The Sherbrooke Series Novels 1-5 (124 page)

“It supposes that everyone else remotely involved would have to be idiots too, even if I’d succeeded.” She paused, then, under his horrified gaze, she began to cry.

“Jack, for God’s sake, don’t do that.” He was out of his chair in a flash, across that fifteen feet, and gathering her up against him, black peignoir and black feathers and all. He rubbed his hands up and down her back as he said over and over, “No, don’t cry. I can’t bear it. Please stop.”

“I’m an idiot,” she said, tears making her choke. “An idiot. And now you’ve got to pay because men are afraid that an unacceptable flower could spring up from the female’s soil.”

He began untangling her hair with his fingers. “All right, maybe you didn’t think your plan through. But you’re not an idiot. I wager you would have thought of something. Even if you’d ended up first in Bath and then had to change course, you would have managed it. Of course, I would have caught you by then, but I know—I’m positive—that you would have given me an excellent chase. Actually, you did. It was just your ill luck that I saw your light blink in the stable that night.”

“Rotten luck,” she said against his neck.

“Perhaps not so rotten. You’ll be gaining my manly self as a husband. How is your rib?”

She pulled back, sniffed, wiped her nose with the back of her hand, and said, “It aches and pulls, but it’s nothing, really. But your manly self doesn’t want to wed me.”

He tilted her head back and looked down at her. “The bruise on your face isn’t as bad as I’d thought it would be. I think whatever flowers you and I grow together will be quite acceptable. I am becoming rapidly accustomed to the idea of marrying you.”

“You like ladies in black feathers who cry all over your collar, do you?”

They both became still as stones at the sudden light tap on the bedchamber door, followed by Maude’s face peering into the room. “I heard voices and was worried. Goodness,
my boy, why are you in here with Jack? Holding her while she’s wearing one of Mathilda’s peignoirs?”

“She’s going to marry me, Aunt Maude. She was so happy that she began to cry. I’m a gentleman and thus I’m comforting her in her joy.”

Mathilda appeared next, wearing an identical black peignoir. She towered over Maude, like a hovering witch over a fairy who was gowned in dazzling puce. She eyed the two of them. “Mortimer,” she said.

“Ah, yes,” Maude said. “What Mathilda would have said if she’d wished to elaborate is that the vicar once grabbed her and managed to hold on to her until one of the silly Gifford sisters came by and twittered.”

“I didn’t know about that,” Jack said. “I wish I could have seen that.”

“When?” asked Mathilda.

Gray slowly released Jack. He took a step back from her. “Just as soon as I can get us a special license. It is fortunate that Lord Burleigh is Jack’s guardian. There will be no problem at all gaining his permission to marry her. You see, he’s my godfather. Now, I will see him tomorrow. I’m thinking we should marry on Friday. That’s a full four days from now. Is that all right with you ladies?”

Mathilda was staring hard at him. Maude patted her sister’s hand. “It’s all right, dear,” Maude said. “Our boy here isn’t a thing like his father. Are you, my boy?”

“Do call me Gray, Aunt Maude. Compared to my departed sire, I’m an undisputed saint. By the way, what do you call her? Freddie? Do you call her by that dreadful Winifrede name?”

“Graciella,” Aunt Mathilda said.

“What Mathilda means is that Jack’s father wanted her named Graciella, but her mother refused, and thus she became Winifrede. Her father called her Graciella upon
occasion. As I recall, he called her Graciella in moments of affection. Otherwise, it was Levering, surely a painful name for a girl, but he wasn’t to be dissuaded from it. Actually since both Mathilda and I are very fond of her, we also call her Graciella. It has a nice sound to it, doesn’t it? It rolls on the tongue.”

He tried out the word on his tongue. It didn’t sit right. It was a lovely name, but no, he didn’t see it fitting her. He looked at her and smiled. “May I continue with Jack?”

“I rather like it myself,” she said. She was looking at him strangely, and he wanted to know, just about more than anything at that moment, what she was thinking, exactly.

“Next Friday, Jack?”

