Worth Lord of Reckoning (34 page)

He kissed her temple, stroked her back, and prayed for the right words.

Any right words at all.

* * *

Jacaranda tried to get her mind to function, to form sentences, but her body was still too absorbed with marvelous sensations. Her skin buzzed with pleasure, her breasts hummed with it. Between her legs the fire of Worth’s touch lingered, and inside, deep inside where a woman carried new life, bodily exultation had yet to entirely fade.

What to say?

“I missed you, too.” The ridiculous words were out without Jacaranda having any idea where they’d come from. They were honest, but ye gods.
I missed you
?

After
that
?

He came alert beneath her, and it was too late to call the words back. “I beg your pardon?”

“I said, I missed you, too.”

“Good.” His hand started moving on her back again. “That’s good.”

What did “good” mean? She searched for basic vocabulary.

“Hold me.” Those words
were
right, and Worth’s arms closing more securely around her were more right still.

“Better?”

She nodded against his chest and wondered what came next, but then the comfort of his embrace stole even curiosity from her grip. Worth knew what came next, and that was all she needed for the moment.

His lips moved at her temple. “Sleep, love. I’ve got you.”

“You won’t leave?”

“Not yet.”

When she next opened her eyes, she was cast adrift over the great, lovely expanse of Worth Kettering. His hands caressed her back, his chest rose and fell beneath her.

“I should move.” Straight back to Dorset, and soon.

“You shouldn’t go far. We could do with a wash, though.”

So one talked about that. Two did. “I’ll see to it.”

“You will not.”

One argued about it, even. She wanted to smile—no, to
smirk
. She did not want to move back to Dorset.

“You sprawl here in feminine splendor while I see to it,” Worth said, and he was smiling outright, his teeth gleaming in the darkness.

“I do not sprawl, Worth Kettering.” She climbed off him, an ungainly production, and hit the mattress on her back. Her stomach was sticky, so she didn’t draw the sheets up.

“You will acquire the knack of sprawling if I have anything to say to it.” He bounced off the mattress, his tone as brisk as his movements. “Sprawling, lounging, reclining, what have you. A well-pleasured lady is entitled to certain privileges.” He came back to the bed with a flannel in his hand, looking her over in the moonlight.

Jacaranda held out her hand. “I’ll take that.”

He sat at her hip, ignored her hand, and put the cool, damp cloth on her belly.

“You sprawl,” he said, tidying her up. “Unless you’d like to perform this courtesy for me?”

“Good heavens.” So many ways to be intimate, and she wasn’t even truly his lover.

He rubbed at himself briskly. “Maybe next time. Now we sprawl together. I rather like this part.”

“You didn’t like the other?”

More wrong words. When would her wits come back to life?

Worth positioned himself over her, and that was nice, to be gathered beneath him again. Despite her words, Jacaranda felt safe and close to him.

“I adored the other,” he said, close to her ear. “I adore you.” He climbed off her when she didn’t have the confidence to ask him not to. “Now we sprawl. There’s science to it. First, you get comfortable.”

“I am comfortable.”

“You usually sleep on your right side, love.”

She wanted to argue, but didn’t because she felt rather in charity with him, and with the rest of creation. She scooted to her right side.

“Just so. Then I get comfortable.” He spooned himself around her, his warmth comfortable and comforting. “Then I tell you how much I enjoyed spending this time with you, more than words can say.” He kissed her nape. “You are truly magnificent, Jacaranda Wyeth. Beyond words, beyond anything in my experience. I am humbled.”

He sounded humbled, too. Jacaranda was grateful for the darkness, because his words made her blush.

“Now go to sleep.” He settled a hand around her breast, and even that brought with it emotions warm and dear. “Dream of me, for I shall surely dream of you.”

She went to sleep and she did dream of him.

Also of her cottage in Dorset.

