Jaime spotted Ryder first and let out a yell. The instant Ryder dropped Genesis’s reins and turned, he was nearly brought to the ground by flying arms and legs, and three dogs all leaping and barking madly.
They were all shouting, laughing, all of them talking at once, telling him what they’d done during his absence, all except Jenny, of course, who hung back, her thumb in her mouth. Her mop of dark brown curls shadowing her small face, her ribbon long gone. Ryder gave his full attention to the children, trying to answer all of them at once. He grinned at Jane over Melissa’s small head as the little girl took her turn and hugged her skinny arms around his neck until he yelled with imagined pain, making all the children shout with laughter. He was listening to Jaime’s near brush with a sunken log while learning how to swim when Jane and her helpers brought out glasses of lemonade and plates of cakes and scones. He sat in their midst, drinking his lemonade, tossing bits of scone to the dogs, listening to their stories, their arguments, all in all, enjoying himself immensely. Jenny sat quietly, two children away from him, slowly and methodically eating a small lemon cake.
After Ryder had distributed all their presents and stepped back to witness them attack the wrapped packages with ill-disguised greed, he walked over to Jenny. She raised her small face, and her blue eyes—Sherbrooke blue eyes, light as the blue of a summer day—were wide and not quite so blank as he remembered. She smiled and he saw joy in her expression, he knew he wasn’t mistaken.
“My little love,” he said and kneeled down in front of her. He pulled her thumb from her mouth, ran his fingers through her soft hair, and then, very gently, brought her against his chest. The little girl sighed softly, and her arms crept around his neck. He kissed her hair, then closed his eyes, breathing in the sweet child scent of her. God, he loved her, this child of his loins and of his heart.
“She does better, Ryder. She is learning. She is more a part of things, she is more aware.”
He didn’t release his daughter as he looked up to see Jane standing just behind her.
“She misses you dreadfully whenever you’re gone for any length of time, even more this time, which is a very good sign. She asked about you every single day.”
“Papa.”
Ryder froze. Jane smiled. “That is her surprise for you. She’s been practicing. She has said ’papa’ for the past two weeks, each time I’ve showed her that small painting of you.”
“Papa.”
For a moment, he felt his throat close. Then he buried his face against her neck and felt her soft mouth against his face and she said again in a very satisfied voice, “Papa.”
“I’ve brought you a present, pumpkin.”
Her eyes lit up when he pulled the brightly wrapped package from his coat pocket.
Inside was a gold locket. Ryder showed her how to open the locket. On one side was a miniature painting of her and on the other a painting of her mother, who had died birthing her. Ryder remembered the birth, remembered his fear and the endless pain. He also remembered his joy when the small girl child finally came from her dead mother’s body, and she was alive. Not completely whole, but alive, and that was all that had mattered to him.
Jane fastened the locket around Jenny’s neck and immediately Jenny ran off to show her prize to Amy, a little girl of six who smiled a lot more now than she had five months ago. He heard Jenny yell, “Papa give! Papa give!”
“You’re doing very well with her, Jane. You’re doing well with all the children. God, I’ve missed them. I see Oliver’s leg is much better. What does Dr. Simons say?”
“The bone is mending and he doubts Ollie will have a limp. He’s a very lucky little boy. As for Jaime, the burn marks on his legs and back are completely healed. He’s a smart one, Ryder. He reads every book you send over. He spends every shilling of his allowance on even more books. He is well known to Mr. Meyers, who owns the bookshop in the village. As for Melissa, she’s got quite a talent with watercolors. Amy wants to be an Italian soprano, God forbid.”
Ryder nodded and smiled. He followed Jane to the wide porch and the two of them sat down, watching the children. He listened carefully as she told him of each child’s progress, of each child’s needs.
He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off Jenny, who was now proudly displaying her locket to Melissa, who’d gotten a French doll and wasn’t in the least jealous. Ryder knew the children understood that Jenny was his real child, but he doubted it meant much to them, even to Oliver, who sometimes seemed to Ryder to be older than he was.
“I hear you married,” Jane said abruptly, her eyes searching his face, and he knew she hoped it was a false rumor.
He smiled. “Yes, I did. Her name is Sophie.”
“It’s a surprise. To me. To your other women as well, I imagine.”
