Chapter Eight
The storm moved off, until what came down was mostly moisture dripping from the canopy around the clearing where Worth wielded his ax.
Jacaranda Wyeth didn’t want to marry him.
Thunk!
She’d have her pleasure of him, then cast him aside.
Thunk!
She’d dictate her terms, and he was supposed to meekly abide by them.
Thunk!
He was to content himself with bodily intimacy only.
Thunk!
No commitment, no future, nothing to rely on…
God in heaven.
He put up the ax and gathered the split logs along with the detritus of his anger, for he was whining like a rejected opera dancer.
No, he was whining like a society lady propositioned and thoroughly enjoyed by one Honorable Worth Kettering, then promptly set aside so he might prowl for fresh game the next night.
Or later that same evening.
God’s holy nightgown.
He sat on the back steps of the cottage, abruptly tired. The overgrown forest around him was beautiful, and his, and yet what did it mean? Woods meant some warmth, the occasional harvest of lumber, some fresh game, all of which his coin would buy him easily.
His coin would not buy him Jacaranda Wyeth, though, not as a mistress and apparently not as a wife.
And still, sitting on that hard plank of oak, what he wanted was her sitting beside him, her hair tickling his nose, her soft lavender scent wafting on the damp air.
“The rain’s letting up.”
How long had she been standing at the door, watching him rust his brain with futile thoughts?
“I could use a spot of tea, if there’s any to be had.” Anything to get her from his sight. Her hair was back in its tidy coiffure. She wore her chemise, his shirt clutched around her, leaving a portion of feet and calves—beautiful feet and beautiful calves—exposed to torment him.
The sight of her brought him a curious blend of lust and shame, for she had rejected him.
Was this how his former amours felt toward him? Covetous, but angry?
He fumed and steamed and pouted for a while longer, but when Jacaranda brought him a mug of honey-sweetened tea, he thanked her cordially and even smiled a bit.
Because by then—he was nothing if not tenacious, she had admitted as much—his pride had reasserted itself, his brain had come back to life, and he’d begun to once again plot a means of achieving his objective.
* * *
Worth Kettering was up to something. The scowling man who’d kissed Jacaranda so passionately before he’d left the cottage had turned into a smiling, cordial, gratingly good-natured fellow.
He thanked her for the tea.
He put his shirt back on when she handed it to him.
He suggested they raid the hamper while the rain tapered off, as if they were merely having a parlor picnic, not trying to put a serious misstep behind them.
While they ate, he told her stories about his clients, nothing truly embarrassing, and never naming names.
He helped her tidy up the remains of their meal.
“Is this your way of apologizing?” she asked, putting the lid on the butter crock. “Treating me to your party manners? You needn’t.”
“I’m the helpful sort.” He passed her the butter knife. “I misread the situation, and I can apologize for that. It doesn’t happen often, but at least this time, the only negative consequences devolved to me. You got what you wanted—or did you? Be honest, Wyeth, for I cannot abide dissembling females.”
She set the butter crock on the table and rose. “I am not accustomed to such frank talk. I suppose you are.”
Was it dissembling to not disclose even her real name?
He kept to his seat, which was a relief. If he started purring in her ear, or touching her again, she’d likely spout whatever drivel he wanted to hear.
“Between lovers, a certain openness is usually expected.” He lounged in his chair, one arm casually hooked over the back. “I assume that’s what you want of me, a lover?”
The question was as casual as his pose, but Jacaranda knew if she dared to meet his gaze, she’d see a light in his eyes that wasn’t casual at all.
“I am out of my depth,” she said, needing to see those eyes anyway. “I do not know exactly what has transpired between us. Your attentions felt good at the time, and the experience has left me off-kilter. I’m not sure what’s to be gained by discussion. This cannot happen again.”
“Pity.” He affected a look of bewildered regret, which she did not believe for one instant. “I thought it went rather well, though I assumed you were inspecting a prospective husband, not a prospective lover.”
“Not a lover.” She barely got the word out, hugging her now-dry shawl closer.
He wrinkled his nose, as if catching a rank scent. “A casual romp then? They have their place, I suppose.”
“Not a romp. Not anything beyond a misbegotten moment.” An indulgence.
