The Sherbrooke Series Novels 1-5 (135 page)

“You know, Douglas,” Gray said mildly, “I was remarking to myself that if Jack were as well endowed as Alex, Arthur Kelburn wouldn’t have cared about her money. He would have stolen her away because he was overcome with lust.”

“I see,” Jack said, rising slowly from her chair, turning to stare at her husband as if he were a roach in the corner. “But being that I’m just skinny and flat-chested, and utterly
unappetizing, Arthur only wanted the money he’d get if he managed to drag me to the altar.”

That’s what I get
, Gray thought,
for trying to distract Alex
. He looked up at his wife with a lopsided grin.

It was a pleasing, quite charming grin, disarming and wicked, but Jack wasn’t going to be taken in. She was going to stand firm.

“Not exactly,” Gray said, that grin now becoming white-toothed and even more wicked. “It’s just that you require a bit of exploration, Jack, to truly appreciate all the lovely scenery you have to offer. Your terrain isn’t obviously mountainous, you see, but—”

“Don’t do it, Gray,” Douglas said. “It won’t work. Geographical metaphors filled with hillocks and valleys and forests and such, never work. Trust me.”

“I’m strong, too,” Jack said. She swooped down and jerked Gray’s chair back, and he and the chair went toppling onto the pale blue and peach Aubusson carpet.

That gained everyone’s attention.

“If I pull myself upright, what will you do, Jack?” He lay on his back, his legs still over the fallen chair.

“Jack,” Alex said, “oh, dear, you mustn’t argue with Gray. You’ve been married only a week. That isn’t right. I was very wrong to leap at Douglas’s throat in front of you. It wasn’t well done of me. I apologize.”

“Shouldn’t you be apologizing to me?” Douglas said, taking a step toward his wife. “It’s my throat you want to slit.”

“Stop right there, Douglas. Now, tell me, my lord, why did you take the utterly charming and very strong Miss Helen Mayberry to Gunther’s for an ice on Monday?”

The earl stared down at his wife as if turned to stone. He cleared his throat, once, twice. “How do you know of that, Alex?”

Both Jack and Alex were looking at Douglas now. They were frowning. Gray, still lying on his back, was also frowning at Douglas, but his frown was not one of condemnation but one of
how could you be so stupid?

Alex shook her fist in his face. “You believe, you faithless hound, that I wear blinders in my own house?”

Obviously, one of the servants had found out and told another servant, who probably told her maid, who naturally filled her little ears. He sighed. “It was a lovely day, Alex. Helen had never been to Gunther’s. I escorted her there. I’ve known her for fifteen years. There was nothing more to it than that.”

“Did she tell you anything more about King Edward’s lamp?” Jack asked.

“Just that she’s convinced it’s somewhere in East Anglica, perhaps near Aldeburgh, close to the water. She told me that King Edward’s queen, Eleanor, loved the coastline, the ruggedness of it, the savagery, especially at that particular spot. She believes that after Eleanor died, King Edward hid the lamp somewhere near there as a tribute to her, a shrine.”

“I don’t believe,” Gray said, still on the floor, “that any man, even King Edward, would have hidden away a possibly magical lamp, particularly if it was covered with jewels.”

Alex said, “You don’t know your history, Gray. You’re thinking the way most men think.” She looked at her husband, then loudly cleared her throat. “Actually, King Edward—unlike most men—loved his wife, Eleanor, more than anyone on this earth. It’s said that when she was dying, he was frantic, offering himself in her place, anything to spare her—unlike most men, I daresay. He, I might add, also adored his wife physically, sometimes even leaving his counsel chamber in the middle of the day to go to his wife.
Unlike you, Douglas, who haven’t come out of your estate room to hunt me down in more days that I can count, at least on those days that you’ve even been home and not out spending weeks away from me and refusing to tell me where you’d been or where you were going the next time. It is clear that you no longer love me. It is even clearer that you prefer to forget that I even exist.”

“Bosh,” said Douglas. “You’re hugging conclusions to your ample bosom that have no more reality than a bad dream.”

