Jack (The Jaded Gentlemen Book 4) (8 page)

“I did, sir. Shall we move on? I’ve seen your mother’s chambers, and if she doesn’t appreciate the appointments, she’s a
fool.”

“Tell her that, why don’t you? I enjoy seeing Mama at a loss for words, though the experience is ever fleeting. The rest of the guest rooms are
similarly commodious. My own apartment is around the corner and down the corridor.”

He started for the door, and Madeline followed, because they still had most of the house to inspect. Sir Jack stopped short before leaving the parlor, so
she nearly ran into him.

“It’s not right,” he said. “Not right that your first year away from home was hellish.”

He’d left the drapes open in his mother’s sitting room, which admitted light, true, though it also made the room colder. Madeline unlatched the
door and preceded him into the corridor without closing the drapes.

“It was only a year, and I survived, and now I’d like to see your apartment.” He’d survived too, though like Madeline, he’d
doubtless been changed by his experience in captivity.

“You’d like to see my apartment? I assure you that will not be necessary. Pahdi himself looks after my rooms, and his efforts are more than
adequate to ensure my comfort.”

Madeline marched along, because she knew where Sir Jack’s rooms were, and knew that neither maid nor footman, nor even Mrs. Abernathy, set foot
therein.

“Will you manage to keep your mother out of your rooms, Sir Jack?”

“If Mama dares to intrude upon my privacy, I’ll…”

“Yes?”

“One can’t court-martial one’s mother.”

“Nor can one send her packing back to London when the lane is filling up with snow.”

They came to a halt where the corridors intersected.

“Mama means well,” Sir Jack said. “But I cannot abide the notion she might barge into the one part of the house that I consider my
own.”

Barging about uninvited was the singular province of older female relations. “Consider what the staff must think about only Pahdi seeing your
chambers.”

“That I like my privacy and treasure my solitude?”

“That you either have an unnatural relationship with your butler, or you’re keeping lurid secrets.” Madeline suspected neither to be
true.

“Unnatural—
unnatural
relationship? Lurid secrets? Miss Hennessey, you have a prodigious imagination. If I laid a hand on Pahdi with
any prurient intent whatsoever, James would slay me where I stood.”

James was the deaf footman. “James—?”

Sir Jack examined his reflection in a gilt-framed mirror and ran his hand through his hair.  “James. And Pahdi. They are fast friends, and
that’s all anybody—or I—need know.”

He studied Madeline, not directly, but in the mirror. This was another test, but far be it from Madeline to criticize people for their friendships. Life,
especially life in service, was a challenging proposition.

“Let’s have a look at the other guest rooms,” she said.

“You will not collude with Mama in her attempts to inspect my private chambers?”

“Have Pahdi install a lock on the door, sir, and be sure that he and you are the only people to have keys. Mrs. Abernathy will not dare confront you
on such a personal matter. If she does, you will have grounds for turning her off.”

“A lock. First, a dog, now a lock. Miss Hennessey, you are a marvel of common sense. Belmont is doubtless ruing the day he allowed you to stray from
his household.”

Sir Jack strode on down the corridor, leaving Madeline to puzzle out why she felt like smiling. He’d complimented her—sincerely and honestly,
more than once—and he also apparently intended to heed her suggestions.

To be respected, listened to, and appreciated was…. lovely. That Sir Jack would not begrudge his staff their friendships was lovely too, and yet,
Madeline’s smile faded.

In this entire house, Sir Jack considered only a few rooms his own, and he dreaded the arrival of his closest family members, suggesting that he was…
lonely.

And loneliness could be a form of captivity, as cold, cramped, and miserable as any prison cell.

“This wretched weather is your fault, Jeremy Fanning. But for your dithering about in London, we’d be safe at Teak House now.”

Jeremy Fanning considered himself a man of peace, the Fannings having followed the usual arrangement among the better families. When one son went for a
soldier, another went for the Church, as if the celestial scales balanced on a simple nose count. One son marched to battle, another marched up the church
aisle each Sunday. All very tidy, though it didn’t leave brothers with much to discuss on the rare occasion when their paths crossed.

“I do apologize, Mama.” For the fortieth time. “The whims of the bishop are beyond my control. At least the snow is pretty, and
we’re safe and snug at wonderfully commodious lodgings.”