* * *

Worth lingered in Jacaranda’s bed until almost dawn, passing the night in a pleasurable twilight. He’d wake up, cuddle her closer, stroke his hands over her curves and hollows, kiss her cheek, her hair, her neck, and subside back into dreamy drowsing. He knew for a fact he’d never spent as much of an entire night with a throbbing cockstand, or enjoyed himself so much without having intercourse.

Before the sun peeked over the horizon, he stole down the corridor, boots in hand, much on his mind.

Jacaranda probably suspected his latest marriage proposal hadn’t been a joke about raspberry jam. She was deucedly perceptive about things like jam pots.

The words had come out, heartfelt and sincere. Jacaranda had been surprised and nonplussed, which did not bode well for him.

As the day wore on, he confirmed his suspicion that part of what ran the household was his housekeeper’s perpetual motion. She came to rest in her little sitting room for tea, but she also held audiences in there.

Cook joined her for a cup and emerged peering at a handful of menus.

Mr. Reilly passed the time of day with dear Mrs. Wyeth and then braced Worth on whether the bridle paths in the home wood ought to be cleared to permit access to Hunter’s holding if the bridge should fail.

Carl disappeared into that sitting room and emerged clutching a list to take to Mr. Simmons, the printing so large and bold Worth could make it out from across the corridor.

With the head maid, another list of orders was dispatched. Then the vicar called, paying Worth and Hess a few courtesies before rising to go in search of Mrs. Wyeth.

Jacaranda Wyeth was more than a housekeeper, and not simply in the sense she was the woman Worth wanted for his wedded wife. She had infiltrated his household, systematically asserted her common sense, and made a large, neglected estate into a profitable, smoothly running home.

She’d invaded and taken over.

“What has you frowning so?” Hess asked as he ambled into the library.

“My housekeeper. I’ve been duped, Hessian. I like it not.”

“By her? In what sense? She doesn’t seem the duping kind.”

“I only think I own this property,” Worth said, tossing himself into a wing chair. “I’m a guest here.”

“You weren’t a guest yesterday.” Hess took the other chair in a more decorous fashion. “I was ready to expire with worry, and your housekeeper had reached the end of her tether, too.”

“She was worried she’d fail.” The words were unfair, also true. Something or someone had driven Jacaranda to impossibly high expectations of herself.

“She was worried Yolanda had done something irreparably foolish,” Hess corrected him. “Worried the girl was hurt, lost, set upon by ruffians.”

“Ruffians on Trysting land?”

“With sufficient quantities of drink and stupidity, ruffians can be found in almost any corner of the realm. The point is, Mrs. Wyeth was beside herself, as was I, and you—Mr. I’m Only A Guest—were the only one with a cool head. You might feel like a guest, but you do own the place.”

“I pay the taxes. That’s not the same thing.”

Hess’s lips quirked at this pouting. “You are decidedly grumpy, brother. To what do we attribute your foul mood?”

“Hess, I want to marry her.”

Hess’s smile became sweet rather than teasing—and God above,
that
smile would bring the ladies of Polite Society to his side at a dead, panting run.

“Then procure a ring, take a knee, and be about it. We’re not getting any younger, in case you hadn’t noticed, and neither of our nurseries sports an heir.”

“Hang the nurseries.” Worth abandoned his chair to study the outdated maps of the enormous atlas. “She won’t have me.”

“Have you asked?”

“More or less.” Mostly less. “She scolded me for being so forward the first time. The second time we made a raspberry joke of it. She natters about her family and some cottage in Dorset.”

“I have no idea what a raspberry joke is, Worth, but the lady fancies you.”

Clearing the bridle path would also create a shortcut into town—and let a closer eye be kept on Thomas Hunter.

“Has Jacaranda told you she fancies me?”

Worth understood about money, and all the ways human nature and money fit together, but Hess… Hess had been married. For years. Hess had dallied. Hess had a child, and he was the only sympathetic ear Worth was likely to find.