Alexandra Sherbrooke, small and delicate as a Dresden shepherdess, as sumptuously endowed as a Rubens model, topped with red hair more vibrant than an Irish sunset, yelled at the top of her lungs to her large, dark husband, who towered over her like a prize bull over a heifer, “You want a blond hussy who’s as big as you are, Douglas? You want to feed Gunther’s ices to a brawny trollop who can look you right in the eye? You’re weary of someone half your size? Well, you don’t have to be.”

Alex pulled a chair up right in front of her husband, jumped on it, and stared down at him. “There, does this give you pleasure, Douglas? Am I tall enough for you now?”

“I can look straight ahead right into your damned cleavage,” the earl of Northcliffe said, his wife’s bosom at his eye level.

“Er, Jack, can I get up now?”

“If you keep your distance, perhaps it will be safe enough.” Jack gave him her hand, her eyes never leaving the spectacle of the earl and countess, who were waging a very interesting war in her drawing room. Then she drew her hand back. “No, Gray, I believe you’d best remain there a while longer. It’s probably the safest spot in the
room. Do you think I should order some tea or something?”

But Gray wasn’t listening to her. He was staring at Douglas. “No, Douglas,” Gray said under his breath, “no, don’t do that, Douglas. I strongly recommend you forget that idea immediately.” It was going to happen. Gray yelled, “No, Douglas, don’t do that.”

But the earl paid him no heed.

He leaned forward and kissed the top of his wife’s breasts.

23

A
LEXANDRA SHERBROOKE
screeched, flew at her husband, wrapping her arms around his neck. She hung off him until he clasped his hands about her waist and gently set her on the floor.

Jack said, louder now, “Would you like some tea, Alex? Douglas?”

Douglas Sherbrooke looked over at his host and hostess and began to laugh. “Do forgive us. Normally we are quite comfortable guests.”

Alex grabbed her husband’s big hand and bit his thumb. “You may laugh, and jest about all of this, even try to shove me under the carpet, Douglas, but it won’t work. I will not allow you to betray me with that dreadful Helen woman. I won’t change my mind on this. You will not consider it, Douglas. I don’t care how big and how beautifully strong she is.”

“For God’s sake, Alex, I didn’t betray you. I wouldn’t betray you.” This time he did pick her up, bringing her nose to nose with him. “You will cease this jealous display.”

“And after you took her to Gunther’s and fed her two ices—yes, two!—you took her in your phaeton all around the park.”

“Who the hell told you that?”

“Heatherington told me. He wanted to know who the blond goddess was who was laughing and sitting nearly on your lap and had you ready to lick her palm, blast you.”

“Heatherington,” Douglas said to Jack, “is a man so steeped in debauchery he isn’t happy unless he can claim another man is just as low as he is. Alex, he was baiting you, nothing more.” He finally set her down. “He enjoys baiting you because you won’t ever let him seduce you. It’s a game with him, nothing more.”

Alex took a step back. “I have decided what to do,” she said, flinging her arms out to include both Gray and Jack. “Yes, I have decided that I shall go riding in the park myself this afternoon. No, it’s already afternoon. I shall ride tomorrow morning in the park. I won’t be by myself. I shall be accompanied by a gentleman who will look ready to lick my palm. I will spend the remaining part of this afternoon searching out such a gentleman. I will discover where Heatherington lives. I wonder if he’s as knowledgeable in matters of the flesh as you are, Douglas. Good-bye, Gray, Jack. Congratulations on your marriage. I’m sorry that marriage is the very devil.”

Alexandra Sherbrooke grabbed her cloak and her small straw bonnet with a cluster of grapes cleverly perched on the edge of it and marched out of the drawing room.

They stood frozen, listening to Quincy, who was rushing to the front door, gasping, he was speaking so quickly, “No, my lady, surely you don’t wish to leave just yet. Why, I haven’t been asked yet to fetch tea or other interesting delicacies from Mrs. Post. She makes a marvelous almond
pastry that would make you smile if you took but a single bite and—”

The front door slammed and Quincy trailed off into silence.

“Yes,” Douglas said slowly, “congratulations on your marriage.”

Gray, who was still sprawled on his fallen chair, said, “Thank you, Douglas.”

