Jack (The Jaded Gentlemen Book 4) (6 page)

“How would a scullery maid learn French? Unless in a former post, her employers spoke it at home?”

“I don’t know. I caught her dusting a Latin grammar one day too, and her expression was rapt and… homesick, is the only way I can
describe it.”

Abigail rose and took the baby from her husband. “Where we come from matters not half so much as who we are today and where we’d like to go.
I’d like to go down to dinner with my husband.” In truth, Abigail would rather have gone straight to bed, but the body needed sustenance.

They hadn’t yet resumed relations after the birth of the baby, and the lack made Abigail desperate for her husband’s affection. This was his
third child. He knew the parental terrain and had a confidence about his parenting Abigail lacked.

Axel accompanied Abigail to the next room, where a nursery maid dozed in a rocker by the fire.

“Evening, ma’am, sir,” the maid said, pushing to her feet. She glanced at the ormolu clock on the mantel, for Madeline had established
the notion that the nursery should, within reason, run on a schedule. “The baby’s asleep?”

“For now,” Abigail said, passing the child into the nursemaid’s arms. “I’ll stop back before retiring.”

Axel held the door and took Abigail’s hand when they’d gained the corridor. “You’d never let the child out of your sight if you had
your way.”

For two weeks after giving birth, Abigail hadn’t let the baby out of her sight, and Axel had barely let Abigail out of his.

“Neither would you,” Abigail said, kissing her husband’s cheek. “But you tell me that fifteen years from now, I’ll be glad to
send the boy off to Oxford—glad. I can’t imagine that.”

Nor could Abigail grasp what it must be like for a woman to come of age in service, doing hard physical work every day and having no dream of a home and
family of her own.

“Cease fretting,” Axel said, as they descended the stairs. “I’ll go visiting on Thursday.”

“Thursday will suit.”

“Thursday it is. Madeline will have either slain the gallant knight by then, or become smitten. I’m thinking she’ll start with putting
out his lights.”

 “You waited dinner for me,” Sir Jack said.

He ought to be Sir John, but the less formal name suited his energy and lack of pretensions. He was as dignified as a man of his means should be, but he
wasn’t… he wasn’t a prig. Madeline had been curiously relieved to learn that his staff doted on him, and was fiercely loyal too.

She’d also been relieved that Mrs. Fanning had sent her luggage on ahead—a warning shot fired across the bow of the Teak House domestic
frigate. When the lady herself would arrive was anybody’s guess.

“The kitchen waited dinner on you,” Madeline said, keeping to her place at the table. “A curry is easy to keep hot. How did you leave Mr.
McArdle?”

“Ready to accept ownership of a dog,” Sir Jack replied, peering at the offerings on the sideboard. “Was it also the staff’s
decision that you should sit at my right hand, rather than four yards away?”

Madeline had moved her place setting after the footman had withdrawn. “This end of the room is warmer, owing to the fireplace behind you.”

“I watched my parents dine at a distance from each other for years. Struck me as lonely, when they spent other years separated by oceans and
continents. Shall I serve for you?”

The habit of the household was to put the serving dishes on the sideboard, so Sir Jack could take as much or as little as he pleased, buffet style. This
approach was unusual and informal, but the food was kept hot in chafing dishes, and nobody was made to stand about in livery waiting on a man detained by
missing coal or a loose ram.

“I can serve myself,” Madeline said, getting to her feet. “Do you often enjoy foreign cuisine?”

Sir Jack lifted the lid of a chafing dish, and the fragrance of spices too numerous to name filled the dining room.

“Ladies first.”

“What is it? I don’t want to be rude, but neither do I want food to go to waste because my eyes were more adventurous than my belly.” And
heaven knew, spicy food was not an English cook’s first choice.

“Chicken, mostly, with lentils, potatoes, and a sauce involving turmeric, curry, saffron… If you don’t care for it, you needn’t eat
it. The curry is usually eaten over the rice.”

He stood holding the silver lid, steam rising from the food, his gaze watchful. This was the fare he’d chosen for himself, his preference, when
spices were expensive and an undercooked beefsteak the staple offering at every gentleman’s club worth the name.