“You’re wrong about that. Bea has a very busy tongue. I have visited with all of them.”
She arched a thick black brow.
“I’m married now, Jane.” His voice was austere as a vicar’s and she marveled at it.
“And the children?”
“What do you mean?”
She looked off toward a small knot of boys, craned her neck and her ears, then shouted, “Tom, stop saying that horrible word! Oh Lord, where do they hear such things? Don’t curse! Particularly at John—you know he hates it.”
Ryder, who knew Jane’s worth, wasn’t at all surprised when Tom shut his mouth, shrugged with a show of sublime indifference to keep his male pride intact, then turned to throw a ball to Oliver, who hit it expertly with one of his crutches. John, yelling, ran after the ball.
“What does your new wife think about the children?”
“I haven’t told her.”
“I don’t suppose you’ve told your brother or your family yet either.”
Her voice was tart but he just grinned at her. “It’s none of their business,” he said easily. “My sister knows, has known for a long time now. She keeps quiet though, for the most part. She refers to the children as my Beloved Ones.”
“How did she find out?”
“The brat followed me here once, well over a year ago, and watched from the branches of that oak tree over there. Sinjun’s smart. She will also keep her mouth shut.” Ryder shrugged. “But as for the others, I’ve always felt that it’s my business and mine alone, and that’s how I will continue to feel. There is no reason for them to know. At least now since I’m married and made it clear to my brother that I will be the most faithful of husbands, I won’t have to endure any more of his quarterly bastard meetings.”
“Are you really certain about all this, Ryder? Fidelity just because you’re married? It’s not the way of your class, I understand.”
“Perhaps that is true for many, but not for me. Ah, Jane, the earl has more faith in me than you appear to. He knows I will be faithful to my wife because he is besotted with his own and is firmly in the constancy corner. Thus, no more children, at least the way he looks at things. Poor fellow.”
“At last you can quit your damned playacting.”
“Now, Jane, not all of it is playacting.”
“Ha, do I ever know that. Sara told me about a woman she’d met in the village. The woman knew who she was, asked how you were, and then proceeded to tell Sara that she’d first met you when you were sixteen. Then she gave Sara this vacuous smile. Just when did you begin, Ryder?”
Ryder frowned. “You will find no pot filled with gold at the end of that rainbow, Jane. Forget her, forget all of them. As for my wife, she will come around to believing me a faithful hound soon enough, I daresay. But not just yet. Actually, she’s already met Sara and Tess, quite by accident.” Ryder looked off toward the very green rolling hills in the distance, smiling. “She stews quite nicely. Sharp tongue in her mouth that I quite like. A wealth of curses that even Tom would appreciate. Hopefully I’ll hear more out of her in the near future.”
Jane gave him an odd look, saying slowly, “So, you don’t see any reason for your family to change their opinion of you?”
“No reason at all. Why should I? They are all quite fond of me.”
“You are purposely being perverse, Ryder. I don’t understand you. You enjoy the reputation of a Lothario? You like being known as a womanizer, a satyr?”
“Haven’t I earned it?”
“Yes, but that’s not what I mean.”
“I enjoy women, I always have. It’s no secret. I know women, how they think, how they tend to feel about things. Ah, yes, Jane, even you. No, no, don’t call me cynical again. But the children, well, that’s quite different, as you well know. I have a feeling that what you really want to ask me is if I will forget about them now that I have my own family.”
“You wouldn’t do that precisely, but perhaps you wouldn’t come to see them as much as you do now, which would be understandable, of course. It’s just that I would hate to see them hurt.”
“The children are my responsibility, and I love them. Nothing will change. I am taking my wife to the Cotswolds to my house there on the morrow. If there is any emergency, simply send a messenger to me there. It’s quite near to Lower Slaughter, and only a day and a half away. Oh, incidentally, my wife has a little brother who’s lame. Isn’t that rather an odd coincidence?”
