The Sherbrooke Bride (Sherbrooke Brides 1)

watch them this morning. They are amusing. Well, Hollis, I am waiting to be seated. I am waiting for my nutty bun.”

Douglas was impressed, very impressed. He looked toward Alexandra, but her head was down. That impressed him as well. No crowing from her, no gloating at this small but quite significant victory. She’d managed, with Hollis’s help, not to turn the breakfast room into a battleground. He said then, “After breakfast, Alexandra and I are going to Branderleigh Farm to buy her a mare. Sinjun, would you care to accompany us?”

Sinjun had a mouthful of kippers and could only nod. It was Melissande who said gaily from the doorway, “Oh, how delightful! Tony, shouldn’t you also like to buy me a mare? I should like a white mare, pure white, I think, with a long thick white mane.”

She looked so exquisitely beautiful that Douglas’s fork remained for several moments poised an inch from his mouth. Her morning gown was of a soft pale blue, plain, truth be told, but nothing more was required. Her hair had a blue ribbon threaded through the thick fat black curls. She looked fragile, delicate, immensely provocative.

“And a new riding habit, Melissande?” Sinjun said. “Pure white with perhaps a bright green feather in your hat? Oh, how lovely you would look. And seated on a lovely saddle atop a white mare, ah, you would look like a fairy princess.”

“White makes her look sallow,” Tony said matter-of-factly as he stirred the eggs on his plate. “It was with great relief I realized she wasn’t required to wear any more white once she was married to me.”

“Sallow! I am never sallow! Doesn’t that mean that I would look a nasty sort of yellow? No, it is absurd. I am never, never sallow.”

“Are you not, Mellie? In this instance, your mirror isn’t telling you the truth. You must learn to trust your husband. I have exquisite taste, you know. Why, I was planning to toss away all your girlish nightwear. No more white. I was thinking of bright blues and greens—all silk and satin, of course—and slippers to match. What do you think, my love?”

Melissande was in something of a bind. “I am not ever yellow,” she said, “but I should much enjoy new things.”

“I thought you would. After we have visited Strawberry Hill for as long as I wish, why then, we will go to London and you will flail young male hearts with your incomparable beauty and your silks and satins.”

“But I want to go to London now, Tony!”

“Should you like a scone, my dear?” asked the Dowager Countess of Northcliffe.

Douglas was looking at Melissande. He was also frowning, Sinjun saw. She smiled into her teacup.

“You must show everyone your lovely watercolors, Mellie,” Tony said, watching his bride delicately tear apart a scone with beautiful slender fingers. “Douglas, she has done several of Northcliffe. I think you will be very impressed.”

Melissande dropped her scone and smiled brilliantly at her husband, leaning toward him, her eyes sparkling. “Do you really like them, Tony? Truly? It is difficult, you know, what with the ever-changing light, particularly near the maple copse. Shall I try to paint the peacocks that everyone wishes to watch?”

“I don’t know,” he said, looking at her thoughtfully. “Perhaps you can begin by painting the mare I shall buy you. Not a white mare, please, Mellie, perhaps a bay with white stockings. I don’t wish you to be trite.”

“Trite! I am never—what precisely do you mean?”

“I mean that you would lack originality. You would be humdrum, run-of-the-mill.”

Melissande frowned over this, then gave her husband a very beautiful smile. “Well then, my lord. You shall select a mare for me that is original.”

“Yes, I shall. You will contrive to trust me in the future to always do what is best for you.”

Melissande nodded slowly.

Sinjun shot Alexandra a wicked look.

The Dowager Countess of Northcliffe said in a very carrying voice to Aunt Mildred, “After breakfast, I wish to speak to you about Lady Juliette’s arrival. We must have a small soirée for her, don’t you think? Her importance calls for recognition and now that Douglas isn’t here to wed her, why then—”

Oh dear, Alexandra thought, staring at Douglas, who looked now ready to spit on his fond mother. She forestalled him, saying quickly, “I should like to meet all the neighbors as well. A party for this Juliette would be just the thing, I think, for all of us to get acquainted.”

“The party will be to introduce my wife,” Douglas said, his voice as stern and cold as a judge’s. “Lady Juliette, as our guest for as few a number of days as we can politely manage, will naturally be invited. Under no circumstance, Mother, will you intimate that it is a gathering in her honor. Do you understand me?”

“The peacocks have folded their tails,” said the Dowager Countess of Northcliffe, and rose from the table. Her departure from the breakfast room was majestic.

Tony very nearly choked on his coffee.

Lady Juliette arrived not an hour later, just ten minutes before they would have escaped to Branderleigh Farm.

Sinjun moaned behind Alexandra. Alexandra would have moaned but she was older and a wife and so she straightened her back and drew a deep breath.

“The broom handle is back, I see,” Douglas said, as he came to stand beside her at the top of the wide stairs that led to the gravel drive in front of Northcliffe Hall.