Jack (The Jaded Gentlemen Book 4) (30 page)

Mortification, because he’d made his mama cry and been an insensitive lout—probably for half of his life.

Peace, because he’d spoken honestly to his mother. Teak House was his home now, and maybe someday it would be hers too. Saying the words aloud had
settled the last vestige of restlessness in him.

Frustration played a role too, because had Jack’s mother
asked
him, he would have told her he was done with India—but had he invited
her questions? Had he done anything except avoid her matchmaking and dread her meddling?

Beside the frustration ran a welcome vein of certainty though, because Jack had had enough adventures to last a lifetime. The only treasures he needed to
seek or guard were right here in Oxfordshire.

And beneath all of those shifting, fraught sentiments, Jack felt respect for his mother, for her tenacity and stoicism, and acknowledging that respect
brought profound relief. Jack wanted to respect his mother, of course he did, and all he’d ever wanted was for her to respect him.

He should have known that objective was wide of the mark, for his mama didn’t merely respect him. She loved him, relentlessly, and always would.

“You have turned me into a watering pot,” Mama said, drawing a handkerchief from her sleeve. “You are a very naughty boy. It’s well
your brother is a saint, or my account with the Almighty would be in sorry condition.”

Jack sneaked in one more small hug and let her go. “Perhaps if you’re done scolding the son who sailed across oceans to return to your side,
you might afford me a moment or two of your time?”

Mama ceased dabbing at her eyes and stuffed the handkerchief back into her cuff. “If it’s about the upcoming assembly, you’ll get no help
from me. You are going, John Dewey Fanning, and you will dance with every wallflower who’s not too tipsy to turn down the room.”

And a few who were too tipsy. “Yes, Mama, of course.  But before you castigate me for dances I’ve yet to sit out, do you suppose you could
help me solve a crime or two?”

Mama took him by the arm and steered him toward the library. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Madeline dreamed of lavender borders, great silvery billows dotted with fragrant purple sprigs. The scent brought a sense of peace and well-being, which
she desperately needed.

“Madam will please wake up.”

Madam did not want to leave her dream-garden, assuming Madeline was madam.

“Madam must not spend the night among the linens.”

Somebody made a timid attempt to jostle Madeline’s shoulder.

“Please, madam.
Wake up
.”

The urgency of the entreaty had Madeline opening her eyes to find an anxious Pahdi peering down at her. They were in the linen closet, the space
illuminated by Pahdi’s carrying candle and the single stub of taper left burning on Madeline’s candelabrum.

“Pahdi, good evening.”

“I must beg to differ with madam. If Sir Jack finds that I have allowed you to fall asleep here, at an hour when all ought to be snug in their beds,
I will be instructed at great length on the proper management of a civilized English household. No matter that ‘civilized’ and
‘English’ are regarded as contradictory terms by most of the world.”

Madeline’s back would certainly prefer she’d sought her bed. “What time is it?”

“Nearly eleven, and yes, Sir Jack has returned.”

Jack had been absent from dinner, ostensibly investigating yet another petty theft. Madeline was all too aware his investigation would not lead to the
missing medical bag.

“Thank you for waking me,” she said, rising. The linen closet had a wonderful scent, but the chair Madeline had occupied had lacked a cushion.
She longed not for bed, but for Jack’s company.

“If you would thank me, respected ma’am,” Pahdi said, sweeping a hand toward the door, “seek your bed before Sir Jack comes upon
you. Bad enough he must waste his time on the doctor’s imbecilic allegations against me. I would not have Sir Jack worrying about your health as
well.”

Madeline picked up her candelabrum, and the last candle guttered. “What accusations against you?”

In the light of a single candle, Pahdi’s features were fierce. “I stole Dr. Higgans’s bag, of course. Though I am accounted a wealthy man
by my relations in India, I must risk my liberty, bring shame on Teak House, and upon Sir Jack, by purloining some old bag of useless nostrums and dirty
knives belonging to the doctor.”

“You’ve been accused of theft—
again
?”

Madeline dropped back onto the hard chair, feeling as dumbstruck as when Theo had announced a plan to elope to London. Nothing had gone right since
Madeline had agreed to join the staff at Teak House.

Or since she’d decided the parish needed a few lessons in charity.