“So the most intense pleasure you’ve ever experienced is to mean nothing, Wyeth? Those passionate kisses and your body so trustingly naked against mine—nothing?”
His tone danced between puzzled and wounded, but now he had on his solicitor’s negotiating face, and Jacaranda resumed her seat.
“I don’t know what such an encounter means. Perhaps it should mean nothing. We did not… We are not lovers.” He wanted honesty from her, she’d give him honesty—up to a point. Were she to acquaint him with her circumstances in every honest detail, he’d send her off to Dorset in his traveling coach before sundown, because Worth Kettering would not dally with an earl’s unmarried daughter.
“I would like to be your lover.” He ran a pinkie finger around the edge of the jam jar and licked a dab of preserves from his fingertip. “On that, we have both been clear, I think. You wanted something when you climbed into that bed with me, Wyeth. The question is, what?”
The quiet around them held a quality Jacaranda hadn’t experienced before, patient, warm, and even a little comfortable, and it had to do with what had passed between them in that bed—so trustingly.
And with Worth’s present efforts to forge an understanding with her regarding the same experience.
More honesty, then.
“I wanted to know what it was like.” Jacaranda put the lid on the jam jar lest she trace the same path around the rim he had. “The curiosity doesn’t go away, the wanting, simply because nobody offers you marriage. If I’m to be a spinster, I at least want to be a spinster who knows what passion can be like.”
“You’re a virgin?”
She shook her head, overwhelmed all over again by regrets that had plagued her for five years.
“Your previous experiences were not memorable?”
Oh, she could recall every detail of those experiences. “The whole business was disappointing. Very, very disappointing. I was disappointing.”
“That is not possible,” he retorted, and when she looked up, he was smiling at such an absurdity. “You could not possibly disappoint. Put the blame on the idiot who disappointed you, Wyeth. That’s where it belongs.” He patted her hand, as a friend might, and Jacaranda suspected her ignorance had been even greater than she’d supposed.
“I want you to think about something for me,” he said, withdrawing his hand. “Think about what you want, and while you consider that, I will offer you what I believe that might be.”
She wanted to tell him the truth without risking that he’d be disappointed in her. She wanted to go home to Dorset that instant. She wanted to kiss him as she dragged him back to the unmade bed. “What do you think I want?”
“An intimate friend, a man you can trust to see to your pleasure without making demands. Someone with whom you can learn about passion, someone who will respect your every confidence and honor your trust, even as you honor his.”
She closed her eyes, because he’d articulated more than she dared to admit, even to herself. And yet, the intimate, trusting friendship he described had abruptly become more unattainable than ever.
“My family expects—”
“Don’t give me an answer.” He traced a pattern over her knuckles, once, but Jacaranda had new respect for his tactile flirtations. “I have made the offer. You consider it at your leisure. Consider it indefinitely, if you like.”
“Your offer is dangerous,” she said, sliding her hand to her lap. “Children result from such offers.”
“I gave you pleasure now without risking conception, Wyeth, and that was a mere taste of what you can have, if you want it. I would never risk your reputation, not even for your pleasure. We’ve already come some way toward developing that friendship, and we can’t undo what’s happened today. I’d rather build on it.”
“I offered marriage, thinking you sought a husband. What honest man of your acquaintance actually wants marriage? Have your brothers galloped up the aisle, one after another?”
No, they had not, not a one of them, not even Grey, and a wife would spare him much. If Grey were married, his pleas for Jacaranda to come home would carry much less weight.
Though what woman would marry Grey, knowing she’d have to put up with six other men in her household? Most of those fellows were Step-Mama’s sons, and what they knew collectively about respecting female authority could fill a thimble halfway.
“I’m only a housekeeper, and you’ll be back to Town in a couple of months at the latest. You’ve your pick of gently bred ladies to marry and married ladies to dally with—or opera dancers. Why are my desires important to you?”
He put the butter crock into the hamper. “I’ve inspected that inventory, and they’ve inspected me. They’re bored and ornamental, and most of them excessively dainty. Even the taller ladies don’t want their hair mussed on any occasion, and all that dodging about, pretending a mere passing acquaintance on the dance floor, is tedious. Puts a crimp in a fellow’s style to be ignored the moment a title goes waltzing by.”
I cannot express my passion. What would Worth Kettering’s passion be like? Not merely his kisses, but all of him?
