You’ll accompany me to the Hunters’ this afternoon?” he asked, setting down an empty tea cup. He’d assumed his customary place in the middle of her sofa. His arms were so long that when he laid them along the top, he spanned the entire piece of furniture.

  Or maybe her sofa was that short.

  “You’re perfectly capable of finding your way on your own, or Goliath is,” she replied, pouring herself a second cup. She always needed at least two for her morning break. “They have no daughters over the age of twelve and no riding pigs. You should be safe.”

  “Without older daughters, Mrs. Hunter will be particularly glad to see a woman’s friendly face at her gate, and the weather is perfect for a drive.”

  “Simmons’s knees, which are infallible, predict rain later.”

  “So we’ll put up the top. Pass over that plate of cakes. Baked goods go stale if they sit out too long.”

  He was at his most determined when he was like this, casually tossing back every obstacle she threw at him, assured, relaxed. He would not be deterred, and the Hunters were the last family they had to call on.

  “Mrs. Hunter is deceased,” she said. “Mr. Thomas Hunter lives with his three children and his mother-in-law. He’s your best farmer, the most dedicated, for all he’s a young man.”

  Mr. Kettering paused in the midst of selecting tea cakes to put on his plate. “You admire this Thomas Hunter?”

  “Of course I do. You ought to admire him, too, raising three children, providing for their grandmother, and working your land so it out-produces all the neighbors. When you’re through ruining your luncheon, we can make a quick trip out.”

  “Such a Tartar.” He popped a tea cake in his mouth, then held one up an inch from Jacaranda’s lips. “You can lecture me on my shortcomings for the entire journey, both directions, but don’t make me listen to your grumbling stomach.”

  She took a bite of cake just to get his hand out of her face, but something…not innocent flavored the exchange–while raspberry icing flavored the tea cake. Yes, he’d taken a bite of scone from her hand earlier that week, but that hadn’t been entirely innocent either—on his part.

  “You are tiresome,” she said, getting to her feet. “I’ll fetch my bonnet and shawl, and then put together a basket of provisions, so we can execute this errand you are incapable of seeing to on your own.”

  She left him in her sitting room, munching cake, knowing it was a bad idea to allow him to remain unsupervised in her quarters, but unwilling to tarry in his presence. He hadn’t touched her since his pedagogic raspberry kiss days ago—except for helping her in and out of the gig—but when he didn’t touch her, the feelings his proximity stirred were even worse.

  Bodily feelings of heat and vertigo and inconvenient excitement, but feelings of the heart as well.

  Jacaranda liked Worth Kettering. Liked him despite his unwillingness to shoulder the responsibility for raising his niece or launching his sister, for he had a point. The earl should tend to both things. The head of the family took on the jobs nobody else wanted. Hadn’t Grey told her that, over and over? Grey had done it, too, and continued to do it. Witness, his letters were the most regular, and she treasured every one.

  Despite the fact that her brother now wanted a specific date for her return to the family seat.

  Worth Kettering and Grey Dorning would understand each other in a single glance. They were both men who went after what they wanted and let little stop them. An image came to mind of stallions meeting each other in savage battle.

  Jacaranda had stopped Grey, though. Stopped him from imposing one of the most daft head-of-the-family decisions he’d ever come up with.

  She was still glad about that.

  She was not glad about having to travel in proximity to Worth Kettering, but Mr. Hunter was the last tenant to visit, so she packed her hamper and put aside her liking for her employer.

  Also her desire for him.

  They tooled out, Goliath in the traces. As they crossed the covered bridge at a smart trot, Mr. Kettering made not even a flirtatious remark. He didn’t need to, not when Jacaranda could recall in wicked detail the feel of her hand getting acquainted with him through his breeches.

  Angels abide, what had she been thinking?

  “How long ago did Hunter lose his wife?”

&n
bsp; “Five years or so,” Jacaranda replied. “She didn’t last a year after the birth of the third child, and while she didn’t suffer, she did linger. Take the next right.”

  Goliath turned onto a smaller track, and Mr. Kettering let the horse proceed at a more leisurely trot. “What was her name?”

  “He called her Mary Jean, or perhaps Mary Jane. My tenure did not predate her death. Vicar would know.”

  “He’d know if her grave has a marker, wouldn’t he?”

