The Sherbrooke Series Novels 1-5 (49 page)

“You still sound like a foghorn. No, you won’t be arrested. I venture to say that Thomas just might be the one to hang. Wouldn’t that solve all our problems?”

She turned her face away from him and said in a very low voice, “Why was Coco awake so very late last night? You said she was the one who saw me leaving.”

“Coco is pregnant. She was feeling ill and thus had her face in the cool night air on the balcony.”

“Oh.”

“Would you like to hear everything that is going to happen now?”

She wanted to scream at him that she’d already heard everything and for him to shut up and just go away, but she couldn’t. She merely nodded.

He censored judiciously, so well in fact that if she hadn’t overheard the entire exchange between the two men, she wouldn’t have suspected a thing.

Ah, but he left out the damning things.

“I don’t think so,” she said when he finished.

“You don’t think so what?”

“I don’t need you to volunteer your services as guardian. I am nearly twenty. Mr. Susson can be Jeremy’s guardian until I reach twenty-one, then I will be his guardian. Camille Hall now belongs to him. Yes, I will be his guardian.”

“No.”

“You are very nearly as young as I am. How could you possibly set yourself up to be my guardian? It’s absurd.”

“I am nearly twenty-six, not so very young an age.”

“Not so great an age either.”

He grinned suddenly. “My brother would like to hear you say that. The poor fellow is only twenty-eight and all the Sherbrookes were pounding and pounding at him to get himself wedded and produce an heir.”

“What happened?”

“He did marry, just before we received the letter from Samuel Grayson.”

“Well, I feel sorry for his poor wife if that is why he married her. To breed heirs.”

“I wouldn’t feel sorry for Alexandra,” Ryder said slowly. “I must admit, however, to being interested in learning what has happened between the two of them. But that’s all beside the point. I will go to Montego Bay and speak to Oliver Susson. I will tell him the race is lost, so to speak. I will engage him to handle this situation and if he does it well, why then, I won’t beat him to a bloody pulp.”

She was quiet. Too quiet. He frowned down at her. “Attend me, Sophie. This is what is going to happen so accustom yourself. If you try to leave Kimberly Hall again, Emile has instructions to sit on you.”

“Why are you doing this? Do you even realize what you’re doing? You are volunteering to take a nine-year-old boy into your guardianship along with his nineteen-year-old slut of a sister. Why would you want this kind of responsibility?”

“I don’t know,” Ryder said. He tried to shrug it off, but couldn’t quite manage it. He said slowly, “I am twenty-five. I am the second son, an honorable, not a lord. All my life I’ve done precisely what I wanted. All my life I’ve laughed and played and loved and enjoyed myself. When my father died, well then, there was Douglas to take care of things because, after all, he was the new earl. He was the responsible one. And I continued as I had. There was no reason for me to change. No one expected anything else from me. As for the other, well, none know of it and it is none of their business and besides it is no great or grave responsibility.”

“What other?”

He simply shook his head and looked irritated with himself.

Sophie held herself silent.

He shrugged. “So,” he said, “now I am responsible for both you and Jeremy. You will depend upon me and upon no one else. Just me. No, just shut your mouth, Sophie, and shake hands with your new guardian.”

He hadn’t really expected her to do anything but continue to squawk. She thrust out her hand and he took it in his. She stared up at him, saying in her tortured raw voice, “I do trust you with Jeremy. I do.”

“You must learn to trust me with yourself as well.”

“Oh no.”

“How are your feet?”

“My feet? Oh, I forgot about them. They’re fine, nearly well, in fact.”

“Yes, I’ll just bet they are.” Ryder pulled the sheet off her. Her feet were lightly bandaged. Blood had soaked through the white cloth. “Why is there blood on the bandages?”

“I don’t know.” Actually, she hadn’t felt a thing. Odd, that.

“Sophie, it’s obvious you got out of that bed. What did you do?”

“I had to relieve myself.”

“Yes, certainly, that sounds like the exact truth. And reaching the chamber pot—all of six feet away—did this. Where did you go, Sophie?”

She looked at her hands. There was still grime under her fingernails. She said absolutely nothing.

