Jack (The Jaded Gentlemen Book 4) (34 page)

“Miss DeWitt has excellent taste, but now you know a bit how I felt, with all that hero nonsense, when mostly I’d managed not to bungle too
badly.”

“That can’t be easy,” Jeremy said. “Makes a fellow feel like he ought to be a hero even if he hasn’t any notion how to go on.
Difficult business, being a hero without a map.”

Jeremy sounded only partly bewildered. The other part of him was smilingly devilishly at nothing in particular.  And yet, he’d described
Jack’s situation exactly. Being a hero without a map was no damned fun.

“Be Miss DeWitt’s hero, and the rest will sort itself out.”

That was apparently the right thing to say, because Jeremy’s smile became luminous. “She’ll be my heroine, and then we’ll have some
little heroes and heroines, and you can spoil the lot of them rotten. We’ll descend on you at the holidays and in summertime, and Mama will be the
envy of her friends.”

“Don’t get started on the little heroes and heroines too soon. Unless you’re thinking of a special license?”

Reverend Jeremy’s ears turned a non-ecclesiastical shade of red. “My Lucy Anne can be quite… irresistible.”

“So can my Madeline.”

Jack had lost sleep about that, about taking risks with Madeline that might result in a child when he’d yet to put his ring on her finger.

“One suspected,” Jeremy said, going to the window. “Miss Hennessey looks at you the way Mama used to look out at the sea when we summered
in Brighton and you were in India.”

“I’ve never thanked you for that,” Jack said, joining his brother at the window. The weather had finally moderated, which meant the lanes
were mud, the eaves dripping, and at night, everything would turn back to ice.

“Thanked me?”

“You could have bought a commission, followed me to India. Mama would not have stopped you. You stayed behind and guarded her from melancholia and
bitterness. I have you to thank for the fact that my mother didn’t disown me for getting captured.”

 “She wanted to sail after you when we heard you were presumed dead. She was ready to conquer the Bengal tribes single-handedly. My Lucy Anne
will be the same sort of mama.”

So will my Madeline.
Though the first order of business was to find Higgans’s damned bag.

“For not letting Mama take ship, you have my undying gratitude.” Jack extended a hand to his brother. “Congratulations on your impending
nuptials.”

“I will marry her, Jack. If I have to elope to Scotland and become a Presbyterian. I gather it’s the same with you and Miss Hennessey?”

Every man should have a kind, tolerant, brother who was this easy to talk to. “Madeline defies all of my preconceived notions about the institution
of matrimony and its various attendant glories—let’s leave it at that. Before she and I can make any announcement, I must find Higgans’s
damned medical bag.”

Jeremy took Jack’s chair behind the desk. “What has some forgetful sot of a doctor’s bag to do with holy matrimony or its…
attendant glories?” Jeremy rendered the term as if trying it on for later use in a sermon.

Jack had come home from India for several reasons, not the least of which was that exoticism had grown wearisome, adventure had paled, and loneliness had
become his dominant experience of life. He’d missed Saras. He’d missed a land at peace that made sense to him. He’d missed seasons that
offered a variety of weather instead of an annual rotation of deadly fevers.

He’d missed home. Jeremy was his brother, though only now did Jack feel as if he was being a brother to Jeremy in return.

“The situation with Higgans is complicated,” Jack said, “and if you have the time to listen, I will offer you a recitation that falls
under the confidential privilege of clergy.”

In other words, Jeremy would not even under oath, disclose what Jack was about to tell him.

“You’ve been naughty,” Jeremy said. “One rejoices to learn a hero can be naughty like the rest of us. I will listen with the
privilege of a brother, help any way I can, and keep my handsome mouth shut about the whole of it. What have you done?”

Jack started with borrowing the ram without permission—his sin to confess, if a sin it was—and progressed to how his misdeed had inspired
Madeline, but that her misbehavior had now implicated Pahdi, at least in Higgans’s mind.

To talk through the sequence of events helped organize the problem in Jack’s mind, but it didn’t suggest any more possible locations where he
might look for the damned bag.

“You could send Pahdi to London to see the sights,” Jeremy suggested. “Or back to India.”

“Which would confirm his guilt, and that’s not right. The bag has to be somewhere.”

