Jack (The Jaded Gentlemen Book 4) Read Online Free PDF Page B

why would you rather be anywhere else right now, when most women in your position would be trying on those
    dresses? You are joining a wealthy man’s household and must look the part.”
    Madeline was grateful—and uneasy, the same way she’d been uneasy when Mama had explained, years ago, that big girls did not need governesses,
    and they didn’t ride ponies either. The next day, her beloved little steed, Gideon, had been led away from the stable, and the promised horse to
    replace him had never materialized.
    “I’m a simple housemaid, not a thespian,” Madeline said, picking up a blue merino walking dress. “I’m not interested in
    looking a part. I’m interested in doing a good day’s work for my coin. You cannot give me those combs.”
    “Yes, I can. You have never been a simple housemaid. Mr. Belmont says you were the civilizing influence his boys needed growing up, and Madeline, I
    will miss you awfully. Mr. Belmont attributes all manner of virtues to you, and he’s not a loquacious sort. I will call at Sir Jack’s
    frequently once we get through the holidays, and if he’s in any way not up to standards, you will let me know.”
    The concern in Abigail’s eyes was genuine, but so was the lurking guilt. Abruptly, Madeline considered that she truly had become excess baggage under
    the Candlewick roof. During the years of Axel Belmont’s widowhood, the house had needed an organizing hand, but Axel Belmont had finally remarried,
    his boys were off at university, and Candlewick ran like a top now—a happy top.
    “Sir Jack will be up to standards. He is the pattern card for gentlemanly behavior,” Madeline said—he was also bereft of charm.
    “You need not concern yourself in that regard.”
    “Oh, he stands up with the wallflowers, arrives punctually at services, does his bit on darts night, but men can be so... we
all
can be so
    oblivious to what’s before our noses. It’s time Sir Jack settled down, and I’m sure his mother is making this visit to see to that very
    priority.”
    Madeline dropped into the reading chair by the fireplace. Of course, Abigail was correct. Mothers did not leave the gaiety and luxury of London to spend
    the winter ruralizing with bachelor sons for the pleasures of the country air.
    Oh, joy.
The skirmishes between mother and son would doubtless erupt into pitched battle.
    “I will aid Mrs. Fanning to see her son settled,” Madeline said. “Though my efforts might see me turned off without a character.”
    Would she be welcome back at Candlewick in that case, or would she be shuffled from aunt to aunt, until one of the local yeomen decided a wife with
    domestic experience would do well enough despite a bit of wear?
    “Madeline, you are an idiot,” Abigail said, in tones only a mother could achieve. Kindly, ruthless, chiding, and admonitory, all at once.
    “Sir Jack is not a royal prince. He isn’t the sort to go up to Town for half the year. He is the sort to appreciate a woman of integrity and
    brains.”
    Appreciate?
“As long as he pays me on time and keeps to the letter of our agreement, I will appreciate his integrity and brains as well. I’d best find
    trunks to transport all of this. Sir Jack will think he’s being invaded.”
    While Madeline felt as if she were being cast out of her home, again.
    * * *
    The day was unseasonably mild, and the landscape wore the peaceful mantle of early winter after a good harvest. Miss Hennessey sat beside Jack on the seat
    of the dog cart as he—a man who’d been entertained by rajas and the Regent—cast about for a conversational gambit.
    He and Miss Hennessey were to share a household, after all, and what Jack knew of companions suggested Miss Hennessey would be underfoot as much as Mama
    would.
    “Will you miss your post at Candlewick?” Belmont had been quite clear that his sons—the two attending Oxford twelve miles away and the
    little tyrant in the nursery—were in a collective decline over Miss