Douglas was laughing so hard he sputtered on his hot coffee. “Those two women are a danger to us, Ryder, a very real danger. Good God, you’d not have believed that sonnet.”
“Maybe so, but Douglas, I’m thinking that Alex is right. I’ve noticed that you’ve been acting differently lately. You’re distracted, you seem disturbed, perhaps even worried about something. And you came to London, dragging all of us with you, ostensibly for your birthday. What’s going on with you, Douglas?”
“That’s nonsense,” Douglas said. “There’s nothing at all going on with me. I happen to like London. If I must become a year older, London is the place to do it. Alex is dreaming up difficulties where none exist. I beg you not to do the same thing. Now, as I said, Alex’s sonnet nearly curled my toes.”
Ryder had his mouth open when Gray said from behind him, “Alex wrote you a sonnet? Can I look forward to Jack penning me verses as well?”
Both men turned to see Gray St. Cyre standing in the dining room doorway. Douglas said, “Well, we’ve been married nearly eight years. I thought I’d know everything there was to know about Alex by this time, but not a chance of it. That sonnet—she titled it ‘Ode to a Flagging Spouse.’ I will read it to the two of you sometime. The looks on your respective faces will be worth all your verbal jabs.
“Now, Gray, you’re looking a bit flaccid about the mouth. Come in and have some breakfast.” Douglas waved away Thurlow, his butler, and rose, motioning Gray to the chair beside Ryder.
Ryder said, “You’re right about wives—they’re a mystery. Also they’re aggravating and adorable, and I count myself the happiest of men to have Sophie’s warm self beside me every night and to wake up with that same warm self beside me every morning.” Ryder struck a pose, then added, “And perhaps three cats, tucked in behind my knees, stretched out on my chest, or wrapped around my head. The cats love Sophie. Sometimes she wakes up wheezing because one of the cats has his tail wrapped around her nose.”
“Eleanor likes to sleep on me,” Gray said. “I wake up to feel her kneading the hair on my chest. She only uses her claws if I happen to be sleeping later than she would like.”
Ryder said, “I like your Eleanor—she’s got long legs and a strong will. Are there any kittens in the future? We could give one to the Harker brothers and let them train it to become a racing cat.”
As the two brothers spoke of the cat-racing season in the south of England, at the McCaultry Racetrack from April to October every year, Gray just listened, occasionally shaking his head. A racing cat. He knew about the cat races but he’d never seen an actual racing cat. He’d have to see what Jack thought of that.
There couldn’t be two more different men, Gray thought, looking at the two brothers. Douglas, the earl, was a very big man, all hard muscle, stern-faced as a vicar presiding over a roomful of sinners, a changeling by Sherbrooke standards, what with his sin-black hair and eyes even blacker than sin. Some believed him hard, unyielding, and indeed he could be when the need arose, but his family knew that he would give his life for any of them. His smile, his wife, Alex, was heard to have said, would smite even the newly titled prince regent, which wasn’t a bad thing, all in all.
As for Ryder, the second Sherbrooke son, he brought the sunlight into a room with him. His smile could charm the coins out of a miser’s pockets. He was carefree, at his ease with a chimney sweep or a duke, and one would assume he was an indulged younger son unless and until they found out about his children, his Beloved Ones.
And then they wouldn’t know what to think.
Ryder was a young man granted all he could possibly want, and yet he became an avenging angel when he found a child abused and hurt. After his own marriage some seven years before, Ryder Sherbrooke had built Brandon House not a hundred yards from his own house, Chadwyck House, and there he brought those children that no one cared about, those children hurt, starving, abandoned, and beyond hope. And that, Gray thought, was what he and Ryder had in common. It was a bond that would hold them together for a lifetime.
Gray looked at Ryder, who was chewing on a piece of bacon, his Sherbrooke blue eyes bright and filled with mischief, and just plain joy at no more pressing a matter than chewing on that bacon.
Douglas said, “When you walked in, Gray, you said something about it not boding well for you. What did you mean?”
