Mad Jack (Sherbrooke Brides 4)

Gray turned to see Mr. Harpole Genner, a lifelong friend of Lord Burleigh’s. A man of quiet manner and unassailable honor, he’d known Gray all of Gray’s life and had even put him up for membership at White’s some seven years before.

“There is no change this morning, sir,” Snell said.

“Is that you, St. Cyre? It is. It’s been a very long time, my boy. Ah, you’ve heard about poor Charles. It’s a siren’s call to us all, this collapse of his. When I awoke this morning, I felt my bones aching.”

Gray looked at Mr. Harpole Genner and saw a path to rescue. “Snell,” Gray said, “may Mr. Genner and I come in and perhaps use Lord Burleigh’s library for a moment? It’s very important, as I told you. I believe Mr. Genner may be able to help me, if he wishes to.”

“Naturally, Gray, naturally,” said Mr. Genner, focusing now on the young baron. “There is something wrong, Gray? Something I can assist you with? Ah, some distraction from this trying time is welcome. Come, Gray. Bring us tea, Snell.”

“. . . So you see, sir, since it involves such a vast sum of money, I cannot, as a gentleman, simply marry her without Lord Burleigh’s blessing. It simply wouldn’t sit right with me. He is her guardian and I must have his approval to wed her.”

Mr. Harpole Genner slammed his fists down on his bony knees. He was smiling. “By damn, boy, you’ve given me a splendid tale. My wife will burst her seams when she hears this. The demmed girl was riding west instead of south? No natural sense of direction like we men possess? Ah, and you were her savior?” Mr. Genner rubbed his veiny hands together. “Now the little pigeon’s all yours.”

“Actually, I believe she sees herself as a flower, or perhaps a gardener of future flowers. No, there’s no way around it, sir. But I must wed her quickly, before her stepfather can step in and make this situation even more awkward than it already is.”

“Yes, Sir Henry Wallace-Stanford. A wobbly wheel with crooked spokes. A man with no finesse, and a black heart. Aye, a bloody rotter, that one. He’s trying to force her to wed Lord Rye, an equally dissolute character. His son’s following in his father’s tracks, so I hear. Sir Henry wants this, of course, so he can take part of her dowry as his fee. Hmmm. Charles would never have allowed that. Never. I suppose Sir Henry was going to force the girl to wed Lord Rye and then come to Charles and announce it?”

“That, or perhaps Lord Rye would simply have raped her. Once that was done, Lord Burleigh would have had no choice but to give her over to him, and her money as well.”

Mr. Genner began to pace about Lord Burleigh’s library, a large, square room that admitted little light even on the sunniest of days. It was whispered behind gloved hands that Lord Burleigh preferred the night, the blacker the better, and why was that, pray tell?

“I must speak to Lord Bricker. You know him, do you not?”

“Yes, but not as well as you or Lord Burleigh. I have heard him speak in the House of Lords. He is a very eloquent man.”

“A pity he has to be a blasted Whig, but what can one do? I will get back to you this evening, my boy, no later. Theo—Lord Bricker—and I will work this out. I realize this is a matter that must be dealt with quickly, and with a good deal of discretion. Yes, Lord Bricker is just the man to resolve everything properly.

“Oh, dear, if only Charles would wake up and quit this nonsense! I say leave this sort of illness to younger men who would deal with it more quickly. Aye, it’s a young man like you who could have his heart beat like a faint drum one moment and then have it pounding hard again the next, all without scaring the wickedness out of his friends.” He sighed.

“I’m sure Lord Burleigh would agree with you, sir.”

“I must tell Snell to close the draperies in his bedchamber. Charles hates the sunlight and it’s fair to bursting in on us today. Yes, he must have the comforting darkness. I’ll inform Snell that he is to see to it right now. I will speak to you later, my boy, after Lord Bricker and I discuss the best way to proceed.”

Gray and Mr. Harpole Genner shook hands. Mr. Genner patted Gray’s arm. “Don’t worry about this, we’ll see it done. I know how very fond Charles is of you. It will delight him to know that his ward and his godson are to be married. Yes, it will please him very much.”

Gray left the Burleigh town house. He hoped that Lord Burleigh would recover. He very much liked his godfather. Odd how one took one’s very close friends for granted. He would never do so again.

Now there was nothing to do but wait. He didn’t know Lord Bricker well. But surely the man would approve of him—surely.

Doug

las Sherbrooke looked at his brother, Ryder, over the top of the London Gazette. “I’m glad you’re back. How is the little girl?”

Ryder Sherbrooke, full of life and vigor and charm, spread strawberry jam thick on his toast, took a big bite, and said, “Her name is Adrienne. She’s only five years old, Douglas, but as brave a little child as you can imagine. As I told you, her father had sold her to men who preferred children. Evidently one man become furious with her because she was so thin and silent. He threw her in the gutter, where I found her. She’s safe now at Brandon House with Jane and all the other children, thank God. When I left I heard three of the children around her, all of them interrupting and stumbling over each other to tell her of their own dreadful experiences and how they were the very worst and the other children’s experiences weren’t even close. The last sound out of Adrienne’s mouth was a laugh, a little one, but it was still a laugh.”

“How many children are at Brandon House now, Ryder?”

“Only thirteen. Jane is fretting. She told me her quiver wasn’t even close to being full. I just looked at her, for surely that was an odd way of putting it. Your boys are just fine, wreaking mayhem, just as one would expect. Now, our wives will be coming to London a good three days before your auspicious birthday.”

“It isn’t auspicious. It’s depressing and regrettable,” said Douglas.

“You’re only thirty-five, Douglas, not yet a doddering grandfather. Although I did hear Alex talking about pulling a gray hair out of your head. I also heard her telling my Sophie that she supposed it was inevitable that you would lose interest.”

“What the hell does that mean? Lose what interest?”

Ryder made a big show of examining his fingernails. “Your wife, Douglas, told my wife that you were tiring of her, obviously, since you only made love to her once a day now. She had nearly given up, she told Sophie, all teary-eyed. She’d tried to rekindle your interest in her fair person by singing you an Italian love song in the gardens beneath one of the naked statues; she’d tried to stimulate your passion by hand-feeding you strawberries from Lord Tomlin’s hothouse. She’d even gone so far as to write you a sonnet quite in the classic style. However, she said, you laughed so hard you didn’t even make it to the fourteenth line, which, she told my wife, was indeed a moving tribute to marital love in all its varied forms. Yes, she said, she’d failed with you and was at her wit’s end.”

Douglas was laughing so hard he sputtered on his hot coffee. “Those two women are a danger to us, Ryder, a very real danger. Good God, you’d not have believed that sonnet.”