“Yes, Gray. Next Friday.” He watched her gather up the slithery skirt of her black peignoir, walk back to the raised bed, and climb in. He smiled when she burrowed beneath the bedclothes, covering her head with the soft down pillow.

He couldn’t say that he blamed her. He thought of doing some burrowing in his own bed.

He bid Mathilda and Maude good night and went to his bedchamber to do just that.

12

“I
T IS
impossible, my lord,” said Snell, Lord Burleigh’s formidable butler for more years than Gray had been on this earth. He’d terrified Gray as a child with his very precise hauteur, which bordered on the glacial. Now that Gray was a man, Snell still made him want to apologize for interrupting the household.

“It is urgent, Snell. Terribly urgent. I must see Lord Burleigh.”

“I’m sorry, my lord, but you don’t understand. Lord Burleigh is very ill. He is upstairs in his bed with Lady Burleigh seated on one side of him, one of her hands covering his. Dr. Bainbridge is seated on the other side of him, staring at the whites of his eyes, which, Dr. Bainbridge says, tell him exactly whether a patient is ready to journey to the hereafter or remain here, hovering but alive.”

“But what is wrong with him, Snell? His heart?”

“Yes. It was rather sudden. Just last Sunday he simply collapsed at Lady Curley’s card party. I might add that Lord Burleigh didn’t wish to go to the card party, but her
ladyship very prettily begged him until she carted him away with her.”

There was simply no one like Snell, Gray thought, stroking his long fingers over his jaw, to see that things were properly explained and commented upon, leaving no doubt as to his opinion of everything in the world. Lord Burleigh had had difficulties with his heart for years now. He prayed his godfather would survive this. Dr. Bainbridge was a good physician. Well, hell. After this unexpected blow, what the devil should he do now?

“Good morning, Snell. How is his lordship this morning? Any improvement?”

Gray turned to see Mr. Harpole Genner, a lifelong friend of Lord Burleigh’s. A man of quiet manner and unassailable honor, he’d known Gray all of Gray’s life and had even put him up for membership at White’s some seven years before.

“There is no change this morning, sir,” Snell said.

“Is that you, St. Cyre? It is. It’s been a very long time, my boy. Ah, you’ve heard about poor Charles. It’s a siren’s call to us all, this collapse of his. When I awoke this morning, I felt my bones aching.”

Gray looked at Mr. Harpole Genner and saw a path to rescue. “Snell,” Gray said, “may Mr. Genner and I come in and perhaps use Lord Burleigh’s library for a moment? It’s very important, as I told you. I believe Mr. Genner may be able to help me, if he wishes to.”

“Naturally, Gray, naturally,” said Mr. Genner, focusing now on the young baron. “There is something wrong, Gray? Something I can assist you with? Ah, some distraction from this trying time is welcome. Come, Gray. Bring us tea, Snell.”

“. . . So you see, sir, since it involves such a vast sum of money, I cannot, as a gentleman, simply marry her
without Lord Burleigh’s blessing. It simply wouldn’t sit right with me. He is her guardian and I must have his approval to wed her.”

Mr. Harpole Genner slammed his fists down on his bony knees. He was smiling. “By damn, boy, you’ve given me a splendid tale. My wife will burst her seams when she hears this. The demmed girl was riding west instead of south? No natural sense of direction like we men possess? Ah, and you were her savior?” Mr. Genner rubbed his veiny hands together. “Now the little pigeon’s all yours.”

“Actually, I believe she sees herself as a flower, or perhaps a gardener of future flowers. No, there’s no way around it, sir. But I must wed her quickly, before her stepfather can step in and make this situation even more awkward than it already is.”

“Yes, Sir Henry Wallace-Stanford. A wobbly wheel with crooked spokes. A man with no finesse, and a black heart. Aye, a bloody rotter, that one. He’s trying to force her to wed Lord Rye, an equally dissolute character. His son’s following in his father’s tracks, so I hear. Sir Henry wants this, of course, so he can take part of her dowry as his fee. Hmmm. Charles would never have allowed that. Never. I suppose Sir Henry was going to force the girl to wed Lord Rye and then come to Charles and announce it?”

