Jack (The Jaded Gentlemen Book 4) (15 page)

“I believe I shall, but soon you must call on Sir Jack. He needs reinforcements.”

Already, Abigail’s tone had become sleepy. Axel kneaded her shoulders in a slow, soothing rhythm. “You think Miss DeWitt is besieging Sir
Jack’s bachelorhood.”

His widowerhood, in truth. That revelation had explained a few things.

“If so, she’s armed with nothing more than a pea-shooter. I suspect Madeline’s artillery has turned Sir Jack so quiet and
thoughtful.”

Good for Madeline, good for Jack Fanning.

“Go to sleep. I’ll gather intelligence for you later in the week, even if I must listen to more chattering in service to my queen.”

Abigail fell silent, her breathing slowing to the regular pattern of well-deserved sleep. Axel remained awake for a few moments more, rubbing his
wife’s back, and wondering what, besides Madeline Hennessey’s artillery, might have wrecked the hero of Parrakan’s legendary skill with
darts.

Madeline sat at Jack’s desk, a pair of gold, wire-rimmed glasses perched on her nose. The sight was both scholarly and… erotic, damn it. No
matter where Jack laid eyes on her—over a hand of whist, or waving good-bye to the party last night as they’d departed for Candlewick—she
called to the part of him he’d successfully ignored since leaving India.

“You have recovered from your megrim,” Jack said. He’d wondered, when she hadn’t come down to breakfast that morning.

She jumped to her feet, a hand at her throat. “You surprised me.” Her expression was both flustered and self-conscious, possibly even guilty.

“Obviously.” Surprising her was only fair, when she surprised him at every turn. “Are you prone to headaches?”

“Yes, though they aren’t usually as severe as the one I had last night. I trust the evening at Candlewick was enjoyable?”

Jack let the change of subject pass, for the lady did seem truly unnerved. “Dinner was good, English fare. Beef done to a turn, potatoes whipped with
butter, green beans in sauce, and so on. Mrs. Belmont was disappointed that you did not join us.”

Jack had been disappointed at Madeline’s last-minute excuse too.

She resumed her seat—Jack’s seat, come to that. “I will visit them on my half day.”

“Whom did you visit last night?” Bad of him, to ambush her like this, but she’d taken the dog cart out after making excuses for the
dinner engagement. A small, pestilentially insecure part of him wondered if she’d gone to meet a beau.

“I dropped in on Aunt Hattie,” she said. “I’d only been able to see Aunt Theo on my half day, and I had another hoard of biscuits
to share. The fresh air helped clear my head, and a full moon on snow is so pretty.”

Madeline Hennessey was pretty. She wore a burgundy velvet day dress that showed off her figure to a distracting degree.

“You were naughty,” Jack said, leaning a hip on the corner of the desk. “You deprived me of the pleasure of driving you to visit your
aunt on your next half day. Instead, I will be forced to endure yet more rounds of whist and the latest London gossip about people I hope never to meet.
Were you writing a letter, Miss Hennessey?”

Jack was being naughty, leaning closer as if to peer at her work, when he was in fact breathing in lavender and memories. Her hands on his arms, her shape
resting against him, her kisses….

“I was making a list,” she said. “Comparing Pahdi’s version of who does what with the tasks as I’ve observed them
done.”

“What does your list reveal?”

“Pahdi can’t very well oversee tasks happening throughout the house if he’s expected to open the front door.”

Her handwriting was the lovely, flowing script of an educated lady, and notably legible. “The sharpest set of eyes should be posted as
lookout.”

“We are not a garrison in some distant jungle, Sir Jack.”

And yet, Jack felt as if he’d lost his bearings. Miss Hennessey had freckles across the backs of her hands. He’d like to kiss each one, and
that sentiment put him in mind of life after captivity. Sentiments and sensations were too sharp, bright, pungent, and distracting where Madeline Hennessey
was involved, and nothing quite made sense.

“How do you suggest the front door be managed?” he asked.  

“Assign a footman to the post, the oldest and most distinguished of the lot. If he does well, then consider naming his post that of under-butler.
Give Pahdi the freedom to inspect work as it’s being performed and to look after the house in the manner of a steward.”

Eminently sensible. The best commanding officers knew how to earn the trust of their subordinates without fraternizing. That often meant wandering through
the stables, the mess, or the parade ground at the odd hour.

