The Heiress Bride (Sherbrooke Brides 3)

“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “Shortly, we will travel northward to Vere Castle. I will take very good care of Colin, neither of you need worry.”

“It isn’t that poaching bastard I’m worried about,” Douglas yelled at her. “I’m worried about you, dammit.”

“That’s very nice of you, Douglas, and understandable, since you’re fond of me.”

“I’d like to take a strap to your bottom.”

“Only I will take straps to her in the future,” Colin said firmly. “She doesn’t believe that now, but she will learn.”

“Sounds to me,” Ryder said very slowly, looking back and forth between the two of them, “yes, it does seem that you just might have met your match, Sinjun.”

“Oh yes,” she said, purposefully misunderstanding her brother. “He is my match, my mate for life. I was waiting for him and at last he found me.” She walked over to her soon-to-be-husband, who was standing by the mantel holding a brandy snifter. She put her arms around his chest, leaned up, and kissed his mouth. Douglas growled and Ryder, dear blessed Ryder, laughed.

“All right, you’re no longer a brat,” Ryder said. “I would like another brandy, Colin, if you please. Sinjun, do remove your arms from him, it might save him from further pummeling by Douglas.”

“This isn’t settled yet,” Douglas said. “I’m very upset with you, Sinjun. You could have trusted me, you could have spoken to me. Instead you just stole out of the house like a damned thief.”

“But Douglas, I understood your position, truly, and I respected it. But the fact was and is that Colin is innocent of any wrongdoing, and what’s more, he had instant need of my money and simply couldn’t wait for some sort of resolution that probably would never come. I was rather concerned about that, since both you and my money would still be in London. But that’s not the case now, thank God. I am glad you came—albeit you weren’t happy when you arrived—so that you and Colin can work it all out.”

“Joan,” Colin said very quietly, “one doesn’t speak about settlements in such a way. Certainly not in front of ladies, and not in the drawing room, under such oddly unconventional conditions.”

“You mean because there’s a hole in the ceiling?”

“You know very well what I mean.”

“But why ever not? It’s my dowry, and you’re my husband. Let’s get on with it.”

Douglas laughed, he couldn’t help himself.

“I think,” Ryder said, “that this means your hide just might remain on your body, Colin. Sinjun, take yourself off and the gentlemen will deal with all the money matters.”

“Good. Don’t forget Great-Aunt Margaret’s inheritance to me, Douglas. You told me once it was an impressive number of groats and all invested on the ’Change.”

“We’re as good as married, Colin.”

He turned to face her in the dark-cornered earl’s suite at the end of an equally dark and quite dismal corridor on the second floor of Kinross House. There was but one branch of candles lit and he was holding it. He set it down on a battered surface that had once held all his father’s shaving objects.

He just shook his head. “I know we must pretend that we are, and I intend to do so until your brothers leave. I will sleep with you in that bed, and as you can see, it’s large enough for a regiment. You will keep your hands to yourself, Joan, else I’ll be displeased with you.”

“I simply don’t believe this, Colin. I do hope you aren’t the sort of person who makes a decision, then sticks to it whether it’s good or miserably bad.”

“I’m right in this decision.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“A wife shouldn’t be so disrespectful to her husband.”

“You’re not my husband yet, damn you! What you are is the most stubborn, the most obstinate—”

“There’s a screen in the corner. You may change behind it.”

When they were lying side by side in the mammoth bed, Sinjun staring up at the dark bed hangings, which smelled moldy, he said to her, “I like your brothers. They’re honorable and quite fit as friends. As relatives, they’re superlative.”

“So nice of you to say so.”

“Don’t sulk, Joan.”

“I’m not sulking, I’m cold. It’s damp in this dreadful room.”