The Heiress Bride (Sherbrooke Brides 3)

Colin patted his stallion’s neck. “I asked Lord Brassley who you were. Unfortunately he didn’t see you speaking to me. I described you, but to be frank, ma’am, he couldn’t imagine any lady, particularly Lady Joan Sherbrooke, speaking to me as you did.”

She rubbed the soft leather of her York riding gloves. “How did you describe me?”

She’d gotten to him again, but he refused to let her see it. He shrugged and said, “Well, I said you were reasonably toothsome in a blond sort of way, that you were tall and had quite lovely blue eyes, and your teeth were white and very straight. I had to tell him that you were brazen to your toenails.”

She was silent for a moment, looking over his left shoulder. “I suppose that’s fair enough. But he didn’t recognize me? How very odd. He’s a friend of my brother’s. He is also a rake but good-hearted, so Ryder says. I fear he still tends to see me as a ten-year-old who was always begging a present off him. He had to escort me once to Almack’s last Season, and Douglas told me in no uncertain terms that Brass wasn’t blessed with an adaptable intellect. I was to remain quiet and soft-spoken and on no account to speak of anything that lay between the covers of books to him. Douglas said it would make him bolt.”

Colin chewed this over. He simply didn’t know what to think. She looked like a lady, and Brass had said that Lady Joan Sherbrooke was a cute little chit, adored by her brothers, perhaps a bit out of the ordinary from some stories he’d heard, but he’d never noticed anything pert about her himself. He’d then lowered his voice, whispering that she knew too much about things in books, at least he’d heard that from some matrons who were gossiping about her, their tones utterly disapproving, and she was indeed tall. But then again, she’d been waiting on the front steps of the town house for him to arrive, certainly not what the young lady of the house would do, would she? Wouldn’t an English young lady be waiting in the drawing room, a cup of tea in her hand? Brass had also insisted that Joan Sherbrooke’s hair was a plain regular brown, nothing out of the ordinary, but it wasn’t. In the early sunlight it was at least a dozen colors, from the palest blond to a dark ash.

Oh, to hell with it. He didn’t understand, and he wasn’t at all certain he believed her. More likely, she was looking for a protector. Perhaps she was the lady’s maid to this Lady Joan Sherbrooke, or a cousin. He should just tell her that he had no money and all she could expect from him would be a fun roll in the hay, no more, no less.

“I have taken you by surprise,” Sinjun said, watching the myriad expressions flit over his face. On the heels of her calmly reasoned understatement, she said in a rush, “You’re the most beautiful man I have ever seen in my life, but it’s not that, not really. I wanted you to know that it wasn’t only your face that drew me to you, it was . . . well, just . . . oh goodness, I don’t know.”

“Me, beautiful?” Colin could only stare at her. “A man isn’t beautiful, that is nonsense. Please, just tell me what you want and I shall do my best to see that you get it. I can’t be your protector, I’m sorry. Even if I were the randiest goat in all of London, it would do me no good. I have no money.”

“I don’t want a protector, if by that you mean you would take me on as a mistress.”

“Yes,” he said slowly, fascinated now. “That is what I meant.”

“I can’t be a mistress. Even if I wanted to be, it wouldn’t help you. Surely my brother wouldn’t release my dowry if you didn’t wed me. I suspect he wouldn’t be pleased if I did become your mistress. He is very old-fashioned about some things.”

“Then why are you doing this? Pray, tell me. Did one of my benighted friends put you up to this? Are you the mistress of Lord Brassley? Or Henry Tompkins? Or Lord Clinton?”

“Oh no, no one put me up to anything.”

“Not everyone likes the fact that I’m a Scot. Even though I went to school with a good many of the men here in London, they think it just fine to drink with me and sport with me, but not for me to wed their sisters.”

“I think you could be a Moroccan and I would still feel as I do.”

He could but stare at her. The soft blue feather of her riding hat—a ridiculously small confection of nonsense—curled about her face, framing it charmingly. Her riding habit, a darker blue, darker than her eyes, he saw, fit her to perfection, and it wasn’t flirtatious, that habit, no, it was stylish and showed off her high breasts and narrow waist and . . . He cursed, fluently and low.

“You sound just like my brothers, but usually they’re laughing before they get to the end of their curses.”

He started to say something but realized that she was staring at his mouth. No, she couldn’t be a lady. She was a damned jest, paid for by one of his friends. “Enough!” he bellowed. “This is all an act, it has to be. You can’t want to marry me, just like that, and proceed to announce it in the most brazen way imaginable!” He turned suddenly in his saddle and jerked her against him. He pulled her out of her sidesaddle and over his thighs. He held her still until both horses quieted, not

that he had to do anything, because she didn’t fight him, not at all. She immediately pressed her breasts against him. No, she couldn’t be a lady, no way in hell.

He forced her against his left arm and lifted her chin with his gloved fingertips. He kissed her hard, his tongue probing against her closed lips. He raised his head, anger in his voice. “Damn you, open your mouth like you’re supposed to.”

“All right,” she said, and opened her mouth.

At the sight of her open mouth, Colin couldn’t help himself. He laughed. “Bloody hell, you look like you’re about to sing an opera like that vile soprano from Milan. Oh, damnation!” He set her again onto Fanny’s back. Fanny, displeased, pranced to the side, but Sinjun, even a Sinjun who was nearly incoherent with pleasure and excitement and amusement, managed to bring her easily under control.

“All right. I will accept that you are a lady. I will . . . no, I cannot accept that you saw me at the Portmaines’ ball and decided you wanted to marry me.”

“Well, I wasn’t precisely certain I wanted to marry you then, at that moment, just that I thought I could look at you for the rest of my life.”

He was disarmed immediately. “Before I see you again—if I see you again—I would that you cloak yourself in a bit of guile. Not a tremendous amount, mind you, but enough so that you don’t leave me slack-jawed, with nothing to say when you announce something utterly outrageous.”

“I’ll try,” Sinjun said. She looked away from him for a moment, across the wide expanse of thick green grass, to the riding trails that intersected the park. “Do you think perhaps I could be maybe pretty enough for you? Oh, I know all the other about toothsomeness was just a jest. I wouldn’t want you to be ashamed of me, to be embarrassed if I did become your wife.”

She met his eyes as she spoke. He just shook his head. “Stop it, do you hear me? For God’s sake, you’re quite lovely, as you must certainly know.”

“People will tell any number of lies, offer more Spanish coin than would fill a cask if they believed one an heiress. I’m not stupid.”

He dismounted his stallion, hooked the reins about his hand, and strode to beneath a full-leafed oak tree. “Come here. We must talk before I willingly incarcerate myself in Bedlam.”

Ah, to stand close to him, Sinjun thought, as she obeyed him with alacrity.