Jack of Hearts by Marjorie Farrell Page A

Windham.”
    “Yet he doesn’t make you laugh as much. On the other hand, he has more hair!” said Sarah with a wicked smile.
    “That has nothing to do with it!”
    “Nor does he have a daughter.”
    “I do worry about that,” Anne confessed. “But I am going to keep an open mind about the two of them. Steven Leighton’s daughter will be in town for the Season, although she is too young to socialize. I will have a chance to meet her. And if I like her, perhaps an experienced husband is the better choice after all.”
    * * * *
    If Anne had had any doubts about the wisdom of hiring Patrick Gillen, he would have put them to rest by the way he organized their trip back to Yorkshire. Despite the help of her butler and housekeeper, she had taken on the major responsibility for their journey south. But when she summoned Patrick to give him instructions, she found he had anticipated most of what she wanted and volunteered to handle many of the household tasks as well as organizing the horses.
    “I can see the advantages of hiring a master sergeant, Patrick,” Anne told him after she heard his ideas. “You have it all in hand and leave me with very little to do.”
    “And that’s as it should be, Miss Heriot.”
    Anne smiled. “I suppose so, but I am very used to assuming responsibilities here and at home.”
    “Ye’ll have to let go of some of them after ye’re married, miss, so this will be good practice!”
    “Miss Heriot’s plans for marriage are none of your business, Sergeant Gillen,” said Sarah, who had just come into the room.
    “Beggin’ yer pardon, Miss Heriot, Miss Wheeler is right.” Patrick bowed himself out with a patently false obsequiousness. Anne chuckled as the door closed behind her and then turned to her friend. “I am surprised to hear you being so stuffy, Sarah. Don’t you like Sergeant Gillen?”
    “I am very grateful to him for saving you, Anne. And, to be fair, he is very competent,” Sarah admitted stiffly. “But there is something about him—perhaps it is his Irishness—that I find a bit irritating.”
    “Why, Sarah, I would never have suspected you of such snobbery.”
    Sarah blushed. “I do not believe I am a snob, Anne. I certainly do not mean to be. Perhaps I am being unfair.”
    “Well, you don’t have to like him. But I confess that I do. Very much.”
    * * * *
    Although she hadn’t liked what Patrick had to say about sharing responsibilities, Anne had a lot of time to think about it as they traveled the long miles home to Yorkshire.
    She had lived a very different life from that of most of the young women she had met in London. While they were perfecting their crewelwork, she had been exploring geometry. Her father may have been emotionally distant, but he had recognized her talents early on and had encouraged them. And when his bookkeeper had retired, he had approached his daughter to take over the work.
    She had been happy to do it, for it gave her several hours a week with her father, involved with a common concern. It was probably the closest thing to intimacy she had with him, and she suspected that part of the reason he had asked for her help was to spend time with her in a way that was comfortable for him.
    She had hated being sent away to school, but he had insisted. “Tha mun learn pianoforte as well as geometry, lass,” he’d told her. “Tha will be living the life of a lady someday, if I have anything to say about it.”
    She knew he was right when she arrived at school and discovered how different she was from the other girls. Not just in rank, although that was the most obvious, but in experience and interests.
    When she returned home, she’d had only a year with her father before he contracted pneumonia. She had continued to keep the accounts despite Joseph’s protests that it wasn’t proper. What would a husband think of a wife who was bored by the pianoforte and planning the menus? Would a viscountess or a baroness be allowed to take over the