The snow had started the previous afternoon, great torrents of white whipped along by stinging wind that created drifts such as could send a coach sliding
into a ditch all too easily.

Sometimes prayers were answered, though in Jeremy’s experience, the Almighty’s sense of humor was not to be trusted.

“You call this commodious?” Mama harrumphed. “I’ve seen broom closets larger than this parlor.”

Florentia Fanning had last seen a broom closet when she’d hid in one as a child, if then.

“The innkeeper has been generous with the coal and the tea tray, and for that we should be grateful,” Jeremy replied, letting the window
curtain fall back into place. The innkeeper had been so generous with the coal that the parlor was beyond cozy and approaching stifling, hence
Jeremy’s post by the window.

Mama excelled at the rotating complaint. She’d chided the innkeeper for his drafty parlor, and now she’d chide him for a lack of ventilation.
When that volley of criticisms palled, she’d call an objectionable odor to his attention, or a draft. The tea would be too weak or too strong, the
sheets too cold or over-warmed.

Mama was creative and tireless in her efforts to point out the shortcomings of her situation. Though she lacked a title, she’d married an
earl’s younger son, and Papa had left her well-fixed. She thus commanded significant social consequence, and had become like that crotchety wealthy
uncle nobody dared snub.

“What is that creature doing in here?” she asked, as a marmalade tabby emerged from behind the sofa. “If this parlor is plagued with
mice, I’ll not pay for our lodging.”

Jack had sent Jeremy ample coin to ensure Mama’s journey up from Town was conducted with all the comfort of a royal progress.

“I’d say that cat is showing great good sense,” Jeremy replied. “He prefers our company to that available in the stables.”

The cat was a healthy specimen, and the generous dimensions of its head suggested it was a tom. The beast leaped up onto the sofa and sniffed at
Mama’s sleeve.

“Presuming wretch,” Mama said, stroking a hand over the cat’s back. “You’ll shed all over the furniture. Put him out,
Jeremy.”

“He’s not my cat to put in or put out, Mama. Would you really see a helpless creature tossed into the snow?”

The cat stepped into Mama’s lap, circled once, and curled down onto her skirts. Helpless, indeed.

“Why is it doing this?” She scowled at the cat, even as she scratched its cheek. “Cat, you are in sore want of manners.”

The cat yawned, then set its chin on its paws. Manners, it might lack; confidence, it did not.

“He knows a kind soul when he sees one,” Jeremy said, and this was—oddly—not pure flattery. When Mama could pry her attention from
her own situation, she generally meant well. Her entertainments saw likely couples paired for the first time on the dance floor. If a young lady was
gaining a reputation for unkind gossip, Mama would put the woman in her place before anybody was ruined, including the young lady herself.

Only with family was Mama so relentlessly critical.

“The cat simply favors a roaring fire. Make it stop snowing, Jeremy. You’re a parson, and one expects you to have influence with the heavenly
authorities.”

“One doesn’t have influence with the heavenly authorities, Mama. You know better.”

The cat had commenced purring loudly enough to be heard across the room.

“You will never become a bishop if you don’t learn to hurl your brimstone a bit more convincingly, my boy. One wants conviction about
one’s scolds. You are the henchman of the Deity himself, after all. Do you suppose this beast has a name?”

“I’ll ask the innkeeper the next time I see him. Shall I fetch you a book, Mama?” For clearly, Mama was going nowhere in the immediate
future. She had a fresh tea tray, a cozy parlor more or less to herself, and an adoring familiar in her lap.

“I suppose a book will do. Knitting with this dratted feline in the room is out of the question. He’ll pounce on my yarn and destroy weeks of
work.”

The cat would have to wake up to pounce. “A book, then, and if you like I’ll read to you.”

“Some Wordsworth. He’s insipid enough to put a saint to sleep, regardless of the frustrations she might face.”

Jeremy opened the parlor door and nearly ran into Miss Lucy Anne DeWitt.

“Reverend! Oh, I do beg your pardon. I was coming to check on Mrs. Fanning.”

Brave of her, but Lucy Anne was the cheerful, practical sort who knew what was afoot without having it spelled out for her.

And she was endlessly pretty in a blond, blue-eyed, smiling sort of way.

