The Sherbrooke Series Novels 1-5 (145 page)

“Clyde must have panicked after sending me the letter and decided the only thing to do to save his hide was to hire an assassin to kill me.”

“What will you do?”

Gray gave her a kiss in the tip of her nose, nuzzled her neck, then kissed her mouth. “What I’m going to do is pay the gentleman a long-overdue visit.”

“Do you believe he is beating his wife again?”

“Oh, no. His wife, Margaret, is living with his older
brother and his family. He is the head of the family, and incidentally, the very deep well from which our gentleman here draws enough groats to keep himself in luxury. He can do nothing against his brother, thus he would like at least to remove me, the bane of his existence.”

“Let’s get him, Gray. Let’s show him what’s what.”

“Ah, Jack, you do please me so.”

But Jack wouldn’t let him go until she’d looked at his shoulder. “I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself,” she said, as she gently rebandaged the wound. “It looks fine, but I don’t want you to hit him very hard. It could reopen the wound, and Dr. Cranford wouldn’t like that.”

They were donning cloaks when Quincy answered the knock at the front door. It was Ryder Sherbrooke, windblown, tanned, healthy and smiling, his Sherbrooke blue eyes light and full of life. It felt as though he brought the sunlight into the house with him.

“You’ll not believe what I—no, wait, what happened here? What did you do to your shoulder, Gray? Jack, what’s going on? I leave for a very short time, and you get yourself hurt? Damnation, Gray, I must move in with you so that I can keep you whole-hided?”

“No, no, Ryder. Come in for a moment. I’m fine. Quincy, bring us some tea and whatever Mrs. Post has available in the kitchen. Now, Ryder, what’s happened?”

“No, I will not tell you my news until you tell me what’s happened.”

Gray did, quickly and cleanly, leaving out more than Jack would have left out, but she managed to keep herself quiet.

“So, the two of you were going to see our little weasel to speak to him about his lack of manners?”

“Actually,” Gray said, “I haven’t decided just yet what to do with the Honorable Clyde, the mangy little sot.”

Jack said with relish, “I vote we break his neck, but in a very subtle way so that everyone believes it’s an accident.”

Gray laughed and hugged her against his side. “Don’t ever try to hurt me, Ryder, else you’ll have my wife to deal with. Now, tell us your news.”

“Yes,” Jack said. “Have you decided how to re-rotten the borough?”

“No, there wasn’t even time to act. You see, my children took a hand.”

“Your children?” Jack said.

“Yes, all fourteen of them.”

33

“I
WENT
home to see just how easily I would be able to re-rotten the borough, and if I couldn’t manage to do that, then just what else I could do about that little fop, Horace Redfield. I soon learned that he’d spread his groats and his venom throughout Upper and Lower Slaughter.

“My Sophie was fit to shoot his ears off. Ah, she’s so very lovely when her eyes are sizzling with rage. I nearly forgot my own ire when I remarked upon her eyes and her lovely heaving chest. So then I—no, never mind that.

“Where was I? Oh, yes, it turns out that Oliver and Jeremy were home from Eton—” He looked over at Jack, adding, “Jeremy is Sophie’s younger brother, and Oliver is all of sixteen now, and a glorious young man. Douglas is very fond of Oliver as well and plans to train him to be the future steward of Northcliffe, but that’s neither here nor there.

“In any case, the boys soon discovered what was going on. They got all the children together and told them that they were going to ‘squish the bad man.”’ Ryder rubbed
his hands together and grinned into the distance. “Ah, my sweet boys.”

“What happened?” Jack asked.

‘Jeremy and Oliver rightly decided that Mr. Redfield was doubtless a scoundrel and they took turns following him. They quickly discovered that he was seeing a woman in a small cottage just east of Upper Slaughter in the village of Primpton. Then they sent the children, in pairs, to see this woman. Her name is Fanny James, a former actress who was down on her luck, and because, she told Jeremy and Oliver, she couldn’t sew or cook, and scrubbing things would ruin her beautiful hands, and she didn’t want to starve, she became Redfield’s mistress. They told her that since she knew all about treading the boards, they wanted her to teach them how to act and perform a play.

“Fanny James was charmed, needless to say, particularly after all fourteen children trooped to her cottage door, sat at her feet, and listened reverently to every word that slid off her tongue.

“She visited Jane at Brandon House, met all the other staff, and Sophie as well.”

Ryder stopped, stared down at his boots, then threw back his head, and howled with laughter.

Gray waited until Ryder had quieted a bit, then said, “This Fanny James didn’t know what Redfield had done to blacken your good name, did she?”

“No,” Ryder finally said, shaking his head. “No, she didn’t know anything. In short, she fell in love with the children, with Jane and all the other women at Brandon House, and naturally with my Sophie. Ah, yes, and I don’t want to forget Sally, a jewel, Gray, who has the children eating out of her hand. She’s one of the cooks,” Ryder added to Jack. At her still obvious confusion, he said,
“Gray saved her from a brute of a drunken husband and brought her to me. She’s very happy, Gray.

“Now, all the children decided that what Brandon House needed was a resident theater artistic director to live at Brandon House to instruct the children in the art of play-giving, which is, actually, a splendid idea. It will keep the little heathens occupied and entertained, particularly during the long winter months.”

“Was there a play, Ryder?” Jack asked. At his impudent grin, she smiled herself, unable not to because that Sherbrooke grin of his was so warm and so filled with laughter. “Come, tell us, what did you do? What happened to Horace Redfield?”

