Mad Jack (Sherbrooke Brides 4)

“Come.”

It was Jack, looking all sorts of pale and scared and ridiculous in Mathilda’s black peignoir, which trailed after her like a witch’s train. All she needed was a familiar.

“Just a moment,” Gray said. He rose and walked over to where his Eleanor was curled up in front of a sluggishly burning fire. He lifted her into his arms, let her stretch and dig her claws into his shoulder, then said, “Eleanor, this is Jack. She’s moving in with me. Come and get to know her since she’ll be sleeping with us after Friday.”

Sleeping with him? Jack said as she took a limp Eleanor and began to stroke her automatically as she draped over her shoulder, “I didn’t think about that, Gray. All of us will sleep in the same bed?”

“That’s the way of things, Jack. It’s not depraved or debauched or anything very interesting like that. No, the three of us will all be stretched out side by side, snoring and dreaming and perhaps kneading each other to gain attention.”

Jack said, still stroking a sprawled-out, perfectly boneless Eleanor, “This has been the strangest two weeks of my life. My mother used to tell me that I had the imagination of a good half dozen children. But

I know that I would have never imagined this happening.”

“A wife named Jack trooping into my life hasn’t happened to me before either. Actually, I begin to believe that I was too set in my comfortable ways. Perhaps it was time I reimmersed myself in reality. You’re not a bad reality, Jack, all things considered. It appears that Eleanor approves of you. Of course, she’s exhausted, since she took three hours to chase down a mouse today. Maybe that’s it. She’d accept anyone who had gentle hands.”

He suddenly saw his own hands on her. His hands had been on her a good deal, but not recently; within the past three days his hands hadn’t been anywhere near enough to her. His fingers itched. Her hair was in a braid that was barely braided, all slept in and tangled. He very much liked the tendrils of hair that fell and curled and lazed about her face. A nice face, he thought. Yes, she had a very nice face, full of character and good humor.

She would be his wife.

On Friday. Good God.

“Gray?”

He blinked away the glaze over his eyes, the same glaze that was over his brain. “Yes, Jack? Eleanor is too heavy? Is she weighing down your shoulder? You’re still tired?”

“No. I was wondering where my stepfather was. He said he’d come back today, didn’t he?”

“He did.” He took Eleanor from her and led her to a settee in front of the fire. “Sit down, Jack, before you crumple to my carpet. You’re looking a bit white about the mouth. Yes, you can hold Eleanor on your lap.”

“Tell me,” she said, settling the both of them. “What will he do?”

Gray smiled at the two of them, Eleanor curling, then recurling until she was comfortable on Jack’s thighs. One of the black peignoir feathers wreathed her head.

“He said, without any polite preamble, that he had come to fetch you home, that he wouldn’t leave until I’d handed you over, and he was fully prepared to bring in a magistrate along with sufficient men to drag you out of here. At that point I offered him a brandy, clicked my glass to his, and fondly called him papa-in-law.”

“Oh, dear. What did he do?”

“He spit my very expensive brandy all over the carpet and his waistcoat. Once he regained his breath, he carried on about that not being possible, at which point I calmly told him that I had been to see Lord Burleigh, who just happened to be my godfather as well as your guardian, and everything was in order. I gently inquired if he was at all concerned that it was your guardian approving your marriage.”

“Did he choke and spit again?”

“No, he drew a stiletto from his coat pocket and brandished it in my face. He said that wasn’t possible, that he was your stepfather, and it would be he who determined who your husband would be, not that damned Lord Burleigh.”

Gray leaned over and patted her face, his grin becoming wider as he said, “Your stepfather was utterly sincere when he said that you already had a gentleman who wished to wed with you. He said he feared that you—a wild and undisciplined chit—had already taken him for your lover. It was Lord Rye, he told me, a gentleman of great good nature and healthy enough appetites to suit a young girl.”

“That is perfectly appalling,” Jack said, tugging on one of Eleanor’s ears, to which Eleanor reached up a paw and swatted her hand. “Come, tell me the rest of it.”

Gray grinned at her and sat back in his chair. “It’s not very edifying.”

“At least he didn’t stab you. He’s always fiddling with that stiletto.”

Gray set his brandy glass down and began stroking his long fingers over his chin as he said, “I told him I had heard of Lord Rye. Oh, yes, I told him, I was acquainted with his charming heir, a young man about my own age, by the name of Arthur, if I wasn’t mistaken.”

Gray pictured Sir Henry’s red face, remembered him saying quite clearly, “Cadmon Kilburn, Lord Rye, is a mature gentleman, not a flighty young man who would break her heart with his careless ways.”

“Mature?” Gray had said, an eyebrow lifted. “You wish to share fathering duties with Lord Rye? You would wish her to be the stepmama of Arthur, who is older than she is?”

“Enough of this, my lord. Bring me my stepdaughter. She is already betrothed to Lord Rye. You won’t get her.”