“Of course I have been accused again,” Pahdi said. “Sir Jack scolded the esteemed doctor in public for neglecting his duties, and the
doctor—scurrilous varlet—could not accept a deserved rebuke. He seeks to bring dishonor to Teak House and its owner.”

This was… this was a disaster that could soon veer into a tragedy, and not only for Pahdi, who was innocent of all wrongdoing. Jack would be affected
by Higgans’s vitriol, and possibly be asked to step down as magistrate.

The shadows shifted as the door to the linen closet opened farther.

“My staff has taken to congregating in unusual locations.” Jack propped a shoulder against the doorjamb. “Somehow, that seems in keeping
with the rest of the day’s activities. At least it smells good in here.”

“The linen needed rearranging,” Madeline said, pushing back to her feet. “I fell asleep.”

A look passed between Pahdi and Jack, and Jack minutely shook his head.

Of course, an evening of drinking at the Weasel hadn’t revealed the latest culprit. The culprit was standing before Jack, her heart breaking.

“Find your bed, Pahdi,” Jack said. “I’ll light Miss Hennessey to her room.”

Pahdi bowed and withdrew, passing Jack the carrying candle.

“He’s worried,” Madeline said. She was beyond worry, approaching blind panic, though she knew what she must do.

“I’m worried,” Jack said, picking up the candelabrum. “The mood at the Weasel was hardly reflective of the good spirits which a new
year should engender. Mortimer Cotton was muttering about widows who get above themselves, and the winning darts team resented giving away their tournament
money.”

Madeline resented that her aunt had nearly frozen to death. “Then why give it away?”

“Pride.” Jack closed the linen closet door as Madeline gained the corridor. “Possibly honor.”

“Honor begrudges widows and orphans a warm bed?”

On this point, Madeline was clear. If her nocturnal forays into criminal behavior had kept her aunts and those similarly situated from undeserved
suffering, then she wasn’t sorry for her crimes. She was sorry those crimes could result in more undeserved suffering, though.

Very sorry.

“We won’t solve the moral dilemmas of the shire tonight,” Jack said, as they turned the corner to the family wing. “But I’d
better find that blasted bag before Pahdi is deported in chains.”

Deportation in chains would be a cheery outcome, considering the alternatives.

Which, of course, Madeline could not allow. Pahdi didn’t deserve the suspicion and insult that came his way, any more than Aunt Theo deserved a
miserable death for want of a hundredweight of coal.

“Even if you find the bag,” Madeline said, “Higgans won’t look in on Theo the next time she’s ill. He won’t bother
treating a consumptive child, unless the child’s parents can pay the fee. The yeomen at the Weasel won’t learn generosity. Mortimer Cotton will
never stop complaining that Aunt Hattie stole a ram who weighs nearly as much as she does.”

Madeline realized this now, now that she’d all but stuck her neck in a noose.

“You are tired,” Jack said. “Today has been trying, and I understand our elders are hatching plots likely born of too much elderberry
cordial, and not enough concern for you. I’ll find that damned bag, and this will all blow over.”

Somebody should find the damned bag soon, if Madeline’s scheme went as planned, but that somebody would not be Jack.

“I am tired,” Madeline said, stopping outside her bedroom. “I am exhausted, in fact.” Tired of hoping, tired of serving, tired of
wishing, tired of coping. A crime spree had created more problems than it had solved, and soon, Madeline would have to deal with those problems too.

“I missed you today,” Jack said. “You have a knack for seeing what needs to be done, for honest appraisal of difficult situations. I
don’t suppose you’d like a go at the magistrate’s position?”

His jest was a sad commentary on the limitations Madeline was sick of dealing with. She was poor, a woman, attractive, and intelligent—all of which
were burdens rather than blessings.

“I do not want a go at the magistrate’s position,” she said, kissing Jack on the mouth. “I want a go at the magistrate. Another go,
in a damned bed, uninterrupted by footsteps in the corridor, or a well-meaning butler. I want pillows, lavender-scented sheets, and privacy.”

She wanted so much more than that, but Jack would be furious with her when she told him the truth. There was a limit to the memories Madeline would steal
for herself.

Jack kissed her back, a sweet, lingering, answering sigh of a kiss. “You need your rest.”