“What you want, Wyeth, is important to me because I want you. Simple and unflattering to the male of the species, but the truth. Your wants and mine can overlap, though, and to our mutual satisfaction. I leave the decision in your hands.”
He rose, then leaned down and kissed her forehead, bringing his scent and warmth close for a mere instant.
“The rain has stopped,” he said, straightening. “Let’s get you dressed, bank the fire, and see about getting home, shall we?”
And so, for the first time in her life, Jacaranda was assisted into her clothing by a man, one who knew all about tapes and hooks and the proper sequence for attiring a lady. His assistance was impersonal, but not in the same way a maid’s might have been. Worth’s aid was a friendlier version, with a little less detachment, but no more presumption.
She liked it.
She liked that he knotted her shawl right under her breasts, but didn’t touch her breasts. She liked that he laced her boots, but didn’t try to move her skirts aside when he touched her ankles. She liked that he tied her bonnet ribbons, but didn’t kiss her as he was leaning down to do so.
And then matters grew even worse.
He asked her to heft the second shaft on the buggy, and between the two of them, they managed to wrestle the vehicle around before hitching Goliath back into the harness. Worth—he was Worth to her, at least for now—hadn’t asked her to stand by, pretending her hems weren’t ruined. He’d asked her to lend her strength to get them home.
All the way back to Trysting, Jacaranda tried to talk herself out of considering this offer made by her employer. She knew the flaw in it—the flaw in herself. She’d said she wanted to know how intimacies with Worth Kettering felt, but beneath that honest admission came another. She wanted to be known, to be recognized and desired as a woman, not as a housekeeper, or useful step-daughter or a sister, bound to return home at summer’s end.
The first, the bodily pleasure, she had resisted for years. Now that she’d had a sample, she could see the temptation. The sensations were hot, lush, overwhelming, and wonderful—but soon over. The second, though, that yearning loneliness to be known, to be valued and cherished, it had been her downfall in the past, and she’d sworn it wouldn’t be ever again.
Not ever.
* * *
The business of teasing Wyeth into his arms felt all too familiar. Worth was a master of the chase, of the quick riposte and elegant parry, the flirtatious innuendo and sly double meaning. Except this time, the whole exercise was fraught. He wasn’t enjoying it, not the way he should be.
He wasn’t enjoying the pursuit because he wasn’t engaged in a fencing match only to the first touch. He dared not admit as much to his quarry, but he was courting his housekeeper, and if one activity in his life had ever ended badly, it was courting.
He announced his intention to depart for London at dinner, then tucked Avery in, complete with an extravagant fuss over the wonderful scent of her Manka.
Then he sought to take private leave of his intended, whether she admitted of the distinction or not.
Jacaranda wasn’t in her chambers. He had to search for half an hour, but eventually he thought to look in the logical location on a warm summer night. He was halfway down the garden path when a form stepped out of the shadows.
“Fine night for a stroll, isn’t it, sir?”
Roberts, his stable master, emerged from the gloom of a tall privet hedge, a pipe between his teeth. The man was a human mountain, more than competent with farriery, and he had the slow, relaxed movements that soothed fractious beasts of any size.
Except, perhaps, a fractious employer intent on trysting with the housekeeper.
“You’re out for a smoke, Roberts?”
“Most nights.” Roberts took the pipe from his mouth. “So the entire family will be gathering soon?”
“The entire…” God in heaven, the man was right. When Hess joined them, four Ketterings would dwell under one roof. A veritable gathering of the clans, by their standards. “Yes, I suppose. Well, I’ll be on my way. Enjoy your smoke.”
“It’s good,” Roberts said, not budging from the path, “when family comes together. Better that way.”
“For some families. When did I hire you, Roberts?”
“You didn’t.” He smiled slightly and stuck his pipe back in his mouth. “She did.”
Across the garden, Jacaranda’s pale nightclothes revealed that her swim was over and she was marching directly for the kitchen door.
Worth was too late. He considered applying a punishing right cross to Roberts’s smug smile.
“What do you suppose she was doing out here?” Worth asked. “It’s late to be wandering the gardens.”
Roberts shrugged massive shoulders. “Perhaps she was in want of a smoke. If you’re thinking to ask her, though, you’d best be waiting until morning. Sleep tight.”