  “It does not, nothing save a rough stone Thomas hewed himself to resemble a rose. It’s very different.”

  “Why hasn’t he remarried?”

  “You’ll have to ask him.” She hadn’t kept her tone quite disinterested enough, and Mr. Kettering peered over at her.

  “Slow down, sir. This bridge is none too sturdy.” They clattered over a patch of boards, one intended to handle only light traffic.

  “How does Hunter get his produce to market over such a paltry excuse for a bridge?”

  “He takes the hayfields and makes a slightly longer job of it, I imagine.”

  “Wyeth, why doesn’t Reilly note these things? The need for grave markers, the bridges gone rickety?”

  “His job is to steward your land,” she said, though she’d had this very argument with Reilly himself. “Trysting has no position described as steward of your people.”

  “Yes, it does.” He let Goliath’s stride lengthen as the track ran through an overgrown patch of the home wood. “I hold that position. How much farther is it to Hunter’s?”

  “Less than a mile. As the crow flies, this tenancy is close to Trysting, but the creeks and woods and so forth make it longer when you take the lanes. Oh, dear.”

  “Oh, dear, indeed.” Kettering drew Goliath to a halt before a substantial tree that had fallen across the lane. “Don’t suppose you packed a saw in that basket?”

  “Everything but.”

  “I’ll have a look.” He passed her the reins as he climbed down from the buggy.

  He released Goliath’s check rein so the horse could crop grass at the roadside, then he inspected the tree. Larger than a sapling, the oak had been down long enough for the foliage to have thoroughly wilted.

  “Had I ridden out daily, as my housekeeper advised me to, I would have seen this and had it removed.” Mr. Kettering unbuttoned his waistcoat, then passed both jacket and waistcoat to Jacaranda.

  “Your steward is responsible for the land.” She’d given Reilly a schedule, which would have put him on every patch of the property at least twice a month in the growing season. “Perhaps you and he might discuss a schedule.”

  “Not perhaps. I’ll find something to use as a lever. If I can get the damned tree loose from where it’s wedged in those rocks, I can probably move it far enough to let us pass.”

  Jacaranda aimed her best frown at him. “Rain will soon move in. Why not turn around and let Reilly deal with this?”

  “This is England. It’s always about to rain, and what will Thomas Hunter think, to know I’ve called on every tenant save my best farmer?”

  She let him disappear into the woods while she visually calculated whether it was even possible to turn the buggy on the narrow lane. Trees and rocks encroached on both sides, great nasty boulders that would not admit of buggy wheels or shod hooves.

  This part of the wood was unkempt, better suited for hunting than raising firewood or lumber, but she doubted Reilly had come this way in months. Thomas Hunter could be trusted to look out for his own land, after all, and Reilly no doubt saw the man at services, assemblies and over the occasional pint.

  That part of being a steward, Jacaranda could not do for him.

  Mr. Kettering came striding back out of the gloomy woods, toting a stout length of dead oak that had to weigh nigh as much as Jacaranda did. He heaved and hoisted and cursed and heaved some more, until the fallen tree was free of the rocks and lying at an angle, still blocking most of the road.

  “That’s the hard part,” Mr. Kettering said, taking off his driving gloves and slapping them against his thigh before putting them back on.

  That exercise had been trying for Jacaranda, too. Beneath the thin material of Mr. Kettering’s shirt, his muscles bunched and rippled with his exertions, leaving her staring at Goliath’s fundament in sheer defense of her sanity.

  “Would you like to put your jacket back on?”

  He grinned at her, swiping the back of his glove over his forehead. “I’ve grown a trifle warm, and we’re not done here.”

  A fat droplet of rain landed on Jacaranda’s nose.

  “We’ll get a soaking now, in any case,” she said, for what sky she could see through the trees had grown ominous.

  Mr. Kettering pointed with his elbow. “That way, there’s an empty cottage with a decent porch about twenty yards down that trail. You take the hamper, I’ll fetch the horse.”

  A peel of thunder rumbling over the last of his words had Jacaranda out of the buggy and retrieving the hamper post-haste. She didn’t like storms, didn’t like the idea of getting soaking wet where Worth Kettering could find humor in it, didn’t like much of anything about her day so far.

