Mad Jack (Sherbrooke Brides 4)

The small market town of Court Hammering was battened down, everyone off the streets, including all the animals, as the rain drenched land and buildings. The road was already muddy. Jack was careful to keep the horses at a very slow walk. Finally, she saw an inn at the far end of the small town, set back from the main street—King Edward’s Lamp.

There was no one in the yard. No wonder. She jumped down from the carriage box and ran inside. A very tall woman suddenly appeared from the small taproom to the left. The woman looked as if she would quite enjoy eating a board or two for her luncheon, perhaps nails for her dessert. She wasn’t at all fat, just very tall and very well filled out. She was also, actually, very lovely, Jack saw finally, with surely much more beautiful pale blond hair than a single woman deserved to have, woven in fat plaits over her ears. Jack looked down at the light gold flagstones beneath her feet. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m getting your lovely floor wet.”

The woman crossed her arms over her magnificent bosom. “I see that you are,” she said. “What do you want?”

Jack pointed back to the carriage. “Please, help me. Gray is in the carriage. He’s unconscious.”

“You look like a little drowned sparrow. You stay here, and I’ll see to Gray. Who are you? Who is he?”

“I’m Jack, and he’s nearly my husband,” she said, immediately on the woman’s heels. “By that I mean that I’m going to marry him tomorrow.”

“I completely understand. I’m Helen. Now, don’t move. Yes, stay.”

Jack watched Helen stride into the rainstorm, her head up, paying no attention to the mud puddles that were slopping over the tops of her boots and dirtying the hem of her gown or the rain that was drenching her.

She watched Helen open the carriage door and look inside. Then Jack thought she heard a deep laugh. She saw Helen lean into the carriage. When she straightened a moment later, backing away from the carriage, she had Gray over her shoulder. She wasn’t even breathing hard when she returned to the inn.

“The water is so deep right here in my inn yard,” Helen said, “that I could most certainly launch a thousand ships from my very front door. Come with me, Jack, and let’s get your nearly husband to bed.” As she climbed the narrow inn stairs, Gray hanging down her back, she called down to the three men who were staring at them from the doorway of the taproom.

“Go on, you codbrains. See to the horses and the lady’s carriage. Rub down the horses, they’re all prime horseflesh, particularly the gelding tied to the back. Have a care or I’ll discipline all of you, and I’ll do it in such a way that you won’t like it a bit.”

If Jack hadn’t been so scared for Gray, she would have laughed. Just how would Helen discipline three codbrains? She watched the men run outside into the rain.

• • •

Helen said over her shoulder as she gently let Gray down onto the oak-planked floor, “No reason to get the bed all wet. You, Jack, go downstairs and ask Gwendolyn to give you some dry clothes. Just tell her that Helen requests it.”

“But—”

“I’m starting to speak to you like I do to my pug, Nellie. No matter. Just do as I say. Go, Jack. I’ll see to your Gray,” and Jack went.

When Jack returned carrying a dry petticoat, a thin muslin chemise, and a voluminous gray cotton dress over her arm, Gray was in bed, covers to his nose, and Helen was looking down at him.

“Please, is he all right, Helen?”

“He’s a finely knit man,” Helen said. “Fine indeed. Now, we must keep him alive so the two of you can marry. Help me spread his clothes over the back of the chair so they’ll dry. Yes, that’s it.”

“We’re to be married tomorrow morning,” Jack said, as she smoothed out Gray’s breeches, “but Arthur grabbed me at Portman Square this morning and stuffed me into his carriage. That’s the one outside that the three codbrains are taking care of. The prime horse is Durban. I stole him once, but he belongs to Gray.”

Helen held up a large, very lovely white hand. “I wish to hear all about this, but first let me call for Dr. Brainard. The only reason I’ve allowed him to remain in Court Hammering is because he doesn’t go out of his way to kill off his patients and he occasionally amuses me. You change into dry clothes and sit beside this fine young man and hold his hand.”

Gray opened his eyes to see Jack not an inch from his face. He blinked and pressed his head down into the pillow. “Good God, Jack, back away or my eyes will cross.”

“You’re alive. Thank God, Gray, you’re alive. How do you feel?” She’d taken his face between her hands and was stroking his chin, his ears, his nose. Then she kissed him, over and over, light, sweet kisses all over his face that would have made him smile if—

“Jack, quickly! Mathilda—chamber pot.”

It was under his chin just in time. When he fell back against the pillow, white-faced, his head pounding, utterly exhausted, she said, “Here’s some water.”

He washed out his mouth.

“Ah, puked up your guts, huh, boy?”

Gray closed his eyes against the sight of the very small, completely bald man, thin as a windowpane, who stood in the doorway, water dripping off his thick black eyebrows.

His eyes flew open again, disbelieving what he was seeing. A mountain of a woman towered behind the little man, and she was really quite beautiful. She looked to have huge blond wheels over her ears.

He slowly turned his head on the pillow. “It really is you, Jack? Wearing a gown I’ve never seen before? How are you here? Where are we? Why am I in bed and you’re not?”