“You bought me a birthday present just two weeks ago.”
He gave her a perfectly blank look.
Corrie smacked her palm to her forehead. “Oh, I see now, your mother bought the present and put your name on it.”
“Well, that’s not really what happened, it’s—”
“All right. Then what did you get me?”
“Well, you know, Corrie, it’s been a long time.”
“Two weeks, you bloody sod.”
“Watch your mouth, my girl, or I’ll smack you again. You talk like a damned boy. I should have gotten a riding crop for your birthday so I could use it on you when the need arose. Like right now.”
He took a menacing step toward her, got hold of himself, and stopped. To his amazement, she walked right up to him, stood toe-to-toe, sneered up at him, and said in his face, “A riding crop? You just try it. I’ll take it away from you, rip off your shirt, and whip you with it.”
“Now that’s a sight I’d like to see.”
“Well, maybe I’d leave your shirt on you. After all, I’m a gently bred young lady and it wouldn’t do for me to see a half-naked man.”
He was laughing so hard he nearly fell backward off the damned cliff.
She wasn’t done, humiliation ripe in her voice. “You used your hand when you whipped me—your naked hand. I’ll wager I’m scarred for life, you bully.”
He grinned down at her. “Your bottom still smarting a bit?”
To his amazement, she blushed.
“Is your face turning red as well?”
She opened her mouth, then tears welled up in her eyes, and she jerked away, climbed into Darlene’s saddle, and straightened. She gave him a long, emotionless look, twitched Darlene’s reins, making her rear on her hind legs, sending James stumbling back. He heard her shout, “I will ask my uncle what men call a bosom.”
He devoutly hoped she wouldn’t. He could picture her Uncle Simon’s eyes rolling back as he keeled over in his chair, his glasses sliding off his face. Uncle Simon was at home with his collection of leaves. He had leaves, carefully dried and pressed, from every tree found in Britain, France, and even two from Greece, one of them from an ancient olive tree near the Oracle of Delphi. Leaves, but not females. Uncle Simon wasn’t at home at all with females. James watched her ride away, not even looking at him to see if he’d survived her attack. Her long hair, tied up tight in a fat braid, slapped up and down on her back.
James dusted himself off, then shook his head. He’d grown up with the little twit. Since the day she arrived at Twyley Grange, home of her mother’s sister and husband, she’d followed him—not Jason, never Jason—only him, and how could a little girl possibly tell them apart? But she had. She’d even followed him once to the bushes when he went to relieve himself, an incident that had left him red-faced and sputtering with furious embarrassment when Corrie had said from off to his left side, “Goodness, you don’t do that like I do. Would you just look at that thing you’re holding! Why, I can’t imagine how to do—”
He was only fifteen, humiliated, his breeches still unbuttoned, and he’d yelled down at the child who was all of eight years old, “You’re nothing but a stupid worthless little girl!” and stomped off to his horse, and proceeded to nearly kill himself when a mail coach had come around a curve, spooking his horse, who threw him to the ground, senseless. His father had come to fetch him from the inn where he’d been taken. He’d held him close while the doctor had peered into his ears, for what purpose, his father told him later, he had no clue. James had settled against him and said in a slurred voice, “Papa, I relieved myself, but I used the wrong bush because Corrie was there and she watched me, and said things.” His father, without hesitation, replied, “Little girls happen, James, and then they become big girls, and you forget about the wrong bush. Don’t dwell on it.” And so James hadn’t. He let his father take care of him. He felt safe, his humiliation wafting out the open window.
Life, James thought now, was something that seemed to happen when you weren’t paying enough attention. It seemed to him that what you did right this minute became a memory all too quickly, just like Corrie turning eighteen—how had that happened? As he walked back to where he’d left his bay stallion, Bad Boy, he wondered if it was possible that one day he’d look at her and discover that she’d grown breasts. He laughed, looked up at the sky. It would be clear tonight, nearly a half-moon, a beautiful night to lie up here on his back and look at the stars.
