The Sherbrooke Series Novels 1-5 (121 page)

Jack mumbled low, indistinct sounds and retreated once again into Gray’s armpit.

Gray let her hide, saying only, “She’ll have to face up to things soon enough.” He pulled a blanket more closely around her.

9

M
ATHILDA LOOKED
at Gray who was carrying the still-blanketed Jack in his arms, and said, “Lordy.”

Maude smiled, patted the soft curls beside her ears, and said, “I never doubted for a moment that you would see to our Jack, my boy. Who is this tall young lady who’s following you and Jack?”

“This is Lady Ashburnham, Aunt Maude.”

“Ill-tempered husband,” Mathilda said. “But handsome, very handsome.”

Maude said, “Yes, Mathilda believes his lordship even more handsome than the vicar Mortimer, who kissed her in the vestry. Naturally, his lordship is just a mite too young for Mathilda—more’s the pity for him, poor boy.”

“Yes, he is handsome, ma’am,” Sinjun said and blinked. She gave Mathilda a beautiful smile. “Isn’t he amazing? He can yell at me and then kiss me, all without wasting a single breath. My stepson, Philip, remarks upon that. He wants to be just like his father. He practices on his little sister, Dahling. He doesn’t kiss her because he still thinks
girls are the very devil, but he does enjoy practicing his father’s yelling skills.”

Sinjun shook out her skirts, straightened the smart little straw bonnet on her head, and said, “Now, Quincy just whispered to me that my husband is currently in the drawing room with Douglas. I don’t know why Douglas didn’t come out when we arrived, but I’m sure to be told shortly. Hopefully I won’t have to be told anything too shortly, though, since I don’t intend to walk into the tiger’s mouth. Jack, will you be all right?”

Jack, flattened by rotten bad luck and illness, said, “I’m fine, Sinjun. Thank you.”

“You’ll tell me everything once Gray has pried everything out of you, all right?”

“We’ll see,” Gray said, eyeing Jack, who looked ready to expire. “Maude, where do you want me to gently unload our valet?”

When Gray went down the wide staircase some ten minutes later, Douglas Sherbrooke, the eldest of the Sherbrooke siblings, stood at the bottom of the stairs in the black-and-white Italianate marble entrance hall, his hands on his hips. He wasn’t smiling. When Douglas Sherbrooke didn’t smile, he looked ferocious indeed, Gray thought, remembering how he’d been fool enough once to go into the ring with Douglas Sherbrooke at Gentleman Jackson’s Boxing Saloon. He was lucky he hadn’t gotten his jaw broken or his teeth loosened.

“Good day, Douglas. How is your family?”

“Everyone is just fine. Look, Gray, you’re probably wondering why I’m here in your house, standing here in your entrance hall, looking up at you like you’re an unwanted guest.”

“No, not really. I’m so bloody tired I don’t really care who’s here.”

“Where’s Sinjun?”

“I believe she went to one of the bedchambers to, er, repose herself, at least that’s what she told me.”

“Sinjun’s never reposed herself in her life. The girl’s incapable of reposing. You’ll not believe this, Gray, but Colin just told me she’s pregnant. My little sister—pregnant. By God, I can remember holding her right after she was born. I remember her wetting on my brand-new breeches, my shirt, my hands. She also puked on other breeches, other shirts, my same hands. She was beautiful, Gray, and so precious. Damn, but it’s difficult to accept that she’s now going to have a babe. I think of her as so young and naive and innocent. Then she saw Colin and couldn’t wait to learn all sorts of wicked things, which, naturally, he was more than ready to teach her, curse the bounder.

“Now, you know well enough that she gave you that reposing excuse because she knows that I now know and she doesn’t want me telling her she’s an idiot for scurrying off to God-knows-where to rescue you.” He struck the heel of his palm to his forehead. “Reposing herself, hah. Sinjun’s never been a coward, but that’s what she is now. Ah, it curdles the belly. My little sister has become a coward, and it’s all Colin’s fault. Dragging her to Scotland, forcing her to live in a bloody castle, throwing local ghosts in her face—when everyone with even a tiny brain knows there’s no such thing as ghosts.

