Mad Jack (Sherbrooke Brides 4)

“That’s what I would have sworn as well. But now I believe him. What he said, it was convincing. It’s what Thomas Levering Bascombe—your father—told him.”

She rose from her chair slowly. She leaned forward, pressing her palms against the tablecloth.

“It is ludicrous. I don’t believe it. I refuse to believe it.”

“Your father wanted to name you Graciella. You told me that yourself. It was because my name was Grayson. He wanted our names to be close. Your mother preferred Winifrede. Did she know about me? Lord Burleigh didn’t know.”

“You want me to believe that my father made love with a lady of quality, impregnated her, and then didn’t marry her? My father was an honorable man. He never would have done that, never.”

“Evidently what happened was that your father and my mother fell in love. He was sent to the Colonies to negotiate the peace between the Colonies and England. He didn’t know my mother was pregnant until he returned and discovered she’d had a child—me. She’d married the man whose title I now carry. As much as I loathed my father, it still isn’t particularly fair that I, no

t of his blood, now control all that was his.” He frowned over that. “No, I take that back. Given who and what he was, he deserves to be in hell. Any man could have his title and it would be a vast improvement.”

Jack said, “Show me evidence that this is true.”

“There is nothing in writing. There is only Lord Burleigh’s word for it.”

“And you believe what he told you?”

“Yes. I didn’t want to. But by the middle of last night, I realized that the truth is that, simply the truth, and there is no hiding from it, no pretending that it doesn’t really exist, or that if it does, it can be hidden.”

Jack drew herself up and took two steps back. “I see,” she said slowly. “Yes, I see everything now. Throughout the long night you kept yourself apart and alone and agonized about this. And this morning you have emerged from your pathos a philosopher. Well, I haven’t had the time you took, Gray, the time to work your way through this—whatever it is. I’m leaving now. I’m going to see Georgie, then I’m going to take her to the Parthenon to shop. I will buy her a pink ribbon for her hair.”

“There are decisions to be made, Jack.”

“You ran, Gray. It’s now my turn. We will speak of this again tomorrow. Perhaps, like you, I will return a philosopher.”

27

IT WAS eight o’clock that evening when Jack walked into his study. The draperies were pulled and a sluggish fire burned in the fireplace, sending an occasional streak of orange light into the dark shadows.

She finally saw Gray seated behind his desk, his head down on his arms.

She went to the large branch of candles on his desk and lit them. He slept on.

“Gray.”

He thought he heard his name—a strident voice, fierce, a voice he didn’t recognize.

“Gray.”

Louder now, that voice. Hard and cold as well. He slowly opened his eyes. He looked up to see Jack’s face in the candlelight.

“Hello,” he said. “I suppose I fell asleep.”

“Evidently.”

“I dreamed I heard a harsh voice. I wasn’t wrong. I just didn’t realize it could ever be you.”

He thought her voice had sounded hard. Actually, she wasn’t feeling at all hard. Rather, she felt as fragile as a mirror; one good crack and she would shatter into so many pieces that she’d never be whole again. But she knew more clearly than she’d ever known anything in her life that he had to believe her to be hard, determined. If he saw through her to her frightened soul, then she knew she would crumble. There’d be nothing more to do but crawl away, her life over. She drew a deep, gritty breath and said, “I’ve come to tell you what I’ve decided.”

He was completely awake now, more alert than he’d ever been in his life. She looked unbending, as cold as a moonless winter night.

“First, Gray, I would like to ask you a question.”

“Of course.”

“Do you love me?”