He sauntered off at the deliberate pace of a plough horse, one that needed no momentum to move a substantial load forward, only sheer strength in telling abundance.
Jacaranda Wyeth, the housekeeper, had hired the man?
Jacaranda, who wasn’t a virgin, but who had been disappointed?
Worth shuddered at the idea of such a brute disporting with Wyeth, though in truth Roberts had no height or reach over him, just bulk.
Brute bulk, Worth told himself as he repaired to the house. Inelegant, horse-scented brute bulk, such as would never appeal to a lady of Wyeth’s refinements.
* * *
Worth—Mr. Kettering was leaving in the morning, and to Jacaranda, his departure would bring both relief and regret. He’d asked her to consider his offer at her leisure, but there was nothing to consider, really.
She told herself that and willed herself to believe it. The day had been long, tiring, and difficult. Tomorrow, with him gone, would be easier.
Sleep evaded her relentless pursuit, so she heard the door to her sitting room creak open.
An intruder? Then a faint, cedary scent came to her.
Him.
“What an accommodating little thing you are, Wyeth, curled up on one side of the bed.” The mattress dipped as he lifted the covers and joined her. “Your hair is damp. Surely you could have used my assistance to brush it out for you?”
“I was sleeping, if you don’t mind.” She rolled to her side, giving him her back.
“I couldn’t sleep, not without telling you I’ll miss you when I’m away.”
His hand, slow, soothing and warm, traced over her nape and shoulders.
She would have decades to catch up on her sleep, to miss him and his touch.
“You could have told me at breakfast, or tonight after dinner,” she said, and despite all her intentions to the contrary, a soft sigh followed the words. He wouldn’t miss her. He was just being Worth.
“I would not have others overhear such sentiments,” he said, moving his hand down along her spine then back up. “Nor would I keep you from your slumbers. Go to sleep, my dear.”
“With you in my bed?”
“I’m harmless, Wyeth, unless you command it otherwise. Consider me an errant house cat who seeks to warm himself on your quilt, nothing more.”
“You’re too good at this, and you don’t belong in my bed.” But a crisp, scolding tone eluded her, and her words sounded as wistful as she felt. Angels abide, that hand of his was melting her bones and weighting her eyelids, and entirely, entirely too wonderful.
“Hush.” His lips grazed her shoulder. “You need your sleep, and tomorrow will come soon enough.”
“Sufficient unto the day…”
She let the words trail off as she sank into a cloud of ease and relaxation. He shifted closer, close enough she could feel his warmth, not so close he couldn’t maneuver his hand all over her back.
Then he slid that hand down, to knead her backside, and the sheer bliss of it—and the proximity of sleep—had her sighing again. She recalled him slipping an arm around her waist sometime later, but then all she recalled were dreams.
And he joined her in those, too.
* * *
“Wyeth.” Worth couldn’t help a grin, because his lady was dressed, but her hair was unbound, a fly-away dark cloud of riotous corkscrews and ringlets hanging down to her hips and secured with only a simple ribbon. “My, you are a fetching sight so early in the day.”
He made no move to touch her, because they were at the mounting block before the house, and a dozen pairs of eyes were no doubt glued to the window panes. He’d given his word he’d not jeopardize her reputation, and he always kept his word.
More to the point, if he put a single toe over that line, she’d dismiss him from her notice altogether. The high stakes were exhilarating, rather like a risky negotiation with several powerful parties at once.
“You’ve come to see me off,” he suggested. “I’m touched.”
“Enough of that.” She shoved a wrapped parcel at him. “Take this with you, please. Mr. Henderson delivered it as a sample of Trudy’s work, though she’s capable of fancier pieces. And take this.” A double sack, such as would go on either side of a saddle’s pommel.
He gave her a puzzled look, but accepted both consignments.
“It’s food,” she said, crossing her arms. “For your journey. The posting inns have only indifferent fare, and luncheon is hours away.”
She blushed, while Worth felt uncharacteristically self-conscious himself. With luck, he’d be in London by midday or shortly thereafter. That wasn’t the point. No one attended his leave-takings, not since he’d first gone up to university. No one packed him food, no one came to see him off.
He was…touched.
“You’ll keep an eye on the girls, Wyeth?” He turned as if to watch Roberts leading Goliath to the mounting block. “They’ve been here long enough to become bored, and that’s not good.”
