The Sherbrooke Bride (8 page)

Alexandra could only stare at her sister. “Tony will make things right with Douglas. The two of them are very close. Hollis said so.”

Melissande shrugged. “I think Tony should suffer for what he did.”

“But you did it right along with him!”

“Tony is a man; it is his responsibility.”

“That's drivel,” Alexandra said, and left her sister at the top of the stairs, peeking over the railing. She walked quickly down the long eastern corridor whose walls were lined with portraits of past Sherbrookes, many of whose faces and costumes sorely needed restoration. She went into the adjoining bedchamber and stood in the middle of the room, shivering. The bed was much smaller and shorter than the one in the master bedchamber. Alexandra supposed that since she was small and short, it didn't matter.

She remembered when Hollis had shown her through the master suite and she'd stood there and just stared at that huge bed, realizing for the first time that husbands and wives sometimes slept together if they wished to have children, that this was the bed where a child would be conceived. She didn't understand the process, but the thought of not wearing her clothing in front of a man made her brain clog and close down. Hollis, bless his astute soul, had said calmly, “I believe it wise to allow some time for His Lordship to accustom himself. You must be recognized as a wife, my lady, before you can be recognized as the Sherbrooke bride.”

It was just that this room was so very cold and empty, much more empty than before Douglas had come home.

She snuffed out the candle and climbed into the bed, shivering violently between the cold sheets. She wondered if she would remain in this room for the rest of her years. For the moment, she had lost a goodly portion of her optimism about this marriage. Was Melissande right? Would Douglas ignore her or treat her badly?

She wasn't even a marriage of convenience, for
Douglas Sherbrooke had paid dearly for her. Actually, he had paid dearly for Melissande and he had gotten her instead. And she hadn't brought him anything at all.

Tony had spent hours telling her about Douglas, reassuring her, reeling off anecdotes at a fine rate. She knew all his questions to her were to judge whether or not she was worthy of his esteemed cousin. At least she'd passed Tony's tests. He wanted her for a cousin-in-law, he said, and when she said she was already a sister-in-law, he'd gotten that gleam in his eyes that Melissande seemed to adore, and said, “Ah, then I shall have you so deep in my family that you'll never escape.” Again and again he'd said Douglas didn't love Melissande, that she was merely a quite beautiful convenience for him, that he didn't know her at all, and would have been horrified to have found himself married to her, then hastened to add that he, Tony, most certainly did know her, but it didn't matter because he was him and not Douglas. All quite confusing, really.

So Douglas Sherbrooke didn't love Melissande. Ha! So now he was wedded to an unbeautiful convenience and he didn't love her either.

Alexandra burrowed deeper into the sheets, seeing her husband bursting into the bedchamber. She hadn't seen him for three long years. During the past two days she'd wondered if he'd changed, grown fat, perhaps, or lost his hair or his teeth, and then he'd appeared and she'd only been able to stand there gaping at him, utterly witless. He looked older, she'd thought, staring at him, a hard-faced man with dark hair and eyes even darker and a high-bridged nose that made him look utterly superior, utterly arrogant. As if to ruin the image
of centuries of noblesse oblige, nature had added a cleft in the middle of his chin. Ah, but he was beautiful, this man who was now her husband, his body as lean and hard as his expression was severe, the most exquisite man she'd ever imagined.

Oddly enough though, Alexandra hadn't realized she loved him completely and utterly, with every ounce of feeling within her, until he'd thrown his head back, yowled like a madman, and flung himself at his cousin.

He was the man she wanted. Her natural optimism surfaced a bit. It will be all right, she repeated to herself yet again. She was still awake many hours later when she heard him moving about in the bedchamber next to hers.

And what, she wondered, would happen on the morrow?

“W
HAT THE HELL
are you doing here?”

It was seven o'clock in the morning, surely too early an hour for him to be here, in this precise spot, in the vast Sherbrooke stable. It was foggy, damp, and cloudy—all in all a dismal morning, a morning to match her mood and his too, evidently. The light was dim inside the stable and none of the half-dozen stable lads were about. The smells were comforting—hay, linseed, leather, and horse. Douglas was wearing buckskins, a dark brown coat, and Hessians that sorely needed polish. He looked tired, unshaved, tousled, and vastly irritated. To an objective person he would perhaps appear an ill-tempered dirty-looking brute. To her jaundiced eye, however, he looked immensely wonderful.

“I was going to ride, my lord.”

“Oh? Perhaps my vision has become suddenly deficient for I don't believe I've seen any unknown horses in my stables. Where is this horse you were going to ride? I assume it is a horse. Even though I am apparently the ass in this drama, you cannot ride me.”

Alex was silent a moment, then said calmly enough, “Mr. McCallum has given me Fanny to ride since I've been here.”

“Fanny belongs to my sister.”

“I know. She is a spirited mare with a sweet mouth and nice manners. I know how to ride, my lord, truly. You don't have to worry that I cannot handle her properly. Or would you prefer that I ride another horse?”

