“I was needed, Colin. Ryder saved a child and he had to take the little girl back to Brandon House, to Jane.”
Colin’s mouth was forming around very satisfying full-bodied curses when Gray said, “Hello, Colin. I’d shake your hand, but as you can see, I can’t at the moment. I’m holding Jack. Oh, yes, Sinjun said she left you a very sweet letter. Didn’t you read it?”
“Hello, Gray, Jack,” Colin said with no great enthusiasm, without looking away from his wife. He said right in her face, his voice now a bit more controlled, just a bit lower, “You’re a twit. We’ve been married nearly four years, and the good Lord knows I’ve patiently tried to guide you, to gently instruct you, to ease you into the pursuit of logic, the exercise of reason. But you remain a twit, at least on occasion, like this occasion here in this inn yard, now with that fat innkeeper standing over there holding that empty ale tankard.” He ran his fingers over his wife’s face, then leaned down and kissed her lightly. “When I get you alone, I’m going to beat you.”
Sinjun laughed up at him. “Enough of that, Colin. I have excellent explanations, all of which I wrote you in my letter. And I already told you, I was needed. Just look at poor Jack, all bundled up in blankets, whiter than your beautiful hard belly in the dead of winter.”
“Now isn’t the time to distract me with talk of my manly parts. Damn you, I read your explanations. They are pitiful. They hold no weight at all, particularly since I specifically told you to remain in bed, to rest, to nap, to read your novels, and yet you hared off the moment I was out of the house. And just who is this Jack person who doesn’t look at all like a ‘Jack’ to me?”
Gray said, “Colin, Jack here is getting heavy. I know she looks frail and pallid as a netted gailey fish, but even small rocks weigh heavy after a while if there are enough of them in one sack. I’m a manly man, just like my footman, Remie, but nonetheless, I’ve been holding her for the past ten minutes, all during your touching reunion with Sinjun and even for five minutes before that. Perhaps you can continue to pin Sinjun’s ears back after I’ve loaded Jack into the carriage?”
Colin Kinross turned to Gray St. Cyre, a man he’d met before he met Sinjun Sherbrooke in London back in 1807 when he’d had to find himself an heiress or have his people starve and his lands go to hell. He said, “St. Cyre, you’re holding a girl in your arms and her hair’s all tangled and blowing in her face. She looks like one of Madame Tussaud’s figures, all white and waxy. I’m not blind. She isn’t a boy. How can her name be Jack?”
Gray smiled. “I think she looks quite like a proper Jack. If I’d braided her hair you surely would have been fooled. It’s good to see you, Colin. Congratulations on the future arrival of your son or daughter.”
The earl turned white, which was surely odd, then he seemed to shake himself, and said, “Thank you.” He grabbed his wife’s hand when she merely took a step toward the carriage. “You’re not moving until I tell you to.” He said over his shoulder, “Are you telling me that this is Jack the valet?”
“One and the same,” Gray said. “Do you ride, Colin, or will all of us pile into the carriage?”
“No, Colin,” Sinjun said, “you must restrict verbal assaults if we’re all in the carriage together. You’re going to have to wait until we’re alone. You can’t take a strip off me in front of Gray and Jack.”
“Why? Your brothers would take a dozen strips off you before they even got to the door of the carriage.”
“True, but they’re English. You’re a Scot. You’re more civilized than they are. You have better manners.”
Colin Kinross, the earl of Ashburnham, raised his eyes heavenward. “Nearly four years,” he said aloud. “I will not survive until I’m thirty.”
Sinjun patted his arm, saying to Gray and Jack, “He will turn thirty this year. I believe I will give him another tome of poetry for his birthday. He loves poetry. It soothes him, at least in the normal course of events. Now, Gray, do put Jack into the carriage before you drop her.”
Gray closed his eyes. His life had been delightfully tranquil, predictable, quite tolerable, all in all. He’d saved Lily and hopefully threatened her husband sufficiently. His mistress, Jenny, had a new recipe for quail soup that was ambrosia to the tongue. Yes, one day had followed another with ease and comfort—until the great-aunts had descended on him. Until Jack the valet had stolen Durban. Until Jack the valet had become a damned girl and gotten ill. He sighed, stepped up into the carriage, slipped on one of Sinjun’s black gloves, and fell forward on his face, hitting his head on the opposite door. He managed to toss Jack onto the seat an instant before he would have smashed her against the carriage floor.