“You need a guardian more than Jeremy does.” She looked then at her feet and wondered how she could have possibly forgotten them. Even dashing up and down the stairs to eavesdrop on Ryder and Mr. Cole hadn’t hurt her. But now, looking at them, seeing the bloody bandages, she began to feel throbbing pain.

“I will see to them. There’s no reason for you to remain, Ryder.”

He cursed, fluently and loudly.

Within ten minutes he’d removed the bandages and was washing her feet with soap and hot water. She was trying to keep from crying out. He saw her white face and gentled. He called her a fool and kept cleaning the cuts. He called her a stupid twit when he lightly rubbed at a gash that was ugly and still bleeding.

When he poured alcohol over both feet, she nearly leapt off the bed it hurt so bad. But he grabbed her shoulders and forced her onto her back. “I know it must sting like the very devil but you deserve it. Damn you, don’t move. I don’t know where you went walking but I’ll find out and don’t think I won’t. Now, I’m going to do it again, just to make sure. If you dare to move, I will tie you down. Scream instead.”

She yelled at the top of her lungs when he forced both feet into an alcohol bath. He held them there and she choked on the pain and on her tears.

Jeremy came flying through the door. His fists were up, his face was red with anger and determination.

Ryder stopped him with a look and a simple, “I’m helping her. Come here and hold her hand.”

Jeremy clutched Sophie’s hand until finally Ryder was satisfied that he’d done all he could. He lifted her feet out of the alcohol and swung them back onto the bed. “Now, we’re not going to do anything for the moment, just keep them on top of this clean towel. No walking or I’ll thrash you and I daresay Jeremy will help me.”

“Yes, Sophie, don’t you move. How could you? Coco took care of your feet last night. What did you do?”

“I’m your sister,” she said, her voice so raw and hoarse that she was barely understandable. Jeremy didn’t understand but Ryder did, and he did sympathize. He was no relation whatsoever to Jeremy, yet Jeremy was perfectly willing and ready to obey him, not her. He leaned down and patted her white cheek. “Jeremy will visit with you for a while. Keep an eye on her, my boy, and don’t let her move except to relieve herself. You’re in charge, Jeremy. Don’t let me down.”

“Oh no, sir.”

Ryder gave her a small salute. He gave Jeremy a wink, and left.

HE SHOOK HIS head and shook it again. He simply couldn’t get over her feet. She’d obviously walked somewhere—certainly a farther distance than to the chamber pot—and it had been only a short time before, for the blood on the bandages was quite fresh.

Then he knew, of course. She’d seen or heard Sherman Cole arrive and she’d been terrified. She’d come down and doubtless listened at the door.

His jaw tightened when he remembered his words about her to Sherman Cole and the man’s words about her. Ryder’s had been the more damning because she’d come to trust him, at least with Jeremy. He’d given her a clout that was both unexpected and beyond cruel. Ryder realized he was standing in the middle of the entrance hall, simply standing there, doing nothing, looking at nothing in particular when James said, “Suh, you need something?”

“No, James. Was Miss Stanton-Greville downstairs a few moments ago?”

“Yes, suh, she was. In old Mr. Grayson’s nightshirt, her hair all wild, that ancient nightshirt flapping around her poor bandaged feet.”

“Thank you, James.”

“Yes, suh. Ah, suh, will dat Thomas get his neck stretched out?”

“I hope so, I surely do.”

Ryder walked out onto the veranda. He saw Emile riding up and waved him down.

“Camille Hall is running as smoothly as I can make it at the moment,” Emile said as he dismounted his horse. “The inside smells revolting still but the slaves are working hard scrubbing away the soot and grime. I left Clayton, one of our bookkeepers, over there to meet with the Camille Hall bookkeepers and the head drivers. He’s a sharp fellow and a good organizer. He will keep everyone working. I will return this afternoon to see what they’ve accomplished.”

“No sign of Thomas?”

“Nary a shadow. I directed the grizzly job of getting Burgess buried. His body had simply been overlooked, if you can believe that. Jesus, Ryder, it was a mess. At least it’s done and over with. How are Jeremy and Sophie?”

“They’re fine. Keep an eye out, Emile.”

“Certainly. Where are you going?”

“To Camille Hall. Sophie and Jeremy need clothes.”