“I’ll keep an eye on them. Yolanda has discovered the library, and Avery is making some friends.” She reached out as if to pat his lapel then snatched her hand back.
“Am I not quite presentable?”
“Your cravat.” She loosened a fold of cloth beneath his jaw. “It worked its way under your waistcoat.”
Then they spoke at the same time.
“I’ll be back…”
“When will you…?”
He recovered first.
“Walk with me, Mrs. Wyeth? Roberts, I’ll take Goliath now.” He snatched the reins, tossed the sacks over the pommel, checked the girth, the fit of the bridle, then offered his free arm to his housekeeper only when Roberts had slowly ambled a good distance away.
“I shouldn’t ask,” she said. “The house will be in readiness whenever you return, if you return.”
“Now what sort of friend would I be if I merely rode down the lane without even a wave farewell? Roberts is watching me like he’s your jealous beau, else I would bow over your hand in parting. If you need anything in my absence, a groom can get word to me in a few hours.”
“I’ll remind the girls.”
“I appreciate the provisions,” he added, bending closer as if to hear her, but in truth sneaking a whiff of her hair. “I should be back by Wednesday. I’ll send a note if I’m delayed.”
“And if your brother shows up?”
“He’d best not. He’d have to move like lightning to get here so quickly, and Hess believes in enjoying the privileges of his station.”
“If he shows up, we’ll make him very welcome and send word.”
He frowned down at her. She was quite pretty with her hair all a fright. “I really would like to kiss you, Wyeth. At least tell me you’ll miss me. I expect that much honesty from you.”
Oh, she scowled at that. Her swooping dark eyebrows drew together, and her mouth worked, evidence she was composing a wonderfully puritanical lecture regarding proper conduct between employer and employee. Then she curled her arm more closely around his.
“I’ll miss you.”
“Beg pardon? I couldn’t quite hear you.”
“You heard me. Now stop bothering me, and get on your horse.”
“A stirring declaration if ever one graced my ears.”
She dropped his arm, but now she was smiling, a soft, private smile that made him want to toss his housekeeper over his shoulder and send Goliath back to his stall.
“Be off with you,” she said, stepping back. Now she was smiling at him. “Safe journey.”
He touched the brim of his hat, swung onto his horse and cantered off down the drive. He was still savoring that smile and intermittently grinning like an idiot, when he reached his town house hours later.
* * *
Jacaranda had felt like an idiot, standing at the mounting block as if she were someone who had a right to see Mr. Worth Kettering off on his journey. She was nothing, a mere housekeeper, and then he’d called himself her friend, and the early summer morning had become altogether lovely.
Worth Kettering’s body housed several different men. One was the imperious, brilliant solicitor who expected immediate and unquestioning compliance with his every directive. That man was reasonable, if impatient, but he did not suffer fools.
Then there was the flirt, a reckless, heedless, strutting louse who in all likelihood left a trail of broken hearts from one end of Mayfair to the other. Jacaranda didn’t approve of that fellow one bit.
Worth Kettering was a conscientious older brother, too, a man somewhat at a loss to know what duty required of him, but ready to do it for his sister and more than ready to step up to the challenge of raising his niece.
Jacaranda liked that Worth, and she respected him.
Then there was her Worth. An absolute puzzle, unlike any man she’d dealt with before. He desired her, intimately, but didn’t force himself on her. He touched her, with his hands, and his body, and his mouth, and the feel of him was wonderful. His scent lingered, his warmth comforted, and his hands… Angels abide, his hands.
And that Worth—her Worth—was careful with her, and not only physically. He was sensitive to her pride and considerate of her in small, subtle ways, like not taking her hand while Roberts glowered from the mounting block.
That Worth was an irresistible combination of every naughty, lonely, spinster housekeeper’s most closely guarded dreams. She needed time to gain perspective on him and on his infernal offer. Wednesday seemed much too soon, and an eternity to wait to see him again.
The solution to this situation was the same solution she’d employed many times in the past: Stay busy.
The next morning, Jacaranda had a lengthy list in her reticule, and Avery’s hand in hers as they left their gig at the livery in Least Wapping. Yolanda was quiet beside them, but Jacaranda had the sense the girl was every bit as bright as her brother. Yolanda would notice everything and say little.
