Mad Jack (Sherbrooke Brides 4)

“Perhaps I’ll become as romantic as Lord Prith, and we’ll get married several more times in the coming years.”

“Perhaps at our next wedding I will have time to order a wedding gown.”

If anyone believed that the pale yellow satin gown with its long, fitted sleeves and high-cut bodice wasn’t suitable for a bride, no one remarked upon it. “Yes,” Gray said, patted her cheek, then turned back to Bishop Langston. The bishop gave them a benign smile and nodded. “Now, my lord, my lady, I believe Quincy wishes to announce that an outstanding wedding breakfast awaits us in the dining room.”

“With

champagne,” called out Lord Prith, Helen Mayberry’s father. “Best thing about weddings—the champagne. Even when I don’t know the bride and groom—as in this particular case—I always bring a bottle of excellent champagne to the festivities.”

“I say,” Aunt Mathilda, gowned in stark black, “that is an excellent course to adopt. Did you already give your bottle to Quincy?”

“You said an awful lot there, Aunt Mathilda,” Jack said, watching Lord Prith eye Aunt Mathilda as he would a succulent pigeon. “I haven’t ever drunk champagne.”

“You won’t drink too much,” Gray said. Before she could question this peremptory order, Mr. Harpole Genner was bowing deeply over her hand. “A lovely ring. Wasn’t it your mother’s, Gray?”

“No,” Gray said. “It was my grandmother’s.”

Mr. Genner said, “This is a very happy occasion, my lady. It is such a pity that Lord Burleigh is still too ill to attend. Ah, perhaps he will awaken soon. Yes, he will be delighted to hear of his ward and his godson becoming man and wife.”

“There is no word yet if his lordship will survive his illness?” Gray asked.

Mr. Genner shook his head. “I visited just yesterday and his butler, Snell, told me his lordship still lies on his back, eyes closed, occasionally snoring—which is odd, his physician says—with Lady Burleigh holding his hand and speaking to him as if he were there and listening, even interested. Snell also said that his lordship’s color was better and that his whiskers were growing at a fine clip, which, Snell told me, gave the physician reason for guarded optimism.

“At least they’ve gotten rid of the noxious sunlight from Charles’s bedchamber. You recall how he much prefers the shadows.”

“I do, indeed,” Gray said.

“Charles will pull through, my boy. Now, I wish to speak to Lord Prith. Haven’t seen Harry since Trafalgar. A sad day that was when we got the news of Nelson’s death. I remember Harry fancied himself in love with Emma Hamilton once, a very long time ago. Odd how everything works out, isn’t it?

“That daughter of his, Helen, what a splendid specimen of womanhood. She stands so many inches from the floor, yet it inspires a man to worship, not to fear. I must meet her. Is it true that she owns an inn?”

“Yes, indeed,” Jack said. “It’s called King Edward’s Lamp.”

“You wonder where that name springs from, Mr. Genner?” Helen said, resplendent in pale green silk, her magnificent hair piled atop her head.

“Yes, Miss Mayberry, I was wondering exactly that.”

Lord Prith, taller by a half a head than his lofty daughter, boomed out from behind her, “The story goes that King Edward brought a very special lamp with him back from his crusade in the Holy Land. It’s said to be encrusted with precious stones—diamonds, sapphires, rubies, and such. It has mysteries surrounding it; it supposedly has magical sorts of powers. Tales hint at supernatural sorts of things, like making men disappear, striking down enemies with a single thought, changing light into darkness, things like that.

“My girl here fancies finding it. She’d rather have the lamp than a husband. The good Lord knows, I’ve presented her with dozens of suitors over the years, but she just looks them up and down—usually down since it’s the short gentlemen who normally swarm about her—and turns them out.”

Douglas Sherbrooke, who had met Lord Prith when he was twenty years old and newly unleashed on London society, shook the older man’s hand. “And Helen,” he said, turning to the woman who stood exactly at eye level with him. “I read somewhere about King Edward’s lamp. I’m sorry to say that the author believed the lamp to be a fabrication, a fanciful myth that just happened to survive into our time.”

“Douglas,” Helen said. “It’s a relief to see that you’ve not grown shorter in your advancing years.” Then she punched him lightly in the arm saying to Jack as she did it, “I was once desperately in love with Douglas. He was just turned twenty, and I was all of fourteen or fifteen. He would have patted me on the head like a bothersome little sister if I hadn’t been the same height as he.”

Douglas laughed. “You’re right, Helen. I was hard-pressed to know what to do with this beautiful young girl who stared me square in the eye. Now, we must spend our time with Gray and Jack, then let’s adjourn to the dining room and stuff food down our gullets. When Gray and Jack won’t wish to be bothered by any of us later, we can have a long talk.”

“Where’s the champagne?” Lord Prith bellowed.

“Of course we’ll want you to bother us,” Jack said. “You’re our guests.”

“No, Jack,” Aunt Mathilda said.

“What Mathilda would say if she’d wanted to enlarge upon her words is—”

“It’s all right, Aunt Maude,” Gray said. “I fancy most everyone understands the underlying wit at work here.”

Actually, every gentleman in the circle was simply staring at Jack as if she were an idiot.