Emile frowned after him.

 

 

Clayton was a vigorous, harshly tanned, wiry little man who seemed to be moving even when he was standing still. He met Ryder at the door and began talking nonstop.

Ryder listened carefully to the man as he studied the great house, mentally noting what would have to be done, then dismissed Clayton and made his way upstairs. A giggling young girl with her hair wrapped in a colorful scarf showed him to Sophie’s bedchamber. Her name, she pertly informed him with a sloe-eyed smile, was Dorsey. Sophie’s bedchamber adjoined her uncle’s. He looked over at that adjoining door and imagined it opening and Theo walking in, a whip in his hand.

He opened the armoire doors and saw at least half a dozen of the most garish gowns he’d ever beheld. All silks and satins, the colors too brilliant, all gowns much too old for her, gowns shrieking that she was a woman who knew men and would make a man scream with pleasure. There was nothing else hanging in the armoire save those utterly repulsive gowns.

In the drawers beneath, however, he found gowns that he could well imagine her wearing—soft pastels, light muslins. There were also her underthings—all well sewn and beautifully embroidered, but not what a whore would wear, all lawn, cotton, and linen, no silk, no satin. He shook out a nightgown and held it up. It was batiste, white, and looked as if it would be worn by a little girl.

He made a pile of clothing he would take back to Kimberly. He did the same thing in Jeremy’s room.

All the clothes would be delivered in the early afternoon.

When he arrived back at Kimberly, hot, sweat making his shirt stick to his back, he couldn’t believe his eyes.

There was Sherman Cole and with him were four men, all armed. Cole was yelling at Samuel to bring down the harlot. She was a murderess and he was here to take her back with him to Montego Bay.

Ryder rode his stallion through the men, stopping only at the first step to the veranda.

Cole whirled around. “You! It doesn’t matter, sir, I will take her, and I have the men with me to do it.”

Ryder waved a negligent hand to the four men, all of whom looked vastly uncomfortable, their faces flushed scarlet in the heat.

“Why don’t you come in, Mr. Cole? I am sure there are some rather tasty buns for you to enjoy while we straighten out this confusion.”

Cole shouted, “No! I want her, now!”

“I’m fatigued from this infernal heat,” Ryder said, dismounting, and walking past Sherman Cole, “and from your infernal yelling. Either you accompany me inside or you can stand out here baying in the sun until you melt.”

Samuel hurried after Ryder. Cole, taken aback yet again by this damned young man, followed more slowly. He could hear low conversation among the four men and wondered if the bastards were going to leave him here alone. None of them had wanted to come with him. Well, let them leave. He’d bring her back himself. Then he’d lock her in that room and he’d keep the key. She would be dependent on him for the very water she drank.

Ryder faced him in the salon and said without preamble, “You say Miss Stanton-Greville killed her uncle?”

“Yes, and this time I have enough proof. She shot him twice, one of my men found the derringer.” He pulled it out of his pocket and dangled it in front of Ryder. “You’ll see that it has two chambers. Both are empty.”

“Interesting.”

“Get her. It’s obviously a woman’s gun. Get her. I will take her back with me.”

“Take her back where, Cole?”

The man’s color was high and it went higher. “Why, there is a house we use to keep prisoners in. More a large room, really, but it will suffice for the likes of her.”

Ryder could only shake his head. He should allow Cole to see her now—with her bruised face, bent over like an old woman because of her battered ribs, not to mention her bloody feet. Surely his ardor would cool at that sight. If he took her to this house, he would force her. Rape her endlessly. Ryder felt a knot in his gut and he rubbed his hand over his belly as he said easily, “I think not, Cole. Why don’t you and your men ride back to Camille Hall. There’s a nice fresh grave for you to dig up.”

“What the devil are you talking about, sir?”

“Simply this, Cole. It seems that Theo Burgess wasn’t buried immediately and thus Emile Grayson was able to examine the body before he saw him buried. It turns out Burgess wasn’t shot. He was stabbed three times in the chest. Now, would you like to examine his body yourself? Emile did say that it was quite a messy job. You understand, of course. The heat and all. No? Well, then, why not take yourself and your men off and find Thomas.”