“Does Mrs. Abernathy inspect the work as it’s being performed?”    

“Mrs. Abernathy sets the maids against each other, expecting them to tattle on one another.”

“Bad form,” Jack said, scooting closer and squinting at the paper. “Informants destroy
esprit de corps
. What’s
this?”

She’d put his name on the page as well, though no duties were listed below Sir John Dewey Fanning.

Pahdi’s tap-tap-tap sounded on the door, and Jack rose. “Come in.”

Pahdi opened the door, a red-faced Bartholomew Tavis beside him. “Mr. Tavis has come on urgent business, sir.”

“I don’t need no Hindu lackey to announce me,” Tavis said, elbowing past Pahdi’s slighter form. “I’ve come to see the
king’s man about a serious matter.”

Pahdi’s profile could have been carved in mahogany.

“Remove your cap, Tavis,” Jack said, as Pahdi withdrew. “You are in the presence of a lady.”

The tone of command had Tavis yanking off his cap, despite the confusion in his eyes. “Miss Hennessey?”

She rose and bobbed a curtsey. “I’ll leave you gentlemen to your discussion.”

Tavis was a great hulking fellow with more brawn than brains, and the opinion among the local populace was that his late mother had done a better job of
running the Wet Weasel than Tavis did. Tavis worked hard—everybody agreed he was a hard worker—but he was also a hard man, according to his
employees and patrons.

Tavis followed Miss Hennessey’s progress across the library, his gaze not exactly respectful, though neither was he plainly leering.

“She reminds me of somebody,” he said. “In that finery, she reminds me of somebody. A figure like that could sell a lot of ale.”

A comment like that could get a man called out, despite Jack’s distaste for violence.

“Shall we sit, and may I offer you a drink?”

“Not much of a drinker,” Tavis said, looking anywhere but at Jack. “I fancy a cup of good black tea, if you must know.”

“So do I,” Jack replied, tugging the bell-pull twice. “While we’re waiting for the tray, perhaps you can acquaint me with the
reason for your call?”

“You have a mighty lot of books.” 

Libraries
were supposed to have a mighty lot of books. Jack did not have a mighty lot of patience.

“I enjoy reading.” He took the seat Madeline had vacated, in hopes Tavis would light in one of the chairs before the desk.

“You don’t worry about light-fingered help?”

The question was another slur aimed at Pahdi. Jack wasn’t surprised, though he was disappointed.

“If you refer to my butler, the answer is no. I have no concerns regarding theft of my property. I have trusted Pahdi with my life. When my own stout
English recruits had fled to a man, Pahdi remained by my side, appropriated my gun, and aimed straight for the tiger. I was too weak to flee and had to be
carried by native bearers on a stretcher. They too, refused to abandon me.”

Pahdi had missed the dratted tiger, but the noise of the gunshot had driven the beast off. Jack’s men had been unable to look him in the eye the rest
of the way back to the garrison.

“A tiger?”

“Sitting no farther from me than you are from that piano. Few men live to tell of such an encounter, but this has little to do with your visit,
I’m sure.”

Tavis put his cap back on, tugged it off again, then wedged his bulk into one of the chairs facing Jack’s desk.  The stink of coal smoke, ale,
damp wool, and darts night cut across the library’s sandalwood scent.

“The darts money is gone,” Tavis said. “All of it. Somebody took the whole winnings jar, and the championship is coming up next
week.”

The winnings jar would weigh a good deal, and moving that many coins in a glass container would be a noisy proposition.

As the first footman arrived with the tea tray, Jack set aside Miss Hennessey’s lists and began one of his own. “When did you notice the jar
was missing?”

Tavis had closed early the previous night, as was his custom following a darts night. A few guests had been staying on the premises, and they’d all
taken the morning stage for London. Tavis had been seeing to his own breakfast, when he’d noticed the jar was missing.

“Did your guests have luggage?”

“They did. One gent was very particular about how his trunks was lashed to the boot. You think my winnings are on their way to London?”

“It’s possible. I’ll have a look around and talk to your help, nonetheless. Have you any idea how much money was in that jar?”

Tavis knew to the penny. “It’s not the money,” he said, finishing his third cup of tea. “It’s the notion that somebody could
take that jar, when it sits above my bar all through the year. Stealing is a crime.”

Punishable by death, under some circumstances. The law took no issue with the free exercise of stupidity, however.