As he rode back to Northcliffe Hall, James didn’t hold out any hope that his mother had gotten Corrie a riding crop for her eighteenth birthday, from him.
CHAPTER TWO
If there is anything disagreeable going on, men are sure to get out of it.
JANE AUSTEN
“YOU GAVE HER what? Mother, please tell me you didn’t sign my name to that.”
“Now, James, Corrie has no notion of what is expected of her when she goes up to London for the Little Season. I thought a lovely book on proper deportment for a young lady entering polite society was just the thing to get her thinking in the right direction.”
His mother already knew about Corrie’s Little Season? Where had he been? Why had no one told him? “A book on deportment,” he said blankly, and ate a slice of ham. He thought of that sneer of hers and said, “Yes, I can see that she would really need that.”
“No, wait, James, the book was from Jason. I got Corrie a lovely illustrated book of Racine’s plays from you.”
“All she’ll do is look at the pictures, Mama. Her French is execrable.”
“So was mine, once upon a time. If Corrie sets her mind to it, she will become as remarkably fluent as I am.”
The earl, who was watching with a half smile on his face from the other end of the table, nearly choked on his green beans. He arched a dark brow. “Once upon a time, Alexandra? And now you’re fluent? Why, I—”
“You are interrupting a conversation, Douglas. You may continue eating. Now, James, about the plays. As I recall, the illustrations are in quite the classical style, and I think she will enjoy them, even if she can’t make out all the words.”
James stared down at the chunk of potato speared on his fork.
His mother asked, “Why, James? Was there something else you wanted to get her?”
“A riding crop,” James said under his breath, but not under enough. His father choked again, this time on a stewed carrot.
His mother said, “She is a young lady now, James, even though she still wears those lamentable trousers and that disreputable old hat. You can’t treat her like your little brother any longer. Now, about this riding crop, why didn’t you get it for her yourself? Oh, I remember now that Corrie said she’d never use a riding crop on her horse.”
“I forgot her birthday,” James said, and prayed his father wouldn’t enlighten his mother.
“I know, James. As I recall, you weren’t here to ask, so I had no choice but to supply your gift.”
“Mama, couldn’t you have gotten her some clothes—you know, perhaps a nice riding habit or a pair of riding boots and signed my name to it?”
“That, my dear, wouldn’t be proper. Corrie is now a young lady and you are a young gentleman not related to her.”
“Young gentlemen,” said Douglas Sherbrooke, waving his fork at James from the head of the luncheon table, “only give clothes and riding boots to their mistresses. Surely you and I have already spoken of that, James.”
Alexandra said, “Douglas, please, James is my lovely little boy. Surely it isn’t the thing for you to speak of mistresses to him. Surely he needs years to ripen before he actually takes part in such, er, activities.”
Both her husband and her son stared at her, then slowly, they both nodded. James said, “Er, yes, of course, Mama. Many years.”
She said, “Douglas, I’m not a mistress and you’ve bought me clothes and riding boots.”
“Well, naturally, someone has to dress you properly.”
Ja
mes said, “Just as someone needs to dress Corrie properly, sir. She’s more boy than girl. If she does turn into a girl, she still has no notion of the way of things. She has no experience at all. She’s never been to London. I don’t think, Mama, that a book on deportment is going to be of much assistance if she doesn’t know how to dress and rig herself out.”
“Perhaps I can give her Aunt Maybella some suggestions,” Alexandra said. “I’ve wondered many times why Maybella hasn’t dressed Corrie properly. Both she and Simon have let her continue to roam around the countryside dressed like a boy.”
“I’ve wondered that too,” James said, and took a bite of his bread. “Maybe she doesn’t like gowns. The good Lord knows she can be so stubborn, her uncle’s probably given up and lets her rule.”
“No,” Douglas said. “That isn’t it. There is no one more stubborn than Simon Ambrose in all of England. It’s got to be something else.”
“Would you like a peach fritter, dear?” Both dears looked at her. “Isn’t that nice. I have your attention now, both of you. Would you two like to accompany me to Eastbourne this afternoon?”