“Have you dug through the livery’s muck pit? Somebody might have simply heaped the cart full and emptied it without paying attention.”

Awful—odoriferous thought. “I asked the livery to delivery me two loads of fresh manure, and… nothing. If the bag was in their muck pit,
I’d have found it by now.”

“Higgans won’t let it go?”

“I blundered, Jere. I insulted Higgans in public, and his reaction is to shame me and my household by accusing Pahdi. He won’t let it
go.”

“And you don’t want to step aside as magistrate because the king’s justice is a chancy proposition on a good day, and our Pahdi’s
wellbeing cannot be entrusted to chance. What if we distract people with a wedding?”

Our Pahdi
. Jack would have loved his brother for those two words, if there wasn’t already ample reason.

“You’d need a special license.” And a fast horse for the ride to Town.

“As it happens, I have business in London with Miss DeWitt’s papa, and a special license wouldn’t be any extra trouble.”

Jeremy was politely quivering to leave.

“Take the coach in case you have to bring Miss DeWitt’s parents back with you. And Jere, about the special license?”

“I have the five pounds. Don’t be insulting. I can afford my own special license.”

“I’ve no doubt of that.” Jack pulled a five-pound note from his desk drawer. “But as long as you’re making the trip to get
one license, how about if you get two?”

The groom looked… at peace, for the first time in Axel Belmont’s long acquaintance with him. Sir Jack’s mama was positively glowing with
joy, and the bride’s radiance beggared description.

Axel stood with Madeline at the door to the Candlewick library, wondering what a fellow ought to say when he’d blundered so badly—not that
Madeline would hear, see, or bother with anybody save her betrothed.

“Madeline, I’m sorry.”

She turned a bemused stare on him. “You’re daft.”

She’d asked to be married here at Candlewick so the staff with whom she’d worked for years could attend en masse. The footmen arranged chairs
for the elders, Mrs. Turnbull presided from the seat nearest the hearth, and Reverend Jeremy gently countermanded half of Mrs. Turnbull’s directions.

Abigail stood with Sir Jack near the piano, while Sir Jack held the baby.

And looked damned competent about it, for a man who had no offspring of his own—yet.

“I am sorry,” Axel said, “because clearly you were a lady fallen on hard times, and I failed as a gentleman to grasp the situation, much
less put it to rights.”

She hadn’t even been a lady fallen on hard times, she’d been a girl.

“Do you recall the pink roses?” Madeline asked.

Axel had myriad pink roses, but he knew exactly the ones she meant. “I tossed them out as having died en route from Persia, and three months later,
my compost heap was abloom with the most magnificent specimens.”

Her gaze remained on Sir Jack, “My guess is, they did better in your compost heap than they’d done in Persia. They are among your most vigorous
bloomers and their scent is heavenly.”

 Axel lectured frequently at Oxford on botanical topics, and he knew a parable when one was handed to him.

“When I stopped watering, pruning, fussing, and fretting over those roses, and simply tossed them to the elements, they thrived. You are not a
Persian rose, Madeline. I should have noticed the French, the fascination with the library, your bearing, your poise, your ability to manage a household
without being seen to do it, the way you taught the boys manners without scolding them… I harbored a gently reared lady under my roof, and now
that—”

Madeline kissed his cheek. “I’m the bride, I’m allowed to kiss even thorny old botanists who are made nervous by weddings.”

“I’m not old.” Axel was blushing though, and Abigail was enjoying his discomfort, if her smirk was any indication. Sir Jack was busy
getting to know Axel’s youngest, and the dratted boy was smiling so magnificently, Axel’s heart ached.

“You thought you were tossing those roses to the elements, given up for dead. Instead you put them where they had warmth, nourishment, peace and
quiet, and protection from the wind. Lucky roses, to be so well provided for and given a place to set down sturdy roots. I had safety here, respect,
meaningful work, good mates, and time to sort myself out. I had and have friends. You will please stop troubling the bride on her wedding day over
nonsense.”

 Reverend Jeremy caught Axel’s eye.

“If ever Sir Jack gives you cause for complaint, Madeline, you will come to Candlewick for aid. I promise not to thrash him too awfully, but I
can’t speak for Abigail. The woman is quite fierce.”