“I’m getting married on Friday,” Gray said. “To Jack the valet. I went to see Lord Burleigh this morning. It turns out he’s Jack’s guardian and he’s my godfather. Odd, isn’t it? One just never knows what’s around the next bend in the road. In any case, Jack’s an heiress, so it’s not just a matter of marrying her and damn the consequences.”
“Obviously Lord Burleigh wouldn’t turn you away from her,” Ryder said.
“Lord Burleigh couldn’t do anything. He’s unconscious in his bed.” He told them of Lord Burleigh’s illness, of Mr. Genner and Lord Bricker, and what would probably happen.
“No reason not to let you marry the girl,” Ryder said, “but you’re awfully young, Gray. What? Twenty-six? Weren’t you just twenty-five last week?”
“The same age, I believe as you were, Ryder, when you married Sophie.”
Ryder sighed. “Has it only been seven years? Nearly eight? Not thirty years? The woman exhausts me. She teases me, she flays me with that fluent tongue of hers.”
“Don’t whine, Ryder,” Douglas said, tossing his napkin onto his empty plate. “You’re a lucky sod and you know it. Now, Gray, you will let us know if you need any assistance?”
“Of a certainty I shall. I’m here to ask Ryder to stand up with me. To support me. To coach me in the ways of artful premarital conduct.”
Douglas shouted with laughter. “Now that is something I don’t want to miss. What will you teach him first, Ryder?”
Ryder said slowly, thoughtfully, “You know, I doubt there is much of value that Gray still needs for this particular endeavor. I do, however, have several close-held observations that might serve you well. I will tell you later, when your day of reckoning is at your front door. Congratulations, Gray.”
13
GRAY WAS hunched over his desk, writing the betrothal announcement for the London Gazette. When he was writing in the bride’s name, he wrote “Jack.” He grinned and marked it out. Winifrede. Perfectly dreadful, but it didn’t matter. Winifrede Levering. Ah, well, he didn’t like Graciella any better.
It was nearly midnight. Mr. Harpole Genner and Lord Bricker had visited him earlier in the evening and told him to proceed with his marriage to the young lady whose virtue he hadn’t abused at all, but since that didn’t matter in society’s eyes, she would doubtless make him an excellent wife.
They’d all shared a brandy.
He finished the announcement and looked up at the light tap on the library door.
“Come.”
It was Jack, looking all sorts of pale and scared and ridiculous in Mathilda’s black peignoir, which trailed after her like a witch’s train. All she needed was a familiar.
“Just a moment,” Gray said. He rose and walked over to where his Eleanor was curled up in front of a sluggishly burning fire. He lifted her into his arms, let her stretch and dig her claws into his shoulder, then said, “Eleanor, this is Jack. She’s moving in with me. Come and get to know her since she’ll be sleeping with us after Friday.”
Sleeping with him? Jack said as she took a limp Eleanor and began to stroke her automatically as she draped over her shoulder, “I didn’t think about that, Gray. All of us will sleep in the same bed?”
“That’s the way of things, Jack. It’s not depraved or debauched or anything very interesting like that. No, the three of us will all be stretched out side by side, snoring and dreaming and perhaps kneading each other to gain attention.”
Jack said, still stroking a sprawled-out, perfectly boneless Eleanor, “This has been the strangest two weeks of my life. My mother used to tell me that I had the imagination of a good half dozen children. But
I know that I would have never imagined this happening.”
“A wife named Jack trooping into my life hasn’t happened to me before either. Actually, I begin to believe that I was too set in my comfortable ways. Perhaps it was time I reimmersed myself in reality. You’re not a bad reality, Jack, all things considered. It appears that Eleanor approves of you. Of course, she’s exhausted, since she took three hours to chase down a mouse today. Maybe that’s it. She’d accept anyone who had gentle hands.”
He suddenly saw his own hands on her. His hands had been on her a good deal, but not recently; within the past three days his hands hadn’t been anywhere near enough to her. His fingers itched. Her hair was in a braid that was barely braided, all slept in and tangled. He very much liked the tendrils of hair that fell and curled and lazed about her face. A nice face, he thought. Yes, she had a very nice face, full of character and good humor.