“Yes, it’s all turned her into a coward. She’s avoiding me.
Me
. He’s only had her for four years, and she’s become a coward. It revolts my innards.”

“That isn’t true, Douglas,” Colin said, striding out of the drawing room toward them, his voice nearing a roar. “Damn you, your precious
little
sister controls everything and everyone in a ten-mile radius of Vere Castle. She
controls everything and everyone inside the castle as well. She even has that blackguard neighbor of ours, Bobbie MacPherson, cooing over her white hands, although she wanted to kill him not above four years ago. She’d probably take over the running of bloody Edinburgh Castle if she took a notion to. I don’t believe in ghosts any more than you do, Douglas, but she deals quite well with Pearlin’ Jane.

“Don’t you blame me because she’s hiding upstairs in Gray’s house and he didn’t even have the chance to invite us to stay, which he would have done because he likes us. Yes, Sinjun knows I’m so furious with her I’m just likely to take away all her clothes to keep her in bed for the next week.”

“Who’s Pearlin’ Jane?” Gray asked.

“My family ghost,” Colin said, clearly distracted. “But she doesn’t really exist. Hellfire, Douglas, Sinjun’s pregnant, damn her beautiful eyes, and Jesus, I can’t stand this. I just can’t.”

It was as if the dam had burst. Colin’s voice became deep and harsh. He yelled to the chandelier overhead, “Dammit, I don’t want her to die. I couldn’t bear it if she died.”

Gray said quietly, quite aware that every servant in his house was positioned just so to hear every word each of them said, “I think we should go to my study. Quincy, bring us some food.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Gray shut the study door, turned, and said, “Now, what’s all this about Sinjun dying?”

“Nothing.” Colin ran his fingers through his hair, standing it on end. “Nothing. I just lost control of my mouth. I’ve got it back now. I’ve just been so bloody worried. All right, I’ve been scared to my feet.” He smashed his fist against the leather arm of a wing chair.

“Sinjun won’t die,” Douglas said, and Gray saw that he was perfectly white. “She won’t. I won’t allow that. For God’s sake, my mother didn’t die and she birthed four children. Look at me, I’m not a lisping little fellow, and she came through it all just fine. Your first wife didn’t die birthing Philip or Dahling. What the hell is wrong with you? Oh, God, is Sinjun ill?”

“No,” Colin said, his voice that of a desperate man.

“Then why do you think Sinjun’s life is in any danger?” Gray asked, an eyebrow raised. “Has a doctor told you that she’s in danger?”

Colin, who had been standing in the middle of the study, his head lowered, said, “Neither of you understands. Don’t you see? It’s been nearly four years and she’s never gotten pregnant before. I’d just about come to believe that we were simply not supposed to have children, but because I’m a randy bastard, I’ve forced her time and time again to take my seed, and she does enjoy it so, indeed, she’s always leaping on me in our bedchamber or jerking me behind the stairs or bringing me down on the tower steps to my special room, and just look what happened.”

“Oh, God,” Douglas said. “You sodding randy bastard. I might have known. I did know, the minute I laid eyes on you kissing Sinjun in the entrance hall of my very own house four years ago—and you barely even knew her name—yet you had your damned hands on her bottom and you had your tongue halfway down her throat. By God, you miserable Scot sod, you’ve forced her?”

Douglas leaped a good six feet to land on Colin, his big hands going around Colin’s neck. Soon the two men were rolling on the floor, tangling in the beautiful Aubusson carpet, threatening to overturn one of Gray’s prized Chinese vases that had just arrived from Macao six months before.

The door burst open. Sinjun came running into the study,
yelling, “Stop it, both of you. Stop it, now, do you hear me?”

All she got for her effort was grunts and a few ripe curses.

Sinjun grabbed Gray’s Chinese vase and brought it down on both Douglas’s back and her husband’s arm.

Gray’s Chinese vase from Macao was shattered. He stared at the shards that were scattered over half the study floor. He watched Douglas and Colin roll away from each other and slowly rise, panting like men who had run all the way from Bath to London.

