The Sherbrooke Series Novels 1-5 (134 page)

“It’s about time you deigned to come back here. Damnation, I won’t allow this to continue.” Sir Henry raised his voice to the heavens and yelled, “Get the child out of here or I’ll send her to York forever.”

“Child? York? Excuse me, Sir Henry, is there some sort of problem?”

“I told you my household wasn’t running smoothly. I told you the meals weren’t cooked well and were late. I told you my valet even nicked my neck. Well, now Darnley and Mrs. Smithers tell me it’s either the child or them. They say they cannot tolerate further disarray. I’ve thought about
it. Winifrede wants her little sister. Well, she can have her. Take her, my lord, today.”

“I beg your pardon, Sir Henry. You’re saying that you want to give away your only child?”

“If it were a boy child it would be different. The child is a girl, she is absurd-looking with her mismatched eyes, and now she’s begun to stutter. Mrs. Finch doesn’t like her, either.”

Gray walked past Sir Henry into the manor.

“Well, my lord?”

Gray turned slowly and smiled. “May I inquire how you intend to make it worth my while to take the child?”

Jack pulled back beneath the stairs.
Oh, Gray
, she thought,
please don’t push him too hard
.

“What do you want?”

Gray struck a thoughtful pose. “Money,” he said.

“You want money to take the child?”

“Yes,” Gray said. “Let us say you’ll give me one hundred pounds a year. This will take care of feeding and clothing the child.”

“Clothing her like royalty! Ten pounds and not a sou more!”

“All right, fifty pounds, but that’s the lowest I’ll go. Don’t forget I’ll have to pay her nanny, Dolly. Also I’ll require a signed paper from you that I will be Georgina’s guardian. You will relinquish any and all authority you have over her, Sir Henry.”

“Yes, yes, certainly.” Sir Henry was nearly rubbing his hands together. He believed he’d won a mighty victory. So much the better.

“Let’s see it done, then,” Gray said. “Jack doesn’t particularly like it here, as you can imagine. We will leave as soon as all the papers are signed. Is there a solicitor in the neighborhood?”

At three o’clock that same afternoon, Gray stepped up into the carriage and sat down on the seat opposite his wife and her little sister, wrapped up warmly in one of Jack’s old cloaks. He tapped his knuckles on the carriage roof. He said nothing until they had turned out of the Carlisle drive and onto the country road.

“Do you think my stepfather will send you fifty pounds for Georgie’s care?”

“Oh, no. It doesn’t matter. I knew I had to appear to be as venal as Sir Henry, else he just might have seen through everything and offered Georgie to me only if I paid a vast sum for her.”

“He’s despicable.”

“True, but if he marries Mrs. Finch, I have this feeling that he will receive just what he deserves.”

“Why do you think that?”

“When I was thanking Darnley and Mrs. Smithers for their assistance in making Sir Henry miserable, they told me that one of the servants at Cit Palace found out—doubtless from eavesdropping—that Mrs. Finch was married to a very rich man who died shortly after their marriage.”

“Was he very old?”

“Not above sixty. But that wasn’t the point.”

“What was the point?”

“Mrs. Finch has been widowed four times.”

“Oh, dear.” Jack pressed her knuckles to her mouth. “Oh, dear. But Gray, my stepfather isn’t old or rich.”

“Ah, so you believe Mrs. Finch loves him?”

“He is exceedingly handsome. He can be charming. My mother refused to believe ill of him until the day she died.”

“Be that as it may,” Gray said, leaning forward to straighten Georgie’s collar. The child just stared at him, saying nothing. “It also appears that Lord Rye is interested
in the lady. It also appears that she’s seen in his company as well as in Sir Henry’s.”

Jack laughed. She couldn’t help herself. She hugged Georgie close, kissing the top of her head. “Your hair, Mistress Georgie, is like silk, all slippery and shiny. What do you think of that?”

“I-I-I heard P-P—”

“Your papa?”

The little girl nodded. Gray wondered if she would ever be able to speak her father’s name.

“He said to himself that he’d s-s-swallow what he had to and marry the b-b-bitch. B-B-But not for l-l-long.”

