Sherbrooke Twins (Sherbrooke Brides 8)

James took a step toward her, his hand outstretched. “Corrie, is everything all right? Where is your maid? Surely you didn’t come here alone, did you? It’s not done, you know, you shouldn’t-”

“I must talk to you.” She looked pointedly at Jason, who was staring at her, bemused.

“You make a mighty fine female.” Jason gave her a blazing flash of white teeth that would fell any sentient female between the age of ten and eighty. “I’m off, James. I’ll see you this evening.” Jason flicked a finger over Corrie’s chin as he went by. “Be careful, little one, big brother here is a bit on edge.”

They stood there listening to Jason whistle, his boots sharp on the black and white Italian marble in the entrance hall.

“What’s going on, Corrie? Oh, do sit down. Would you like tea?”

“No, no tea, thank you. I heard a very strange rumor, James.”

James grew instantly still. Damn, she’d heard about the attempts on his father’s life? “What rumor?” he asked very carefully.

“Juliette Lorimer.”

“Juliette Lorimer? Who-oh yes, she’s the girl who dances quite well and-What about her?”

“What do you mean she dances quite well? Is she so very special then? Don’t I dance quite well?”

“Not yet, but you will. What’s this rumor about Miss Lorimer?”

“I heard that she’s decided she wants you, James. She intends to marry you. It’s possible that she prefers Jason, but it has to be you because you’re the heir.”

James, fascinated, said, “Wherever did you hear that?”

Corrie stepped closer, went up on her tiptoes, and whispered, “Daisy Winbourne told me she’d heard more than a score of mothers and daughters alike wailing about it in the ladies’ withdrawing room. Daisy’s brother even mentioned there was going to be a bet soon at White’s.”

He paled. He shook his head, his eyes never leaving her face. “In White’s Betting Book?”

“Evidently so. Soon now. Everyone wants to see you with her one more time before a wager is set. You know, see how besotted you look. Do you intend to marry her, James?”

“Damnation, of course not. I don’t even know the damned girl.”

Corrie smiled hugely.

“What is this? You don’t like her?”

“Certainly not,” Corrie said, and drew on her gloves. “Why ever would I like her?” She began whistling as she turned and walked out of the breakfast room.

He called out, the devil prodding and poking at him, “However, I will dance with her tomorrow evening at the Lanscombe ball. Then we’ll see, won’t we?”

She wasn’t about to let him see the smile fall off her face.

That evening, James presented his paper on witnessing the silver cascade phenomena on Titan, Saturn’s major ring, at the monthly Royal Astronomical Society meeting. There were thirty gentlemen present, star dabblers all, several of them who would believe to their dying breaths that the Earth was the center of the universe, that heretic Galileo be damned. There were two ladies present, both wives of men delivering papers, and both of them stared at James until all he wanted to do was finish his paper and make for the door. James’s paper was well received, primarily because it was short, although he knew most members believed he was too young to understand what he was seeing. He was offered two invitations by the wives, ostensibly to dine with their husbands as well.

He was back at the Sherbrooke town house by ten o’clock to see his father’s library filled with friends, all of them sober as prisoners in the dock, cursing the air blue with outrage, demanding to be the one to kill the bastard after the earl.

“We have to find out who they are first,” Jason said. “As I said, the only man’s name we have is Georges Cadoudal, but when he died a while ago, he supposedly wasn’t my father’s enemy. Father is in France trying to discover if Cadoudal had children. It could be revenge, but again, since my father and Cadoudal weren’t enemies, it doesn’t make much sense.”

“Children, particularly male children, can get all sorts of notions, Jason. If the father is dead, then it has to be the children.”

“We’ll see. Now, we have no other leads. Just keep your ears open for that name and any others you might discover.”

James smiled to see his brother writing in a small notebook, doubtless the assignments he’d passed out. Jason was logical and he was smart. James knew that he’d assigned the proper man to the proper task.

By midnight, every young man in the room had a sense of purpose. They were going to save the earl of Northcliffe, become heroes in the process, and earn his undying gratitude.

As the brothers walked upstairs to bed, James said, “However did you come up with so many different assignments?”