“I believe I’ll go home now and see my little girl. She looks exactly like me. She’s nearly three years old now and adores me, unlike her twin brothers who look exactly like Melissande and adore me as well. That’s Alex’s sister,” Douglas added to Jack. “She’s so beautiful your teeth ache and your tongue falls from your mouth just looking at her. And now my two bright boys must share that same appalling beauty. They will be uncontrollable when they become men. No female will be safe from them.”

Douglas sighed, looked thoughtfully toward the dark afternoon sky beyond the bow windows, and said over his shoulder as he was leaving, “I hope Alex doesn’t find Heatherington today and bully him into taking her to the park. It will rain soon. Actually, he would go willingly with her. I hear that Heatherington prefers the weather to be dreary so it will match his dark soul.”

“Goodness,” Jack said some moments later, after Douglas Sherbrooke had left. “That was an adventure. It was much more exciting than a play. And it was free, right in our drawing room. Do they perform such spectacular dramas often?”

“Actually, that’s the first time I’ve ever seen any real discord at all between them. Certainly there’s a lot of yelling and insults between them, but that’s nothing unusual. Douglas is usually touching her or trying to bite her ear, or Alex is leaning up to kiss his neck, teasing him like I’m
teaching you how to do.” Gray stood up, then straightened the chair. He dusted himself off. “But this was different. I didn’t like this at all.”

“It’s your fault, Gray, all because you insisted that Helen come here for our wedding. The poor countess, alone and cast out, all because of you bringing that temptress here. Did Douglas really kiss his wife’s breasts? In front of us? And I missed it?”

“Yes,” Gray said, grinning like a glutton over a plateful of pastries, “he most certainly did. Trust me, I would never have insisted that Helen come if I’d had a clue that this could happen. On the other hand, perhaps Alex and Douglas have gotten a bit too settled with each other, too predictable, each knowing what the other is thinking before he speaks, that sort of thing. This has certainly stirred things up, hasn’t it?”

“But what if Douglas falls in love with Helen?”

“No, that won’t happen. Ever. Now, it occurs to me that you haven’t enjoyed my mouth on you in a very long time.”

Jack swallowed, pleated her fingers through the soft muslin of her skirt, and said, “Did you mean that just exactly the way the words emerged from your mouth?”

“Oh, yes,” he said, walking to her, “oh, yes.”

It was Gray’s immediate aim to remove Jack to his bedchamber in the next four minutes, strip her to her white skin, and wallow. He made it to the bottom stair, but no farther. Ryder Sherbrooke burst through the front door, flung his hat on the marble floor, and stomped on it.

“You’ll not believe what those ignorant louts are saying!” Ryder shouted toward them. “I can scare believe it’s happening myself. The lowness of some people.

“Hey, what is this? What the hell’s wrong with you,
Gray? You look ready to cry or yell. You have no reason to be irked. Now, listen to me. You must give me your opinion. I just saw Alex and Douglas in their carriage down the street. Were they visiting you?”

“They entertained us for a good half hour,” Gray said. “They just left.”

“I hope they didn’t try to destroy your house,” Ryder said. “I had to leave the Sherbrooke town house this morning because Douglas and Alex were yelling fit to drop the chandelier. It wasn’t their usual sort of yelling either. I suppose they’ll tell me what’s wrong sooner or later.”

Ryder turned on his heel and strode into the drawing room, leaving Quincy to pick up his hat and begin knocking the lumps out of it. “Come along,” he called out over his shoulder.

“What now?” Gray said, an eyebrow lifted a good inch.

Jack sighed, looking longingly at her husband’s mouth, and said, “I never knew there was such excellent entertainment in London. We don’t even have to leave our drawing room.”

“That’s certainly true, curse it.”

Ryder was pacing the drawing room. “To be brief,” he said over his shoulder as Jack and Gray trailed into the room, “I’ve given this a lot of thought and I’ve decided to stand for Parliament. It’s because of the children, of course. God knows that we need laws to protect children. It’s disgraceful how our children can be treated here in England.” He stopped pacing, turned red in the face, and yelled, “My damnable opponent, a Mr. Horace Redfield, who has a fat belly and sour breath, is telling everyone that Brandon House isn’t a home for children I’ve saved. No, it’s all my bastards that are housed there.

“My bastards! I was warned never to trust a damned
Whig, curse their perfidious tongues. I should have known. He also has gout and a lot of cronies, blast him.”

