Mad Jack (Sherbrooke Brides 4)

“Ryder was there when my letter to Quincy arrived.” Gray looked down at his fingernails. They were clean and well buffed. “Ryder will be coming here to escort us back. I expect him anytime now. There was nothing I could do to prevent it. But we don’t have to worry about Ryder. He’ll not say a word to hurt me. Since you’re with me, you’ll not be hurt either.”

She was giving him a bitter look that made him angry. He hadn’t done a damn thing, and here she was looking all wounded. Now that expressive face of hers was drifting toward desperation. “All because I stole Durban,” she said, looking at the ceiling. “What will I do now?”

He sat forward, groped beneath the pile of blankets to find her hand, and pulled it out. He held her fingers, feeling how dry her skin was, and frowned. “We need some cream. Illness does strange things to our bodies. Your skin feels like a dry leaf. This isn’t good. I’ll take care of it.”

He didn’t say another word, just got up and left the bedchamber immediately. She lay there because she didn’t have the strength to lift her own dry hand. Where had he gone? What was he going to take care of? Everything was a mess. There was indeed life waiting outside this bedchamber, and she didn’t like it.

Where had he gone, damn him? She didn’t say the curse aloud, just thought it. It surprised her that when she’d even thought the ‘damn,’ she’d tasted turnips. Her mother had a lot to answer for.

When Gray came back, he was carrying a small jar. “Hold still,” he said and began smoothing cream into her hand. He shoved up the arm of her nightgown and rubbed the cream into her forearm, then up to her shoulder. “That feels better,” he said, then moved to her other arm. He rubbed slowly; he was thorough. “Now your face.”

When he’d finished to his satisfaction, he set the jar beside the water carafe, sat down, and leaned forward, his hands clasped. He said, “Who’s Georgie?”

She said, “You’re not a bad man, are you? The aunts were wrong to even consider for a moment that you weren’t honorable. You’re not at all like your father. Was he really bad?”

“Yes, I already told you. He was a nightmare. He’s dead. I’m not at all like him. Enough of your attempts to distract me. If you don’t think you can trust me now, then you’re a blockhead. Tell me, Winifrede, who’s Georgie?”

“My little sister.”

“You were riding toward Folkstone to visit your little sister?”

“I was going to take her away from my stepfather. I must protect her.”

“Because he’ll finally think of her and use her as leverage against you?”

“How did you know that?”

“You were delirious. You said that.”

She fell silent. She wouldn’t look at him. He was so irritated, he nearly threw the pitcher against the wall. He rose and began to pace. The clothing Squire Leon had given him fit him well enough. Actually, she thought, looking toward him, the trousers were black and tight. He looked quite fit, no fat on him that she could see, and he was a good deal taller than she was. It was difficult to tell how tall he was, since she was lying flat on her back. Squire Leon’s waistcoat was also black, not terribly stylish, but she thought that with the full-sleeved white shirt he looked quite dashing. His black boots were his own, she assumed, and his attempts to clean them hadn’t been terribly successful. Yes, Gray was a man of many nice aspects.

What else had she spewed out when she’d been out of her head? Had she told him about little Tommy Lathbridge putting his hand on her leg when she was six years old and he was seven? Then she’d put her hand on Tommy’s leg, and he was so mortified he hadn’t spoken to her for a month.

She sighed. Life was here in the room with her, and he was trying to shove it down her throat. There was no hope for it. She either trusted him or she didn’t. He’d saved her life. On the other hand, if he hadn’t stopped her, she would have—would have what? Ridden to Bath before she’d realized she was going the wrong direction?

She cleared her throat and spit it out. “You saved my life. Thank you. I’ll be ready to leave in another day, surely not longer. I’m young and usually very well—not even colds bring me down. Will you loan me some money? Will you loan me Durban? Will you just forget all this happened? Please?”

“Is Sir Henry Wallace-Stanford your father?”

She’d given it her best. It had been worth a try. “No,” she said.

He walked to the bed, leaned down with a hand on either side of her head, and said not an inch from her mouth, “You will stop this lunacy. You have already compromised me beyond redemption. You are such a provincial twit that you don’t realize what you’ve done, not just to yourself but also to me. On top of all of that, you won’t even trust me to help you. Damn your eyes, Jack, I did save your bloody life. Trust me, tell me all of it, or I’ll throw you out that bloody window.”

“The window’s too narrow. I’d never fit.”

“You would now. You’re as skinny as that bedpost.” He stood up. “Ryde

r Sherbrooke’s older brother Douglas is the earl of Northcliffe. He and his family are also in London. While Ryder comes flying to my assistance, Douglas will see to it that all my friends know that I’m still alive and stop looking for me. He will protect the aunts and my home.”

Why had he spit all that out? None of it made any difference. There was a knock on the bedchamber door. “It’s either Mr. Harbottle, wanting to increase the cost of this room, or Susie, come to straighten the room, or Ryder, come to save me, not realizing that it won’t matter, that it’s already too late.”

It wasn’t Ryder Sherbrooke. It was Ryder’s younger sister, Sinjun, who was married to Colin Kinross, the Scottish earl of Ashburnham.

He’d known Sinjun since she was fifteen and he an ancient nineteen and a friend of the other Sherbrooke brother, Tysen, now a vicar and so righteous and pompous that his brothers continually regaled him with their most wicked tales. To test his character, Ryder said. To determine if he was really so nauseatingly upright, Douglas said. As for Sinjun, Gray remembered that she would just shake her head at Tysen and laugh.

Sinjun at fifteen had been tall and lanky with straggly hair and the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen. That girl was long gone. She was now twenty-two, still tall, but now quite beautiful. Those Sherbrooke blue eyes of hers shone brilliantly in the dim corridor light as she threw her arms around Gray and said, “What have you gotten yourself into now, sir? Tell me whom I’m to shoot, or what dragon I’m to slay for you.

“Ryder just found a little girl who’d been tossed into the streets by her father who was trying to find a man who wanted a child. It’s difficult to believe there are such wicked people, but Ryder says it’s all too common. He took her back to Brandon House, to Jane.”