Jack (The Jaded Gentlemen Book 4) (16 page)

“Happy Christmas!” Miss DeWitt said. “And Happy New Year!”

Miss DeWitt’s expression was quite pleased, Mama looked triumphant, while Jeremy’s gaze was… disappointed?

And Madeline Hennessey was smirking at her worn boots.

“I’ll come with you, Jack,” Jeremy announced to the table at large, and he wasn’t about to take no for an answer. “Vicars do
this. We call on each other as a courtesy when we’re traveling. You can investigate your crime, and I’ll chat up Vicar Weekes about
Proverbs.”

As the household had sat down to lunch, Miss Hennessey had suggested Jack talk to the people who’d attended the weekly Bible study, to see if any of
them had noticed unusual activity about the posting inn the previous evening. She’d also put forth the notion that most business establishments hung
bells on their doors to notify the proprietor of a customer’s arrival.  

“We can all go into the village with you,” Lucy Anne said, clapping her hands. “We’ll take the sleigh and have a merry time.”

“I’m sure Miss Hennessey will be happy to take the sleigh out,” Jack said, “if you ladies are in need of fresh air. When I’m
investigating a crime, I try to maintain my focus on the matter at hand.”

Lucy Anne’s smile faltered, then glowed anew. “We’ll make biscuits, then. I brought my mama’s recipe, and by the time you’ve
caught the scoundrels, we’ll have fresh warm biscuits waiting.”

Jeremy nearly pointed out that Lucy Anne’s estimate of the effort necessary to catch thieves was hopelessly optimistic, but he didn’t want to
make Jack look incompetent.

“Biscuits are bad for your teeth,” Mama said, stirring a second spoonful of sugar into her tea. “If Jack is determined to racket about
the countryside in the dead of winter, searching for some pig farmer’s lost gambling stakes, then all I can say is I hope his affairs are in
order.”

Such a comment would have had Jeremy on his knees before his mother, asking absolution for his every filial shortcoming. Mama’s mood all through
luncheon had been sour, but that remark came close to meanness.

“Please have patience with the publican, Mrs. Fanning.” Miss Hennessey set the cream pot by Mama’s tea cup. “Mr. Tavis’s
mother passed away two winters ago during the holiday season, and he labors under the certain knowledge that he’ll never be her equal. She had the
knack of profitable hospitality, and the Weasel hasn’t been the same without her.”   

“The trades do fret over the least coin,” Mama said. “Most unbecoming, but I suppose Jack
is
the magistrate. For now.”

“Precisely,” Jack said, rising. “I bid you ladies farewell. Jeremy, let’s be off.”

“We’ll look forward to those biscuits,” Jeremy said, snatching a last roll from the basket in the middle of the table. “Cinnamon is
my favorite.”

Jack hauled him out the door by the elbow. “Do you truly want to call on Vicar, or are you simply in need of respite from the company of the
ladies?”

“Respite?”

“From the cooing and twittering, the tittering and beaming. Drives me daft. Get into your boots, and I’ll meet you in the stable.”

“You sound like Mama,” Jeremy said, around a mouthful of roll. “She’s old, and her joints ache, and we’ve neither of us given
her babies to dandle and spoil. What’s your excuse for such a foul humor?”

Jack took the rest of the roll from Jeremy. “You think her joints ache?”

“Her knees especially. Mostly, I think her heart aches.”

Jack tore off a hunk of fresh bread, passed the rest back, and regarded Jeremy with a look that on a governess would suggest somebody had misplaced her
charge and left some other little fellow in his place. A fellow with jam stains on his shirt.

“Mama’s heart aches, as in, she’s not long for this earth, or she needs a beau?”

Jeremy had left his riding boots by the back door, and before Jack could pilfer more of a most excellent, fresh roll, he took off in that direction.

“The two are related, don’t you think? Sadness is a burden on the spirit that could easily weaken the heart. Mama worries for you. She blames
herself for letting you go out to India. She blames herself for every horror that befell you there.”

They clomped down the stairs, earning a glower from a tabby cat who hissed at them as they passed on the landing.

“Mama told you this?” Jack asked.

“She doesn’t have to spell it out. I can see how she looks at you. Don’t suppose you stole this money just so you have a reason to leave
the house?”