Douglas, who’d wanted to go see a new hunter at Squire Beglie’s, chewed more vigorously on his shrimp patty.
“Er, it’s for your mother,” Alexandra said.
“Excuse me, Mother, Father, I’m off.”
“James is fast when he needs to be,” Douglas said, following his son’s speedy progress from the dining room. He sighed. “All right. What does my mother want?”
“She wants me to bring back at least six new patterns of wallpaper for her bedchamber.”
“Six?”
“Well, you see, she doesn’t trust my taste, so I’m really to bring as many as I can so that she can make her selection here.”
“Let her go herself.”
“Ah, and you would drive her?”
“What time do you wish to leave?”
Alexandra laughed, tossed down her napkin, and rose. “In an hour or so.” She leaned over, palms on the snowy white tablecloth, and said down the expanse of table to her husband, “Douglas, there is something else—”
Before she could get out another word, her husband said, “By God, Alexandra, your gown is cut nearly to your knees. It’s obviously a hussy’s gown, what with your breasts nearly falling out of it. Wait—you’re doing this on purpose, leaning over the table like that.” He smacked his fist on the table, making his wineglass jump. “Why don’t I ever learn? I’ve had decade upon decade to learn.”
“Well, not all that many decades. And I really do appreciate your admiration of my finer points.”
“You will not make me blush, madam. You are remarkably well put together—all right, I’m hooked good and proper, what is it you want from me?”
She gave him the sweetest smile. “I want to talk to you about the Virgin Bride. A serious talk, not one of your you’re an idiot to even mention that ridiculous ghost who doesn’t exist.”
“What did that bloody ghost do now?”
Alexandra straightened and looked through the tall windows toward the east lawn. “She said there would be trouble.”
He held the sarcasm in check for the moment. “You’re saying that our centuries-old resident virgin ghost, who’s never appeared to any man in this house for the simple reason that our brains don’t allow such nonsense, has come to you and told you there would be trouble?”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“I didn’t think she spoke, just wafted about looking forlorn and transparent.”
“And lovely. She is really quite incredible. Now, you know she doesn’t really speak, she feels what she’s thinking to you. She hasn’t visited me in ages, not since Ryder got set upon by those three thugs that miserable clothing merchant hired.”
“But Ryder managed to fell one of them with an excellent throw of a rock to the gut. He stuffed the other into a half-full herring barrel. I don’t remember what he did to the third, probably because it wasn’t amusing.”
“But still, he was hurt in that fight and the Virgin Bride told me about it.”
He paused. It was true that Alexandra had known about his brother’s fight before he had, dammit. At least his sister, Sinjun, hadn’t come tearing down from Scotland to see what had happened. She’d written a half dozen letters demanding all the facts. Ryder’s wife, Sophie, hadn’t written or sent a messenger, because she’d known that the Virgin Bride would tell Alexandra and Sinjun. The Virgin Bride? No, he wasn’t even going to consider it.
“Ryder wasn’t badly hurt. It seems to me that your Virgin Bride suffers from female hysteria. You know, a fellow gets his fingernail broken, and she falls apart.”
“Female hysteria? Broken fingernail? I’m serious about this. I’m worried. When she felt Ryder’s situation to me, I actually saw the three men pounding on him.”
He wanted to tell her to stop telling him tales that gave him gooseflesh, but he thought of her premeditated display of lovely cleavage, and because he wasn’t stupid, he held his tongue. He would mock the wretched ghost only to himself. Her tactics should be encouraged. But this was difficult to bear. It seemed that since the unfortunate bride’s demise sometime in the latter part of the sixteenth century—still a virgin when she drew her last breath—so the story went, that all the Sherbrooke women had believed in this wafting ghost oracle ever since.
Douglas swallowed the sarcasm that was still hovering just above his tongue, and said, “No mention of a specific sort of trouble?”
“No, and that makes me think that she doesn’t know exactly what’s coming, just that something is, and it’s not good.” She drew a deep breath. “I know that it has to do with you, Douglas. I simply understood that from what she felt to me.”