Jack flailed, Gray cursed, and Lynch, the coachman, froze in appalled silence.
“This is a propitious start,” Colin said to the dangerously overcast sky, helped Gray dust himself off and straighten Jack into a sitting position, then assisted his wife into the carriage, holding his breath, it seemed to Jack, until she was safely seated and the black glove was removed from the floor of the carriage and gently placed between her palms.
“I’m riding for a while,” he said, looking at his wife, Jack thought, with an odd mixture of rage and desperation. “Gray, I wish you luck.” He gave him a salute and turned away to a stable lad who was holding a magnificent black barb with a white blaze on its forehead. Once he was in the saddle, he called out, “I’ve tied your horses to the back of the carriage. All right, Lynch, let’s go. It’s at least five hours back to London.”
Gray was sitting next to Jack, holding her up, just shaking his head. Sinjun was biting her lip, staring at the toes of her black slippers. Immediately Gray took her hand. “What’s wrong, Sinjun?” he asked as he leaned a bit more to the left to balance Jack, who was listing.
“Poor Colin,” Sinjun said. “I’m such a trial to him, Gray.”
“Nonsense. He’s the luckiest bastard alive and he knows it, but there’s something wrong, Sinjun, particularly with Colin.”
Sinjun nearly laughed, but didn’t quite make it. “No, I won’t complain and whine to you. Ever since we discovered that I’m going to have a child, he’s been different, unwilling to let me out of his sight, always fussing over me. He’s been very un-Colinlike. It was so good to hear him yell, to have him breathing fire right in my face, to have him turn red. It’s the first time he’s managed it since I told him about our child.
“Oh, enough of that. Now tell me, why did Jack steal Durban and leave London?”
Jack shuddered and ducked her face in Gray’s chest.
“Jack,” Gray said slowly, aware that she was wearing only Squire Leon’s wife’s nightgown, with three blankets on top of it, “will answer all my questions once we’re back in London. Won’t you, Jack?”
Jack burrowed herself into Gray’s armpit. When she emerged some four minutes later, she looked at Sinjun and said, “Gray told me about your brothers, Douglas and Ryder. But I don’t know them. Perhaps I will meet them in London.”
Sinjun laughed. “Bless your heart. Certainly you will meet them. It’s quite provoking to hear people talk about brothers and other assorted relatives that you’ve never heard of. Gray probably told you that Douglas is the oldest Sherbrooke sibling. He’s the earl of Northcliffe and the very best of brothers. He’s all big and dark like Colin, and his smile is so sweet it warms the coldest day. Alex, his wife, thinks he should smile more, but I like to see him look stern and forbidding. Then when he finally succumbs to a smile, it’s such a treat. Douglas is smart and loyal, and he takes his responsibilities very much to heart. His family seat is near Eastbourne, Northcliffe Hall, on the southern coast of England.
“Ryder is my second brother, a wicked, utterly charming man, so filled with life and laughter that you can’t help but glow whenever you’re around him. Unlike Douglas, Ryder always has a smile playing about his mouth. For years now, he has been rescuing little children
and taking them to a house we call Brandon House, to Jane, a dear woman who’s stronger than ten oxen and as determined as Ryder is to save hurt children.
“Then there’s me. I married a Scot because I saw him at the Drury Lane Theatre one night and fell in love with him on the spot. He needed an heiress, and fortunately I was one. It all worked out marvelously well once Douglas and Ryder got used to the idea of their little sister actually knowing a man in carnal ways. Colin’s first wife had died, and I have two wonderful, quite notorious stepchildren—Philip, who’s ten years old now, and Dahling, who’s eight. Is that enough information for her, Gray? She looks ready to topple over the edge of exhaustion.”
“Oh, no,” Jack said. “Tell me more, Sinjun.”
