The Heiress Bride (Sherbrooke Brides 3)

Douglas said to his wife, “I’ve discovered nothing ill about Ashburnham. He is liked and respected. He attended Eton and Oxford. He has many men friends in society. The only thing any of them can say is that he must marry an heiress.” Douglas, in a habit that was becoming more pronounced, plowed his fingers through his hair again. He continued his pacing as his wife watched him from her dressing table. It was still early in the evening, three nights from the week Douglas had demanded. Both of them knew that Sinjun had met Colin the day after the historic brawl, but neither wanted to make an issue of it. As far as Douglas knew, Sinjun hadn’t seen him since. But who could know with Sinjun? She was damnably resourceful.

“How long has he been the earl of Ashburnham?”

“Just six months. His brother was a wastrel, as was his father. Together they ran the estate into the ground. He has a huge barn of an old castle that will require vast sums to bring it back to what it was. Then there are the crops, the sheep, the poverty of his people—crofters, they’re called in Scotland.”

“So,” Alex said slowly, “when he became the earl and discovered the true state of his affairs, he made a decision, the only one he could make. You don’t dislike him for that, do you, Douglas?”

“No. It’s just that—”

“That what, my dear?”

“Sinjun doesn’t know him. She’s infatuated, that’s all. She’ll end up in Scotland, with no one to protect her, and what if—”

“Do you believe that Colin Kinross is an honorable man?”

“I have no idea. On the surface, I’d say yes. What goes on in his mind? In his heart?”

“Sinjun will wed him, Douglas. I only hope she doesn’t seduce him before they’re wed.”

He sighed. “I hope so, too. Now I must go to speak with Mother. She is squawking again, driving her maid insane, demanding that the young man be brought to her. She is threatening to send Sinjun to Italy until she has forgotten this foreign bounder. The strange thing is that she doesn’t at all mind that he is marrying her daughter for money. What she minds is that he is a Scot. She says all Scots are hard and mean-fisted and Presbyterian.”

“Perhaps you should quote some Robert Burns poetry to her. It’s really quite lovely.”

“Ha! It’s a foreign language and she’d have even more fits than she’s having now. Damnation, I wish Sinjun weren’t lying in her bed with a headache. She is never about when I need her.”

“Shall I come with you?”

“If you were to do that, Mother would rage until we were both deaf. You still haven’t won her over, my dear. I doubt not she will soon come around to blaming you for this debacle.” Douglas sighed and left the room, mumbling about his damned sister and her equally damned headache.

Sinjun didn’t have a headache. She had a plan and she was well into its execution. She had carefully molded a bolster into a reasonable human shape and covered it. Excellent. If there were no close inspection, the bolster would pass muster as a likely female. She patted her own pants leg, straightened her jacket, and pulled her felt hat more fully down over her forehead. She looked like a boy, no doubt about it. She turned and looked at her back in the long mirror. Just like a boy, even to her black boots. She whistled softly. Now a

ll she had to do was climb down the elm tree into the garden. Then she was off.

Colin’s lodgings were on the second floor of an old Georgian town house on Carlyon Street, only three streets away. It wasn’t yet dark and she kept whistling to keep away any fears that might try to nibble at her, and to make anyone who saw her see only a boy, out for the evening. She saw two gentlemen in their swirling cloaks, laughing and smoking cheroots, but they paid her no heed. There was a ragged boy sweeping the path for anyone who passed, and she thanked him and gave him a pence. Sinjun found Colin’s lodging without problem and strolled to the front door as if she hadn’t a care in the world. She pounded the huge eagle’s-head knocker.

There wasn’t a sound from within. She knocked again. She heard a giggle and a girl’s high voice scolding, “Now, sir, don’t you do that! No, no, not there, you mustn’t. Now, we’ve a visitor. No, sir—” There were more giggles and when the door opened, Sinjun was face-to-face with one of the prettiest females she’d ever seen. The girl’s neckline was low over very white, full breasts, and her pale hair was mussed and her eyes were bright with excitement and fun. She was grinning wickedly.

“And just who’d you be, my fine lad?” she said, striking a pose, one hand on her hip and her chest poked out.

The fine lad answered with a wide smile, “Who do you want me to be? Your father, perhaps? No, that isn’t possible, is it? I would have to scold the gentleman who was making you laugh, and you wouldn’t want that, would you?”

“Oh, you’re a fine one, you are! All jests and games and a well-oiled tongue. You want to see someone here?”

Sinjun nodded. She saw a gentleman from the corner of her eye as he slipped into a door off the main corridor. “I’m here to see Lord Ashburnham. Is he in?”

The girl struck another pose, this one even more provocative, and giggled once again. “Aye, a pretty one, his lordship is. But he’s poor, you know. Can’t afford a nice girl, he can’t, or a gentleman’s man to help him. Talk is he’s marrying an heiress, but he won’t say boo about it. Probably the heiress is a stoat all dressed in fancy silk, poor man.”

“Some heiresses can even whistle, I’ve heard,” Sinjun said. “Now, his lordship’s apartment is on the second floor, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” the girl said. “Hey, wait! I don’t know if he’s here or not. Haven’t seen him for two days now. Tilly, one of the girls, went up to see if he wanted some fun—all willing to give it to him on the house, she was—but he wasn’t there. Leastwise he didn’t answer. And what man wouldn’t answer when he heard Tilly calling out to him?”

Sinjun took the stairs two at a time, saying over her shoulder, “If he isn’t there, perhaps I shall return and you and I can, er, have a cup of tea and a chat.”

The girl giggled. “Ah, go along with you, my cute lad! Ah, ’tis you, sir, back again. Now, where were we? Ah, what naughtiness you are!”

Sinjun was still smiling when she reached the landing. It was a solid house with a wide hallway. Well maintained, the paint fresh, a gentleman’s establishment. Were the pretty girls here all the time? She found Colin’s door and knocked. There was nothing. She knocked again. Please, she thought, please let him be here. It had been too long. Four whole days without him. It was too much. They’d fooled Douglas that first morning, but Colin hadn’t called on her since. She had to see him, to touch him, to smile at him.

Finally she heard a deep voice call out, “Whoever you are, go to hell.”