Jane just shook her head at him. If she were ten years younger, she herself would have very much enjoyed frolicking in Ryder Sherbrooke’s bed. He had a way about him that drew women, a manner that had nothing to do with his good looks and well-formed body, a way that assured a woman he wouldn’t ever be selfish or unheeding of her needs or of her wishes. As it was, they’d been friends since he was twenty years old, a young man wild as a storm wind, a young man who hated cruelty toward children even more than he loved making a woman scream with delight. Jane had been thirty at the time, filled with sorrow at the death of both her children in a fire, and frankly uncaring about her future. Ryder had, quite simply, saved her. He’d given her a year-old baby—Jaime—to care for. A baby, he’d told her in an unemotional voice, he’d happened to find dumped in a pile of garbage in an alley. He’d just chanced to hear a mewling sound and found him. A year later, he’d brought her Jenny, his own child. It was the first time she’d seen a sorrow to match her own.
She watched him as he rose, dusted off his britches, and went off to play with the children. She wanted to meet this wife of his.
Sophie was standing straight and still while Mrs. Plack, the seamstress from Rye, fitted a riding habit to her. It was a pale green wool with gold braid on the shoulders and Sophie agreed with Alex that it was very smart indeed.
But she couldn’t help but fret about the cost of all the gowns and underthings and bonnets and slippers and now three—goodness, three!—riding habits. She fretted out loud. Alex merely shook her head and said, “Your husband’s orders, my dear Sophie. Stop worrying. When I was first married to Douglas, he didn’t want to buy me even a handkerchief. No, no more out of you. I have a feeling that all this largesse frightens you, that it represents something of a debt you will owe to Ryder, and that debt is growing with each article of clothing. Am I right?”
Sophie said not another word.
“Are you getting tired, Sophie?” Alex asked after another hour had passed.
Sophie shook her head for Mrs. Plack was working so hard, trying so much to please.
“Well, I am. Mrs. Plack is very nearly through with you. The clothes that aren’t finished by the time you and Ryder leave for Chadwyck House I will have sent immediately to you.”
“It is absurd,” the Dowager Countess of Northcliffe said from the doorway.
Alex winked at Sophie. “What, ma’am?”
“That Ryder is taking this girl to Chadwyck House.”
“This girl is his wife, ma’am.”
“Just look at that shade of green. It makes her look quite bilious. Just how much of my son’s money are you spending? I will have to tell him that you are greedy and that is why you married him.”
Sophie said not a word, but she did close her eyes. She thought she heard Mrs. Plack snort.
“I think it goes charmingly with her complexion,” said Alex.
“Ha,” the dowager said. “You have no taste in colors either. ’Tis Douglas who selects all your clothes.”
“You’re right,” Alex said easily. “I’m very lucky that Douglas is so splendid.”
“Humph,” the dowager said. “You don’t fool me, miss, you weren’t speaking about clothes.”
“Well, Douglas is splendid when it comes to clothes as well. Except that he wants my necklines to touch my chin. He accuses me of flaunting if I can’t touch my tongue to the top of my collar.”
Sophie giggled.
The dowager looked aghast; she opened her mouth, then closed it again. However, she was made of stern stuff, and said after only four more seconds had passed, “I wonder why Ryder isn’t here. Doesn’t this girl consider him splendid?”
“Oh yes,” Alex said quickly. “It’s just there is so much to be done before they leave for Chadwyck House. Ah, ma’am, her name is Sophie, you know.”
It was another five minutes before the dowager took herself off with nary a conciliatory word out of her mouth.
Alex rolled her eyes yet again, then rubbed her fingertips over her temples. “I never had a headache in my life until I met my mother-in-law.”
It was another half hour before Mrs. Plack was finished. She was quite pleased with the sum of money Master Ryder was paying her and was effusive in her thanks to Sophie.
Once they were alone, Alex jumped to her feet and rubbed her hands together. “Now, Sophie, why don’t we go to the estate room and steal some of Douglas’s brandy?”
Sophie stared at her sister-in-law. “Every time I think I’m beginning to know you, you say something I don’t expect.”
“That’s what Douglas says.”
“He’s right,” Sophie said. “Let’s go.”
It was the earl who found two giggling ladies sprawled out on the Aubusson carpet in the middle of the estate room an hour later, a depleted bottle of his prized French brandy on the floor between them. Alex was lying on her back, hugging her sides, laughing her head off. Sophie was on her stomach, twirling her hair around a finger, saying, “No, no, Alex, it’s quite true. I’m not lying. The pirate really had only one leg and all three of the women wanted him, each for her own reason.”