The Sherbrooke Bride (Sherbrooke Brides 1)

She looked up at him, worship and trust shining from her face and said simply, “Yes.”

“Good. Now, listen to me. Here’s what we will do.” Douglas wondered, as he stared down into that pale tense face that held such radiant trust for him, why people in general and females in particular believed him to be some sort of Saint George. He hated it but at the same time he found it amusing. He thought of Georges Cadoudal, and fervently hoped she would remember him. After all, Douglas was probably a married man by now and he wanted no moonstruck female on his arm on his return to England.

CHAPTER

6

Northcliffe Hall

Five Days Later

DOUGLAS OPENED THE door of the library, saw a lone candle burning on the small table beside his cousin, and strode into the room, a tired smile lighting his face.

“Tony! Lord, it’s good to see you and good to be home again.” Douglas rubbed his hands together. “Ah, it’s wonderful to be home and I fancy you know well my reasons.”

“Douglas,” Tony said, rising. He strode to his cousin and shook his hand. “I gather you were successful in whatever mission you undertook?”

Douglas gave him a fat smile and continued to rub his hands together. “Very successful, thank a benevolent God and a very stupid general who thought he could outsmart me. Ah, that dressing gown of yours is very elegant, but if you’re not careful, your hairy legs stick out.” He walked over to the sideboard. “You want some nice French brandy? I did promise you all you could drink until the next century.”

“No, I think not.”

Douglas poured the brandy, took a deep drink, felt it snake a warm trail all the way to his belly. “Hollis said you had to speak to me, that it was quite important, that it couldn’t possibly wait until morning. I thought for a moment he was going to cry, but of course that’s nonsense. Hollis never cries or yells or shows any unsuitable emotion. But it is nearly midnight, Tony, and I’m babbling because I’m about to collapse at your feet. Of course, once I see my beautiful bride, I imagine I’ll forget all my fatigue. Still, I was surprised to see Hollis still up. What do you want?”

“I tried to tell Hollis to take himself off to bed, that I would await you in the entrance hall, but being Hollis, he refused.”

Douglas took another long drink of his brandy, then sat himself in a deep wing chair next to his cousin’s. “What’s wrong?” There was dark silence, and Douglas suddenly knew that something he wasn’t going to like at all was very near now, and Tony was the messenger. “You did marry Melissande, did you not?”

Tony looked at him full-face. “Yes,” he said, “I did marry her.” He drew a deep breath, knowing there was no hope for it, and blurted out, “I also married her younger sister.”

Douglas had just taken another sip of brandy. He spit it out and choked on a cough. “You what?”

“I said I married two women.” Anthony Parrish turned to stare into the fireplace, at the glowing embers. So much for his rehearsed explanation. He felt as tired as his cousin. In addition, he carried a burden of guilt that was well-nigh dragging him underground. “You may select to challenge me to a duel, Douglas. It will be your right. I will not fire against you, that I swear.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” But Douglas didn’t want to know what his cousin was talking about. He wanted to leave, right this minute, and go up to the huge master suite, to the huge master bed where Melissande awaited him. He didn’t want to hear any more about Tony marrying two women.

“I didn’t marry Melissande by proxy for you. I married her first over the anvil in Gretna Green, then once again later at her father’s house. I then married Alexandra, her younger sister, by proxy, to you.”

“I see,” Douglas said. He rose, set his brandy snifter down carefully on the side table, nodded to his cousin, picked up a candle, and strode from the library.

“Douglas! Wait! You don’t understand. For God’s sake, come back here!”

But Douglas wasn’t about to stop. He heard Tony coming after him and quickened his pace. A mistake, that’s what all this was, no, it was a wicked joke, a joke worthy of Ryder . . . no . . . something else. He heard his cousin on the stairs behind him as he turned into the eastern corridor. He ran down the long hall to the master suite at the end. He pulled open the double doors, dashed inside, then slammed them closed behind him, and quickly turned the key.

He looked toward his bed, holding his candle high. The covers were as smooth as when he’d left Northcliffe Hall two weeks before. The bed was empty.

He walked to the dais and stood there staring down at that damned empty bed. He’d dreamed of this bed. Not empty like it was now. No, he’d dreamed of Melissande lying on her back in the middle, her arms open, inviting him to come to her.

He turned, furious, nearly beyond understanding anything. He looked toward the adjoining door and realized he was being a fool. Naturally she wouldn’t be in his bed, she would be in the countess’s bedchamber next to his. He was a stranger to her, somewhat, and it wouldn’t be proper for her to be in his bed, at least not yet. Not until he had, as her husband, formally fetched her into his bed.

He flung open the door to the adjoining bedchamber. This room was smaller, its furnishings soft and very female; this was the room visited by the resident ghost who didn’t exist and never had existed except in bored or fevered female minds. He saw that the bed covers were rumpled. But this bed was also empty. It was then he saw her. It was a girl and she was standing in the shadows, wearing a long white gown that covered her from her chin to her toes. He couldn’t see her all that clearly, but he knew that she was very pale, and clearly startled. And was it fear he saw as well? Fear of him?

Hell, she should be afraid, he thought, and took two steps forward. She wasn’t Melissande. She was a bloody stranger and she had the gall to be here in his wife’s bedchamber, standing there as if she belonged, staring at him as if he were an intruder at the least, perhaps even a murderer. He stopped dead in his tracks. “Who the devil are you?”

He sounded very calm, which surprised him no end. He was shaking on the outside, his gut cramping on the inside, and he quickly set down the candle on the stand beside the bed.

“I asked you who you are. What the hell are you doing in here? Where is Melissande?”

“Melissande is down the hall, in the west wing. The bedchamber is called the Green Cube, I believe.”