Jack stopped at the foot of the steps. “That is a brilliant notion. Are you sure the Church is the best use of your talents?”

“Yes. I’m not a hero like you. I’m just a nice fellow who wants everybody to be happy. You stopped wars—”

“Don’t be daft. I nearly started a war when I got myself captured, and that was nobody’s fault but mine.”

Jeremy crammed the last of the roll into his mouth. “Tell Mama that.”

Jack paused to let a serving girl go by with one of the beautiful tea trays that seemed to circulate about the house endlessly.  

“You’re serious,” Jack said, leading the way to the back door. “I’m not about to tell a gently bred older lady about the
misery that can befall an arrogant English officer in the jungles of India. The tale involves dirt, itching, vermin, vile odors, and foul language.”

“And that was before you were taken prisoner, I’ll wager. You’ve captured Miss DeWitt’s heart, if that’s any
consolation.”

On either side of the corridor, cloaks, capes, and coats hung on pegs. Boots were lined up in pairs along the wall; caps, scarves, and mittens sat on a
shelf above the outerwear. The sight put Jeremy in mind of the church vestibule in changeable weather.

An entire congregation lived and worked at this house, and this was the magnitude of the domicile Miss DeWitt should expect to call her own.

The thought was lowering to an un-Christian degree.

“My brother is barmy,” Jack said, tossing Jeremy a scarf. “Miss DeWitt has had exactly no private conversations with me, and her assault
under the mistletoe was her first overture of an affectionate nature. One doesn’t want to hurt the young lady’s feelings, but her technique
wants practice. I hope you have gloves.”

“Of course I have gloves. You’re not interested in Miss DeWitt?” For the lady’s sake, Jeremy wanted Jack to notice what a lovely,
sweet, gentle maiden was being paraded before him as a marital prospect. For Jack’s sake, Jeremy wished Mama had not been quite so presuming.

For his own sake… He wished being a nice fellow wasn’t such a dashed nuisance sometimes.

Jack swung a greatcoat over his shoulders, and even that simple, quotidian activity was executed with a sort of manly panache. The coat settled about broad
shoulders, the wool hugging a figure every lady must find worth an extra look.

“You are right that I endured horrors in India,” Jack said, tapping a hat onto his head at the perfect angle between rakish and dapper.

Debonair
was the word for that angle. Vicars were never debonair.   

“Is there a but?” Jeremy asked, stuffing his arms into the sleeves of his own coat.

“I’m coming to believe there is,” Jack said, tugging on gloves. “I got myself into a lot of trouble, and I got out of it,
eventually, with the help of those who by rights should have left me in the ditch to die.”

“Your native butler?”

“And his… family. When my own commanding officers had conveniently given up on me, rather than let my capture create awkwardness for them,
Pahdi and his relatives kept looking for me. They posted a ransom, without which, I would never have been able to bribe a guard and eventually escape. I
had adventures, Jeremy. India was for the most part an adventure, rather than a horror, and some of it was…”

Miss DeWitt had best not see the smile Jack wore just then. She’d melt into a womanly puddle of tenderheartedness, because whatever Jack was
recalling, he was recalling it with buckets of handsome wistfulness.

“We’re racing into the village,” Jeremy said. “I’m smaller, younger, lighter, and I will beat you on a good horse, even if
you are a hero and an adventurer, and everything a young lady could wish for in a husband.”

With a flick of Jack’s wrist, Jeremy’s hat came spinning through the air, straight at Jeremy’s middle. Jeremy caught it with his left
hand and jammed it onto his head.

“Beat me to the village if you must,” Jack said, opening the door and letting a blast of cold air into the house. “I’d rather you
bested my performance beneath the mistletoe the next time Miss DeWitt becomes determined to observe quaint holiday customs.”

He sauntered out into the chilly day, leaving Jeremy to debate whether Jack, the great adventurer and hero
who’d nearly caused a war
, was
teasing—or issuing a challenge.

“Mrs. Weekes claims it was sitting there when she came in to dust the altar this morning,” Vicar Weekes said. “I have no notion how it
got here, and was on my way to fetch you when you met me on the road.”

The winnings jar, nearly overflowing with coins and bills, sat on a shelf in the church vestibule. To Jack, the slotted wooden poor box perched atop the
jar looked worn and small by comparison.