“I see, but she sent you this vague understanding? No names? She’s always known everything before.”
“I think that’s because it’s already happened or is happening at that moment.” Alexandra took a big breath. “Whatever she doesn’t know, it’s still enough to concern her, Douglas. Since it was about you, that’s why she was warning me. She’s worried about you, even though she didn’t exactly come right out with it. It’s you. There is not a single doubt in my mind.”
“Nonsense,” he said, “idiotic nonsense,” then wished he could bite his tongue. His wife withdrew. “All right, all right, talk to her again, see if she can give you some details. In the meantime, I’ll have our horses saddled. My mother wants you to bring back six samples of wallpaper?”
“Yes, but I think we’d best have Dilfer follow with a small wagon since I know that if I only fetch six samples, she’ll want more. I think we’ll simply clean out the warehouse. Excuse me now, Douglas. I’m very sorry to have bothered you with my hysterical female nonsense.”
Douglas threw his fork against the wall where it hit just below a portrait of Audley Sherbrooke, Baron Lindley. He cursed.
“My lord.”
Douglas shut his mouth when Hollis, the Sherbrooke butler since Douglas’s youth, appeared in the breakfast room doorway. “Yes, Hollis?”
“The dowager countess—your esteemed mother, my lord—wishes to see you.”
“I have known all my life who she is. I had a feeling she’d want to see me. All right.”
Hollis smiled and turned on his stately heel. Douglas looked after him, the tall, straight figure, the perfectly squared shoulders, still more white hair than Moses, but his step was slower, and perhaps one shoulder wasn’t as high as the other? How old was Hollis now? He must be nearly as old as Audley Sherbrooke’s portrait, at least seventy, maybe even older. That made Douglas blanch. Few men ever reached that age without shaking veined hands, a mouth empty of teeth, not a single hair left on the head, and perfectly hideous bent old bodies. Surely it was time for Hollis to retire, at least twenty years past his time to retire, perhaps to a lovely cottage by the sea, say in Brighton or Tunbridge Wells, and—and what? Sit and rock his old bones and look at the water? No, Douglas couldn’
t imagine Hollis, whom his boys firmly believed was God when they were younger, doing anything other than ruling Northcliffe Hall, which he did with ruthless efficiency, splendid tact, and a benevolent, firm hand.
The fact was, though, that time was passing, no way to stop it. Hollis was beyond old now, and that meant he could die. Douglas shook his head. He didn’t want to think about Hollis dying, he couldn’t bear that. He called out, “Hollis!”
The stately old man slowly turned, a white brow arched at the strange tone in his lordship’s voice. “My lord?”
“Er, how are you feeling?”
“I, my lord?”
“Unless you have a footman hiding behind you, then yes, you.”
“I have nothing wrong that a lovely young wife won’t cure, my lord.”
Douglas stared at the small secret smile that showed a mouth loaded with teeth, and that was a good thing. Before Douglas could ask what the devil he meant by that, Hollis had removed himself from sight.
A lovely young wife?
To the best of Douglas’s knowledge, Hollis had never looked at a woman with marital intent since the tragic death of his beloved young Miss Plimpton in the last century.
A lovely young wife?
CHAPTER THREE
KILDRUMMY CASTLE, SCOTTISH HOME
OF REVEREND TYSEN SHERBROOKE, BARON BARTHWICK
The Honorable Jason Edward Charles Sherbrooke didn’t like this at all. He didn’t want to accept it, but he didn’t see how he could ignore it.
It was a dream, nothing more than the result of losing too many games of chess to his Aunt Mary Rose or too much grouse hunting in the interminable rain with his Uncle Tysen and his cousin Rory. Or the natural consequence of drinking too much brandy and having too much sex with Elanora Dillingham in too short a time.
No, even those altogether splendid, excessively gratifying hours didn’t explain it. It had been real. He’d finally had his first visit from the Virgin Bride, a phantom his father laughed about, saying, “Yes, imagine this piece of white nothing wafting around our house for three centuries. Only to the ladies, mind you, so you’re safe.”
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