Madeline spooned a generous portion onto her plate. “One is consigned to bland fare below stairs. The monotony alone jeopardizes the appetite.”

She held the lid for Sir Jack and let him put a pastry-pocket sort of thing he called a samosa on her plate. He took three, along with a heap of the curry
and two round, flat servings of a bread that smelled of garlicky, buttery heaven.

“Perhaps I’ll try the bread too,” Madeline said.

Sir Jack obliged, adding to the feast on her plate. “Naan, is the term for the bread. When one lacks utensils, the bread can serve as a
platter.”

“And yet we use silver tongs to move it from the basket to the plate.”

When they returned to the table, Sir Jack held Madeline’s chair for her. Nobody had held her chair since her fourteenth birthday, unless it was some
footman trying to peer down her bodice in the servants’ hall. The courtesy was disconcerting, but like the exotic food, not unwelcome.

“Do we say grace?” Madeline asked.

Sir Jack took his seat and flourished his serviette across his lap. Madeline did likewise, wondering if he’d intended to prompt her into recalling
her manners.

“We are good old Church of England in this household, and damned glad to have hot food on such a chilly, blustery night. We say grace. For what we
are about to receive, we thank Thee. Amen. Will that do?”

“You might have embellished a bit,” Madeline said, as Sir Jack poured her a glass of wine. “Mr. Belmont uses grace as a means of
lecturing his offspring, expressing his gratitude that their various peccadilloes and blunders haven’t cost him his sons, and so forth. Are you
waiting for something?”

“Try the wine. If it’s not suitable, we’ll send it back.”

A dim memory stirred, of Madeline’s papa observing the same ritual with the first footman. Madeline took a cautious sip, fruity fragrance blending
with a slight sweetness on her tongue.

“That is… To be honest, I wouldn’t know if it was good or poor, but I find this wine very appealing.”

Sir Jack filled both of their glasses. “I’m not much of a wine connoisseur, but Pahdi tries hard to run my household as if a gentleman bides
here. The wine is likely quite good. Mama will inform us when it’s not, and delight in doing so.”

The mountain of baggage that had arrived in anticipation of his mama’s visit suggested she’d be gracing Sir Jack’s household for several
years at least.

“Then ask her to take over the ordering of the wine,” Madeline said, picking up her fork. “You rely on her good sense and experience, and
thank her for putting the wine cellar to rights. One hesitates to point out the obvious, but you
are
a gentleman.” He’d accounted
himself such when it came to contractual matters, why wouldn’t he be one in other regards?

“I like a good, light ale,” he said. “Gentlemen don’t admit as much. Mama would be scandalized. Does the curry agree with
you?”

“The curry is delectable.”

“Not too spicy?”

The meal was a test. Between one bite of exotic fare and the next, Madeline realized that her host—her employer—was monitoring her reactions,
opinions, and decisions as if she were taking an oral examination.

“Not too spicy,” she said. “Too much heat, and the flavors fade. This is perfection.”

Sir Jack tucked into his food, nothing diffident or languid about his appetite. “Did you get Mama’s worldly goods situated?”

“I started the maids and footmen on that task, and if madam says we did it all wrong, we’ll wink and smile at each other, and put every last
slipper and fan exactly where she wants it to be. You have a good staff, Sir Jack. They care for you, and for their work.”

One of the footmen was deaf, but what he lacked in hearing, he made up for in willingness to work hard, and in a quick ability to perceive what was needed.

“While Mr. McArdle cares only for his coal,” Sir Jack said, pausing for a sip of wine. “Was McArdle’s family poor a generation or
three ago, that he’s so focused on his precious coin?”

“That far back, I wouldn’t know. I came to this area only when I went into service. McArdle has likely been the victim of much theft prior to
this. He simply didn’t realize it. He has a large family and ought to take better care of the business that keeps them all fed.”

Sir Jack’s fork halted mid-air, a bit of samosa steaming before him. “He hadn’t even a lock on the gate in the fence surrounding his
yard. If my children were freezing, I’d have been tempted to help myself to a few sacks of coal.”

“Have you children?” Many wealthy bachelors did, and most acknowledged their offspring, if not the relationships from which they sprang.

“I do not. Do you?”

She’d asked for that. “No, sir.”

