Jack (The Jaded Gentlemen Book 4) (24 page)

“Because being my wife should be preferable for Madeline to a life of stepping and fetching, waiting on others, and doing as she’s told.”

“Should it? Should it really? The uncompensated and unending joys of matrimony, with the attendant risk of death in childbed, the surrender of all of
a woman’s possessions to her husband, the loss of a right to spend even her own wages or hire her own servants, is preferable to earning a salary and
the occasional half-day off in service?”

The questions were rhetorical and maddening as hell. “Or course marriage is preferable to service.” If the woman married a good fellow.

A very good fellow. A rarity among fellows. A damned saint with a fortune to spare.

Maybe. Childbirth killed women every day, and it was an awful death.

Pahdi cast forth a sigh that would have done God proud on the occasion of Adam and Eve dooming humanity to life outside the garden.

“I leave you to reflect on your faultless convictions,” Pahdi said, bowing, then taking up the tray.

He closed the door quietly—a trick, that, when a heavy tray had to be balanced—and Jack made himself count to ten before he snatched the
nearest pillow from the bed and hurled it against the wall.

“Excuse me, Pahdi,” Madeline said. “I’m looking for Sir Jack.”

The butler held a silver tea tray, which had to be heavy. Though he was a slight fellow, the weight didn’t seem to burden him.

“Sir Jack has sought the privacy of his chambers to review ledgers, Miss Hennessey. If you like, I can send a footman—”

“No need,” Madeline said. “I’ll find him myself.”

Pahdi’s expression never wavered. In his eyes, Madeline saw unspoken warning nonetheless.

“I know,” she said. “Nobody disturbs the brave knight when he’s polishing his sword, or whatever he gets up to of an idle
afternoon, but this is urgent.”

She patted Pahdi’s arm and marched off, though she’d managed to surprise the unflappable butler, and that was a small satisfaction.

Madeline rapped three times on Jack’s door in the exact rhythm Pahdi typically used, and she was bid enter.

“If you must flagellate me again so soon, at least have—oh, it’s you.”

Not a cheerful realization, apparently. “You were expecting somebody to beat you?”

Madeline had heard of such goings-on. The Candlewick library had a number of texts that depicted exotic sexual practices in detail. Dusting the books had
not allowed for more than the occasional, furtive peek, much to Madeline’s frustration.

“I was expecting more torment from my butler,” Jack said, picking up a cushion from the floor and tossing it onto the bed. “Come
in.”

He wore a robe, pajama pants, and nothing else. His feet were bare, and behind him was a large four-poster bed. No hangings hid the bed from view or
distracted from the soft expanse where Jack slept nightly.

The scent of the room was exotic—not the soothing sandalwood of the library, but more complex fragrances, as if incense was often burned here.
Stepping into this room was to cross a cultural threshold as well as a physical one, and to leave Madeline in the position of the foreigner.

“Perhaps your butler would be happier in India,” Madeline said.

The furnishings were unusual. The bed was carved teak. A folding screen in the corner had been painted to depict tigers amid lush foliage. A brilliant
peacock-feather fan was displayed over the clothes press, and the desk—more teak—was so low, the floor was the only possible seat from which to
work.

Perhaps
Jack
would be happier in India?

“My mother would delight to see Pahdi repatriated to his homeland,” Jack said. “I hadn’t thought you shared her prejudices.”

Madeline did not have time to fence with the man who’d occupied her waking and sleeping thoughts for three days.

“Your mother is jealous of your butler,” Madeline said. “He has more of your time and your regard than she does. I hope I am not
prejudiced where Pahdi is concerned, but I didn’t come here to discuss your mother’s loneliness.”

For Madeline to be in this room alone with Jack was scandal waiting to happen—again.

Jack unknotted his robe and opened the wardrobe, another massive teak creation. “I could ask you to step out and receive me fifteen minutes hence in
the family parlor, but that strikes me as ridiculous. What can I do for you?”

They hadn’t exactly avoided each other in the past few days, but Jack had been busy trying to track down the darts thief and the coal thief. Madeline
wasn’t sure he intended to prosecute either miscreant, and hoped she’d never find out.

“My Aunt Theodosia is ill. One of the Candlewick maids stopped in to visit her on the way to the village, and found Theo battling a lung
fever.”

