Mad Jack (Sherbrooke Brides 4)

“NO,” ARTHUR HOWLED. “It isn’t fair. I need a new waistcoat, this one is nearly a year old. I loved it last year, but it’s served its time and I need a new one.”

“Ah, so your papa promised you clothes if you carted me off to Scotland?”

“Yes, and a handsome allowance. Come along, Winifrede. Get up. Just look at you. Your hair is straggling down around your face, you’re wearing a wretched gown that makes you look bilious, and there’s this woman here who’s larger than I am and could probably snap my neck like a chicken’s. She probably could toss me out of that window. Still, she’s very pretty, and I fancy she would be very pleasant to have wrapped around a man on a cold night.”

Dr. Brainard drew himself up and puffed out his meager chest. He waved a bottle of his own homemade dandelion restorative tonic at the young interloper. “You mind your manners, you coarse little puppy. Actually Helen could lie on you and suffocate you. She wouldn’t need to exert herself at all.”

Helen said, “Now, Ossie, the boy is merely upset and not thinking straight. Look to your patient and I’ll look to the coarse little puppy.”

Ossie dutifully looked at Gray, then said quickly, “Oh, goodness, my lord. Miss Helen is quite right. You’re looking flushed. I beg you to lie still. Don’t jump out of this bed, entirely unclothed, and strike this young man who’s going to receive his just desserts any minute now from Miss Helen.”

Gray’s head felt as though it should be split open. The fact that it wasn’t, the fact that he could actually see and hear everything that was going on, was heartening. He managed to stand, pulling the covers around him like a toga.

“You stole Jack from me?”

“Yes, of course,” Arthur said. “She and I are going to marry. She sent me a note begging me to come take her away from your house on Portman Square. We were on our way to Scotland.”

“Jack? Do you wish to marry this paltry fellow?”

“Goodness, no, Gray. He’s a worthless sod, a wastrel, of no good to anyone I can think of. I think Helen should snap his neck or perhaps pound him into a pork kniver.”

“Actually,” Helen said, advancing on Arthur, “perhaps that might be a fine idea. You’re boring me, sir. You are unduly exciting Dr. Brainard’s patient. You insulted one of my maid’s gowns that she very nicely loaned to Jack here.”

“Stay back,” Arthur said, waving the gun about. Then he looked crafty. “If you were dead, my lord, then there would be no one but me to marry Winifrede. That’s her name, not Jack. That’s the valet’s name my father was yelling about.”

“You’d hang for murder, you bonehead,” Jack said. “Well, that’s not true. I’d kill you myself before you were hauled to the gibbet. Give it up, Arthur. Go home.”

Gray realized that if he didn’t sit down he would collapse on the floor. The room was moving, and he knew he wasn’t. Jack was on her feet then, running to him. How could she realize so quickly how he felt when he’d just realize

d it himself the instant before? “Please, Gray, you must lie down. You could be seriously hurt. Please.”

Arthur grabbed her arm and jerked her back. Gray felt rage pour through him. He stepped around Jack, girded his toga, grabbed Arthur’s other arm and yanked it up behind his back. Arthur screamed with the pain. The burlap sack fell to the floor. Jack kicked it away. Gray said in the most menacing voice Jack had ever heard from him, “Let her go, you idiot.”

“No, she needs to obey me, she needs discipline—”

“Discipline, you say?” Dr. Brainard said, taking a step toward Arthur. “Now, Miss Helen here, she knows all about discipline. She’s known to be exquisitely inventive.”

“Let her go,” Gray said again and tugged Arthur’s arm up just a bit higher.

Arthur yelled again and let Jack go. This time she kicked Arthur’s shin. He yelled again.

“Now, drop that nasty little gun,” Gray said, not an inch from Arthur’s nose, “before you shoot yourself in the foot or I stuff it down your throat.”

“The gun or his foot?” Jack said.

“Be quiet, Jack.”

“No, I—” Arthur screamed when Gray pulled his arm up higher behind him. “You’re breaking my arm.”

“It’s all right. There’s a doctor right here to bind you up. Drop the bloody gun.”

Arthur dropped the gun. Jack quickly picked it up. Gray leaned close to Arthur’s ear and whispered, “You’ve lost. Take your carriage and go home. If I see you again, I won’t be pleased. Go away—now.” Gray dropped his arm.

Arthur moaned and rubbed his arm. Helen said, “Why don’t you come to the taproom with me, Arthur? I’ll give you a nice mug of ale before you leave my inn, which shouldn’t be more than ten minutes from now.” She led Arthur Kelburn away, still moaning, still rubbing his arm, and said over her shoulder, “Ossie, see to it that his lordship is resting comfortably. Jack, you’ve got the gun. You can remain here and guard his lordship, just in case our Arthur here has cohorts.”

“You mean like Lancelot?” Jack said.

They heard Arthur moaning his way down the hall, saying at every other step, “It just isn’t fair. She would have begged me to marry her. All I needed was just a couple of days with her. I would have disciplined her and she would have loved it. My father taught me all about that, you know,” and then he groaned again.