“That, or perhaps Lord Rye would simply have raped her. Once that was done, Lord Burleigh would have had no choice but to give her over to him, and her money as well.”

Mr. Genner began to pace about Lord Burleigh’s library, a large, square room that admitted little light even on the sunniest of days. It was whispered behind gloved hands that Lord Burleigh preferred the night, the blacker the better, and why was that, pray tell?

“I must speak to Lord Bricker. You know him, do you not?”

“Yes, but not as well as you or Lord Burleigh. I have heard him speak in the House of Lords. He is a very eloquent man.”

“A pity he has to be a blasted Whig, but what can one do? I will get back to you this evening, my boy, no later. Theo—Lord Bricker—and I will work this out. I realize this is a matter that must be dealt with quickly, and with a good deal of discretion. Yes, Lord Bricker is just the man to resolve everything properly.

“Oh, dear, if only Charles would wake up and quit this nonsense! I say leave this sort of illness to younger men who would deal with it more quickly. Aye, it’s a young man like you who could have his heart beat like a faint drum one moment and then have it pounding hard again the next, all without scaring the wickedness out of his friends.” He sighed.

“I’m sure Lord Burleigh would agree with you, sir.”

“I must tell Snell to close the draperies in his bedchamber. Charles hates the sunlight and it’s fair to bursting in on us today. Yes, he must have the comforting darkness. I’ll inform Snell that he is to see to it right now. I will speak to you later, my boy, after Lord Bricker and I discuss the best way to proceed.”

Gray and Mr. Harpole Genner shook hands. Mr. Genner patted Gray’s arm. “Don’t worry about this, we’ll see it done. I know how very fond Charles is of you. It will delight him to know that his ward and his godson are to be married. Yes, it will please him very much.”

Gray left the Burleigh town house. He hoped that Lord Burleigh would recover. He very much liked his godfather. Odd how one took one’s very close friends for granted. He would never do so again.

Now there was nothing to do but wait. He didn’t know Lord Bricker well. But surely the man would approve of him—surely.

Douglas Sherbrooke looked at his brother, Ryder, over the top of the
London Gazette
. “I’m glad you’re back. How is the little girl?”

Ryder Sherbrooke, full of life and vigor and charm, spread strawberry jam thick on his toast, took a big bite, and said, “Her name is Adrienne. She’s only five years old, Douglas, but as brave a little child as you can imagine. As I told you, her father had sold her to men who preferred children. Evidently one man become furious with her because she was so thin and silent. He threw her in the gutter, where I found her. She’s safe now at Brandon House with Jane and all the other children, thank God. When I left I heard three of the children around her, all of them interrupting and stumbling over each other to tell her of their own dreadful experiences and how they were the very worst and the other children’s experiences weren’t even close. The last sound out of Adrienne’s mouth was a laugh, a little one, but it was still a laugh.”

“How many children are at Brandon House now, Ryder?”

“Only thirteen. Jane is fretting. She told me her quiver wasn’t even close to being full. I just looked at her, for surely that was an odd way of putting it. Your boys are just fine, wreaking mayhem, just as one would expect. Now, our wives will be coming to London a good three days before your auspicious birthday.”

“It isn’t auspicious. It’s depressing and regrettable,” said Douglas.

“You’re only thirty-five, Douglas, not yet a doddering grandfather. Although I did hear Alex talking about pulling
a gray hair out of your head. I also heard her telling my Sophie that she supposed it was inevitable that you would lose interest.”

“What the hell does that mean? Lose what interest?”

Ryder made a big show of examining his fingernails. “Your wife, Douglas, told my wife that you were tiring of her, obviously, since you only made love to her once a day now. She had nearly given up, she told Sophie, all teary-eyed. She’d tried to rekindle your interest in her fair person by singing you an Italian love song in the gardens beneath one of the naked statues; she’d tried to stimulate your passion by hand-feeding you strawberries from Lord Tomlin’s hothouse. She’d even gone so far as to write you a sonnet quite in the classic style. However, she said, you laughed so hard you didn’t even make it to the fourteenth line, which, she told my wife, was indeed a moving tribute to marital love in all its varied forms. Yes, she said, she’d failed with you and was at her wit’s end.”

