Mad Jack (Sherbrooke Brides 4)

“Oh, no. His wife, Margaret, is living with his older brother and his family. He is the head of the family, and incidentally, the very deep well from which our gentleman here draws enough groats to keep himself in luxury. He can do nothing against his brother, thus he would like at least to remove me, the bane of his existence.”

“Let’s get him, Gray. Let’s show him what’s what.”

“Ah, Jack, you do please me so.”

But Jack wouldn’t let him go until she’d looked at his shoulder. “I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself,” she said, as she gently rebandaged the wound. “It looks fine, but I don’t want you to hit him very hard. It could reopen the wound, and Dr. Cranford wouldn’t like that.”

They were donning cloaks when Quincy answered the knock at the front door. It was Ryder Sherbrooke, windblown, tanned, healthy and smiling, his Sherbrooke blue eyes light and full of life. It felt as though he brought the sunlight into the house with him.

“You’ll not believe what I—no, wait, what happened here? What did you do to your shoulder, Gray? Jack, what’s going on? I leave for a very short time, and you get yourself hurt? Damnation, Gray, I must move in with you so that I can keep you whole-hided?”

“No, no, Ryder. Come in for a moment. I’m fine. Quincy, bring us some tea and whatever Mrs. Post has available in the kitchen. Now, Ryder, what’s happened?”

“No, I will not tell you my news until you tell me what’s happened.”

Gray did, quickly and cleanly, leaving out more than Jack would have left out, but she managed to keep herself quiet.

“So, the two of you were going to see our little weasel to speak to him about his lack of manners?”

“Actually,” Gray said, “I haven’t decided just yet what to do with the Honorable Clyde, the mangy little sot.”

Jack said with relish, “I vote we break his neck, but in a very subtle way so that everyone believes it’s an accident.”

Gray laughed and hugged her against his side. “Don’t ever try to hurt me, Ryder, else you’ll have my wife to deal with. Now, tell us your news.”

“Yes,” Jack said. “Have you decided how to re-rotten the borough?”

“No, there wasn’t even time to act. You see, my children took a hand.”

“Your children?” Jack said.

“Yes, all fourteen of them.”

33

“I WENT home to see just how easily I would be able to re-rotten the borough, and if I couldn’t manage to do that, then just what else I could do about that little fop, Horace Redfield. I soon learned that he’d spread his groats and his venom throughout Upper and Lower Slaughter.

“My Sophie was fit to shoot his ears off. Ah, she’s so very lovely when her eyes are sizzling with rage. I nearly forgot my own ire when I remarked upon her eyes and her lovely heaving chest. So then I—no, never mind that.

“Where was I? Oh, yes, it turns out that Oliver and Jeremy were home from Eton—” He looked over at Jack, adding, “Jeremy is Sophie’s younger brother, and Oliver is all of sixteen now, and a glorious young man. Douglas is very fond of Oliver as well and plans to train him to be the future steward of Northcliffe, but that’s neither here nor there.

“In any case, the boys soon discovered what was going on. They got all the children together and told them that they were going to ‘squish the bad man.”’ Ryder rubbed his hands together and grinned into the distance. “Ah, my sweet boys.”

“What happened?” Jack asked.

‘Jeremy and Oliver rightly decided that Mr. Redfield was doubtless a scoundrel and they took turns following him. They quickly discovered that he was seeing a woman in a small cottage just east of Upper Slaughter in the village of Primpton. Then they sent the children, in pairs, to see this woman. Her name is Fanny James, a former actress who was down on her luck, and because, she told Jeremy and Oliver, she couldn’t sew or cook, and scrubbing things would ruin her beautiful hands, and she didn’t want to starve, she became Redfield’s mistress. They told her that since she knew all about treading the boards, they wanted her to teach them how to act and perform a play.

“Fanny James was charmed, needless to say, particularly after all fourteen children trooped to her cottage door, sat at her feet, and listened reverently to every word that slid off her tongue.

“She visited Jane at Brandon House, met all the other staff, and Sophie as well.”

Ryder stopped, stared down at his boots, then threw back his head, and howled with laughter.

Gray waited until Ryder had quieted a bit, then said, “This Fanny James didn’t know what Redfield had done to blacken your good name, did she?”

“No,” Ryder finally said, shaking his head. “No, she didn’t know anything. In short, she fell in love with the children, with Jane and all the other women at Brandon House, and naturally with my Sophie. Ah, yes, and I don

’t want to forget Sally, a jewel, Gray, who has the children eating out of her hand. She’s one of the cooks,” Ryder added to Jack. At her still obvious confusion, he said, “Gray saved her from a brute of a drunken husband and brought her to me. She’s very happy, Gray.