The two adults stared at the child. “Now this is a kicker,” Gray said at last.

“You mean that the two of them just might try to do each other in?”

“May the best man or woman win,” Gray said. He leaned over and lightly stroked his fingertips over Georgie’s cheek. “You have an excellent memory, Georgie. Now, how will you like London?”

“W-W-What’s Lunnon?”

22

“I
HADN
’
T
expected to fill my nursery quite this quickly,” Gray said as he watched Jack tuck Georgie into a little girl’s bed, quickly brought down from the attic, all draped with frills and gauzy material. Had it belonged to his grandmother? He didn’t know. It was simply very old. He listened to Jack singing to her sister, rather a thin voice, but true.

“No, I hadn’t either,” Jack said quietly, her lullaby finished, looking up at him. She smiled toward Dolly as she said to Gray, “We’re lucky that Dolly loves Georgie so very much and wanted to come with us. I was afraid of too much change for her. When my stepfather’s sister came to take her to York, I thought Georgie would just fold down. She became so quiet, as though if she were quiet enough everyone might overlook her and leave her be. The stuttering is new. All the change, the uncertainty, I suppose. But she’ll be all right now, thanks to you, Gray.”

Again, the dreaded gratitude he didn’t want. Then she leapt on him, laughing, kissing his chin, the end of his nose,
tugging his ear so that he bent down to kiss her. “Thank you,” she said into his mouth. He didn’t want to stop kissing her, but Dolly was standing there, looking down at her toes, blushing a bit, Georgie wasn’t completely asleep, and Mrs. Piller had materialized not eight feet away from them. Gray pulled back and gently pressed his forehead against Jack’s.

“My lord,” she whispered, lightly touching her fingertips to his chin, “you’re so smart I’ve decided to enroll in more of your teasing lessons. And I must practice what you’ve already taught me. I wouldn’t want to forget anything or grow inept.”

Where had this delightful flirt been hiding herself?

Gray said, as he pulled himself together, “Dolly, this is Mrs. Piller. She’s the best housekeeper in all of London. She’s known me since I was three years old and has complained ever so long now that this house needed a child’s laughter again. She told me you’ll be in the bedchamber at the opposite end of the nursery. Thank you for coming with us.”

And Dolly, all of eighteen years old, Jack’s age, said with worship in her voice, “It’s my dream, my lord. Being here in London. My dream.”

Once Dolly had left with Mrs. Piller to see her own bedchamber, Jack once again looked down at her sister and saw that she was now asleep. Gray said, “I saw you looking at Dolly. I’m afraid I saw a bit of jealousy in those blue eyes of yours.”

“Jealous of Dolly? It’s true that she blushes quite a bit in your presence, but no, I swear I’m not jealous.”

“No, no, Jack. You know that’s absurd. She blushes because you’re always kissing me in her presence. No, I meant that you’re jealous because Dolly is so close to Georgie.”

She thought about that a moment, and because she was a good foot away from him, he was able to observe her reactions with more dispassion than not.

“Oh, dear, I believe you’re right. That brings me rather low on the worthy-person scale, doesn’t it, Gray?”

“You’ll slowly shed your less appealing traits the longer you’re married to me. Trust me. I’ll mold you into female perfection. You’ll be towering over everyone female on that scale by the end of the year.”

“My lord.”

Gray turned, a smile on his mouth. “Yes, Quincy?”

“The earl of Northcliffe is here. He has brought his wife, the countess, to meet her new ladyship.”

“News moves about London at an alarming rate. We’ve only been home an hour.”

“Closer to an hour and a half, my lord.”

“Thank you, Quincy. Come, Jack, and meet Alexandra Sherbrooke. She’s a dandy lady.”

Jack had no idea if the red-haired countess of Northcliffe was a dandy lady or not. She spoke, but only to Jack and Gray. Otherwise, she was silent. She didn’t look at her husband, but took a chair as far away from him as possible. What was going on here? Was she sickening of something? Was she terribly shy? Did she hate Douglas Sherbrooke?

