The Sherbrooke Bride (Sherbrooke Brides 1)

Alexandra saw the intent in his eyes, the cold hardness, the determination. “Je ne vais pas!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. She smashed The Mysterious Count in his face, hoping she’d at least broken his long nose. Then when he raised his arm to strike her, she screamed, “Merde! Merde! Je vaisà Paris demain avec mon mari! Aidez-moi!”

He struck her against the side of her head, cursing all the while, whilst the patrons of Hookams stared in frozen shock.

“James, help! Aidez-moi!”

“Damn you,” Georges Cadoudal hissed in her face, and then in the next instant, he was gone. James was at her side, shocked to his toes, knowing that he’d failed the mistress, but it had been so unexpected, the attack by the unknown villain.

“Are you all right, my lady? Oh dear, please tell me you’re all right.”

Alexandra shook her head to clear it. The blow had made her eyes blur and cross. “Yes, I’m all right.” Then she looked at the novel she was holding and straightened out its ruffled pages. “I coshed him in the nose, James. Did you hear my French?”

“Merde, my lady?”

This time it was Heatherington, the man Douglas had told her would toss up a woman’s skirts even before he knew her name, and he was smiling down at her, not the sardonic smile of a practiced roué, but a genuine smile. Oddly, there was a good deal of warmth in that smile. “Ah yes, I heard your magnificent French. Who is the poor soul who dared to agitate you?”

“He is gone,” Alexandra said. She looked as proud as a little peahen. “My French scared him off.”

Heatherington gave her a long look, then he laughed, a sound that was rusty because he hadn’t laughed, really laughed in a very long time. It didn’t go with the image he so carefully cultivated for himself. He laughed louder, shaking his head. “Merde,” he said. “Merde,” he said again, then turned away and left the bookstore.

Alexandra stared after him for a moment, then paid for her novel, ignoring all the whispering ladies and gentlemen staring at her. James walked very close to her until he handed her up into the carriage. They were at the Sherbrooke town house in twenty minutes. As James walked up the front steps just behind her, she stopped and said urgently, her fingers plucking at his coat sleeve, “Please, James, I don’t wish His Lordship to know about the small, ah, contretemps, all right? It was nothing, nothing at all. The man was doubtless confused as to who I was, but nothing more.”

James wasn’t at all certain she was right. He was worried and rightfully so, for the first person he saw in the entrance hall was His Lordship and he looked fit to kill. In fact, he looked filled with anticipation to kill.

James had never before heard a man roar, but he did now. His Lordship straightened to his full height, and yelled at the top of his lungs at his wife who only came to his shoulder, “Where the hell did you go? How dare you disobey me! My God, Alexandra, you’ve pushed me too far this time! Bloody hell, it is too much, much too much!”

James retreated, bumping into Burgess, who glided into the fray without a tremor of agitation showing on his face.

“My lady, welcome back. Ah, I can see that James here stayed closely with you, as did John Coachman. His Lordship was worried, naturally, even though—”

“Damnation, Burgess! Be quiet! Believe me, she doesn’t need your protection or interference.” Douglas grabbed her arm and pulled her into the salon. He kicked the door shut with the heel of his boot.

“Trying to defend you, damn his traitor’s eyes,” Douglas said, shaking her now, his fingers digging into her upper arms. She said nothing, merely looked up at him. The shock of Georges Cadoudal’s sudden appearance at Hookams had passed during the carriage ride home. Now, she was more calm than not in the face of Douglas’s fury.

“I purchased Sinjun’s novel,” she said when he’d momentarily run out of bile.

“Damn Sinjun’s bloody novel!”

“Douglas, your language is deteriorating. Please calm down. Nothing happened, really . . .”

He shook her again. “And now you compound your disobedience with a lie. How dare you, Alexandra? How dare you lie to me?”

No, she thought, it was impossible that he knew anything of what had happened at the bookshop.

“I ran into Heatherington,” he said, seeing more deceit would come from her mouth.

“Oh,” she said, then gave him a very tentative smile. Heatherington hadn’t known a thing, not really. “It was just a man who didn’t know what was proper—”

“It was Georges Cadoudal and he would have taken you.”

“How did you know?”

“The good Lord save me from stupid females. Alexandra, you were screeching French loud enough for all of London to hear. I saw another gentleman you haven’t even met and he told me about your merde at the top of your lungs. Everyone knows and I doubt not that I will receive a good dozen visits from people to tell me of my wife’s exceedingly odd behavior.”

“I said other things too, Douglas.”

“Yes, I know. You’re going to Paris with your husband tomorrow.”

“And I screamed for help too in French.”