Mad Jack (Sherbrooke Brides 4)

“Ridiculous, is it? Well, perhaps you’re right. It wasn’t all that romantic a marriage proposal, was it? Lie down, Jack. I don’t want you making yourself ill again. I spent four days leaning over you, wiping your brow and many other parts of you as well. My back hurt. You wore me out. I don’t want a relapse.”

She sat on the side of the bed, her narrow white feet dangling. He smiled at her. All in all, this marriage business was easier than he’d thought it would be, although it still felt quite strange to ask a girl to marry him whose last name he’d discovered only ten minutes before. She was silent, staring down at her hands, folded in her lap. He waited, but she remained silent.

“All right,” he said at last. “If you won’t marry me, then I have absolutely no recourse but to give you over to your stepfather. How old are you?”

“Nearly nineteen.”

“Eighteen, in other words. You are under his control, Jack. I’m sorry to tell you this, but Lord Burleigh wouldn’t have been able to protect you. He’s your guardian, in charge of your money, but Sir Henry is your stepfather. At the very least it would be a mess, possibly a scandal.”

She was shaking her head frantically, but what came out of her mouth was a whisper. “Life couldn’t be so unfair, could it?”

“Life is frequently the very devil. Now, it’s time for you to face up to things.”

“No.”

She was getting perturbed again, perhaps even more seriously this time. He didn’t imagine that any more pathetic whispers would be coming out of that mouth. She hadn’t braided her hair and it was tangled around her face. He liked the way one long, curling runner trailed down the side of her face and made an interesting twist just above her left breast.

He wasn’t at all surprised when she said, her brow furrowed, her eyes mean, “You told me you weren’t a womanizer. Stop looking at me as if I were a horse on the block.”

“You saw me staring at you, did you? Well, why shouldn’t I? I’ve seen you as naked as the day you came from your mother’s womb. I’ve taken complete care of you, Jack. I’ve bathed you, washed your hair, wiped you down with cool cloths, pulled you away from the window all white and naked so the men below wouldn’t see you. I held you tightly against me when you were freezing from the fever.

“However, if you wish a more subtle, sensitive approach, then let me say it this way: Jack, you’re a very nice stretch of land that I’ve thoroughly mapped.”

“I don’t know if that’s more sensitive or not. It’s embarrassing, is what it is. As a metaphor it makes me want to laugh. Goodness, I don’t even remember why I ran to the window. It’s all very odd. I don’t understand this.” She shivered, frowned at herself, and got back under the covers. “Now you’ll marry me in order to save me from being forced to marry this Lord Rye? You’re truly willing to sacrifice yourself?”

“No, that’s not it at all. My fate was already well sealed before I heard about Lord Rye, who is a complete rotter, and, to be honest here, it makes my stomach turn to think of him touching you, having the right to do whatever he wishes to do to you.”

She turned as pale as the white satin counterpane, swallowed convulsively, and said in a voice so thin it was nearly transparent, “I never thought of that. That would be dreadful. You mean he would—no, never mind that. My imagination doesn’t want to go in that direction. I’d rather think about being a stretch of land.”

“It would be his right to do with you as he wished. I daresay nothing he would do to your fair person would send you to heights of delirium.

“Now, the truth of the matter is that once you were with me for four days, alone, my fate was sealed. If you don’t marry me, I’ll be cast out of my very pleasant life here in London. No one will speak to me. No one will ride with me in the park. It’s possible that my friends will spit in my direction rather than acknowledge my presence. It’s an unpleasant future I’ll have, Jack.”

“That makes no sense. No one even knows about me. Even if they did, it wouldn’t matter. I’m a nobody.”

“Not true. You’re quite a somebody. You’re Thomas Bascombe’s daughter and Lord Burleigh is your guardian. Ah, yes, in case you’ve still got questions about this, let me tell you just the way our world works. Ladies must be protected since they’re helpless to protect themselves from men who are twice their size and have twice their strength. Men don’t want other men to ravish ladies th

ey perceive as heir-producing material because it would severely undermine their confidence in succession.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that a man couldn’t trust the male child born of his woman to be of his seed. It could be that another man had taken her. Do you understand? Thus a lady has to be protected.”

“That’s nonsense.”

“Tell that to men who’ve been killed in duels, all for a lady’s honor.”

She actually shuddered. She began swinging her feet. “Very well. Because of this seed business, you’ve got to marry me?”

“Yes. Because of this seed business, when a gentleman dishonors a lady, or when he’s perceived to have dishonored a lady, he’s made to pay. Since neither of us is married, I won’t have to fight a male relative. I’ll just have to give myself to you for life.”

“A long time, life.”

“Yes, hopefully. Now, Jack, you’re still uncertain. Think of it this way: you’ll be saving yourself from Lord Rye, and I’ll be saving myself from being ostracized for debauching you, a young lady.”

“Does holding me naked mean that you debauched me?”

“Well, no, but no one would ever believe that I had a naked young lady next to me for four whole days and didn’t take complete and ruthless advantage of her, since I am a man and thus weak of flesh.”