  She spied the cottage, recalling it from when the estate had boasted a game keeper. The place was minimally stocked as a gamekeeper’s cottage, one duty Mr. Reilly was happy to conscientiously oversee. She suspected he trysted with the occasional willing woman here, or perhaps, given his timidity and Mrs. Reilly’s lack of an understanding nature, with the occasional lurid novel.

  No matter. The cottage was warm and dry, and Jacaranda reached its covered porch just as the random drops coalesced into a steady shower. Several minutes later, Mr. Kettering came up the trail, leading Goliath. He waved as he took the horse around to the shed in back, his shirt already soaked to an indecent degree.

  A solicitor ought not to sport such muscle. The Regent should sign a decree forbidding such a display, at least before susceptible women.

  And what woman wouldn’t be?

  “Everlasting powers.” Mr. Kettering came stomping and dripping onto the porch moments later. “You warned me, Wyeth. Go ahead and say it.”

  “You cut yourself.” She scowled at his bleeding knuckles. “And your shirt is soaked, and the weather is hardly your fault.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest, because the temperature had dropped, and her own clothing wasn’t exactly dry.

  “Let’s see what we can find inside. Right now, a towel wouldn’t go amiss.”

  He felt above the lintel, found a skeleton key where any schoolboy tall enough would know to look for it, and unlocked the door.

  He gestured Jacaranda to precede him inside, then paused in the doorway. “I was about to say, Reilly needs a talking to, given the state of the bridge, the woods, and his idea of where to hide a key, but he’s at least kept this place in good shape.”

  He had, or his lady friends had. The cottage barely needed dusting and lacked the mildewed scent common to neglected dwellings. The wood box was full, the windows were clean, and on the shelves above the sink, a few faded towels sat neatly folded.

  Over in the corner, an old tester bed was made up, knitted blankets folded across its foot, canopy nowhere in evidence.

  Jacaranda rubbed her arms as another rumble of thunder sounded, even louder than the last one.

  “The storm is still gaining on us,” Mr. Kettering noted. “Best get a fire going, and I hope you won’t mind if I get out of this wet shirt.” He wasn’t asking permission. He was disrobing as he spoke, removing shirt, boots and stockings.

  Jacaranda tried not to watch.

  While the rain against the windows began a steady roar, she took longer to remove her bonnet than she ever had in her life. Her fingers shook, and her insides felt odd, and she could not get the image of Mr. Kettering’s damp, naked chest out of her mind. She also could not get her dratted bonnet off, a hairpin having caught on some part of the straw or wiring.

  “Wood’s nice and d
ry,” Mr. Kettering said, scratching a flint and steel over some dead pine needles. A spark obligingly leapt, and to Jacaranda, even that—the spark falling on dry tinder, the flames eagerly licking up into the air—had prurient connotations.

  What on earth was wrong with her?

  “That should take the chill off.” He rose in one graceful flex of muscles. “We’ll hang your bonnet from the rafters, and it will be dry in no time.”

  Her only good bonnet would be ruined if she kept fussing at it. Her gaze fell on a box on the mantel, one decorated with a carving of the belladonna flower.

  “Sit.” She patted the back of a ladder-back chair then retrieved the box, finding it contained the same supplies its twin did at Trysting. “I’ll clean up your knuckles.”

  He obliged but turned the chair backward so he could straddle it and extended his hand.

  “This situation is fortuitous,” he said.

  “Finding a box of medicinals was fortuitous.” She dabbed a clean cloth on his knuckles. “You are still bleeding.” She held the cloth snugly over his abused flesh. “I thought you had gloves on.”

  “Had to take them off to work with the wet harness and buckles, but I like holding hands with you, Wyeth. Take your time, and don’t forget to kiss me better.”

  She peeked at his knuckles, then closed the cloth over them again. “You are tenacious.”

  “So are you. I like that about you.”

  He could not know how susceptible she was to such a compliment. “My brother says I’m unnaturally stubborn for a woman.” Now, where had that come from?

  “With seven brothers, you’d have to be.”

  She took the cloth away again. “This might sting a bit.”

  She applied a pungent brown astringent, and he winced, so she blew on his knuckles to ease the sting.

  “Let it dry, and don’t be mucking about in the ashes or Goliath’s stall until it does.”

  “Goliath has an open shed,” Mr. Kettering said. “He can amble around or crop some grass, and I dipped him a bucket from the cistern out back. Now, we’re safe and warm, and he is, too. What shall we do with this boon?”