“I was about to fetch Mama her Wordsworth. If you’d like to join us, I can read to you ladies.”

Lucy Anne beamed at him. In two days of sitting across from her in the traveling coach, Jeremy should have grown inured to that smile, but it was so warm
and genuine that verbs like
bask
and
wallow
came to mind.

“I’d love that above all things,” Lucy Anne said, moving past him into the parlor. “And oh, look! A kitty! I adore a handsome
feline, almost as much as I adore a bite of shortbread on a chilly afternoon.”

“Jeremy, for pity’s sake, close the door,” Mama snapped. “You’ll let out all the warm air, and tempt the cat to chance the
elements.”

Jeremy slipped through the door and left the ladies—and the cat—to the parlor’s warmth. He collected Wordsworth from his mother’s
apartment, the finest the inn had to offer, and took a minute to enjoy the solitude of his own chamber.

Lucy Anne had the knack of charming Mama, and very likely of charming everybody. Mama had spent most of the Season culling the crop of marriageable young
ladies, and Lucy Anne had apparently been her choice for the honor of charming—and marrying—Sir Jack Fanning.

Jeremy took himself down the steps, pausing in a shaft of sharp winter sunlight on the landing.

In the time he’d taken to retrieve some poetry, the weather had shifted, from the storm’s last squall to relentless sunshine on a painfully
brilliant white landscape. Mama would have the team in the traces at first light tomorrow, and Jack’s fate would be sealed.

Jeremy sent up a prayer for his brother—who’d had enough captivity to last a lifetime—and prepared to be scolded for how quickly or
slowly he read, which selections he passed over, and which ones he chose to read for the ladies.

At least Lucy Anne provided Mama with agreeable companionship. Despite many prayers for patience and fortitude, Jeremy would have pitched Mama into the
snow by now, but for the good humor Lucy Anne conveyed with her smiles.

Miss Madeline Hennessey had a gift for deception.

Jack had been prepared to enjoy his last proper dinner before Mama turned every menu to consommé, beefsteak, and potatoes, when Miss Hennessey had
brought up the topic of holiday decorations. Christmas Day having passed, nothing would do but a supply of greenery and mistletoe must be laid in before
Mama’s arrival. Per custom, however belatedly observed, the entrance hall and front door were to be swathed in pine boughs, lest Mama think Jack had
spent his holidays without benefit of pine needles all over his carpets.

“I hope you’re satisfied,” Jack said, stomping snow from his boots. “I am frozen from my toes to my ears, Pahdi will not speak to
me for a week, and the footmen are all too chilled to hang the blasted stuff they spent most of the morning collecting.”

“Order the footmen a round of toddies,” Miss Hennessey shot back. “We’re preparing for the arrival visitors, not a forced march to
Moscow. A bit of good cheer, and the footmen will be fetching ladders and ambushing the maids.”

She unwound a scarf from Jack’s neck and shook the length of gray lamb’s-wool, showering the foyer with snow and damp.

“You appear all docile and biddable,” Jack said, unbuttoning his greatcoat. “But then you set an objective, and heaven help the sensible
fellow who suggests your course requires further thought. You might have warned me you’re as stubborn as a mud-stuck mule.”

Miss Hennessey whisked off Jack’s hat and set it on the sideboard. “Your mother is
on her way
, Sir Jack. If you do not make her feel
welcome, you will suffer for your lack of consideration the entire winter. While you might deserve such a fate, your staff does not.” 

Here was another bit of dissembling. Miss Hennessey appeared to be a domestic servant who’d done well in the household of generous and open-minded
employers. She was, in fact, quite shrewd, having a grasp of strategy many a general would envy.

“My staff is complicit in your foolishness, and when they all come down with an ague, I will blame you.”

The sideboard sported a pile of mistletoe, and on the steps outside, the footmen had left an abundance of greenery to make into swags. The air in the foyer
was fresher as a result, and the outing had put color in Miss Hennessey’s cheeks.

“When your footmen come down with an ague, I will show Cook how to make a tisane that will bring them right in a day or two. Where shall we hang this
mistletoe?”

Sir Jack undid the frogs of Miss Hennessey’s cloak, lest she forget she even wore one in her haste to direct the next phase of this holiday invasion.