Though what did Sir Jack do for female companionship? He was attractive, well-to-do, and healthy. As he consumed his supper with the systematic focus of a
fit, hungry man, Madeline assessed him for the first time from the perspective of a woman who lacked for male companionship.

He’d know what he was about
in bed
. He might not be the most romantic fellow, but he’d hold up his end of the bargain, so to speak.

“Eat your dinner, Miss Hennessey. I’ve been known to raid the larder late at night and help myself to cold fare, but curry is best consumed
hot.”

Madeline complied, because she was hungry, because the food was lovely, and because capitulating on small matters meant more latitude on large ones.

“I’ve seen your senior servants at Sunday services,” Madeline said. “How does that work?”

Sir Jack crossed his knife and fork over his plate, and tore off a bite of naan with his fingers.

“I call for the coach to be readied, the servants don their Sunday best, and off they go. I prefer to take the dog cart, myself, or the
vis-à-vis. You and Mama will join me, if the weather is fine. If not, we can take a coach.”

Madeline’s imagination boggled at the idea that a single man might own five different conveyances—or more. A sleigh, a fine coach, an older
version for the servants or transporting goods, a dog cart, a vis-à-vis… Sir Jack probably had a traveling coach as well, and a phaeton for
trips down to London.

“I meant, your butler was very likely not born on English soil. What of his native religion? I don’t mean to be rude, but I wouldn’t want
to offend him. The butler is the head of the household staff, and if I put a foot wrong with him, it can’t be fixed.”

The butler was a good-looking fellow too, in a dark-eyed, slender way.

“Pahdi is a tolerant, kind-hearted sort. He joined the Church prior to leaving India. I do not regard his spiritual well-being as my business, though
maintaining at least the appearance of Anglican sensibilities makes the life of a native of India easier here in England. Might I have the butter?”

Madeline passed the butter, which was molded into pats in the shape of fleur-de-lis. “I asked him for a tour of the house today, and he said you were
better situated to oblige me.”

Sir Jack applied a good quantity of butter to his warm bread. “And you could not tell, because Pahdi is the soul of deference, whether he was being
stubborn or modest. Pahdi delights in being cordially unreadable. I’ll show you around tomorrow. You’d be well advised to send a note to
Candlewick assuring the Belmonts of your safe arrival.”

“I’m but a few miles away.”

Sir Jack patted her hand. “When others care about us, they assume the privilege of worrying about us. You either send the Belmonts a note, or your
former employer will be here before sundown bearing a pair of gloves you left behind, recipes, or some other polite excuse to assure himself I
haven’t ravished you.”

The wine was quite good, and Madeline might have drunk hers a bit too fast. “Perhaps he’ll make sure I haven’t ravished you, sir.”

Sir Jack passed her the butter. “You’re welcome to try. Mama would likely wish you the joy of such a thankless undertaking. I believe
I’ll have another samosa.”

“How did Miss Hennessey occupy herself in my absence?” Jack asked.

Pahdi turned down the lamps on the library’s back wall before answering. Jack’s butler was a great believer in routine, order, and making his
employer wait for useful information.

“Miss Hennessey unpacked your mother’s trunks so that all will be in readiness when that good lady graces us with her presence. Miss Hennessey
also unpacked her own trunk, inspected the rooms we’ve prepared for your esteemed mother, declined a tea tray, and requested that we wait supper
until your horse was seen coming up the drive. She also asked me for a list of which servants are assigned to which tasks—the better to learn their
names, she said—and for a tour of the premises.”

“Provide her the list, and while you’re at it, please make a copy for me. Why didn’t you show her around the house?”

And why had Jack made that asinine comment about
ravishing
her, then all but invited her to try ravishing him? She’d think him a barbarian,
and she wouldn’t be far wrong.

Pahdi had perfected smiling inscrutably long before he’d reached his majority, but Jack had learned to read the subtler signs—tension in the
shoulders, silences that went on a moment too long, lashes lowered to shield thoughts.

Miss Hennessey’s arrival had disquieted Pahdi.

“The house belongs to you,” Pahdi said. “You should decide what parts of it she sees, what parts she doesn’t. She asked for fresh
flowers in your mother’s quarters. We have the heartsease and the chrysanthemums.”