“I need you.”

Madeline needed one night with him, for herself. He’d already been intimate with her, another encounter wouldn’t make that much difference when
the truth came out. But the bleak prospects awaiting her in the morning wanted some ballast, some joy to make the suffering endurable.

“I need you too,” Jack said, taking her by the hand. “I do not need for your reputation to be compromised, and my quarters have greater
privacy.”

“I’ll just get my nightgown and robe,” Madeline said, hand on the door latch.

“Madeline, you won’t need either of those for what I have in mind.”

She would miss him terribly—starting tomorrow. “Take me to bed, and we’ll just see about what I need.”

Jack ought not to be having intimate relations with a decent woman to whom he was not engaged, but then, Madeline ought not to have refused his addresses.

He’d spent the afternoon interviewing various members of the lending library subscription list, all of whom confirmed Pahdi’s presence in the
village the night of the darts tournament—which added nothing to Jack’s store of facts. Nobody had walked with Pahdi to the edge of town.
Nobody had anything more to add to Jack’s potential defense of his butler.

He’d also stopped by Hattie Hennessey’s cottage, endured a single cup of weak tea, and heard many effusions regarding Theodosia’s
impending remove to London, and the possibility that Hattie would take over as housekeeper at Candlewick.

Hattie had spent the evening of the darts tournament weaving at home, just as she’d spent the majority of her winter evenings—or so she’d
claimed.

“My day was mostly wasted,” Jack said, as he ushered Madeline into his bedroom. “I gather you were a paragon of productivity?”

As much as he wanted her naked in his bed, he wanted even more to smooth the rough edges from his day with the sort of talk known only to couples. He
wanted to learn what Madeline had done with her time, and what had put the sadness in her eyes.

“I was… I was useless,” Madeline said, closing the door. “Theodosia and your mother have concocted a mad scheme to hare off to
London, and Aunt Hattie has apparently decided she must become Candlewick’s housekeeper, provided I’ll put in a word for her. She has no idea
what the job entails, and hasn’t managed a household for years, but she’s… she’s desperate.”

Jack took Madeline in his arms, famished for the feel of her. “And because you can’t tell your elders what to do, you exhausted yourself
counting pillowcases.” Jack didn’t mention that Candlewick would do far better with Madeline as its chatelaine.

Perish the notion of her returning to Belmont’s household on any terms.

“I was not invited to the whist party,” Madeline said. “Not the one after lunch, or the one after dinner, but that’s just as well.
Most of the afternoon was taken up deciding how to arrange the linens when the chambermaids cannot agree—”

She sighed and cuddled closer. “I worry about you, Sir Jack, charging around on bad roads, out until all hours in an attempt to solve petty
crimes.”

Madeline bore the fragrance of lavender, on her clothes, in her hair, on her skin.

“I can’t help but feel that regarding our latest rash of mischief, I’m missing something obvious, a pattern that goes beyond the annoying
nature of the offenses. The king’s man ought not to be foiled by pranksters and miscreants.”

Madeline drew away and took a seat at Jack’s vanity. “If Pahdi is charged with stealing Higgans’s bag, that’s quite serious.”

She pulled pins loose, stacking them in a neat pile on her right. A long coppery braid came free, the tip reaching below her waist. The sight was so…
domestic, so free of seduction and artifice, that Jack was temporarily at a loss for words. 

He shrugged out of his coat, hung it in the wardrobe, and unfastened his cufflinks.

“The law does not convict a man based on half-inebriated accusations,” Jack said, sitting on the bed to pull off his boots. “Or it
shouldn’t. That’s all Higgans has to offer—accusations.”

Madeline unraveled her braid until her hair was a loose riot of curls down her back. “You know better. Pahdi can be charged on the strength of
anybody’s accusations, and if you’re not willing to do that, Higgans will create a fuss, and demand you recuse yourself from the matter. Mr.
Belmont would step in, however reluctantly. Once charges are laid, anything can happen, including a conviction and sentencing.”

“Your father was taken up for debt. Your view of the king’s justice is understandably grim.”

“Realistic,” Madeline said, examining Jack’s hairbrush, which was backed with gold and nacre. “My aunt’s plan to elope to
London is not realistic.”