“Stealing is a crime, and I’m sorry you’ve been the victim of a thief. You were right to bring this to my attention.” The thief had
stolen coin, but more to the point, Tavis’s dignity as a proprietor had been affronted. That, rather than the amount taken, had Jack asking more
questions.

“You’ve said you left the storeroom door unlocked, so the tradesmen could make deliveries from Oxford without you having to tend the back door
throughout the day. When do you lock the premises at night?”

Tavis peered at his empty tea cup, the delicate Japanese porcelain incongruously dainty in his enormous grip.

“I don’t lock up. A wayfarer can arrive at any hour, and if they have to stand about, banging on the front door, they’ll wake every guest
I have. The front door is never locked, same as the church. Always open for business.”

His smile was sad, proud, and worried.  

“The Weasel’s reputation for hospitality is well earned,” Jack said, though that reputation had been built by Tavis’s mother,
rather than the present owner. “But if you’re in the storeroom, back in the kitchen, down in the cellars, and the front and back doors are
unlocked, then anybody could have waltzed in and taken that jar of money. Did they take any other funds? Any inventory?”

Tavis rose and tugged down his waistcoat. “Nothing that I could see. I have a question, if you don’t mind.”

Jack stood, mentally rearranging his day to make time for a trip to the Weasel. “I’ll answer, if I have anything useful to contribute.”

“Where was your butler last night?”

Oh, for God’s sake
. “Why do you ask?”

Tavis studied the books lining the library’s many shelves. “He wouldn’t dare steal from you, but his kind don’t approve of the
drinking of spirits. That’s a fact.”

The leaps of bigotry Tavis had demonstrated—no logic involved whatsoever—were prodigious. Jack escorted his guest to the door, while trying to
fashion a civil riposte.

“Pahdi is Church of England, Tavis. If you accuse every teetotaler of theft, many a widowed auntie will be charged without evidence. The Crown frowns
on accusations without evidence, as do I. Such accusations, if patently false, can give rise to suits for defamation of character.”

Jack opened the library door and found Madeline Hennessey and Miss DeWitt coming down the stairs.

“Ah, Miss Hennessey, you can put Mr. Tavis’s mind at ease on a small matter.”

Madeline smiled graciously, while Miss DeWitt’s expression was uncertain. Bartholomew Tavis had not exactly donned his Sunday finest before calling
at Teak House.

“I’m happy to help,” Madeline said.

“Where was Pahdi last evening?” Jack asked. “I cannot vouch for him, because I was enjoying Candlewick’s hospitality. You, however,
declined to join the outing, so you can tell us if Pahdi remained at home as well.”

“In this household,” Madeline said, rearranging her cream wool shawl, “the butler tends the front door, and we knew you and your guests
had been invited to Candlewick for dinner. As far as I know, Pahdi remained at his post for the evening, right by the front door. I passed by several
times, and he was in the porter’s nook each time. I believe he welcomed the party home upon your return from the evening with the Belmonts.”

“So he did,” Jack said. “Tavis, if you have no more questions, I’ll join you at the Weasel after luncheon.”

Tavis bobbed awkwardly toward the ladies and took his leave.

“What interesting callers you have,” Miss DeWitt remarked, a bit too brightly. “But oh, look! You are standing in a most fortunate
location, Sir Jack!”

Her glee boded ill for Jack’s future, and his mood. “I’m standing on my own two feet. My preferred location, when upright. Tavis has been
the victim of a minor theft, and called upon me in my capacity as magistrate.”

Miss DeWitt’s smile dimmed as Jeremy appeared at the top of the steps with Mama.   

“A minor theft?” Madeline asked.

“The winnings jar from the darts tournament has gone missing. Not a lordly sum, but far more than a pittance. I suspect one of the passengers on the
morning stage helped himself to funds all but orphaned in the common. Tavis takes not the smallest measure to discourage theft. One hopes he’ll
accept a few gentle suggestions when I hare off after luncheon to have a look at the scene of the crime.”

“Hare off after I’ve kissed you,” Miss DeWitt said. “For you are directly under an enormous sheaf of mistletoe!”

She stepped closer, braced a hand on Jack’s shoulder, and aimed a pair of pink, puckered lips in his direction. She tasted of lemon drops, and her
kiss was cool and damp like a granny’s. She’d also aimed for Jack’s mouth, not his cheek, and only partially connected with her target.