Mad Jack (Sherbrooke Brides 4)

Jack said, “Gray looks a great deal like you. Perhaps you believe I look like someone you know? Perhaps someone you used to know??

??

“Thank God he left.”

“Who left, ma’am?”

“Lev. He left. I will never forgive him. He was a monster. Not like my dearest husband. Why did Gray have to kill him? Why?”

“He shot your husband because he was beating you, ma’am, viciously. Gray was afraid he would kill you. He had to do something. He had to protect his mother. To my way of thinking, he saved both of you.”

“I didn’t need to be saved. All I needed was Farley. He loved me.”

Gray was right, Jack thought. This was a sort of madness that was beyond her ken. How to regain any sense in all this? She said, “Ma’am, who is this Lev? Did you love him?”

For the first time, Alice looked at her squarely in the face. “You’re very young. I haven’t been young for longer than you’ve lived. Has he struck you yet, my dear?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Ah. You’ll know he loves you truly when finally he feels free to punish you as well as reward you. I learned so much from my dearest Farley. Dr. Pontefract says that Farley wasn’t sane—that no sane man would strike a woman—but what does he know? Yes, Farley tried and tried to teach me to please him, to please myself. But Gray murdered him. Is Gray trying to teach you?”

“Yes, he is. But he hasn’t ever struck me. He agrees with Dr. Pontefract. Gray would never strike a woman.” She wondered what Gray would be thinking were he to hear what his mother was saying. What memories would her words resurrect?

“Do you recognize me, ma’am?”

But Alice, dowager baroness Cliffe, turned away from Jack. She pulled the shawl back up onto her shoulders and knotted it between her breasts. She picked up the thin volume of Voltaire from her lap, looked at it dispassionately, and tossed it to the floor. “I’m tired,” she said. “Finally, I believe I will sleep. Go away. I don’t want to see you anymore.”

Jack slowly rose, not knowing what to do.

“Take that boy with you, the one who murdered my dearest Farley. I wish he would stay gone from here. When he leaves I hope that he’ll never come back, but he always does. I rarely even speak to him, but still he returns. He’s stubborn. But it doesn’t matter. He stole all that I loved from me.”

“He’s your son, that boy. He loves you. He loved you then and that’s why he shot Farley. He was protecting you. He did the only thing he could think of to save you. He shot the man who was beating you to death. Why won’t you remember it as it truly happened?”

“My dearest Farley beat me to death? What utter nonsense—lies, complete lies. I didn’t need to be protected!” Alice jumped up from her chair and hurled herself at Jack. Her thin hands went around Jack’s throat. God, the woman was strong. But Jack was much larger and much stronger. However, she wasn’t as enraged as Alice obviously was.

Finally Jack managed to pull Alice’s hands away. They remained curled inward, ready to strike again, ready to rip the flesh from her throat.

“Stop it,” Jack said low, grabbed her shoulders and shook her hard. She struggled, but Jack held firm.

“Stop it,” she whispered now right in her mother-in-law’s face. She shook her again, snapping her head on her neck. “Just stop it. Damn you, do you recognize me? Who is this Lev?”

Alice sagged against her. Jack clasped the woman close. She whispered against her soft, beautiful hair, “Tell me if Gray is your son. Tell me if you ever loved Thomas Levering Bas—oh, my God, that’s Lev, isn’t it? You called my father Lev? Oh, God, you said he was a monster. What did you mean? You said he left? Please, you must tell me!”

She stared helplessly down at Gray’s mother, whose face was pale as a winter’s day. And just as empty, no hint of feeling, or pain, of memory. Just a beautiful face with no person behind it.

Jack had nothing to lose. She drew a deep, steadying breath. She said, “If you will but tell me about Thomas Levering Bascombe, I will keep the boy away from you forever.”

“He murdered my Farley.”

“Yes, I will keep him away from you, if you will just tell me about Lev.”

Alice fell utterly limp against Jack. As gently as she could, Jack eased her back down into her chair. She waved her hand in front of her face. Soft tendrils of blond hair lifted off her cheek. “Ma’am? Are you all right?”

“Lev wanted to marry me,” Alice said in a low monotone, not looking at her or anything else for that matter, as far as Jack could tell. “He begged and begged me, but I had met Farley and he was the one I wanted. We were alone one evening, Lev and I, out in my family’s garden. It was a warm evening, thin white clouds trailing over the moon. Lev pleaded with me again. Then he kissed me. I told him to stop, but he didn’t stop. Lev took my virginity that evening. He raped me. Then he told me, even as he stood over me, his legs spread, his hands on his hips, that I would have to marry him, that I was ruined now, and there was no choice. I was his.”

Alice began to sob, ugly soul-deep sobs. Jack leaned down and gathered her into her arms. “It’s all right. It was a very long time ago.” And even as she spoke, hope was withering inside her. Her father had raped this woman? Oh God, she couldn’t imagine it. Not her father, not the man she’d adored. She remembered so clearly sitting in front of him astride his great stallion, his strong arms around her, humming. Yet now she felt the angry, helpless tears of her mother-in-law hot against her neck. She closed her eyes, but there was no hope for it. She simply had no doubt that it had happened just as Alice had said. “It’s all right,” she whispered again against Alice’s hair. “What happened then? Can you tell me?”

“Lev told me he would call on my father the next day. They would arrange a marriage contract. Everything would be all right.”