“Damn you both,” Sinjun yelled at them. “Listen to me. I’m not going to die. Can your small brains understand that? I have no intention of dying. Listen to me, Colin:
I will not die.
”

Gray called out to Quincy, who was plastered against the wall beside the door, “Quincy, bring more brandy. I see I’ve only got half a bottle here.” He turned back to Sinjun. “Now, while Quincy drags himself slowly out of hearing distance, tell me, Sinjun, where are Philip and Dahling?”

“They’re at Douglas’s town house. Oh, I see.” Sinjun waited until Quincy had closed the door after himself. Quick as a snake, she turned on her brother and her husband, who were looking at each other with a combination of embarrassment and wariness. She said over her shoulder, “Gray, don’t listen to this since it isn’t your problem. That’s right. Drink your brandy—you need it, particularly with the gentlemen here enacting such a fine melodrama for you. Now, Douglas, Colin, I have no plans to die birthing our son or daughter. I’m healthier than I’ve ever been in my life.”

Colin opened his mouth, but Sinjun just raised her hand. “No, no more out of you. Very well, I’ll tell you the truth. I haven’t gotten pregnant simply because I wasn’t ready to,
Colin. But three months ago I decided that both Philip and Dahling needed a little brother or sister. They both came to me and requested that I consider it. I did. Thus, when I was ready, I became pregnant. There’s nothing more to it than that.”

“A woman doesn’t determine when she does or when she doesn’t get pregnant,” Douglas shouted at her. “Are you an idiot?”

“Leave her alone, Douglas. She’s my wife. I’ll deal with her. What the hell was that fine bit of nonsense?
You
decided?”

Sinjun walked to her husband, laid her palm lightly against his cheek, and smiled up at him. “I’m going to give you a beautiful son or daughter. I fully intend to be the mother. And then I’ll become a grandmother. You and I will become eccentric old curmudgeons together. We will lose our teeth together. We’ll help each other totter up the stairs every night. Nothing will happen to either of us, Colin. All right?”

He couldn’t answer. He just stared down at her.

“I’m not lying, Colin. I’m not.”

Colin just nodded, then very slowly, very carefully, drew her against him. He buried his face in her hair.

Douglas looked on, then said to no one in particular, “I can’t imagine any sister of mine not having her teeth.”

“You know,” Gray said now, “I have an excellent physician friend who lives just two hours from London, near Bury St. Edmunds. His name is Paul Branyon and he recently married the late earl of Strafford’s widow, Lady Ann. He’s an excellent man and an excellent doctor. I will write him and he and Ann will come to London. He’ll examine Sinjun. He’ll tell both of you the truth. Sinjun is very likely going to be just fine. Paul will reassure all of you and then you, Douglas, and you, Colin, won’t have to
try to break each other’s heads anymore in my study, and your wife won’t have to break any more of my belongings to split you two apart.”

Sinjun twisted about in her husband’s arms. “Oh, Gray, the vase? I’m so sorry—I didn’t think.”

“If you will let Paul Branyon examine you, then I will forgive you for breaking the vase.”

“Oh, all right,” Sinjun said.

“Good,” Douglas said. “I’ll feel better once I’ve got some of your excellent brandy down my gullet.”

Calm restored, brandy served, Sinjun patted and forced to sit down on Gray’s big comfortable wing chair, Colin standing over her to press her back down if she chanced to move, Douglas said, “Now, why don’t you tell us, Gray, why this girl named Jack stole one of your horses and was riding toward Bath when you caught her? And stayed with her for four days? Alone?”

“Actually, the great-aunts call her Mad Jack, a small jest, I suppose, amongst the three of them. Well, what she did—stealing Durban, riding not south like she intended but rather due west, then getting ill—well, it is rather mad, so I suppose she deserves the nickname. Now, the answers to many of the other questions still elude me, Douglas.”

“Not for long they can’t,” Douglas said, grim around the mouth. “Jesus, Gray, you’ve done it this time. There’s no hope for you now.”