Mad Jack (Sherbrooke Brides 4)

“My mother got herself together and crawled over to where he was lying. She looked up at me, tears streaking down her face, and she said, ‘You killed the only man I’ve ever loved.’ Then she fell over him, crying and crying. I went to the butler, Jeffrey, and told him what I’d done. He took care of things.

“I remember that Lord Pritchert, the magistrate, came to speak with me. Jeffrey and all the other servants stood with me. But there was nothing to fear. Evidently everyone in the neighborhood knew what kind of man my father was. He was neither admired nor respected by the folk thereabouts. He was probably hated, although no one ever said that to me.

“Lord Pritchert just asked me to tell him what happened. I did. He didn’t even ask to speak to my mother. He just patted my shoulder and left.

“It was over almost as soon as it had begun. I killed my father and he was buried the next day, and my mother was quite mad from that day onward.

“Lord Burleigh came to the funeral. I remember he sat with my mother. She was simply silent in those days before and following the funeral. I don’t believe she said a single word to him. It was Lord Burleigh who saw me through Eton and then Oxford, who introduced me into London society, who put me up for membership in his clubs. And never once, until yesterday, did he ever let on that there was any sort of question at all about the man who’d sired me. I assume that he believed having a rotter for a father was preferable to being a bastard and knowing it. Naturally, had it ever come out, I would have lost my title and my estates.”

Jack eased back from him. She looked up at him, touched her fingertips to his cheek. “You were a brave boy. You put an end to the violence, the endless cruelty to both you and your mother. You became an excellent man. You’re my husband, not my brother.

“We will go to Malton and see your mother. We will do what we can to prove that none of this is true.”

“What if you are pregnant, Jack?”

“By the time we discover if I am or not, we will know that we are in no way related and we will rejoice.”

He marveled at her. He realized quite suddenly that she was right. He’d held Lord Burleigh’s hand, listened to his tortured words, and taken everything he’d said as truth. He’d simply given up. He’d not questioned a thing, not really, not like Jack had.

He gave her an odd smile, one that held a great deal more than she saw. “How old did you say you were, Jack? Surely you can’t be just a green young twit?”

She laughed. She didn’t know where that laugh had come from, but it was there, and it had burst free and she enjoyed that brief jest from him.

“Women are born wiser than men, particularly brash young men who are more handsome than they deserve to be. You will simply have to accept it, Gray.”

Horace and Dolly rode together in the second carriage, perhaps enjoying each other’s company more than one would imagine. Georgie spent half her time in each carriage, even Jack admitting with an exhausted laugh that six hours in a closed space with a five-year-old little girl would give her gray hairs before she was twenty. As for Gray, he discovered that any possible gray hairs wouldn’t be all that bad. Georgie now smiled at him. He’d earned that smile. He’d played Chase the Chicken with her for one hour and twelve minutes, without pause, never once succumbing to a headache, as Jack, the weakling, had done earlier. It was Georgie who said she wanted to bird-watch. He’d shown her a black bird in the first three seconds of looking out the carriage window. Georgie had then taken his hand, rubbed it against her cheek, and said, “I like p-p-porridge.”

Gray had stared at his hand, cocked his head to one side, and asked, “My hand feels like porridge against your cheek?”

Georgie laughed. “I l-l-like p-p-porridge with honey.” She never answered his question. After seeing three crows flying just over the trees, she fell asleep, sprawled boneless on his lap.

If it hadn’t been for Georgie, he didn’t know how he and Jack would have survived the journey. If Gray had been Catholic, he would have believed them in purgatory, with no real idea of what would happen to them. One moment he felt blinding hope; the next, he was thrown into shadows, crushed by those shadows, knowing he would never escape them.

The nights spent at inns, Jack slept with her little sister and Dolly in another bedchamber. She didn’t say a word to him about it, just took Georgie’s hand and led her away. Each night he’d been both immensely relieved and angrier than he’d ever believed a man could be. He wanted to strike out, viciously. Horace was there, always there, saying little, but Gray appreciated his presence, his stolid support, his silent companionship. During those nights at the inns, Gray listened to Horace’s steady breathing in sleep, and it became like the steady beat of a clock, predictable, soothing.

They arrived at Needle House, Gray’s country estate, four days later. It was a small red-brick Georgian house, three stories tall, a long rectangle, only one hundred years old. Gray’s great-grandfather, the third Baron Cliffe, had built it early in the last century.

At least Gray prayed that the third Baron Cliffe had been in truth his great-grandfather, that the third Baron Cliffe had indeed spawned the man who must be Gray’s father’s father. Monster or no, Gray wanted his father’s blood in his veins more than he’d wanted anything in his life.

The grounds weren’t extensive, but they were neatly bounded by hedgerows lining the long drive. Beech and pine trees surrounded the side of the house set along the riverbank.

It was a cloudy day, the air chill. Gray hadn’t been here in eight months.

“You’ve grown very quiet in the last hour,” Jack said as the carriage pulled to a stop before the house.

“Yes,” he said, nothing more.

She took his hand, shaking it a bit. “Listen, Gray. It will be all right. We will get through this.”

He nodded; he didn’t look at her, didn’t smile.

She wondered what he was thinking. She wondered if behind those doors of his home dwelt nightmares he didn’t want to face. She said nothing, but just held his hand and didn’t let it go.

The front doors opened and a very old man with thick, tousled white hair, taller than the birch sapling beside the front steps, took very careful, measured steps outside. Then he stopped, shaded his eyes with his hand, and yelled, “Is that you, my lord? Is it truly you? Or is Mrs. Clegge wrong and it’s the vicar instead come to gather up old clothes for the orphans?”

“It’s Baron Cliffe, Jeffrey,” Gray shouted back, although he wasn’t further than fifteen feet away from the old man.

He said to Jack, “Jeffrey has very weak eyes. They worsen by the year. As for his hearing, it’s always been very nearly nonexistent. Speak ver