Free Worth Lord of Reckoning by Grace Burrowes Page B

he leaned in the direction of being a good brother. “He doesn’t hole up in the estate office, or spend the day riding out with his steward and his hounds. He’s restless, I think, and unpredictable.”
    Yolanda paced off to study a miniature of Jacaranda’s mother, a cheerful, competent woman who’d stood nearly six feet tall.
    “My brother Hess said Worth has always been prodigal, a vagabond. How can he say that when Worth left home at age seventeen and has been well established in London since finishing at university?”
    “Siblings sometimes see each other more clearly than anybody else.” Though sometimes siblings were blind. “When will you be available for a tour of the house?”
    Yolanda went back to studying the cutwork, a project Jacaranda had taken on when Daisy had become engaged, and snipping something nearly to bits had appealed strongly.
    “Me? Why would I tour the house?”
    “You are the closest thing your brother has to a hostess here. Some girls your age are married and presiding over their own homes, children on the way. I’d be remiss in my duties if I didn’t at some point show you about the place.”
    “Avery will want to come.”
    The words held such a mix of resignation and resentment, Jacaranda smiled. How many times had she felt the same way about Daisy? Dear, little, innocent, bothersome, pesky, adorable Daisy.
    “Avery will play with the Hendersons’ boys some fine morning later this week, and she will adore their riding pig.”
    “A riding pig?”
    “For small children, the beast is quite impressive, and we can use that time for more mature pursuits.” Though Mr. Kettering had made a lovely fuss over William, too—perhaps because the pig was female?
    “Good heavens, a riding pig. Well, yes, a tour of the house sounds preferable, if more sedate. Shall we say the next sunny morning?”
    “We shall, and Mrs. Hartwick and Miss Snyder will be grateful for a break, I’m sure.”
    “They will.” Yolanda’s smile was dazzling, a more innocent version of her older brother’s. “I wanted to ask you something.”
    Jacaranda made a mental note to regard any smiling Kettering with caution. “Please do ask.”
    “We’re to take supper en famille , with Wickie, Miss Snyder, Worth, Avery and myself all together. Will you join us?”
    Jacaranda hadn’t seen this coming and could barely stand the expectation in Yolanda’s blue eyes. “Join you?”
    “Avery is comfortable with her precious Uncle Worth, but I hardly want to spend the entire meal hearing about French mice or German mice, for that matter. Wickie and Miss Snyder are both in awe of Worth because he’s quite…well, he’s different from their usual fare. They didn’t exactly put me up to asking, but they noted you seem to deal with him comfortably.”
    A little too comfortably, at least in the midst of rainstorms. “What about you, Yolanda? Does the prospect of dinner conversation with your brother loom uncomfortably for you?”
    “I’ve known him less than ten days,” Yolanda said, sounding both annoyed and perplexed. “And yet we have the same laugh, the same sibling, the same niece. He got me out of that awful school the first time he was asked, which is more than I can say for our benighted brother the earl. I don’t know Worth well, but I have an opportunity to change that now, so yes, dinners with him will be important to me.”
    She had her brother’s careful diction, his rational mind, and his ability to mask true emotion behind an articulate façade. On a young girl, those abilities struck Jacaranda as a little sad.
    “I’ll join you, provided your brother doesn’t object to eating with the help,” Jacaranda said. “For the first week, anyway, and then we’ll see how it goes.”
    “Oh, thank you!” She fired off another one of those dazzling smiles, threw her arms around Jacaranda’s neck in an exuberant squeeze, then whirled and disappeared, all in the same instant.
    While Jacaranda wondered