“Well, Douglas is married to Alexandra, who is half his size and at least as strong-willed. Douglas wants to be the absolute ruler, and Alex allows it half the time, which all of us, except Douglas, agree is fair. They have two sons—twins—who are the very image of Alex’s older sister, Melissande, who’s so beautiful one can only stare at her. Douglas is incensed that his little boys are the most handsome lads in all of England and will doubtless grow up to be insufferably conceited.
“Ryder is married to Sophie. He met her in Jamaica, of all places, and helped solve a perfectly dreadful situation there. She has a little brother, Jeremy, who’s at Eaton. Sophie’s a pillar, all serious and proper, until she looks at Ryder. Then she’s smiling and laughing and touching him and kissing him, no matter who’s close by. They have one son, Grayson, who is the most precious little boy in the world. He has his father’s charm and his utter love of life. Ah, but he has Sophie’s thoughtful expression, particularly when he wants something.”
“Grayson is my namesake,” Gray said to Jack. “Now, Sinjun, my godson will be the most precious child in the world until you have your own son. At least that’s what I hear happens.”
“Perhaps. We’ll see. Do you think he’ll look like Colin?”
“That would be fine just so long as he has your Sherbrooke blue eyes,” Gray said.
Sinjun smiled at that, then said to Jack, “Now, I won’t tell you about our mother, not until you have all your strength back. You’re nearly drooling, you’re so tired. Go to sleep, Jack. If you have more questions about the Sherbrookes, they’re planning to remain in London for a while. Will you be remaining in London as well, Jack?”
Jack mumbled low, indistinct sounds and retreated once again into Gray’s armpit.
Gray let her hide, saying only, “She’ll have to face up to things soon enough.” He pulled a blanket more closely around her.
9
MATHILDA LOOKED at Gray who was carrying the still-blanketed Jack in his arms, and said, “Lordy.”
Maude smiled, patted the soft curls beside her ears, and said, “I never doubted for a moment that you would see to our Jack, my boy. Who is this tall young lady who’s following you and Jack?”
“This is Lady Ashburnham, Aunt Maude.”
“Ill-tempered husband,” Mathilda said. “But handsome, very handsome.”
Maude said, “Yes, Mathilda believes his lordship even more handsome than the vicar Mortimer, who kissed her in the vestry. Naturally, his lordship is just a mite too young for Mathilda—more’s the pity for him, poor boy.”
“Yes, he is handsome, ma’am,” Sinjun said and blinked. She gave Mathilda a beautiful smile. “Isn’t he amazing? He can yell at me and then kiss me, all without wasting a single breath. My stepson, Philip, remarks upon that. He wants to be just like his father. He practices on his little sister, Dahling. He doesn’t kiss her because he still thinks girls are the very devil, but he does enjoy practicing his father’s yelling skills.”
Sinjun shook out her skirts, straightened the smart little straw bonnet on her head, and said, “Now, Quincy just whispered to me that my husband is currently in the drawing room with Douglas. I don’t know why Douglas didn’t come out when we arrived, but I’m sure to be told shortly. Hopefully I won’t have to be told anything too shortly, though, since I don’t intend to walk into the tiger’s mouth. Jack, will you be all right?”
Jack, flattened by rotten bad luck and illness, said, “I’m fine, Sinjun. Thank you.”
“You’ll tell me everything once Gray has pried everything out of you, all right?”
“We’ll see,” Gray said, eyeing Jack, who looked ready to expire. “Maude, where do you want me to gently unload our valet?”
When Gray went down the wide staircase some ten minutes later, Douglas Sherbrooke, the eldest of the Sherbrooke siblings, stood at the bottom of the stairs in the black-and-white Italianate marble entrance hall, his hands on his hips. He wasn’t smiling. When Douglas Sherbrooke didn’t smile, he looked ferocious indeed, Gray thought, remembering how he’d been fool enough once to go into the ring with Douglas Sherbrooke at Gentleman Jackson’s Boxing Saloon. He was lucky he hadn’t gotten his jaw broken or his teeth loosened.
“Good day, Douglas. How is your family?”
“Everyone is just fine. Look, Gray, you’re probably wondering why I’m here in your house, standing here in your entrance hall, looking up at you like you’re an unwanted guest.”
“No, not really. I’m so bloody tired I don’t really care who’s here.”
“Where’s Sinjun?”