“I can’t help but think somebody was offering the congregation a reproach,” he said.

“A metaphor,” Vicar murmured, regarding the arrangement as if it were a work of art.

Jeremy lifted the little wooden box and shook it. “Not much in the poor box, and this being the needy time of year.” He set the poor box back
atop the winnings. “If I were a widow or an orphan, I might find another parish to be poor in.”

Except, affiliation with a parish required residency for a certain duration, and without residency, no entitlement arose to charitable benefits. The poor
moved to better their lot—in search of a job, family connections, or an easier climate—at their peril.

“Has a crime been committed?” Vicar asked. “The winnings jar was on one side of the street earlier in the week, now it sits on the other
side.”

The jar was the size of a small keg, and doubtless weighed a fair amount. No child had effected this mischief, particularly not with a foot of snow on the
ground.

Bartholomew Tavis came through the church’s front door, a dingy white apron dangling to his knees beneath his coat.

“You found it!” His smile transformed his countenance from hard man to amiable publican. “You found the winnings and the very same day.
Well done, Sir Jack.”

Well done, somebody.

“I did nothing,” Jack said. “Vicar’s wife came upon the jar just as you see it now, with the poor box crowning the lot. Somebody
wanted to make a point.”

Tavis’s smile faltered. “I should lock up the Weasel, I know. Ma never did, but times are different now. The custom from London and the north
can’t be trusted.”

Vicar was being no help at all.

“Your mother was very much respected, wasn’t she?” Jeremy asked. “I’ve been in the area only a short time, and already
I’ve been told what a fine establishment the Weasel is.”

Thank you, baby brother.

“Ma was a saint,” Tavis said. “She never turned away a customer, never let a body go hungry. I hold the darts tournament in her
honor.”

Mrs. Tavis had raised a man prone to self-deception, if not lying. The darts tournament was in honor of the Weasel’s profitability.

“I have spent time in the East,” Jack said, walking up to the winnings jar, but not touching it. “I have seen many odd and wonderful
things that science cannot explain. I had not thought to see such goings-on in dear old England, but then, it’s a special time of year.”

Vicar cleared his throat.

“What’s odd?” Tavis asked, lumbering across the vestibule. “That’s my winnings jar, and it looks full up to the brim, same as
it was last I saw it. I’ll just be returning it to its rightful—”

“Your mother passed away over the holidays not two years ago,” Jack said, shaking the nearly empty poor box. “She was a widow, noted for
her hospitality and kindness, and now you’ve memorialized her legacy with a tournament that’s the talk of the shire. I am not convinced a thief
moved your winnings jar, Mr. Tavis.”

Vicar finally got into the spirit of the drama. “Mrs. Weekes remarked just the other day that our poor box is a disgrace. Your own mother, Tavis, was
nothing if not generous, and without her good example, I regret to say that we’re forgetting the needs of the less fortunate. They have nowhere to go
for a meal in the middle of a hard week, nowhere to warm their feet when their own coal bin is empty.”

The Weasel had served both needs, up to a point, but under Tavis’s management, the policy had become “pay to stay.”

“Everybody misses Ma,” Tavis said. “But a man has to make a living too.”

Jack said nothing. He tithed generously and probably more conscientiously than other wealthy landowners
or merchants
in the parish. That
wasn’t the point.

“You would certainly know more than I about running a tavern,” Jeremy said, “but did your mother’s approach gain custom that might
otherwise have passed the Weasel by? The ladies can be very shrewd about such things.”

“Good will has ever been part of a prudent business strategy,” Jack observed, handing Vicar the poor box.

“Charity is part of our Christian duty,” Vicar added. “I cannot believe….” He opened the little box and upended three coins
into his palm.

“That won’t exactly buy a Sunday ham,” Jeremy muttered. “Much less coal or a new pair of wool stockings.”

“I have a suggestion,” Jack said, after a suitably unhappy silence. “Tavis, if you announce an intention to donate your portion of the
winnings to the Widows and Orphans Fund, the rest of the darts teams might follow your example. The tournament would become even more of a tribute to your
late mother, and a fine testament to the Weasel’s role in the community as a beacon of kindness and generosity.”

The Weasel was best known for its indifferent winter ale. Nobody remarked as much, for Tavis appeared to be considering Jack’s suggestion.