The Sherbrooke Bride (34 page)

“How could you do this?” Georges asked Alexandra, who looked quite fit, given that she'd looked white as death but hours before.

“I tricked her,” Alexandra said. She took another delicate sip of her coffee. “I told her I didn't feel well and when she came to help me—unwillingly, Douglas—I hit her and then I tied her up. She deserves it for what she did to you, Douglas. Tell me you understand.”

He couldn't help it. He was laughing. “I understand.”

Janine was shrieking now in French.

“She's been doing that since I got her tied up, but you see, since I don't speak French, I cannot understand her. I have no idea what she's saying. Douglas, is she insulting me?”

Douglas grinned at his wife. “She probably started with you. Now she's insulting your grandchildren.”

“Actually,” Georges said, eyeing his mistress, “she is now quite fluently attacking your antecedents and all your former pets.”

“I say,” Tony said, “that we should untie her. She looks quite uncomfortable. What do you say, Alexandra? Do you feel you've punished her enough?”

Alexandra took another long drink of her coffee. “All right,” she said at last. “I don't wish to stomp her into the ground, well, I do, but I'm not up to doing it right now, but I wish her to know that I am mean, that I will not tolerate such wretched behavior toward my husband. She will never try to hurt Douglas again. Never.”

Douglas turned and said something very rapid in French to Georges. He and Tony both laughed.

“What did you say?” Alexandra asked, her voice filled with suspicion.

“I said,” Douglas said very slowly, smiling at his wife, “that once you are fluent in French, I will unleash you on Napoleon himself. Georges agrees that the Corsican upstart wouldn't stand a chance against you.”

“I'm not sure,” she said, frowning, her voice filled with worry, “you see, I don't think I'm feeling all that well right now at this particular moment. How long will it take me to learn that bloody language?” She paused, her eyes widening on Douglas's face. “Oh dear,” she said.

She fainted. The coffee mug fell to the floor. Janine stopped cursing. Both Tony and Douglas were at her side in an instant.

“It shouldn't take her more than three months to spout French like a trooper,” Tony said, as he gently laid two fingers against the steady pulse in her throat. “Stop shaking, Douglas, she'll be fine. It's the excitement, that's all.”

T
HE THREE MEN
and Janine Daudet arrived at precisely six o'clock the following morning at the massive shipbuilding field that would shortly brim with workers, soldiers, sailors, cooks, prostitutes, hawkers of every item conceivable. They hid themselves and waited.

They remained hidden when the cry went up that General Belesain's headquarters had been breached. Guards were wounded and tied up and the general was gone.

There was some discussion as the men moved forward through the wide gates. Then there was utter silence.

At first there weren't more than fifty men and women; their ranks swelled to several hundred, all silent and staring. Then there was a giggle, a shout of laughter. More and more people arrived. The laughter grew. So did the general's curses and his threats, which ranged from cutting off arms and legs to pulling out tongues to flaying off the hide from every man and woman present. The onlookers paid no attention.

A man shouted, “Good Gawd, it's a pig, a big fat general sort of pig!”

A woman yelled, “Look at that little thing of his!
Naught but a tiny sausage!”

“Aye, and that belly, bloated with all our local food he's sent his men to steal, the selfish pig!”

“A pig! A pig! Look at the pig!”

Georges looked at Douglas and then to Tony. They didn't have to take care and be silent. The noise was now deafening. They laughed and slapped each other on the back. Janine Daudet was so pleased she even hugged Tony.

General Belesain was standing on a four-foot-high wooden crate. He was tied securely to a pole, his arms pulled back so far that his back was arched, making his fat belly stick out obscenely. He was quite naked. Pig ears that Georges had stolen from a local butcher were tied on his head, a pig's snout tied around his face, poking out over his nose. The rest of him was fat and pink, no embellishments needed.

His men tried to get to him to free him but the crowd held them back. They weren't through with their fun.

Douglas finally motioned for them to leave. Janine said to Georges in some amazement, “You're laughing. I can't believe it. You never laugh.”

He turned sober immediately. “I didn't mean to. It isn't well done of me.”

Tony said, “A man should laugh; it gives him back his bearings; it makes him realize how absurd life can be.”

Douglas said nothing. He wanted only to see his wife. She'd wanted so much to come but he hadn't allowed it. She was too weak. She argued but he held firm. Now he wished he'd carried her here. She would have enjoyed herself immensely.

Now, he thought, he had to get them out of France and back home to England.