“I hate lung fever,” Jack said, tossing his robe onto a hook inside the wardrobe. “I hate anything that smacks of illness and suffering.
You aren’t thinking of risking contagion by going to her yourself?”

That’s exactly what Madeline had been thinking, but when she would have replied to that effect, Jack plucked a shirt from his wardrobe.

In so doing, he turned enough that his back was visible, a part of him Madeline had never seen. She’d touched the scars writhing across his flesh.
The marks were old, pale, and far too numerous.

“You don’t want your mother to know,” Madeline said.

Jack pulled the shirt over his head. “I beg your pardon?”

“You don’t want your mother to know how close she came to losing you in India, and so you keep a distance. The distance hurts her.”

“The distance protects her too, as you must remain protected from your aunt’s illness. I’ll send a note around to Dr. Higgans. He can
have a look and let you know how your aunt fares.”

“You will do no such thing,” Madeline said, stalking up to Jack. “Higgans won’t bestir himself to see to a sick old woman until his
every other patient is in the pink of health. Theo can’t pay him, and he’ll say she’s too elderly and nothing can be done. That’s
exactly what he said when she fell ill two years ago.”

Madeline saw in Jack’s eyes that he wanted to argue—to
reason
with her, in male parlance.

“I will go to her without your blighted
permission
, Jack Fanning, and you can call it breach of contract and toss me out into the
snow.”

“Madeline, I would never—”

“But you’ll consign an old woman to suffering alone? She’ll try to feed her chickens, Jack, in this miserable cold. She’ll worry
over those damned dogs, and neglect herself, assuming she can get out of bed at all. She’ll cough herself to death because nobody could spare her a
toddy or find warm stockings for her feet. Bedamned to you if that’s your idea of Christian charity.”

Jack brandished a handkerchief, which made no sense.

“Your cheek,” he said, touching his own face. “You’ve tears…”

She snatched the handkerchief from him. “Thank you. I’ll likely miss supper, and don’t expect me back tomorrow. I’ll make my
excuses to your mother if I return, and I’m sure the Belmonts will retrieve my things if I’m not welcome back.”

“I’m sending a note to Higgans,” Jack said.

He was a decent, honorable Englishman, and protecting the women of his household was his duty. Sending for the doctor was generous—Jack would see
that Higgans was paid—also pointless.

“My aunts are all I have. You can’t stop me from going to Theo now.”

He took the handkerchief from Madeline, and when she expected him to toss it aside, he instead dabbed gently at her cheeks.

“Meet me downstairs in a quarter hour. We’ll need the medicinals, clean sheets, a basket of provisions, and some spirits. If you must charge
unarmed at dragons ten times your size, at least ride into battle with a trusty squire at your side.”

Jack wasn’t a willing squire—she had no delusions about that—but in this instance, he was
her
squire, and she very much needed
the aid.

Madeline pitched into him, reveling in the succor of his embrace. “Thank you. Thank you, Jack.”

“Thank me when Theodosia has been returned to good health, and your own well-being hasn’t been imperiled.”

Madeline held on to him for another long moment, because that feeling—of riding into battle unarmed, against dragons ten times her size—was all
too familiar.

The privilege of having a trusty squire at her side was all too rare.

Jack clucked to the horse the instant Pahdi set the bag of provisions beside Madeline on the bench of the sleigh. The evening air was brutally cold, and
Madeline’s silence conveyed loads of worry.

While Jack’s emotions veered close to anger.

Saras had been as stubborn as Madeline, unwilling to leave Jack’s side as he’d thrashed his way through days and nights of fever and
nightmares. He’d had three weeks to gradually mend and regain his strength, and then she’d fallen ill.

Idiot woman. Dear, precious, unique, bold, lovely,
dead,
idiot woman. And then Jack’s temper lurched toward sorrow because he missed his
late wife, though the missing at some point had become more nostalgic than bereft.

When had that happened?

“Does Pahdi want to return to India?” Madeline asked.

Jack could feel her shivering in her plain cloak. He switched the reins to one hand, pulled the lap robe up to her shoulders, and wrapped an arm about her.

“If you catch your death, I will haunt you through your next seven lives.”

