The Sherbrooke Bride (Sherbrooke Brides 1)

“A committee is such an amorphous sort of entity,” Douglas said, striving yet again for a supercilious smile and a Gaelic shrug. “I am not a representative of any committee. I am here as Napoleon’s personal, er, investigator.”

The general stiffened even as his jaw slackened and his brain quickened. “Investigator?”

Had Napoleon somehow heard of the death of the two soldiers he’d ordered flogged the previous week? Perhaps he’d heard of the girl’s beating, a girl whose relatives had a bit of clout? Damn the foolish girl. She’d protested, but he’d known she wanted him, the little tease, and thus he’d taken her, perhaps a bit roughly, but it wasn’t as if she wouldn’t recover to enjoy him again. She hadn’t succumbed to his logic and his charms as had the woman he held upstairs in the small room next to his bedchamber.

Belesain believed Napoleon invincible on the battlefield, but he loathed him for his hypocritical bourgeois attitudes. He must tread warily. This man standing before him was nothing but a bureaucrat, a nonentity, obviously a lackey with few brains. But he did have power, curse him, which meant he, Belesain, would deal with him. If he couldn’t deal with him, he would have him killed. After all, robbers and scoundrels of all sorts abounded on the roads.

“Yes,” Douglas said. “As you doubtless know, Napoleon has always believed it imperative that plans and those carrying out the plans must be overseen. An endless task, no?”

“You have papers, of course.”

“Naturally.”

At three o’clock that afternoon, Douglas walked beside General Belesain through the encampment on the beach at Boulogne. The general hated this—this forced graciousness to a damned bureaucrat, this air of cooperation with a man he both feared and despised. He tried to intimidate Douglas, then ignored him, acting as though he knew everything and could control everything, and that made Douglas smile. Dinner that evening was with a dozen of Belesain’s top officers in the mayor’s dining room. By the time the lengthy meal was done, most of the officers were drunk. By midnight, three of them had been carried back to their billets by their fellow officers. By one o’clock in the morning, Douglas was more alert than he’d ever been in his life, waiting for his chance.

He prayed no one would discover he was really an English spy. He had no wish to die. After all, when he returned to England, it would be to his new wife, to Melissande—ah, how sweet her name sounded on his tongue—and she would be in his bed and he would keep her there until she conceived the Sherbrooke heir.

When the general challenged him to a game of piquet, Douglas gave him a bland smile, and his heartbeat quickened. “The wager?” he inquired, flicking a speck of dust off his black coat.

The general suggested francs.

Douglas showed mild irritation with such banality. Surely such a brilliant and sophisticated man as the general could come up with a more interesting . . . ah, a more enticing wager?

The general thought this over, then smiled, off center, for he was drunk. He rubbed his hands together and his eyes gleamed as he said, “Ah, yes, certainly. The winner of our little game, monsieur, will enjoy a succulent little morsel who currently lives with me here. Her name is Janine and she is very talented at pleasuring a man.”

Douglas agreed with remarkable indifference.

CHAPTER

5

Claybourn Hall

ALEXANDRA COULDN’T BELIEVE it. She stood still as a stone by Melissande’s Italian writing desk, whose surface for once held something other than a myriad of perfume bottles. She still wore her dressing gown, and her hair hung in a thick braid over her shoulder. She stared down at the single sheet of paper. She closed her eyes a moment, closed them against the knowledge . . .

You hoped this would happen.

Perhaps, perhaps not. Regardless, she’d kept silent. She’d watched. And it had happened. Melissande and Anthony Parrish, Viscount Rathmore, had eloped to Gretna Green the previous night. Slowly Alexandra picked up the paper upon which Melissande had scrawled her few sentences, words that had changed all their lives, words that were misspelled because Melissande disdained any attempt at scholarship. Alexandra was calm; she felt strangely suspended, as if something more were going to happen. She would have to take the note to her father. She would have to confess that she guessed what was happening between the two of them.

She hated herself at that moment, knew herself to be a jealous creature, petty and mean-spirited, who deserved no consideration from anyone.

After the duke had read the letter, he laid it carefully on his desktop, walked over to the wide windows and stared out onto the east lawn. There were four peacocks strolling the perimeter, three geese, and a goat tethered to a yew bush. After a near decade had passed, at least in Alexandra’s mind, he turned to look thoughtfully at his younger daughter. He smiled at her then, actually smiled. To her astonishment, he said mildly, “Well, it’s done, wouldn’t you say, my dear? No big surprise, no startling revelations. No, I’m not taken aback by this, Alex, because Tony left me a rather fulsome letter, much more articulate than Melissande’s, much more apologetic. His honor abuses him. We will see.”

“Oh Papa, I knew, I knew, but I wanted . . .” Her father chuckled and shook his finger at her. “You too realized what Lord Rathmore would do, my dear?”

“Not that they would go to Gretna Green, but perhaps that they would refuse to go along with the wedding . . . I can’t lie to you, Papa. But I hadn’t realized that you also—”

Alexandra stood there, wringing her hands, her distress enough to make any fond parent soften. Her guilt was growing, not subsiding. The duke watched her for a moment, then said, “Yes, I knew Tony wanted Melissande and that she wanted him. I have never before seen two people more enraptured with each other so quickly. Tony is a fine young man—intelligent, witty, and blessed with good looks, an important ingredient to females. Further, he is nearly as rich as the Earl of Northcliffe. Doubtless he will offer a settlement to rival his cousin’s; indeed in his letter he gives me his assurances. I imagine his guilt must prick him sorely, as I said—much greater than yours, Alex!—for did he not betray his cousin and take the woman the earl had chosen away from him? Ah yes, he despises himself for what he has done, now, of course, that he has done it, and there is no going back. Conscience, I’ve found, is all the more potent once the deed is done and irreversible. But despite this lapse, this quite unfortunate behavior, the viscount appears an honorable man. He will bring Melissande back here, and very soon. She, the minx, won’t want to see us because she knows she’s disaccommodated your mother and fears a great scold, but her husband will force her to come.” The duke smiled into the distance. “Tony Parrish isn’t a man to be wound around a woman’s finger even though the woman is so beautiful it makes your teeth ache just to look at her. Aye, he will bring her back regardless of her pleas and her tears and her sulks.”

“But I did guess, Papa, I truly did.” There, it was out, all of it. She stood stiff and miserable, waiting for the parental tongue to flay her.

The duke took his daughter’s hand and raised it to his lips. “All I regret is the immense bother occasioned by this irresponsible act. It is never a father’s wish to have any of his offspring wed across the anvil in Scotland. A duke’s daughter, in particular, isn’t supposed to behave with such a lack of propriety.” The duke paused then, and a myriad of expressions crossed his face. He said abruptly to Alexandra, “You want the earl so much, then?”

“You guessed that as well? Oh dear. It is revolting. I

am as transparent as the fish pond.”

“You are my daughter. I know you and I am rather fond of you.”