A Fine Passion (Bastion Club 4)

“Mrs. Swithins.” He waved her to a chair.

“Lord Warnefleet.” She bobbed a curtsy and swept forward to perch, spine rigid, on the edge of the chair. “I’m exceedingly glad to see you returned, sir, hale and whole and prepared to take up the duties that are rightfully yours.”

She smiled up at him, but the gesture failed to soften her stony eyes. Jack wondered why hearing her declare his state perfectly accurately made him want to deny it, or at least equivocate.

“I understand you have some questions about some roster for the church.” Resuming his seat, Jack assumed a wryly apologetic expression guaranteed to gain the sympathy of the most hard-hearted. “I’m afraid you have the advantage of me. Having just returned, I’m unaware of just what roster you’re referring to.”

“Well!” Mrs. Swithins’s bosom swelled impressively. “I can assist you there. It’s the supply of the flowers for the Sunday and Wednesday services.”

Jack sat back and listened as Mrs. Swithins described the roster that Clarice had set in train, which had Mrs. Swithins supplying the flowers for every second Sunday, and the alternate Wednesdays.

“It would simplify matters considerably, my lord, if the roster was reorganized so that I supplied the floral arrangements for each Sunday, and the others between them took care of every Wednesday.” Mrs. Swithins paused, eyeing him, then added, “So much easier for all of us not to have to try and remember which week is which.”

Jack raised his brows. “That seems reasonable enough.” A tiny voice whispered that Clarice wouldn’t have instituted a complicated roster if a simple one would have sufficed; he ignored it and leaned forward. “I see no reason not to re-vamp the roster as you suggest. Now.” He drew a sheet of paper to him. “Who are the other ladies involved?”

Mrs. Swithins beamed. “Oh, you don’t need to bother informing them, my lord.” She all but preened as she stood. “I’ll be happy to spread the word.”

Instinct flared, combining with that tiny voice to niggle; rising to see Mrs. Swithins out, Jack quashed both. It was only the church flowers, for heaven’s sake, hardly a matter of life and death.

With Mrs. Swithins gone, clearly delighted with her first encounter with the new Lord Warnefleet, he settled into his chair once more and returned to his projections.

He was still wrestling with his crop returns—there was some element contributing to the past years’ progressively increasing totals that he couldn’t identify—when Howlett looked in to announce luncheon.

Jack rose and stretched, inwardly savoring the sense of sinking back into the deeply familiar but long-denied regimen of country life. Following Howlett from the study, he reached the front hall just as the doorbell pealed.

And pealed.

Howlett hurried to open the front door. Curious, Jack followed.

“I want to see his lordship!” an agitated female voice demanded. “It’s important, Howlett!”

Jack hung back, screened by the door. There was an incipient catch in the young woman’s voice that sent a shudder through him. Tearful scenes had never been his forte.

“What’s it about, Betsy?” Howlett sounded concerned, kindly and soothing.

“The church flowers!” Betsy wailed. “That old bat Swithins said as how his lordship had ‘quite agreed with her’ that she should do all the Sundays! It’s not fair—how co

uld he give them all to her?”

Jack blinked. Howlett slid him a sidelong, questioning—clearly lost—glance.

Jack reminded himself he was a battle-hardened warrior. Mentally girding his loins, he stepped around Howlett, into the doorway.

Betsy saw him. She bobbed a quick curtsy. “My lord, I—”

“Come inside, Betsy.” Jack smiled his practiced smile and hoped charming the innkeeper’s wife would work. “I understand there’s some problem about the church flowers. I don’t quite follow—why don’t you come in and explain it to me?”

Betsy eyed him rather warily, but nodded and followed him in. Jack showed her into the study, where she sat perched, rather more nervously, in the same chair Mrs. Swithins had earlier occupied.

Jack had just resumed his seat behind the desk when Howlett tapped and looked in again. “Mrs. Candlewick and Martha Skegs are coming up the drive, my lord.”

Mrs. Candlewick was the cooper’s wife, and Martha helped in the inn.

Some of Betsy’s confidence returned. “They’ll be here ’bout the flowers, same as me. Swithins must have been real quick to find them to gloat.”

Jack inwardly sighed; he looked at Howlett. “Show the good ladies in.”

Howlett did, but rather than aiding in clarifying the situation, listening to three females simultaneously bewail the forwardness—the most complimentary term they used for what they saw as Mrs. Swithins’s encroaching on their rights and privileges—of the curate’s mother left Jack ready to pull out his hair.