Mad Jack (Sherbrooke Brides 4)

“Will I find your male parts equally exquisite?”

“Of course,” he said, praying desperately that she would. He kissed the tops of her breasts. Then he pulled the black silk back together.

“You will now go to bed, alone. Tomorrow is Thursday, Jack. Think of me kissing your breasts until Friday. Will you try?”

“I’ll try, Gray.”

When she was gone, he turned to Eleanor, who was staring at him from unblinking green eyes.

“So, what’s the matter with you?”

She slowly sat up and began washing herself. He looked at her more closely. “Your belly isn’t at all lean, Eleanor. Are you pregnant? Do you have future racing cats inside you?”

Eleanor kept licking.

Gray laughed. He wondered as he walked up the dark stairs toward his bedchamber just how all this had come about. Surely it wasn’t an expected thing that a man’s wife suddenly appear as a valet who would steal his horse.

He had to visit Jenny tomorrow. He realized that all he would truly miss was her delicious apple tarts, with Devonshire cream.

14

“A VALET? This girl devised a plot to trap you into marriage by actually playing a valet and stealing Durban when she knew you’d be coming home and knowing you’d see her?”

Gray tried not to laugh, but it was impossible. “Oh, Jenny, she had no notion she would end up being married to me when she stole Durban. No, she had no plans for me to see her. Actually, I strangled her, knocked her in the ribs, hit her jaw, and slammed her to the straw.

“Come now, I just tried to give you an idea of how this has all came about. Jack is a good sort. She will suit me very well, you’ll see.”

“Have you slept with her?”

An impertinent question, but he let it go. “No, Jenny, nor will I until we’re married.”

He watched his mistress pace up and down, up and down the full length of her drawing room. She was wearing a quite lovely green muslin gown that would have shown the lovely curve of her breasts if she hadn’t had an apron tied around her neck. There were gravy stains on that apron. It was nearly time for luncheon. He sniffed. Roast lamb was only two rooms away, he was certain of it.

“Very well,” Jenny said at last, and then she sniffed, as well, nodded, her mind obviously in her kitchen. “You will marry her. I knew you would have to marry to have an heir. It is expected. However, I believe that two weeks should be quite enough. Then you’ll be bored with her and come back to me. I shall go to Bath for two weeks and recuperate in the healing Roman waters. Now, I will feed you, my lord. Roast lamb with my special mint sauce.”

As he ate Jenny’s delicious roast lamb with her special mint sauce, he realized he hadn’t even thought about keeping a mistress and a wife at the same time. Most men did, but now, when he was facing the decision, he knew he wouldn’t do it. It wasn’t right. A man gave his word and kept it. It was that simple. His father, not surprisingly, had enjoyed a score of mistresses during his time with Gray’s mother, and it had been no secret, not to his wife, not to his son.

He was still thinking about the business of wives and mistresses a

s he walked from Jenny’s charming apartments on Candlewick Street back home to Portman Square, a full mile to the east. The sky was overcast, but it wasn’t raining, not like it had the night before, when Eleanor had burrowed so close to him he’d nearly crushed her when he executed a roll onto his back.

He thought of his mother and felt the familiar pain block his throat. He saw her face suddenly in his mind’s eye, her face as it had been when he’d not been more than eight years old and he saw her staring down into the entrance hall at her husband kissing a woman and rubbing her breasts, all in front of whoever wanted to watch, which had probably been the entire household. He saw the tears streaming down her cheeks, the deadening pain in her beautiful eyes. He shook his head. He hated those memories because there was simply no way to control them. They popped up, spread instant devastation, then simply disappeared again back into the past, hovering there until the next time.

No, he would never do that to Jack. Once he was married, he would keep to his vows. However, it was surely odd that he hadn’t felt even a flicker of desire when he’d been with Jenny. He’d lusted after the roasted lamb, though.

Gray remembered seeing an advertisement for a new stove, supposedly so modern that it did everything except actually baste the meat. He would buy that stove for Jenny. He would also look for another protector for her, if she wished it, a gentleman who would enjoy her cooking as much as Gray did.

He was whistling, swinging his cane, when he walked up the steps to his town house. The door flew open and Quincy, with both aunts hovering behind him, shouted, “My lord, Miss Jack is gone!”

Jack couldn’t breathe. There was some sort of foul-smelling sack over her head. When she tried to raise her hand to rip it off, she realized her arms were tied behind her back. She couldn’t breathe and she couldn’t save herself. She choked and struggled.

“Shut up,” someone said. “Just shut up.”

She continued to struggle, wheezing, knowing she was going to die.

She heard the man curse. The sack was jerked from her head. She sucked in air, concentrating on the fresh, pure air coming into her body. She fell back and lay there, just breathing. Finally, she opened her eyes. She saw a burlap sack on the carriage seat beside her.

She was indeed in a carriage and it was moving fast, rocking hard from side to side. Odd that she hadn’t realized that before.