Mad Jack (Sherbrooke Brides 4)

“It was a shock when Thomas Bascombe, your father, died the following year. During that year he thought and planned how he could become part of your life. He wanted it so very much. He told me he just wanted you to know that he was a man to trust, that you could depend on him if ever the need arose. He knew everything about you. He would tell me of your exploits at Eton. But then he died and there was no more chance.

“I became Winifrede’s guardian. Nothing changed when her mother remarried. Thomas had been right—Sir Henry Wallace-Stanford is a paltry excuse for a man.

“I’m sorry, Gray. It saddens me greatly, always has. The man you believed was your father died. Your real father, a man you never knew, died not a year later.” Lord Burleigh closed his eyes again. He swallowed. Gray held his head and gently dribbled water into his mouth. They both waited, silent.

“I’m so very sorry, Gray. It was a tragedy, the whole matter.”

“You refuse to say it aloud, my lord,” Gray said. “You really must face it, you know, for I have. I faced it years ago. I would do it again, with no hesitation. The man who called himself my father didn’t just simply die.”

“Thomas Bascombe never knew any of it. I refused to tell him. Your mother certainly didn’t.” Then, just as suddenly, Lord Burleigh was asleep, his hand limp in Gray’s.

Gray’s eyes were closed now. He listened to the soft splash of water against the stone water wall, not six feet away from him. The grass was becoming damp. He didn’t care. He stared at the rippling waves beneath the moonlight.

He had wed his half sister. He’d made love with her four times the previous night.

What if she were pregnant?

Something that just the day before would have had him bursting with pride, with immense male satisfaction, now brought him to his knees. No, Jack couldn’t be pregnant. She couldn’t carry his child.

He lowered his face into his hands. He listened to the night sounds—the rustling of the leaves by the night wind on an ancient oak tree just to his left, the faraway shout of a drayman, the dip of a lone oar into the still water.

Hours passed. He rose to see the sunrise. Odd how his world had come to an end and yet everyone else’s world had just risen on another day.

He walked home, weaving through the ubiquitous drays and wagons weighed down with the day’s goods, dodging the early-morning carriages, not even hearing the children hawking mince pies or seeing the dozens of black-coated clerks, hurrying toward Fleet Street, their heads down. He had his foot on the first step when the door flew open and Quincy burst out.

“My lord! Oh, my god, my lord! What happened? Are you all right? Come in now, come in. Oh, my, just look at you, all soiled and wet, your beautiful boots all covered with mud and what—”

Quincy broke off. He stilled. He very gently took his master’s arm and led him into the entrance hall. “Come now into your study. You will rest and I will bring you a brandy.”

And Quincy led him, as he had when Gray was just a small boy, to his study. He sat him down and went to the sideboard to pour brandy.

“No, no brandy, Quincy,” he said, raising his hand. “Do you know that brandy tastes cold to me? It’s true. I had two glasses of the stuff yesterday, and it was cold and hard all the way to my belly.”

“It’s all right, my lord. I’m going to get you breakfast and a nice hot cup of tea.”

“No, Quincy, thank you.” He rose again. “I must go upstairs. I really must go.” Then he stopped cold. Jack was upstairs, probably still sleeping in his bed. Had she worried at his absence?

Of course she had.

“What time is it, Quincy?”

“It is just seven o’clock in the morning, my lord.”

He walked up the wide staircase, knowing that Quincy stood in the entrance hall, staring up at him, wondering, worried. But what could Gray have told him?

I’m going upstairs to make love with my wife who also just happens to be my sister?

He laughed. He was still grinning when he saw Horace striding toward him down the corridor.

26

“COME, MY lord,” Horace said, took his arm and led him to the dressing room.

“Am I to take another bath, Horace?”

“You’re sorely in need of one.”

This time, Horace said nothing more until Gray was in his bath, steam rising up around his face.