“I believe she went to one of the bedchambers to, er, repose herself, at least that’s what she told me.”
“Sinjun’s never reposed herself in her life. The girl’s incapable of reposing. You’ll not believe this, Gray, but Colin just told me she’s pregnant. My little sister—pregnant. By God, I can remember holding her right after she was born. I remember her wetting on my brand-new breeches, my shirt, my hands. She also puked on other breeches, other shirts, my same hands. She was beautiful, Gray, and so precious. Damn, but it’s difficult to accept that she’s now going to have a babe. I think of her as so young and naive and innocent. Then she saw Colin and couldn’t wait to learn all sorts of wicked things, which, naturally, he was more than ready to teach her, curse the bounder.
“Now, you know well enough that she gave you that reposing excuse because she knows that I now know and she doesn’t want me telling her she’s an idiot for scurrying off to God-knows-where to rescue you.” He struck the heel of his palm to his forehead. “Reposing herself, hah. Sinjun’s never been a coward, but that’s what she is now. Ah, it curdles the belly. My little sister has become a coward, and it’s all Colin’s fault. Dragging her to Scotland, forcing her to live in a bloody castle, throwing local ghosts in her face—when everyone with even a tiny brain knows there’s no such thing as ghosts.
“Yes, it’s all turned her into a coward. She’s avoiding me. Me. He’s only had her for four years, and she’s become a coward. It revolts my innards.”
“That isn’t true, Douglas,” Colin said, striding out of the drawing room toward them, his voice nearing a roar. “Damn you, your precious little sister controls everything and everyone in a ten-mile radius of Vere Castle. She controls everything and everyone inside the castle as well. She even has that blackguard neighbor of ours, Bobbie MacPherson, cooing over her white hands, although she wanted to kill him not above four years ago. She’d probably take over the running of bloody Edinburgh Castle if she took a notion to. I don’t believe in ghosts any more than you do, Douglas, but she deals quite well with Pearlin’ Jane.
“Don’t you blame me because she’s hiding upstairs in Gray’s house and he didn’t even have the chance to invite us to stay, which he would have done because he likes us. Yes, Sinjun knows I’m so furious with her I’m just likely to take away all her clothes to keep her in bed for the next week.”
“Who’s Pearlin’ Jane?” Gray asked.
“My family ghost,” Colin said, clearly distracted. “But she doesn’t really exist. Hellfire, Douglas, Sinjun’s pregnant, damn her beautiful eyes, and Jesus, I can’t stan
d this. I just can’t.”
It was as if the dam had burst. Colin’s voice became deep and harsh. He yelled to the chandelier overhead, “Dammit, I don’t want her to die. I couldn’t bear it if she died.”
Gray said quietly, quite aware that every servant in his house was positioned just so to hear every word each of them said, “I think we should go to my study. Quincy, bring us some food.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Gray shut the study door, turned, and said, “Now, what’s all this about Sinjun dying?”
“Nothing.” Colin ran his fingers through his hair, standing it on end. “Nothing. I just lost control of my mouth. I’ve got it back now. I’ve just been so bloody worried. All right, I’ve been scared to my feet.” He smashed his fist against the leather arm of a wing chair.
“Sinjun won’t die,” Douglas said, and Gray saw that he was perfectly white. “She won’t. I won’t allow that. For God’s sake, my mother didn’t die and she birthed four children. Look at me, I’m not a lisping little fellow, and she came through it all just fine. Your first wife didn’t die birthing Philip or Dahling. What the hell is wrong with you? Oh, God, is Sinjun ill?”
“No,” Colin said, his voice that of a desperate man.
“Then why do you think Sinjun’s life is in any danger?” Gray asked, an eyebrow raised. “Has a doctor told you that she’s in danger?”
Colin, who had been standing in the middle of the study, his head lowered, said, “Neither of you understands. Don’t you see? It’s been nearly four years and she’s never gotten pregnant before. I’d just about come to believe that we were simply not supposed to have children, but because I’m a randy bastard, I’ve forced her time and time again to take my seed, and she does enjoy it so, indeed, she’s always leaping on me in our bedchamber or jerking me behind the stairs or bringing me down on the tower steps to my special room, and just look what happened.”
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