* * *

Three days later, Douglas, carrying Alexandra in his arms, followed by Tony, strode into Northcliffe Hall.

There was as much bedlam as there'd been the morning of General Belesain's unveiling, only this bedlam was joyous and welcoming. Douglas looked up to see Melissande coming down the wide staircase, looking more beautiful than a flesh-and-blood woman should look, breath-stoppingly beautiful actually, but he found that he just smiled toward her. She was looking for Tony, and when she found him, she picked up her skirts to her knees, and ran full-tilt until she could jump into his arms. She screamed at the top of her lungs, “You're safe, damn you! I was so worried, so—” She said no more for Tony was kissing her soundly.

Douglas still smiled.

He looked at his wife and saw that there were tears in her eyes. He was jolted into immediate fear. “You are ill? What is wrong? You have pain?”

She shook her head and wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand.

“Alexandra, we will be attacked by fifty servants, Sinjun, and my mother in under two minutes. Speak to me.”

“She's just so beautiful.”

“Who? Oh, Melissande. Yes, she is. Who cares?”

She stiffened in his arms.

He started a smile. “Why, you're still jealous.”

“No, damn you!”

“Ah yes, you are, you silly chit. Answer me this, Alex. Can Melissande speak French?”

“No, she's horrible at languages, her accent even more atrocious than mine, but she paints so well.”

“So, she couldn't have tried to save me like you did.”

“That has less than nothing to do with naught.”

Douglas merely continued his teasing grin. “I wonder how one would say that in French. Listen well, Alex—”

“You called me Alex!”

“Yes, certainly. If you prefer sweetheart, you will doubtless hear that as well. And stubborn and cherished and willful and wonderful. Now, listen to me. I think your sister is beautiful. Nothing new in that. But she isn't you. No, it doesn't matter now. What matters, to Tony, is that she is improving by veritable leaps and bounds under his tender tutelage. As Tony told me yesterday, one day soon her character just might begin to approach her beauty.”

“Really, Douglas?”

“Really what?”

“Cherished?”

He kissed her. He heard laughter and slowly raised his head. There was Sinjun grinning at him like a fool. His mother stood behind her, her mouth pursed.

His mother called out, “Where have you been, Douglas? What is going on here? I demand to know now. Why are you carrying her?”

“Soon, Mother. As for the little one here, she has been ill.”

“She looks quite well to me. Why is she wrapped in a blanket?”

“Because,” Douglas said, walking toward his mother. “Because she's quite naked beneath.”

“Douglas! You know that's not true.” She was wearing one of Janine Daudet's gowns actually, a quite ugly gown really. Doubtless Janine's revenge
for the coshing Alexandra had given her. Her feet, however, were quite bare and stuck out from the blanket. Douglas hadn't wanted to slow to buy her shoes. She hadn't argued. It was quite pleasant to be carried by her husband.

“Yes, but if she thinks you're naked, I'll get to escape with you all that much more quickly.”

“What happened?” Sinjun asked.

“We will cover all that later.” Douglas turned and raised his voice, saying, “We are all alive and well and home to stay. Thank all of you for being concerned.”

The servants cheered. Hollis stood proudly, his arms crossed over his chest. Alexandra felt herself swelling with relief. Perhaps everything would be all right. Perhaps even her mother-in-law would come about. Perhaps Douglas really did cherish her. Perhaps.

Douglas carried her to his bedchamber. He kissed her, then eased her down to sit on the edge of the bed, pulling the blanket off her. “Mother doubtless believes you are a loose woman, that you must have burned your clothes to compromise me. I will tell her that I am already thoroughly compromised, that you have seduced me endlessly and I am used to it, that I can't do without your charms or your company. There was nothing more for you to do.”

She was staring up at him, not moving, just sitting there, her legs dangling over the side of the bed, wearing Janine's gown that was too long and bagged around her.

She moistened her lips.

“Do you cherish me, Douglas? Perhaps just a little bit?”

“Perhaps,” he said.

He walked, smiling to himself, into her adjoining bedchamber, soon to return with a nightgown. “Come, let's get you into this. You need to rest now.”

He pulled the gown over her head, found himself staring at her breasts, then swallowed and quickly pulled the fine linen nightgown over her head, smoothing it down her body. “There.” He put her between the covers, then sat down beside her and arranged her hair on the pillow even as he said thoughtfully, “Our marriage hasn't been so very smooth thus far. Do you think perhaps that you could moderate your actions? Perhaps think a bit before you hare off to do something outrageous? Like running away from me and becoming ill? Like getting yourself kidnapped and taken to a foreign country? Like trying to save me when you are really the one in jeopardy?”

