Once an Innocent (20 page)

Jordan breathed a laugh. “Turn into a pumpkin at the strike of nine in the morning, do you?”

“Nothing so enthralling,” she teased back. “Lady Clara, Lady Kate, and some of the others have agreed to help me make jam this morning.”

“Let them make it without you.”

The note of persuasion in his voice could tempt the dead to rise, but Naomi shook her head. “I promised,” she explained. “I don’t want to let the others down.”

“Of course not.”

His tone was all politeness, but as she nodded and bid him a good morning, Naomi wondered about the slight frown puckering his forehead, and the way his eyes drifted back to the painting of the abbey.

This was the first morning Jordan had not ridden out before dawn with the patrol since his return to Lintern Abbey. Sitting at the breakfast table, while guests slowly trickled in, left him feeling more tightly leashed than ever. He should be out there
doing
something, by Jove, not sipping coffee. However, there had been a consensus among the men that Jordan was a tad high strung and ought to take a day off from wielding weaponry in the vicinity of other human beings.

By luncheon yesterday, news of the hunting accident had spread through the party, like flame on tinder. He’d spent the rest of the day checking in on Lord Gray, consulting with the village surgeon, and withstanding withering glares from Lady Gray.

Fortunately, the shot had all been retrieved, and there was every expectation that Lord Gray would heal fully and quickly. Unfortunately, the surgeon insisted the young man remain abed, on his stomach, until the wounds healed over. Jordan was now a man short — a hefty loss when he’d only had twelve to begin.

Compounding his problems was Naomi Lockwood.
Who else?
he thought, frowning into his coffee cup. In all the years he had known her, the youngest Lockwood had never struck him as a nuisance. Yet that assessment had been made before he’d brought her to his home, where she could nose into things she ought not.

He shouldn’t have been surprised to find her outside of Enrique’s apartment yesterday morning. Naomi possessed a dogged determination to pry into the boy’s history, despite Jordan’s insistence that she mind her own business when it came to his ward.

He glanced up at the arrival of another guest.

Lady Janine paused, the dark wood of the entryway surrounding her like a picture frame while her restless eyes skimmed the several diners taking their meal. Her lips puckered slightly, deepening the lines around her mouth. She stepped hesitantly into the breakfast room, greeting no one on her way to the sideboard.

Jordan watched Naomi’s aunt while she helped herself to toast and a poached egg. Her rheumatic fingers could not fully close around the serving utensils, and only his knowledge of her prickly, independent nature kept him from offering to serve her himself.

Janine’s usually indomitable mood seemed off this morning … melancholy. There was something else. He appraised her with an analytical eye. Her steel-gray hair, pinned in a knot on the crown of her head, was unremarkable except for the absence of the frumpy cap she usually wore. Her dress was faded calico, the color palette ten years out of fashion.

Janine added a few apple slices from the fruit bowl to her plate. As she turned to the table, her eyes met Jordan’s. Color rose under her lined cheeks, which made no sense whatsoever. Lady Janine was much too fierce to
blush,
for heaven’s sake.

He rose to offer the seat next to his own. He tucked the chair securely beneath her before returning to his place. “I trust you slept well, my lady?”

“Not particularly,” Janine grumbled while she scraped butter across her toast. She glanced at Jordan over the rims of her spectacles. “When you get to my age, the body plays cruel tricks at night. By the time your mind finally stops tormenting you with a lifetime of regrets and missed opportunities, one ache after another takes over the watch to ensure you will toss and turn. Old age is a plague — I don’t recommend you ever acquaint yourself with the condition.” She jabbed a triangle of toast into the egg yolk, sending a thick, golden puddle oozing across her plate.

Jordan watched her mop the yolk with bread while he puzzled over her desolate words. What did she mean by “a lifetime of regrets?” No matter, he told himself. He had enough on his mind without adding the woes of a brooding, female intellectual to the list.

Both their heads rose at the sound of more arrivals. He thought he heard a little, wistful sigh escape Janine as Clara entered, Kate following close on her heels. He felt, but did not voice, a sigh of his own. Neither was the face he wished to see.

He seated his stepmother and sister on his other side. Lady Janine returned Clara’s greeting, then retreated back into her bubble of gloom, still dragging circles in her egg with the now-soggy toast.