“Oliver and Jeremy told Fanny what Redfield was doing. She turned as red as the sunset before a storm, Jeremy said, she was so infuriated. So she wrote a short play about this absurd fat little man who could only get elected mayor of the town if he blackened the name of his opponent, who was an honest man. He did this by claiming every child in the town was a bastard and he himself was in search of the father to bring him to justice. It was staged in the middle of the afternoon on the green in Lower Slaughter. Thank God the afternoon was warm and sunny.

“There was no warning about what was in the play, just that ‘Ryder Sherbrooke’s bastards were going to perform for the townspeople.’ Horace Redfield came, all resplendent in a yellow waistcoat, happy as a clam, ready to hammer in the final nails to my coffin by pointing his pudgy finger at all the children and wagging that finger, and remarking that they all resembled me and no one would feel sorry for them and thus vote for me no matter how many free plays they performed.

“All the nails hammered were on Horace Redfield’s coffin. Ah, the children were magnificent. Fanny was superb.
One of the children’s teachers, Mr. Forbes, played Mr. Redfield. He was splendidly oily. He’d tied a fat pillow around his waist and wore a bright green waistcoat. Every time he saw a child, any child, even those in the audience, he yelled ‘Bastard!’

“In the end, Fanny James stood up in front of the good two hundred people present and said she was casting her vote for me, the man who took in abused children and fed them and clothed them and made certain they grew up straight and not crooked, like some men she could name. She stared at Redfield, who was by this time standing utterly alone. Even his wife had left his side.

“The election is next week. I do believe I shall win, thanks to my children and a very nice woman who is now in my employ and won’t have to worry about becoming a mistress to any more scoundrels.”

“What an ending, Ryder,” Gray said. “I wish we could have been there.”

Jack turned to Gray, took his hands in hers, and said, “I was thinking that Georgie would very much enjoy meeting all Ryder’s children. Perhaps, too, acting would help her with her stutter. May we go to visit?”

Gray arched an eyebrow in Ryder’s direction. “Come,” Ryder said. “I’m going back home tomorrow. I returned to London only to speak with members of the Tory Party about final strategy, to tell them what happened, which will make them chortle and crow until next week, and to sign some papers. And, naturally, to tell the two of you what had happened. So, Jack, I didn’t have to re-rotten the borough. Now, as to coming to me, why, you’re both welcome anytime. Who is Georgie?”

“Our little sister,” Gray said. “You’ll like her, Ryder. Speaking of little sister—” They all turned to see Dolly standing in the doorway, holding Georgie’s hand.

“I-I-I heard you,” Georgie said. ‘I heard a g-g-gentleman sh-shouting.”

“Not shouting exactly,” Ryder said, striding to the little girl. He dropped to one knee and looked her straight in her one golden eye and her one blue eye. “I must have a big full voice so that all fourteen of my children can hear me.”

“F-F-Fourteen, sir?”

“Yes. When you come with your sister and Gray, you can increase my number of children to fifteen. Would you like that, Georgie?”

Even as Ryder was speaking, Georgie, her shy Georgie, had released Dolly’s hand and begun to move closer to him. By the time he paused, she was right in front of him, smiling. Jack had never seen anything like it. Georgie continued to move toward Ryder until she couldn’t be more than a single inch from his face. “Oh, yes, sir, I would l-l-love to see your children.”

“And you, my little sweetheart, will soon be a favorite with everyone. I think you will make a splendid actress. Now, would you like to select a tart that you think I would like?”

Both Gray and Jack held silent, simply marveling, as Georgie was soon seated on Ryder’s leg, laughing and feeding him an apricot tart. She was speaking quickly between her spurts of very natural and joyous laughter, not stopping when she faltered or stuttered, just tumbling her words one over the other, smiling, so very happy, near to bursting with it.

“He is amazing,” Jack said, swallowing around the sudden lump in her throat. “I never would have believed it.”

“I wonder how Parliament will react to him,” Gray said and laughed.

“I just hope the prince regent isn’t so charmed that he wants to sit on him. He’d break Ryder’s legs.”

Because Ryder was Ryder, he didn’t leave the St. Cyre town house, even though members of Parliament were awaiting him, until Georgie, still pleased and excited, had finally fallen asleep with her head on Ryder’s shoulder. He hugged Jack and shook Gray’s hand. “Go take care of Clyde Barrister now.”

“Yes,” Jack said, her eyes lighting up with viciousness, “let’s go.”

But the Honorable Clyde Barrister had left his town house, obviously in a hurry. They were met by his butler, who looked a bit dazed, able to say only that his master had mumbled something about leaving for Greece, that there were bad people after him.

“He’d best stay far from England,” Jack said, a great disappointment in her voice.

“I imagine he will. He’s not stupid. I wonder if he left his brother with a mountain of debts. At least Margaret is safe now.”

Late that evening, after they had both decided that life was possible after lovemaking, Gray kissed her temple and said, “I am very pleased with you and with this marriage, Jack, very pleased indeed.”

“I as well. Actually, there can be no more pleasing me, Gray. You’ve pushed me to beyond pleased.”

He kissed her left ear, pulling the tangle of hair back from her forehead, and kissed her eyebrows. “And what do you say to that?”

She didn’t say anything for a very long time. She was thinking that no woman could be more blessed than she, more blessed or more pleased. But what were mere thoughts when a man like Gray was her husband? She kissed his neck and whispered, “I say thank you, Gray. Thank you with all my heart for catching me when I stole Durban.”

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s Imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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