Douglas was laughing so hard he sputtered on his hot coffee. “Those two women are a danger to us, Ryder, a very real danger. Good God, you’d not have believed that sonnet.”

“Maybe so, but Douglas, I’m thinking that Alex is right. I’ve noticed that you’ve been acting differently lately. You’re distracted, you seem disturbed, perhaps even worried about something. And you came to London, dragging all of us with you, ostensibly for your birthday. What’s going on with you, Douglas?”

“That’s nonsense,” Douglas said. “There’s nothing at all going on with me. I happen to like London. If I must become a year older, London is the place to do it. Alex is dreaming up difficulties where none exist. I beg you not to do the same thing. Now, as I said, Alex’s sonnet nearly curled my toes.”

Ryder had his mouth open when Gray said from behind him, “Alex wrote you a sonnet? Can I look forward to Jack penning me verses as well?”

Both men turned to see Gray St. Cyre standing in the dining room doorway. Douglas said, “Well, we’ve been married nearly eight years. I thought I’d know everything there was to know about Alex by this time, but not a chance of it. That sonnet—she titled it ‘Ode to a Flagging Spouse.’ I will read it to the two of you sometime. The looks on your respective faces will be worth all your verbal jabs.

“Now, Gray, you’re looking a bit flaccid about the mouth. Come in and have some breakfast.” Douglas waved away Thurlow, his butler, and rose, motioning Gray to the chair beside Ryder.

Ryder said, “You’re right about wives—they’re a mystery. Also they’re aggravating and adorable, and I count myself the happiest of men to have Sophie’s warm self beside me every night and to wake up with that same warm self beside me every morning.” Ryder struck a pose, then added, “And perhaps three cats, tucked in behind my knees, stretched out on my chest, or wrapped around my head. The cats love Sophie. Sometimes she wakes up wheezing because one of the cats has his tail wrapped around her nose.”

“Eleanor likes to sleep on me,” Gray said. “I wake up to feel her kneading the hair on my chest. She only uses her claws if I happen to be sleeping later than she would like.”

Ryder said, “I like your Eleanor—she’s got long legs and a strong will. Are there any kittens in the future? We could give one to the Harker brothers and let them train it to become a racing cat.”

As the two brothers spoke of the cat-racing season in the
south of England, at the McCaultry Racetrack from April to October every year, Gray just listened, occasionally shaking his head. A racing cat. He knew about the cat races but he’d never seen an actual racing cat. He’d have to see what Jack thought of that.

There couldn’t be two more different men, Gray thought, looking at the two brothers. Douglas, the earl, was a very big man, all hard muscle, stern-faced as a vicar presiding over a roomful of sinners, a changeling by Sherbrooke standards, what with his sin-black hair and eyes even blacker than sin. Some believed him hard, unyielding, and indeed he could be when the need arose, but his family knew that he would give his life for any of them. His smile, his wife, Alex, was heard to have said, would smite even the newly titled prince regent, which wasn’t a bad thing, all in all.

As for Ryder, the second Sherbrooke son, he brought the sunlight into a room with him. His smile could charm the coins out of a miser’s pockets. He was carefree, at his ease with a chimney sweep or a duke, and one would assume he was an indulged younger son unless and until they found out about his children, his Beloved Ones.

And then they wouldn’t know what to think.

Ryder was a young man granted all he could possibly want, and yet he became an avenging angel when he found a child abused and hurt. After his own marriage some seven years before, Ryder Sherbrooke had built Brandon House not a hundred yards from his own house, Chadwyck House, and there he brought those children that no one cared about, those children hurt, starving, abandoned, and beyond hope. And that, Gray thought, was what he and Ryder had in common. It was a bond that would hold them together for a lifetime.