Kate kept her eyes on her food, occasionally casting shy, furtive glances at the other guests, never interjecting herself into any of the conversations. The eating utensils looked overlarge in her spindly fingers, and she moved them with awkward self-awareness. There was a charming, unconscious grace about her when she didn’t overthink things and get in her own way. Once she bloomed, he would have a devil of a time keeping suitors at bay. The light pink of her morning dress didn’t suit her milky complexion, but he supposed there was nothing to be done about that until she was Out and at liberty to wear bolder shades.

She jabbed a grape with her fork. The purple-red orb shot off her plate and landed in a nearby butter crock. Jordan stifled a chuckle while Kate, her face burning, tried to cover the mishap. She grabbed the crock and tipped it over her plate; the wayward fruit rolled onto her ham. Though no one else noticed the incident, his sister looked at him with anguished eyes.

Jordan gave her a reassuring smile, then realized with a start that he’d hardly spoken five words to his half sister the entire time he’d been here. Despite his efforts to keep her away, she was in his home, and he was neglecting her woefully. He remembered the Duke of Monthwaite’s brotherly attention and concern for Naomi — how he’d hovered over her during her first Season, and interrogated Jordan to make sure she’d be safe at Lintern Abbey. By comparison, Jordan was a sorry excuse for a sibling, indeed. Well, he would just have to remedy that.

“Lady Kaitlin,” he ventured, “are you enjoying your stay?” Ordinarily, he would not address her so formally, but it was time for her to learn how to carry on in company.

Clara caught his eye and gave a tiny nod of approval.

The embarrassed red in Kate’s cheeks deepened when his question drew the attention of several onlookers. “Yes,” she finally answered in a timid voice, “thank you, I am. The ladies are all very kind. Miss Barker is teaching me an oyster stitch, and Lady Naomi lets me help with her food-pantry project.”

Food-pantry project? Jordan stopped himself from asking. Kate had given him the perfect opening to inquire after the absent lady’s dubious excuse for her presence at the nursery. Best not to get sidetracked. “Lady Naomi mentioned the two of you ordered new bonnets.”

Kate’s guileless face vacillated between pleasure and disappointment. “Yes, but — oh, I’d hoped it would be a secret. I wanted to surprise you.”

Jordan breathed a laugh. “Surprise me with a bonnet?” he said, incredulous. Surely his little sister didn’t expect him to don women’s headgear. The very idea set him to laughing again.

Bafflingly, Kate’s face crumpled. Her cheeks paled, and her slender shoulders stooped.

Clara stared at him in pinch-mouthed fury, eyes flashing fire and nostrils flaring.

What did I do?
Somehow, his attempt to behave like the older brother he was supposed to be had severely misfired. “Kate — ” he started in a quiet voice.

His stepmother shot him a warning look that stopped the apology in his throat.

To his right, Lady Janine scoffed. Jordan didn’t know whether the derisive sound was aimed at him, as the older woman still glared balefully at her breakfast. “Men don’t know anything about anything,” she muttered to the sad remains of her abused egg.

Every female under his roof had taken leave of her senses!

“Good morning,” said a soft, musical voice — the one he’d been waiting to hear.

Naomi’s cheeks gleamed with a healthy glow; a light sheen of moisture glistened at her temples.

Jordan tensed with suspicion. As Naomi filled her plate, he scrutinized her. At first glance, everything seemed in order. Her locks were neatly curled and pinned, not a hair out of place. Likewise, there was nothing to criticize about her attire. The high-waisted, light blue dress was impeccable. He followed the garment’s clean lines over her breasts and down her waist and legs, not entirely sure what he was looking for.
Something
, some indication …

There. There it was.

As Naomi turned to choose a scone, her skirt swung, following her movement, and in so doing, betrayed her. At the hemline on the back, just above her right heel, a small patch of fabric was dark with moisture. Had the spot been anywhere on the front of the dress, Jordan might be forced to allow for a stray splash from a washbasin or a clumsy drink of water. Being on the back, however, he could only conclude the wet came from below, rather than above. The dew-damp ground was the most likely culprit. She’d already been out-of-doors. The evidence of her flushed face and moist hemline convinced him.