“Do you each have your pin money?” Jacaranda asked as they approached the market square.
Avery dropped Jacaranda’s hand and reached for Yolanda’s. “We do!”
“Then why don’t you have a look around? I’m easy to spot, and I won’t leave without you.”
“We won’t be gone long,” Yolanda said as Avery tugged her off toward a table laden with the baked goods perfuming the morning air with their yeasty scent.
“So those are the Kettering ladies?” Thomas Hunter appeared at Jacaranda’s side, a rangy fellow past the first blush of youth, with serious brown eyes and wavy wheat-blond hair.
“The older one is Miss Yolanda,” Jacaranda said, though as an acknowledged sister to an earl, Yolanda might make her come out with the same consequence as a Lady Yolanda. “The younger is Miss Avery, a niece. How have you been, Thomas?”
“Managing. I’ve wondered if himself would pay a call on us.”
“You’re on the list, I assure you, but on our last attempt, we were thwarted by the weather.”
He offered his arm, the sort of thing his neighbors wouldn’t know to do, but he did, and Jacaranda let herself be escorted to a patch of shade at the side of the churchyard.
“Mayhap, Mrs. Wyeth, you and Mr. Kettering did make an attempt to visit, but found your way blocked by a tree?” He looked not at her, but rather at their friends and neighbors laughing, talking, and making their weekly purchases on the green.
“Thomas, does that hypothetical have a point?”
Jacaranda had always liked Thomas Hunter. He wasn’t a sheep, waiting to be told where to graze, in what company, and for how long. He was on his way to owning a small holding, she was sure of it, and when he had his own land in hand, he’d make it amount to something.
Ambition in another she could respect. Thomas was also a devoted and patient father, and that she had to like.
“I consider myself your friend,” he said quietly. “Not a close friend, but a friend nonetheless. You came when my youngest was ill and Gran had about given up.”
“I will always come,” Jacaranda started in, but he stopped her with a hand on her arm.
“That cottage near the property line. I use it from time to time for a little privacy. I like to read and to sketch.” His ears turned red, and Jacaranda barely kept her surprise from showing. “I’m there fairly often, when we’re between planting and harvest, but somebody else has used it, Mrs. Wyeth. Somebody else has made tea, chopped wood, built a fire, and made themselves at home.”
Like a fist to the solar plexus, she deduced what he’d delicately implied.
Somebody had used the bed and forgotten to tidy it up.
How could she have been so careless? She was a housekeeper, had been nothing but a housekeeper for five long years.
“I believe Mr. Reilly has sought respite there on occasion,” she said, her face heating. “Perhaps he was forgetful.”
Thomas nodded to the vicar, who’d waved from the edge of the green. “His missus caught wind of his mischief. He hasn’t set foot in the direction of my property for at least a year.”
“A year?” This was news—bad news. “I wish you’d said something earlier. I would have sent him around.”
“Why would I want to take time out of my busy day to tell Reilly what is common knowledge in the parish? The barley is doing fine, the wheat’s a little slow, the pig had eight piglets, and my mare didn’t catch until May, but that’s acceptable, because the foal will have spring grass next year.”
“Mrs. Wyeth!” Avery came bouncing along, towing Yolanda. “We found a man who sells books!” She went off into rapid, happy French, then dipped back into English, and finished with a few phrases of gesticulating Italian.
“Ladies.” Jacaranda aimed a look at the younger girl. “May I make known to you Mr. Thomas Hunter, our neighbor and my friend. Mr. Hunter, Miss Yolanda Kettering, Miss Avery.”
Yolanda offered an elegant curtsy, which prompted Avery into something between a bow and a curtsy.
“My pleasure, ladies, and perhaps I might escort you to the bookseller’s stall. I was headed that way myself.” He offered Yolanda his arm, Avery his hand, and Jacaranda a polite bow.
The girls tripped off with him, Avery still squealing about the book of fairy tales—in English!—she’d decided to buy. Yolanda went along quietly, and yet Jacaranda saw speculation in the young woman’s eyes.
Which left Jacaranda considering the question: Had Worth known they’d left the bed unmade, or had his wits been so scrambled that, like Jacaranda, he’d forgotten to protect their privacy with the simplest precautions?