Miss Lucy Anne DeWitt took a seat at the piano, and started on a pleasant air in a major key—Bach, simplified, perhaps.

“Likewise, you and yours will come to Teak House when you’re in need of aid, Mr. Belmont. I do have a request, though.”

Sir Jack had passed the baby back to Abigail, and was smiling at his bride with so much naked love, that Axel… was glad for his friend. For his
friends.

“Ask, Madeline. Anything I have to give, save my family, is yours.”

“You already gave me your family. I’d like one of those roses, the pink ones that thrive when you think they’re beyond hope. Jack’s
mama might like one too, and if her friends in London take a fancy to them, you will need an entire glass house to propagate more stock.”

The way Madeline smiled back at Sir Jack suggested propagation had already figured on the happy couple’s agenda.

Miss DeWitt—soon to be Mrs. Jeremy Fanning—brought her air to a close, and Axel winged his arm.

“I give you up reluctantly.”

Madeline tucked a gloved hand around his elbow. “I give myself joyously. Stop fretting.”

Axel did not fret about the bride and groom. They were so obviously besotted that spring ought to have hastened to the shire on general principles,
complete with baby bunnies and warbling robins. He did, however, worry about the grumbling he’d heard over the past few days in the Wet Weasel.

Higgans was being an ass, making vague threats, and encouraging talk. Axel had hoped to draw Jack aside at some point, and warn him before the evening
assembly, but no opportunity had presented itself.

“Mr. Belmont, move your feet.”

“Yes, Madeline.”

Axel did not flatter himself that he gave the bride away. He simply escorted Madeline to the groom’s side, and took his place beside his friend.
Reverend Jeremy officiated, Abigail sniffled, and the baby was very well behaved.

Such good luck could not possibly last, and the assembly—which Higgans was bound to attend—would begin in less than two hours.

“Your brother performs a beautiful wedding,” Madeline said, as the coach rattled down the Candlewick lane. Jack had insisted that they be
married prior to the assembly, in hopes that a wedding announcement would overshadow the mischief Dr. Higgans was bound to make.

Higgans had called twice at Teak House in the past week, demanding that Jack arrest Pahdi or produce the medical bag. Pahdi had offered to leave the shire,
even knowing flight would make him look guilty, and Jack had counseled against it.

Jack claimed that if Higgans’s word alone had the power to send an innocent man from his home, then justice was fleeing along with the accused. All
very true, but Madeline wasn’t as confident as Jack was that reason would prevail.

“You are a beautiful bride,” Jack said. “I will be the envy of every bachelor present tonight and a few of the married fellows as
well.”

“I will be the envy of every woman on the premises, except perhaps Mrs. Belmont.”

Abigail had threatened mayhem if she had to remain home with the baby while her husband and step-sons went to the assembly.

“I wasn’t sure Belmont would give you away, he was so busy glowering at me. I was informed before the ceremony that if you are not ecstatically
happy under my roof, Belmont will learn of it, and correct me by virtue of an application of his fists to my handsome countenance.”

And yet, Mr. Belmont had patted Madeline’s hand reassuringly and escorted her into the formal parlor like a doting—if somewhat
fierce—cousin.

“I thanked him for his felicitations,” Jack said. “Are you nervous, Madeline?”

In the strictest sense, Jack hadn’t married down. His family and Madeline’s had apparently been acquainted and on equal footing, albeit decades
ago. As far as the neighbors were concerned, though, Madeline had married very far above herself.

“I’m nervous,” she said. “I know Higgans will be underfoot, inciting trouble.” Was it too much to ask that her wedding day be
free from strife?  

“He can incite all the trouble he pleases. He has no more evidence against Pahdi, than he does against me, for I was also in town on the night the
blasted bag disappeared. Vicar and Mrs. Weekes were, and so was Belmont. Higgans has no suspicions where they’re concerned.”

Which added up to an admission that Jack was nervous. He had his arguments ready, if Higgans confronted him at the punchbowl. Jeremy and Lucy Anne would
arrive with the Belmonts, and Mrs. Fanning and Aunt Theo were collecting Aunt Hattie in the Fanning traveling coach.

Jack would not be without allies, and Pahdi would be back at Teak House, overseeing the celebrations below stairs in honor of the wedding.