The only question remaining was: With whom had she been? To Jordan’s mind, the answer was all too obvious.

Enrique.

In the handful of seconds it had taken him to uncover her duplicity, everything changed.
And she accuses me of not noticing anything.
Jordan had the queasy feeling that events were starting to spiral out of his control, if, in fact, they’d ever been
in
his control, which he now rather doubted. Naomi had always seemed most reasonable. Never once had she given Marshall a moment of grief. Why did she have to choose now — while she was
his
responsibility — to behave willfully? He only wanted keep her safe, to shelter her, protect her, to take care … Alarmingly, that train of thought had no end in sight. In any event, she was making his job damnably difficult.

Naomi finished filling her plate and came to sit beside Lady Janine. She murmured to her relative, then greeted Clara and Kate. When her smiling face at last turned to Jordan, it encountered the glacial stare he’d trained on her. Her brows slanted over blinking eyes; her full bottom lip pushed out in a tiny pout he was tempted to kiss away. Jordan scowled all the harder, fighting to rid himself of the wayward urge.

“Kate and I will be ready to go after breakfast, Naomi,” Clara said across the table.

Naomi pulled her large eyes away from Jordan to respond to his stepmother, a smile once again in place. “So shall I. I’ll only be a moment to fetch my bonnet, and we can be off.”

“Would that be your new bonnet?” Jordan asked.

The ladies all regarded him quizzically.

“You did purchase new bonnets, did you not?” A note of accusation colored his words.

“We ordered them,” Naomi said slowly, as though explaining the obvious to a simpleton. “It will be a few days before they are finished.”

Lady Janine snorted.

Returning her attention to Clara, Naomi effectively shut Jordan out as if he wasn’t there. “I sent a note ’round to Mrs. Barton yesterday; she’s expecting us.”

Clara nodded. “Be sure to wear your sturdy boots,” she instructed Kate. “It looks like rain.”

“You mean to walk to the village?” Jordan demanded. Uneasiness tickled between his shoulder blades.

“Yes, of course,” Clara responded. “We’re to deliver the preserves we made yesterday, for Mrs. Barton’s food pantry.”

There was that pantry again! He huffed an exasperated breath. “And why would you do such a thing? The good reverend earns more than most anyone else in Lintern Village, I’d wager. Why should you fill their pantry when they are perfectly capable of filling their own?” A thought crossed his mind and he added, a touch more moderately, “Unless you mean to make her a gift. That would be a neighborly gesture.”

Once again, the females regarded him as an unwelcome interloper in their conversation, despite carrying it on right under his nose.

Whatever small hurt he may have caused Naomi with his disapproving expression turned to sour annoyance as she fixed him with a quelling look. “It isn’t
Mrs. Barton’s
pantry we wish to fill, Jordan, but the charity pantry she keeps for the neighborhood.” One light brown brow arched scornfully. “Surely you know of and contribute to this endeavor?”

This was the first he’d heard of any such thing, but Naomi’s attitude suggested he should know of it and she found him lacking for not. Her accusations of him not noticing, of not caring, rang in his ears.

“I’ll accompany you,” he announced.

“It isn’t necessary,” Clara said. “We can carry the baskets ourselves. It’s but two miles to the village.”

Marvelous!
He thought. Three unescorted females with their hands full of preserves, tromping two miles down a country road. They’d be plum targets for the French, or a highwayman, or a deranged billy goat, for that matter.

“Necessary or no, I’m coming,” he said with finality. “We’ll take the barouche.”

Clara’s mouth tightened. She leaned close and pitched her voice for his ears alone. “I would have a word with you. Now, if you please.”

Jordan pushed back from the table and gestured for Clara to lead the way. He felt Naomi’s wondering gaze on his back as his stepmother stalked from the room, her spine ramrod straight. She said nothing more until she closed the door of his study. Her jeweled fingers lingered on the knob.

“You’ve behaved abominably to Kate since the moment you arrived.” Her thinning lips twisted into a hurt scowl. “After what you just did at the table, I wonder that you can think to press your company upon her. Pray do not cause my daughter further grief. Leave us to our morning, and we’ll leave you to yours. We do not need your escort to the village, and frankly, Jordan, I do not
want
your escort.”