She would be his wife.
On Friday. Good God.
“Gray?”
He blinked away the glaze over his eyes, the same glaze that was over his brain. “Yes, Jack? Eleanor is too heavy? Is she weighing down your shoulder? You’re still tired?”
“No. I was wondering where my stepfather was. He said he’d come back today, didn’t he?”
“He did.” He took Eleanor from her and led her to a settee in front of the fire. “Sit down, Jack, before you crumple to my carpet. You’re looking a bit white about the mouth. Yes, you can hold Eleanor on your lap.”
“Tell me,” she said, settling the both of them. “What will he do?”
Gray smiled at the two of them, Eleanor curling, then recurling until she was comfortable on Jack’s thighs. One of the black peignoir feathers wreathed her head.
“He said, without any polite preamble, that he had come to fetch you home, that he wouldn’t leave until I’d handed you over, and he was fully prepared to bring in a magistrate along with sufficient men to drag you out of here. At that point I offered him a brandy, clicked my glass to his, and fondly called him papa-in-law.”
“Oh, dear. What did he do?”
“He spit my very expensive brandy all over the carpet and his waistcoat. Once he regained his breath, he carried on about that not being possible, at which point I calmly told him that I had been to see Lord Burleigh, who just happened to be my godfather as well as your guardian, and everything was in order. I gently inquired if he was at all concerned that it was your guardian approving your marriage.”
“Did he choke and spit again?”
“No, he drew a stiletto from his coat pocket and brandished it in my face. He said that wasn’t possible, that he was your stepfather, and it would be he who determined who your husband would be, not that damned Lord Burleigh.”
Gray leaned over and patted her face, his grin becoming wider as he said, “Your stepfather was utterly sincere when he said that you already had a gentleman who wished to wed with you. He said he feared that you—a wild and undisciplined chit—had already taken him for your lover. It was Lord Rye, he told me, a gentleman of great good nature and healthy enough appetites to suit a young girl.”
“That is perfectly appalling,” Jack said, tugging on one of Eleanor’s ears, to which Eleanor reached up a paw and swatted her hand. “Come, tell me the rest of it.”
Gray grinned at her and sat back in his chair. “It’s not very edifying.”
“At least he didn’t stab you. He’s always fiddling with that stiletto.”
Gray set his brandy glass down and began stroking his long fingers over his chin as he said, “I told him I had heard of Lord Rye. Oh, yes, I told him, I was acquainted with his charming heir, a young man about my own age, by the name of Arthur, if I wasn’t mistaken.”
Gray pictured Sir Henry’s red face, remembered him saying quite clearly, “Cadmon Kilburn, Lord Rye, is a mature gentleman, not a flighty young man who would break her heart with his careless ways.”
“Mature?” Gray had said, an eyebrow lifted. “You wish to share fathering duties with Lord Rye? You would wish her to be the stepmama of Arthur, who is older than she is?”
“Enough of this, my lord. Bring me my stepdaughter. She is already betrothed to Lord Rye. You won’t get her.”
“You mean I won’t get all her groats?” Gray had walked to his desk, opened the top drawer, and withdrawn a sheaf of papers. He presented them to Sir Henry. “If you’ll read the marriage agreement, Sir Henry, you’ll see that I’ve already got her. Lord Rye may find himself a rich widow to see to him, his debauched heir, and his half dozen other children. Now, either we can be civilized about this or I can beat you to a pulp and toss you out my drawing room window. Or, if you truly distress me, I can take that stiletto of yours and prick your brain with it.”
Gray gave her a white-toothed grin. He rubbed his hands together. “At which point,” he said, “your stepfather jumped at me, his stiletto at the ready.”
Jack was staring at him, utterly frozen. Eleanor leapt up, snarled in Jack’s face, and jumped off her lap and onto a wing chair.
“She’s sensitive,” Gray said.
Jack jumped to her feet. Gray had the presence of mind to jump to his feet before she ran him down. Her hands were all over his face, down his arms, then flattened against his chest. He grabbed them and held her still.