She stared up at him, perfectly still as he continued to artfully arrange her hair on the pillow.

“I don't know,” she said finally. “You are very important to me, Douglas.”

He liked the sound of that. He leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose. “I have decided that if I keep you in bed for, say, three hours a day—not to mention the nights of course—you just might be too busy focusing on me or too busy recovering from lovemaking to bring gray hairs to my head.”

“And would you also be too busy recovering from our lovemaking?”

“Never too busy to cease thinking about the next time I would haul you off to bed and have my way with you. You already occupy a great deal of my poor brain.”

He frowned then as she remained silent. “Not just haul you off to bed to make love to you. I fancy also
I'll haul you off to the stable, to the floor in the library on that soft rug in front of the fireplace. Perhaps also in the breakfast room with the morning sun streaming in on us and then on the formal dining table. You could clutch that ghastly epergne while I made you scream—”

She laughed and poked his arm.

“Tell me you love me, Alexandra.”

“I love you, Douglas.”

“Do you agree that a man needs to hear that every day of his life?”

“I am in full agreement.”

“Good. Now, wife, I want you to rest. I will see to the family, censor our tale just a bit unless Sinjun has already pried all the facts from Tony, and store up all the recent gossip to tell you later on.”

He kissed her mouth. He'd intended only a light, sweet kiss, but her arms went around his shoulders and she held him to her and parted her lips.

“You came after me,” she said into his mouth. “You were worried about me.”

“Naturally,” he said, kissing her nose, her lips, her chin, his breath warm against her skin. “You are my wife, I love you, I will even go so far as to say that cherishing has a good deal to do with it. Are you satisfied now?”

“Do you know that a wife must needs hear that every day of her life?”

“I'm not surprised. No, not at all.” He kissed her again, tucked the covers about her shoulders, and left her alone to rest.

 

Two weeks later in the late afternoon, Douglas came into their bedchamber. Alexandra looked up from her mending, smiling automatically. Good Lord,
she loved him so very much.

“What do you have there?” she asked, trying not to look so besotted.

He was frowning. “I had to know,” he said more to himself than to her. “I just had to know so I went looking in Sinjun's bedchamber.” He spread out on her lap the items he'd found in the back of Sinjun's armoire.

Alexandra gasped. “It's a wig! Goodness, it looks like the Virgin Bride's hair! And that gauzy gown! Douglas, you can't mean it, no, surely not, I—”

“Can't believe that Sinjun was our ghost? Evidently so. Yes, she most certainly was. Here's the proof.”

But Alexandra was thinking furiously, trying to remember when she'd first seen the ghost. She remembered quickly enough. Sinjun had been in London. She wasn't wrong. She started to tell Douglas when she saw that he was staring fixedly at the east windows. He was somewhat white about the mouth. He looked tense and stiff, his back and shoulders rigid. She said nothing.

Finally, he said firmly, turning back to her, “It was Sinjun all along. Just my little sister playing at being a ghost because she wanted to stir things up, wanted to have some fun at our expense.”

Alexandra was shaking her head. She opened her mouth but Douglas raised his hand.

“Yes, it was just Sinjun, nothing more, nothing extraordinary, nothing ghostly. A real live human being, not a willowy phantom, not a creature who speaks but really doesn't but you hear it in your mind. No, nothing like that. It's true. It's very important that it's true. It will remain true. Tell me you understand this, Alexandra.”

“I understand.”

He kissed her, stood straight again, and said as he stared at the wig and the gown, “I have decided not to say anything about it to Sinjun. I don't wish to hear her denials, her protestations. I wish to let the entire subject alone. No, don't argue with me. My mind is made up. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“Unlike my vaunted ancestors, I will never write about that accursed Virgin Bride, no matter the fact that she was of great assistance—in my mind, of course, nowhere else, naturally, and not really there as something substantial or nearly substantial. Since I will burn Sinjun's props, there will be no more appearances by that ghostly young lady. Never again. No one will have a word to say in nonsensical diaries in future years. That's the way it must be. I will accept nothing to the contrary. Do you understand, Alexandra?”

“I understand.”

“Good,” he said, kissed her again, and left her to look after him. She smiled as she shook her head, and returned to her mending.