He was frowning ferociously at her. “So you brought no horse of your own?”

“No.” Actually, her father had sold many of the ducal horses some two months earlier, clearing out the once glorious Chambers stables before he'd known about Douglas and his offered bounty, before he'd known he'd need more than Douglas's bounty to save Claybourn.

“You're wearing a riding costume, though it is not new nor is it even in last year's style. I may assume then that your esteemed blackguard thief of a father sent you away with at least enough clothes to cover you until you could wheedle some more out of me?”

As a verbal blow, it showed promise.

“I don't know. I had not thought about it.”

He actually snorted and she heard an answering snort from one of the closed stalls. “That's Garth,” Douglas said absently. “So you don't think about furbelows and ribbons and flounces—”

“Certainly, when it is necessary to do so.”

“I cannot imagine Melissande not wanting lovely clothes and furbelows and all those other things you females clothe yourselves in to attract males and make fools of them. Why would you be any different?”

“Melissande is beautiful. She needs beautiful things and admires them and—”

“Ha! She doesn't need anything. She would look glorious in naught but her white skin.”

As a verbal blow, it exceeded the last one.

“Yes, that is also true. What do you wish me to do, my lord?”

“I wish you to leave and turn all this damnable debacle into a nightmare from which I'll awaken.”

It was difficult, but Alex remained standing straight, remained with a fixed pleasant expression on her face, forced herself not to scream at him or make fists or fall to her knees and wail. “I meant, do you wish me to ride Fanny or ride another mare or not ride at all?”

Douglas shoveled his fingers through his hair. He stared at the small female who everyone had informed him was indeed his wife. She looked pale in the shadowy light but that back of hers was as straight as if she had a broom handle bound tightly against her backbone. Her hair was tucked firmly up under a rather dowdy riding hat. One long tendril had come loose and was in a loose curl on her shoulder. The hair was a nice color, rather an odd dark red color, but it didn't matter one bit. It could be blue for all he cared.

She was a complete and utter stranger, this female.

He cursed, long and luridly.

Alex didn't move an inch.

“Oh, the devil! Come along, you may ride Fanny and I will judge if you ride well enough to continue mounting her.”

Mr. McCallum, fifty, wiry, strong as a man of twenty, baked brown from decades in the sun, and married to a young widow of twenty-two, was standing outside the stable giving orders to a stable lad when the earl and Alex led their mounts outside.

“Good morning, my lord.”

Douglas only nodded at him. As far as he was
concerned, McCallum had betrayed him, giving this cursed female Sinjun's mare. As had that accursed bounder cousin of his, that damnable Tony who deserved to be shot, and his own butler, Hollis, as well.

“Her Ladyship has a nice seat and light hands,” McCallum said, unknowingly stoking the embers of Douglas's fury as he stroked the horse's soft nose. “Ye needn't worry that Fanny will suffer from any bad handling.”

Douglas grunted. Who cared if she were cow-handed? He didn't. Indeed, who had bothered to care about him? No one, not one single bloody person.

He gave Alex a leg up, then turned to mount Garth. The huge stallion, left in his stall to eat his head off for two weeks, snorted, flung back his head, and danced to the side, all in all, giving a fine performance.

Douglas laughed aloud with the pleasure of it. He spoke to his stallion, patted his neck, then without a backward glance, he urged him into a gallop.

Alex watched the stallion and the man for a moment, then said, “Well, Fanny, perhaps we should show him we're made of firm stuff and not to be left to choke on his dust.”

She gave a jaunty wave to McCallum and followed her husband down the long drive bordered with thick lime and beech trees, now full-branched and thick and riotously green.

Douglas was waiting for her just beyond the old stone gatehouse. He watched her ride toward him. His expression didn't change. McCallum was right. She rode very well. It pleased him only to the extent that she wouldn't hurt Fanny's soft mouth. He merely nodded at her, and click-clicked Garth
into a gallop. He took a fence into the northern fields of Northcliffe, watching from the corner of his eye as Alex gave Fanny her head and easily took the fence after him. He pulled up finally at the edge of the winding narrow stream that had been one of his favorite haunts as a boy.

When she pulled in Fanny beside Garth, Alex looked about her, and said with pleasure, “What a lovely spot. There is a stream much like this one on the Chambers land. When I was a little girl I spent many happy hours there fishing, swimming—though the water was usually too low for anything other than just thrashing about and getting thoroughly wet—all in all, having a wonderful time.”

As a conversation effort it didn't succeed.

Douglas looked off into the distance toward the Smitherstone weald, and said without preamble, “Tell me why you did it.”