“What’s wrong, Jack?”
“Did he stick you with the stiletto? Oh, God, did he hurt you?”
He was pleased. She was concerned that he’d been hurt. She cared, and it more than pleased him. He laughed to hide it. He brought her hands to his mouth and kissed each of her fingers. She became very, very quiet. Then he spit one of Eleanor’s hairs out of his mouth and grinned down at her.
“Your dear stepfather didn’t stick me with the stiletto. I relieved him of his nasty toy and tossed it onto the grate. Actually, I thought he would cry then. Finally he drew himself up and announced that he would see me in hell before he would see me as your husband.” Gray paused a moment, his fingers still lightly stroking her hands. “I find it odd that he looks so very, well, heroic, I suppose. Yes, that’s the proper word. He’s tall and imposing, seemingly a man who’s a leader, a man of apparently fine parts, at least fine physical parts, a man one could trust and admire.”
“Oh, no, he’s not at all like you, Gray.”
He believed in that instant that if his chest expanded any further, he’d explode. She believed him imposing? A leader? She trusted and admired him? By God, he was heroic?
“No,” he said, staring down at her, fascinated, feeling so wonderful he was still in danger of bursting. “He’s not a bit like me.”
“It is such a mystery to me. My mother adored him until she died. If she ever saw through him, realized at last who and what he really was, it just didn’t matter to her. Don’t misunderstand me. Sir Henry isn’t stupid. I imagine that he was properly adoring until they were married and he had her money. Then there would have been no more need for him to be anything other than what he really was.”
“A rotter.”
“Yes. Only my mother never cared. She worshiped him. When she birthed Georgie, rather than a precious heir for him, I believed she would kill herself. To make her suffer more, he acted as though it were all her fault, that she’d birthed a daughter to torment him. I had disliked him before. After that, I hated him for his cruelty. I still do.”
“Perhaps your stepfather and my father were somehow related in the distant past. I believe I will have to make a study of Sir Henry so as to see how close their similarities.
“Now, Jack, stop this. He didn’t hurt me. Why, I even invited him to our wedding. I assured him that if he could present himself as a doting stepfather you wouldn’t mind at all. I did tell him that he couldn’t stand up with you because Mr. Harpole Genner had that honor.”
She didn’t know about this Harpole Genner. She frowned. He patted her shoulders. “Don’t worry. You’ll like Mr. Genner. He’s a longtime friend of Lord Burleigh’s. He’s the one who has seen t
o everything being right and proper. I could tell that Sir Henry knew about Mr. Harpole Genner, knew he was a man to respect, perhaps a man to fear. Sir Henry won’t try to muck up our wedding ceremony, Jack.”
She just nodded. She was frowning down at her black slippers, on loan from Aunt Mathilda. “I’m worried about Georgie. She’s in his power, Gray. What can I do?”
“I’ve been thinking about that, Jack. I want you to stop worrying. I swear to you that I’ll make sure Georgie is safe and sound. Will you trust me?”
He saw that she trusted him. She just didn’t believe he could get his hands on her little sister.
He let it go. “Now, would you like to read your marriage settlement?”
“Yes. I should like to read all your manly stipulations.”
“Jack, let the papers sit on my desk a few minutes longer. Come here and let me kiss you. It’s the first time.”
Actually, he thought, his mouth lightly touching her, it was probably the first time that she’d ever kissed any man. “Pucker your lips,” he said against her mouth. “Yes, that’s right. No, don’t seam your lips together. Open them just a bit—that’s right.”
She was warm, her mouth soft, and she tasted sweet. His hands went unerringly toward her bottom, only to halt half an inch away. It was too soon. She wasn’t Jenny. She had no experience at all. He imagined she didn’t cook at all either.
It was daunting, her youth and innocence. He had to go very easily.
He’d never even been close to a virgin before. He was a blockhead, with a short memory. How could he forget even for a moment that he’d seen her naked, cared for her, held her tightly against him. What the devil was wrong with him?
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