Alexandra was small, Jack saw, save for a magnificent bosom, which they’d all been treated to a view of when Quincy had gently removed her cloak. Douglas Sherbrooke, on the other hand, was a large man. He towered over his wife. Goodness, Jack thought, when they made love the earl would have to worry about crushing her. Or maybe, Jack’s thoughts continued, as she wondered if something like it could work, the countess remained on top of her husband. Jack spent a few moments wondering what that would be like, wondering if such a thing would be possible. When
Gray looked over at her, he saw that her face was flushed, her blue eyes gleaming.

He looked back at Douglas Sherbrooke. Evidently the earl and his countess weren’t speaking to each other, of all things. If they indeed weren’t speaking, then why the devil did they have to pick his drawing room not to speak to each other in? And what was Jack thinking? Her face was red. Was she sickening of something? And where were the aunts? He’d never before seen Alex stare down at her slippers and remain silent as a clam.

Jack, sitting on the edge of her chair, said brightly, “Your hair is lovely, my lady. The color is the exact shade of a woman’s hair in a painting. Italian, I think. I like it all braided on top of your head.”

“Thank you,” Alex Sherbrooke said. “Call me Alexandra.” She patted one fat braid. “All stacked up like this, I look taller. I’m surrounded by giants. Being short also seems,” she added, tossing a killing look toward her husband, “to indicate a frail brain, at least to some people.”

Douglas remained tight-lipped, looking not at his wife but at a globe that sat in the corner of the drawing room. The countess fell silent and studied her slippers again.

Douglas Sherbrooke cleared his throat and said to Gray, “Helen Mayberry is still in town with her father. You know, Gray, she is very enthusiastic about this King Edward’s lamp, won’t even consider that it’s probably nonsense. She swears she rescued a very old and tattered parchment from one of the ancient abbeys near her home in Court Hammering that spoke of the lamp and its powers—no outrageous specifics, however—and its supposed immense age. The parchment also questioned whether its powers represented good or evil at work in the lamp.”

Gray said, “Miss Helen seems a very sensible lady. She carried me over her shoulder, Jack told me, after I knocked
myself unconscious against an oak tree trunk. Didn’t even wind her. When I came to myself I remember thinking she had blond wagon wheels over her ears.”

Jack said, smiling and guileless, “Didn’t she say at our wedding that she’d loved you, Douglas, since she was fifteen?”

Alexandra Sherbrooke stood abruptly, her hands on her hips. “You tried to deny that, Douglas. Now I know the truth. Thank you, Jack.” Then she turned so quickly to face Gray that she nearly tripped on her skirt. “I could carry you as well, Gray. I’m fit and strong, even though I’m not such a huge grand specimen of womanhood as Miss Helen Mayberry. How dare she tell you that she loved you, Douglas? How dare you pretend that it didn’t happen? How could you ever imagine that I don’t know everything—everything, do you hear me?—everything that is said to you or said about you?”

“Alex, for God’s sake, just stop this now.” Her husband, at least a foot taller than his wife, was on his feet, ready to hover over her and thus intimidate her. “So all this is about Helen Mayberry? You’re being a fool. Listen to me, Helen was simply reminiscing. She meant nothing by it. It was just conversation, nothing more.”

“Ha! One does not reminisce in such a fashion to a married man, a very married man, and that’s what you are, Douglas Sherbrooke, even though you don’t have the same desire for me that you had before, and don’t bother to deny it. You were behaving oddly even before I knew about Helen Mayberry, all silent and withdrawn from me, not even wanting to nibble on my earlobe when your mother would be coming into the room in only two seconds. So what am I to think now? Perhaps the mystery of your wretched indifferent behavior is explained. Just perhaps you’d already seen her. Yes, that’s probably it, you sod.
It’s another woman you want, whose name is Helen Mayberry.”

“Alex, stop it. If you insist upon getting your back up just because an old friend said something utterly meaningless, at least wait until we’re alone. We’re visiting Gray and Jack. We’re in their drawing room. I’ll wager they haven’t even had a minor disagreement yet. They’re still thinking only about making love, nothing else.

