Mad Jack (Sherbrooke Brides 4)

He liked the sound of his name when she spoke it. This, he thought, had to be the oddest courtship ever conducted outside a gothic novel. He nodded. “Nearly one o’clock in the morning. How do you feel?”

“I’m fine. Maude told me that Sir Henry came again today. Please, tell me what happened.”

“Yes, Sir Henry was here. Douglas, Colin, and Sinjun were also the recipients of his venom. Actually, he was loath to come right out with it, but he finally had to. He pattered around the point for a while, then realized he was being mocked by all of us. He finally said you were his daughter and that we had to turn you over to him.”

“Tell me,” she said, and he did.

Gray saw Sir Henry’s flushed face, heard his own incredulous voice as he’d asked, deliberately goading the man, “But, sir, why ever would you want Mathilda and Maude’s valet?”

“The valet belongs to me, my lord. He was merely on loan to them. They treated him too well. He is mine. You will have him sent for this minute.”

“Actually,” Douglas Sherbrooke had said, studying his thu

mbnail, “Lord Cliffe has already offered the valet’s services to me while I’m in London, since my own fellow is sick and had to remain at Northcliffe Hall.”

“No!”

“Now, Douglas,” Sinjun had said, lightly touching her fingers to her brother’s sleeve, “you know how Maude and Mathilda adore having Jack arrange their hair, polish their slippers, and file their fingernails. Surely we can find you someone else. How very odd that a valet should be so very much in demand.”

Sir Henry was grinding his teeth so loudly he was sure that Baron Cliffe—the bastard—could hear them. “I want Jack and I want him now. I tell you, he’s mine.”

It was at that moment that Gray had simply stepped up to Sir Henry Wallace-Stanford and said right in his face, “You will leave my house. You will take Jack nowhere. He will remain here where he’s safe.”

“All right, damn you. Jack is a girl. She’s my daughter and she ran away from home. You have no right to her, none at all.”

Gray had said, “Why did she run away from you?”

“That is none of your business.”

He’d smiled then. “Very well, Sir Henry. I will speak to Jack and find out the truth of the matter. I will also speak to Maude and Mathilda. You may return on the morrow and I will tell you what will happen.”

“You arrogant young puppy, you believe yourself so powerful, but I can break you, I can send you to oblivion, I can—”

It was so subtly done that it took Gray a moment to realize that both Douglas and Colin had moved to stand directly behind Sir Henry. Douglas Sherbrooke lightly laid his hand on Sir Henry’s shoulder. “I should take care what I said if I were you,” he said very quietly. “My brother-in-law and I are both larger than you, Sir Henry. We also hold Gray a very good friend.”

Sir Henry jerked away from him. “Damn you all, I will come back here, and I’m going to bring men with me to remove that bitch from here.” And Sir Henry was gone.

Jack, Gray saw, after he’d told her of the interview, was perfectly white. “No,” he said, “I wanted you to know exactly what your stepfather said, what he threatened, because it’s your right to know. But don’t be afraid.”

“He’s a vicious man.”

“It won’t matter,” Gray said. He stared off toward the shadowed corner of the Ellen Chamber. “Tell me, Jack, must we invite him to our wedding?”

11

JACK JERKED up, flung back the blankets, and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She stepped off the bed, tripped, and fell to her hands and knees on the carpet because the bed was raised a good three feet off the floor.

“No,” she shouted at him as she scrambled to her feet. He was already halfway out of his chair to help her.

“No! Don’t you move.” And then she was standing over him, pushing his shoulders back down, staring at his upturned face, her nightgown billowing about her ankles, now shaking her fist under his nose.

Her very nice eyes were dilated. The woman, Gray realized, was seriously perturbed. She leaned close, as if she thought that if she spoke any distance at all from him, he wouldn’t understand her. “No, don’t you move or say anything more. No, don’t you even consider towering over me and believing you’ll automatically get your way.

“Now, what you just said, why that’s preposterous. I think you’re cruel and not a whit amusing. No, don’t say a word. I don’t want to hear anything you have to say. Nothing, do you hear me? Just be quiet. What the devil did you mean, anyway?”

“As Aunt Mathilda the orator would say: Marriage. Me.”

“It’s ridiculous.”