Gray whistled in admiration. “That would make you an excessively busy man for many years now, Ryder,” Gray said. “It would also mean that you had a very understanding wife. How many children are there now?”

“Fourteen. But that number goes up and down. And that isn’t all. Redfield even intimated that some of those children are also my brothers’ bastards, that I’m the recipient of all the wayward lust in my family. I heard he was even whispering behind his hand that my brother Tysen, the vicar, has dropped a couple of his by-blows off at Brandon House. Good God, you know Tysen, Gray. He’d squeak and flee the neighborhood if any woman other than that priggish flat-chested wife of his even so much as winked at him. Damnation, I’m going to strangle that little Whig blighter.”

“So Douglas doesn’t know about this yet?”

“No, Jack, he doesn’t.” Ryder paused a moment, then took a longer look at her. “I think I remember you from your wedding day.”

“Yes,” Jack said. “Can’t you simply tell the truth, Mr. Sherbrooke? Wouldn’t that expose Mr. Redfield and all his lies?”

“Call me Ryder,” he said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “I am fast learning that in politics there is no such thing as truth, there’s only who’s the best liar and how well he’s able to twist things to his advantage, and how many cronies he has who lie as well as he does.

“Mr. Redfield is preaching about how he reveres the hearth and the family. And here I am, the debauched scourge of the neighborhood, a man with no concern for the spiritual value of marriage at all, living openly with all
my congregated bastards and a downtrodden wife who goes along with the fiction.”

Jack said, “But the fact that you have your bastards living near you should convince everyone that you’re a fine, responsible man who cares about any child he brings into the world.”

Gray rolled his eyes. “Jack, you’re sweet and good and very naive. People’s brains don’t work that way. We’ll talk about that later. What else, Ryder?”

“I hear too that Mr. Redfield is using bribery so that people will repeat this ridiculous tale to anyone still breathing. People are credulous, their lives are tedious. Give them a chance to wallow in wickedness and they’ll leap into the mud as fast as a pullet escaping the hatchet. As you said, Gray, people’s brains don’t work in reasonable ways. It’s true that they’ve all known about Brandon House for years. Good God, we order in huge amounts of food locally as well as bolt upon bolt of fabric for clothing. Do you know just how much leather for shoes alone we order? You know how fast the children grow, Gray. It’s hard to keep up with them.

“Yes, they know the truth, but now because Mr. Redfield has intimated hidden lust and sex and scandal, they’re eager to disregard what they’ve known for fact and leap upon this new wagon. It’s just so more titillating than a simple haven for hurt children, and that’s the truth of it, Jack.

“Right in Upper and Lower Slaughter, the very warm belly of England, I’m learning that anything to do with fleshly concerns brings people flocking to believe it.”

“Have a cup of tea, Ryder,” Jack said and pressed a cup into his hand. “It will be all right. We will come up with a strategy.”

“Where did you get the tea?”

“Quincy came in,” Gray said. “You were so engrossed
in your tirade that you didn’t heed him. Come sit down, Ryder. We understand the problem now. Let’s solve it.”

“I want to smash the blighter.”

“The borough isn’t controlled by a local family?” Gray asked.

Ryder shook his head. “No, not now. It was a rotten borough until the Locksley family died out some twenty years ago. Now it’s free and clear, the elections, for the most part, aboveboard.”

Jack said, “What’s a rotten borough?”

“It’s a borough that’s controlled by a local aristocratic family. Some boroughs have fewer than fifty people living in them. It’s disgraceful.”

“Hmmmm,” Jack said, “what a wonderfully easy solution.”

Both men stared hard at her.

Jack gave them a beatific smile. “All right, Ryder. You’ll simply make it rotten again. You’re a Sherbrooke—control it. Your family must be more illustrious and have more influence than these Locksleys ever had.”

“I hadn’t thought about being as underhanded as Redfield,” Ryder said slowly, looking at Jack with some respect. “What is involved, I wonder, in re-rottening a borough?”

“It can’t be too difficult if those idiots in the House of Lords have managed to rotten them for the past hundreds of years,” Gray said. “Come to think of it,” he continued, smacking his palm on his thigh, “I’m one of those idiots.”