“Now, I won’t have you acting like a fishwife. Sit down, Alex, fold your hands neatly in your lap, and smile. It would be preferable if you also kept your mouth closed. We are in company where you must act polite and well bred, not alone where you can shriek at me if it pleases you. As for the other, you’re imagining all of it.”

But the countess didn’t sit down. She walked right up to her husband until they were standing toe to toe, in the center of a drawing room that wasn’t in their home, unheeding of both Gray and Jack, their hosts. Alex poked her husband in the chest. “You don’t have to keep talking about Helen Mayberry as if she’s a saint and so intelligent and so lively and so attuned to those around her. Attuned? Ha! It just means that she wants you, you wretched clod. She saw you without me there to protect you from predatory harpies like her, and she knew she could pull the wool over your eyes. You’re splendid, Douglas, but you’re still a man, and that means your brain isn’t always focused on what is proper and appropriate, particularly when there’s a very big, very blond hussy around you.”

Douglas stared down at his small, very angry wife. “I suppose this means that the dam has burst,” he said slowly. “I’m sorry, Gray, Jack. I didn’t realize she was so jealous of poor Helen that she would lose all her refinement and her exquisite manners in front of you.”

His wife poked him in his waistcoat, hard.

He looked ready to pick her up and shake her, Jack thought, watching Douglas flex his hands. He took a step back from her. “Alex, for God’s sake, get hold of yourself.”

“You’ve been gone a lot lately, Douglas. All you tell me is that you had to take a trip to see to this, and then another trip over there to see to that. You’ve been gone at least three weeks in the past two months. Three weeks! You were with her at her ridiculous lamp inn, weren’t you? My God, did you see her shortly before Gray’s wedding? You did, didn’t you? Just where is this ridiculous town, Court Hammering? You let her seduce you with talk of that lamp, didn’t you?”

Douglas took two more steps back from his wife, whose face was now nearly as red as her hair. His back was nearly touching the mantelpiece. “Listen to me, Alexandra,” he said, stern as a magistrate now faced with a roomful of ruffians, “This is beyond absurd. If you don’t cease this ludicrous jealousy I will send you home. You will stay there, dealing alone with your mother-in-law—may God preserve you—until you learn how to comport yourself. I have never been to Court Hammering. Well, no—I visited Lord Prith once many years ago, but not since that time. Forget Helen.

“Very well, I remember now that I also visited Lord Prith at Grillon’s Hotel after Gray’s wedding. You weren’t yet here. They invited me to dine with them. There’s nothing more to it than that, Alex.”

Then Douglas blundered. He smiled as he said to Gray, “One of the footmen tripped over a hassock. He would have fallen on his nose if Helen hadn’t grabbed his collar and hauled him right up.”

“Oh, yes, she’s so fast and competent, isn’t she? Oh, yes, I heard how she even faced down Arthur Kelburn,
who’d kidnapped Jack. Well, Douglas, I could have faced him down as well. Just because I’m small doesn’t mean that I’m stupid or a coward. I could have vanquished him. I could have saved that footman, too. A hassock would be nothing to me.”

Douglas smote his forehead with his palm. “This is beyond ridiculous. Listen to me, Alex—you couldn’t have faced down Arthur Kelburn. You’re so small he probably wouldn’t even have seen you. No, I revise that. If he’d seen you, he wouldn’t have been able to look away from those breasts of yours. Yes, that’s right. He would have just stood there, gaping and slavering over your breasts until someone thought to kosh him.”

The countess of Northcliffe was shaking her fist at her husband in front of two very interested spectators. “Just listen to you. I will tell you, Douglas Sherbrooke, you haven’t a notion of how one should comport. You’re standing here talking about my bosom when a gentleman simply doesn’t do such a thing.”

“Oh, yes, gentlemen do it, just not in front of ladies. But you haven’t acted like a lady for the last hour. All the way over here in the carriage, you just narrowed your eyes and stared at me. When I asked you what was wrong, you just kept shaking your head and saying ‘Nothing, Douglas, nothing at all.”’