“Your housekeeper is an attractive female. My notice has been drawn to her, but every time I behold the lady, she’s busy beholding you. And Worth, she has this wistful gleam in her eyes when she does. I do not think she’s contemplating dusting you, either, or adorning you with a lace runner.”

A smile threatened at the image of Jacaranda Wyeth using a feather duster on Worth’s naked parts. He flipped the page of the atlas to find an elevation of Trysting before the conservatory had been added.

“Women like to hear the words,” Hess said. “I haven’t any pretty words for them, hence I am a non-competitor in the courting stakes.”

“So stay here in the south with us.” Worth left off perusing familial ancient history to regard his brother. His only brother, his only adult family in the entire world. “Get some practice, or at least get your ashes hauled regularly. Most women I know, the married ones anyway, are long past the need for any words besides ‘faster,’ ‘harder,’ and ‘aren’t you ready to give it another go yet?’”

“You poor abused old thing. No wonder Mrs. Wyeth has her doubts. What do we know about Mr. Wyeth?”

“Who? Oh, Mr. Wyeth. Not a thing. I doubt there was one.”

Though there had been somebody, or no way on God’s earth would Worth be pursuing Jacaranda in the manner he was.

“Many housekeepers make diplomatic use of the married form of address,” Hess said, rising and coming to stand beside Worth. “I told Yolanda I wouldn’t drag her north against her will. I’m not sure where that leaves us, when Grampion is the only roof I can afford to put over her head. She assured me she hadn’t been running away.”

As changes of subject went, Hess’s gambit lacked subtlety, but Worth had gone over Hess’s finances. The lesser holdings were either let out or soon to be rented, that much was fact.

“What about spending the winter in Town? Your vote would be an asset to your party.”

Hess drew a finger along the façade of an older, more stately Trysting. “Winter up north is long, cold and harsh, but it’s also beautiful, peaceful, and I’m used to it.”

“We’re both in a contrary mood, though that parade of footmen across yonder terrace means we’re once again to be picnicking. Perhaps I’ll go north with you, where the picnic season is so much shorter.”

Where housekeepers were less likely to drive a man to unrequited longings that had him up most of the night, in more ways than one.

Chapter Fifteen

Jacaranda managed to avoid her employer—Worth was still that—for most of the day, and she told herself that for the best, also necessary, because she needed to compose herself.

Or appear to compose herself.

She’d forgotten today was the day for Vicar’s call and had nearly forgotten between a morning note and an afternoon response, that she’d asked for a moment of Mr. Reilly’s time. If Cook hadn’t come bustling by, Jacaranda would have neglected a week’s worth of menus as well.

This was all
his
fault.

Jacaranda would never grow accustomed to spending the night naked and entwined in a man’s arms. The pleasure was heady, wonderful and, when that man was Worth Kettering, overwhelmingly sweet. The caring and tenderness he was capable of in the simplest, fleeting touch—

Jacaranda’s insides fluttered with the memory of his caresses, a fluttering that had afflicted her all day. She crossed her legs at the knee and encountered a tingling in places a lady doesn’t tingle. She brushed her hair and recalled the feel of his hands sweeping through the length of it repeatedly, like he couldn’t get enough of the sensation. She wiggled her feet out of her slippers and recalled him grasping the arch of her foot and holding her
foot
in a secure, warm embrace of the hand.

Holding her foot, and she’d wanted to swoon with the pleasure of it.

Angels abide.

Into this muddle of memories and sensations came emotions, heralded by long, gusty sighs, staring spells, and other behaviors Jacaranda had previously seen only in her younger sister, Daisy.

First came a yearning so desperate it scared her, a yearning to be more intimate with Worth than she’d already been, a yearning to share with him the act Jacaranda had experienced only once, years ago.

But following on that honest admission came the realization that what Jacaranda wanted was the entire man, not simply copulation with him, and that—that small, profound distinction—put her on precarious footing.

