Worth Lord of Reckoning Read Online Free Page B

and you will await my return.”

    * * *
     

    Could she make it as far as her quarters unaided before Captain Imperious of the Surrey Mounted Flotilla returned?
    Likely not—not yet.
    This Kettering-at-your-service must be some arrogant younger relation of Jacaranda’s employer, an opportunistic nephew thinking to sponge off the old gentleman for the summer’s visit, or an heir eyeing his expectations. She’d set him to rights when her head stopped throbbing and the room stopped expanding and contracting every time she moved.
    The fellow wasn’t entirely without use, though. He came back into the kitchen bearing a bowl of chipped ice, an incongruously cheerful red-checkered towel over his shoulder.
    “Plenty enough ice left for our purposes,” he said. “I’ll have to speak to Simmons about ordering more.”
    Jacaranda had printed a reminder for Simmons regarding the ice not two days past.
    “Hold still, madam.”
    That was all the warning Mr. Kettering gave Jacaranda before he held a towel full of ice firmly to the side of her head. The resulting pain caused her meager shortbread dinner to rebel and had her ears roaring again. When the roaring subsided, she was aware of the discomfort traveling even into her shoulder and of how the ice against her wound made her head both freeze and burn at the same time.
    “Woman, you will hold still. You’re in no condition to be delivering set-downs or lectures or whatever it is you’re planning to deliver. Soon, your head won’t hurt so badly, I promise.”
    His voice was brusque as he held the towel against her throbbing skull with one hand. With the other, he cradled her jaw, imprisoning her cheek against a washboard-firm stomach. His shirt was damp, of course, but through the dampness the heat of him warmed her jaw. Jacaranda should have shot to her feet with the indignity of it.
    Should have scolded him smartly for his presumptuousness.
    Should have delivered a set-down wrapped in a lecture tied up with a sermon.
    She leaned closer to his warmth.
    “Better, hmm?” He took the towel away. “Bleeding has stopped, too, thank the Everlasting Powers. Hold this here.” He took her hand in his and anchored the towel to her temple again. “I’ll fix us a spot of tea. You’re pale as a felon awaiting sentence.”
    He moved off—a relief, that. Jacaranda held the melting ice for as long as she could, but the cold penetrated her hand as effectively as it had her head, and her teeth threatened to chatter. She distracted herself from the chill by watching Kettering bustle around the kitchen. For a big, rather wet man, he moved silently. He was in stocking feet—he must have left his footwear in the back hall for the Boots—breeches, waistcoat and shirt, and his clothing left nothing to the imagination.
    This exponent of the Kettering male line wasn’t a retiring, scrawny functionary holed up at the Inns of Court with a flannel around his dear, wattled neck. This fellow looked like he split wood, shod horses, and loaded sea-going vessels in his spare time.
    His height was the first thing Jacaranda had noticed. Added to his height was his darkness: dark hair—particularly when wet, of course—and a burnished cast to his neck and forearms that suggested he frequently went without his hat—and shirt.
    Beyond his appearance, he bore an energy that would have had Jacaranda scooting out of his path, if dignity would allow such a thing. Coupled with that energy was a brisk competence, which, at the moment, she appreciated.
    “Drink.” He put a cup of tea before her, as if she were a recalcitrant denizen of the nursery.
    Jacaranda did not touch the tea cup.
    “Oh, now.” He set the tea tray down and lowered his presuming self right beside her. “Settle your hackles, duchess. What self-respecting Englishwoman refuses a nice hot cup of tea?” He wrapped her hands around the cup, his own cradling hers on either side of the mug. “See? Feels good. Now, don’t be contrary