She tucked in close. “If you catch yours, I will never forgive myself.”

“Yes, you will,” Jack said. “It might take ten years, but you will. I’ve never asked Pahdi if he’d like to return to India.
He has family there and writes to them regularly.”

Jack still had a few friends in India as well, such as old military associations qualified as friendships.

“If you don’t ask him what his preferences are, he’ll never tell you,” Madeline said.

“Pahdi can be blazingly articulate when he’s of a mind to be. I honestly don’t think he’d leave James.”

Good God, the night was arctic. Jack urged the horse to a canter, because the sooner they were out of the frigid air, the better.

“Pahdi won’t leave you,” Madeline retorted. “People in service are loyal to their employers in the misguided hope the loyalty will
be reciprocated. For the employer, the transaction involves coin, room, and board, for services rendered. Loyalty from a domestic is our way of insisting
that we’re not slaves for a wage.”

Jack let that provocative insult remain unchallenged. Madeline was terrified for her aunt, and she spoke from bitter experience.   

“I sent a note to Higgans,” Jack said. “I expect he’ll come by this evening or tomorrow morning.”

“Thank you.”

They didn’t speak again until the sleigh pulled up in Theodosia’s yard. Barking started up within the cottage. No candles glowed in the
windows, and Jack could detect no scent of smoke on the night air.

“See to the horse,” Madeline said, leaping to the ground and grabbing the bag from the seat.

“The horse can stand for a moment,” Jack said, but in this cold, only for a moment. “Let’s unload the supplies first.”

Madeline was already halfway to the door. Jack followed, carrying blankets and what felt like a bag of coal. No paths had been shoveled across the snowy
yard. No chickens perched on the fence boards.

Madeline rapped on the door, then pushed it open.

The stench hit Jack before he’d crossed the threshold. Confined dogs, sickness, boiled cabbage, and despair. The fire in the hearth was down to
coals, giving off only meager light. Heat would doubtless intensify the stink, but Jack could see his breath clouding before him in the front room.

“Aunt Theo!” Madeline called over the barking and whining of the dogs. “Aunt?”

The puppies and their mother occupied a boarded-off corner of the front room, and from the stink, they’d been there for some time.

“Tend to the fire,” Jack said, setting the blankets on the kitchen table. “I’ll see to Theodosia.”

See if she was still alive, which required lighting the tallow candle before Jack could make out anything in the bedroom.

Theo lay curled in a box bed, nothing but her face peeking out from the covers. A nightcap covered her hair, and though she was a tall woman, illness had
made her small and frail.

“Theodosia,” Jack said, sitting on the bed.

Madeline stood in the doorway, still in her cloak and scarf.

“Theodosia, wake up.” He gently shook her shoulder. “Theodosia Hickman, you’ve company. Your Madeline has come to call, and
she’s upset to find you abed at such an hour.” Theo very likely sought her bed as soon as the sun went down, to conserve candles and coal, if
nothing else.

“Maddie?”

“She’s brought beef tea,” Jack said. “You will swallow every drop.”

“Martha.”

“Martha may have some as well.”

“Her hound,” Madeline said, from the end of the bed. “We’ll look after Martha, and the chickens, and you, Aunt Theo.” She
spread an extra blanket over her aunt, a thick wool afghan brought from Teak House.

“My feet,” Theo said. “So cold.”

“I’ll heat some bricks.” Madeline patted her aunt’s shoulder and whisked off again.

“I’ve horses to see to,” Jack said. “You are not to run off, Theo Hickman. Be good for your Maddie, or you’ll get the sharp
edge of my tongue and hers too.”

Jack left the bedroom door open and found Madeline adding coal to the meager glow in the hearth. The fireplace hadn’t been swept clean in some time,
and the bed of ash was probably the only reason the coals still held some heat.

Had the fire gone out…

“I’ll put up the horses,” Jack said. “I’d get some beef tea into her as soon as you can. It should still be warm, as many
towels as Cook wrapped it in. The dogs have to go. This stench is intolerable.”

Madeline rose, the wrought-iron poker in her hands. “Theo loves these dogs. The puppies are worth money, and they belong to her. You can’t just
toss them in the river because we’ve hit a bad patch.”