Worth Kettering was heir to an earl, quite possibly rich as a nabob, and completely unaware of his housekeeper’s true origins. When Jacaranda told him, he’d feel obligated to marry her in truth, when she knew the last person he’d affix himself to was a woman who’d lied to him. He had learned his lesson, just as Jacaranda had learned hers.

Then there was her family, all expecting her to return to their loving, if noisy, disorganized and perpetually impecunious arms.

“There you are.”

Worth Kettering stood in the doorway to Jacaranda’s sitting room, his riding attire showing him off to great advantage, his hair tousled, his faint smile tugging at places low in Jacaranda’s belly.

Even a day later, words eluded her.

“And there you are,” Jacaranda answered, busying herself with afternoon tea. “I’ve wondered if it’s your gaze I felt on me of late.”

“Only my gaze?” He ambled into the room and wandered its small perimeter, stopping to sniff her late roses.

“Need I remind you the door is open, Mr. Kettering?”

He wandered closer and leaned in as if to sniff her.

“The next time I bring you pleasure, I want you to call out for
Mr. Kettering
in that exact tone, for it arouses me.” He straightened, his eyes dancing.

“You’ve come to torment me. I suppose a day of peace and quiet was too much to ask.”

“Far too much.”

He settled into her rocking chair, and Jacaranda had to admit she liked the look of him there. Relaxed, thoughtful, a gleam in his eyes.

“Tea?”

“Please.” He rested his chin on his palm, his elbow on the rocker’s arm. “What have you found to do with yourself today, Mrs. Wyeth?”

Her name had never sounded so wicked, reminding Jacaranda that she hadn’t even told Worth her true name.

“A little of this and that. Having the family in residence makes the day busier, but more pleasant, too.”

“More pleasant?” He accepted his tea from her hands, cradling her fingers in his as he did. Wretch.

“Meaningful, maybe?” She tried to ignore his nonsense, tried to find honest words. “One doesn’t tidy up and dust and direct the maids and footmen simply for the sake of the house. A house is a building. One cares for the house on behalf of the people who dwell there.”

“For me, you mean?”

“For you, some,” she allowed, and he looked so hopeful she added cream and sugar to her admission. “Mostly for you, because you are the head of this household.”

“I am.” He took a sip of his tea. “I don’t feel like it, but I am. I’m wondering, though, if I shouldn’t offer to spend the winter in Cumberland with Hess and the girls.”

“You haven’t been home in a long time.” This was what came of admitting that she must return to Dorset. Perhaps among sophisticated, worldly adults, such a mention was all that was needed.

Worth had brought her pleasure upon pleasure in the dark of night, and now he casually acquiesced in her insistence that their dealings remain only a summer dalliance.

“Avery should see the family seat,” Jacaranda went on. “Yolanda would feel less banished if you accompanied them.”

“I’d feel banished,” he said, grumpiness creeping into his tone. “Would you come with us?”

Grey would have an apoplexy if she broke her word again, Step-Mama would hunt her down with a press-gang. “I could not, not with any sort of reputation. You know that.”

His stare became broody, his eyes shuttered, and she sensed she’d hurt him.

“I might want to,” she relented and spoke the truth. “But I could not. My family would not tolerate such a great distance between us.”

She thought he would let her answer stand unchallenged, but after a beat of silence, he was still watching her.

“Why not come with us? You could be Lannie’s companion, because Miss Snyder is going back to her little finishing school come Michaelmas. The girls would like your company.”

His eyelids dropped to half-mast, implying something else entirely, and God help her, Jacaranda was tempted.

She thought of Grey, and Will and Daisy, and of the boys. Of her two nephews and her niece, Step-Mama’s pleading and threatening and begging.

Of her cottage.

Of the falsehoods now thoroughly rooted between Jacaranda and the man she loved.

“A housekeeper is not a suitable candidate to be a young lady’s companion.”