Alex felt her heart begin to pound, low, dull thuds. The good Lord knew that there were many truths at work here. She would give him one of them and hope it would satisfy him, one that Tony had doubtless already pressed upon him the previous night. It was a good one, actually, the primary one, if one spoke from her sire's point of view. “My father desperately needed funds, for my brother has just fled England leaving mountains of debt on his shoulders, and any settlement Tony made wouldn't be nearly enough and—Don't you see, my lord? Time was of the essence else we would have lost our home and—”

Douglas slashed his hand through the air. Garth took exception to his master's peculiar behavior, twisted his head around and took a nip of Fanny's neck. Fanny shrieked, rearing back onto her hind
legs. Alex, taken off guard, cried out in surprise, flailed her arms to find balance, failed, then slid off Fanny's rump, landing on the narrow path on her bottom.

She sat there, feeling as if her bones had been jarred into dust. She was afraid to move. She looked up at Douglas, who was calming his horse. He looked down at her, his eyes darkening to a near black, then quickly dismounted. Fanny, curse her hide, kicked up her back legs once more and wheeled about, galloping back toward the Sherbrooke stables.

“Are you all right?”

“I don't know.”

“Luckily you appear well padded, what with all those petticoats and the like. Can you stand?”

Alex nodded. She came up onto her knees, felt a strange shock of dizziness, and shook her head to clear it.

Douglas clasped her beneath her arms and drew her upright. She didn't weigh much, he thought, as he continued to support her. She did, however, feel very female. Finally, he felt that damned broom handle stiffen all the way from the back of her neck to her waist.

He released her. She weaved about, then straightened. “I'm all right.” She looked back toward the hall, obscured by two miles of trees and fields. “Fanny left me.”

And it was his fault, Douglas thought, wanting to howl because it meant that now he would have to hold—actually
hold
—this girl in front of him. He didn't even want to look at her, much less be in her company, much less hold her.

He'd even have to talk to her, since it was all his bloody fault that she'd been thrown.

“You're obviously not as proficient a horsewoman as you claimed, else you would have been more alert.”

As a verbal blow, it was the very best thus far, for it struck a killing blow to a pride inborn in her. She was not just a competent horsewoman; she was the best. She had ridden since before she could walk. She was beyond the best and above the best as well.

Her voice was as cold as the gaping shred in her pride. “Since your stallion is so ill-mannered as to take exception just because you fling yourself about on his back, yes, you are doubtless right.” She turned away from him and began the long walk back to the hall.

Douglas watched her go.

He should apologize.

He should take her up on Garth.

Well, hell.

Her riding costume was dusty and he saw a rip beneath her right arm. A good length of the hem had come unstitched and dragged behind her in the dirt. Her riding hat lay in the middle of the road and her hair was falling down her back. She was limping just a bit.

He cursed, quickly mounted Garth, and went after her.

Alex heard him coming. She kept walking. At this moment, she hoped he would rot, every beautiful inch of him. Suddenly he swooped down, catching her around her waist, and lifted her up to sit sideways on the saddle in front of him.

“I'm sorry, damn you.”

“That was most romantically done. Mrs. Radcliffe couldn't have penned a more dashing performance.”

“Just because I didn't wish to argue with you or dismount again . . . What damnable drivel!”

“I could have walked,” she said mildly. “It isn't all that far.”

“You look like a ragamuffin. You look like a serving wench who's enjoyed half a dozen men but didn't please them sufficiently and got no coin for her labors.”

She said nothing, merely sat with that straight back of hers, looking off toward the side of the road.

“I suppose I'll have to buy you a new riding habit now.”

“It would appear that I didn't have to wheedle even a tiny bit.”

“Since it was somewhat my fault—your fall, that is—I shall make reparations. Still, you should have been more alert, more prepared for the unexpected.”

Alex was mild-tempered. She was patient and long-suffering; she knew how to endure; she knew how to hold her tongue to avoid distasteful scenes. She was never reckless. Even when her mother was at her pickiest, Melissande at her most demanding, she'd merely smiled and gone about her business. But with Douglas, her husband . . . how dare he continue to insult her riding ability? She simply couldn't help herself. She twisted against his arm, pushing at him with her entire weight. Caught unawares, Douglas went over the other side. He would have saved himself had Garth not decided that the extra weight on his back demanded that he make his master realize he wasn't to be treated like a common hack. Garth reared and twisted in the air. Alex managed to retain her balance, clutching wildly at Garth's mane. Douglas lost everything. He hit the road with a loud
thunk, landing on his back, winding himself. The reins were dragging the ground and Garth immediately sidestepped away from his master.

Like Alex, Douglas just lay there, waiting to see if anything was broken, if anything had shaken itself loose.

He opened his eyes, still not moving, and said, “I will beat you for that.”

“Tony said that you were a gentleman. Gentlemen do not beat ladies nor do they make such bullying threats.”

“Being a gentleman pales when one is confronted with a wife one doesn't know, doesn't want, never did want, never even knew existed, a wife who is violent, heedless, without control.” He drew breath to continue on this fine monologue when the ground shook and he watched, speechless, dust flying into his open mouth, as the female rode Garth—his stallion—away from him.

He nearly forgot to whistle.

Garth, thank heavens, heard him, stopped dead in his tracks, whipped about and trotted back to his prone master.