“The hell she isn’t.” Worth pushed out of his rocking chair, the lazy innuendo replaced with tension. “I want you to think about something, Mrs. Wyeth.” He shot a glance at the open door and lowered his voice. “We have not consummated our dealings in the intimate sense, and for the next two weeks, given the risk of conception, I would not impose on you even were you willing. It’s August, soon it will be September, and for all the patience I’ve shown, you’re no closer to a decision than you were a month ago. You’re a nervous investor, Mrs. Wyeth. No risk, no reward, though. That has ever been true.”

He kissed her cheek and took his leave, while Jacaranda held her cooling tea and tried to think of a reply to his observation.

She came up with nothing but a cold cup of tea.

* * *

Yolanda’s privacy was disturbed when Worth found her reading on a tartan blanket in the hay mow over the stables, a fat black tom cat asleep in a sunbeam beside her. She came here for privacy, and to revel in the way the scents of hay and horses put her in mind of Mr. Hunter.

Thomas.

“Hello, you.” Worth sat right beside her in a manner that still unnerved and pleased her, as if they were siblings of long-standing, not recent acquaintances trying to rub along in an awkward situation. “I do believe you’ve grown prettier since leaving that school.”

Did Thomas think her pretty?

“Hullo, Worth.”

“You reading a fatuous novel?”

“Sir Walter Scott.”

“I’ve always enjoyed his work.” Worth drew a wisp of hay from the packed pile beneath them and batted the fat black cat on the nose. The beast didn’t stir from its position in exact alignment with the sunbeam slanting through the hay port door.

“Are you hiding from Mrs. Wyeth, or from Avery, or perhaps from Hess?” Yolanda asked, closing her book around a single finger because, like a brother one-quarter his age, Worth was apparently intent on pestering her.

“I’m hiding from my life. Have you and Hessian come to some peace with each other?”

Yolanda stroked a hand over the cat, who yawned and began to purr.

“Some. Hess thought I’d be happy visiting here in the south with schoolmates and doesn’t see why I would rather have spent my holidays mostly traveling to and from Cumberland.”

From
home
, something a brother who dwelled there year after year ought to have appreciated.

“You, of course, assured him he was completely in error?”

“I told him there’s a difference between sparing me travel and abandoning me for two years straight. Hess doesn’t seem to need anybody but his hounds and horses. He doesn’t let himself need family.”

At least Worth had Avery, and Avery had Worth. Lucky them.

“Hessian is a Kettering.” Worth scratched the cat’s shoulders, and the beast tried to bite him. “We’re prone to managing on our own, no matter the size of the load. Did you tell him about that cut on your wrist?”

Drat all brothers for being such noticing fellows. Thomas had wondered at the scar, too, but had been gentleman enough to keep his questions to himself. “The injury is healed. What is there to tell?”

“Something, when you’re ready. Hessian is the head of our family, but I’m your brother, too, Lannie. You could tell me if you didn’t want to impose on Hess.”

How delicately Worth could express himself, when he chose to. “There’s little to tell.”

“You ladies.” Worth tormented the cat again by tickling its nose with the hay, but the tom was again intent on ignoring him. “Why can’t I be more like this fellow? Happy to pounce on mice, and be on my way after the occasional trifling scuffle?”

Safer ground entirely, and good of Worth to offer it. “Mrs. Wyeth has given you your congé?”

Worth’s expression was perplexed, while the cat made a half-hearted swat at the hay, which Worth failed to notice. “Sixteen isn’t so very young, is it?”

Yolanda’s finger remained between the pages of her book, which was fortunate; otherwise, she might have patted Worth’s hand.

“Mrs. Wyeth cares for you. That might be why she’s not falling into your arms.”

“I fear one shouldn’t discuss such matters with a younger sister.”

She paged through her book, for Worth apparently wanted to discuss his situation with somebody. “Hess certainly wouldn’t discuss it with me, just as he doesn’t discuss Belinda Evers with me.”

Whom Hessian seemed to regard with equal parts bewilderment and wariness.