The Sherbrooke Bride (Sherbrooke Brides 1)

Alex was silent as a stone.

Douglas eyed her, waiting, but she remained silent and still, that broomstick firmly in place down her back. He shrugged. “I will lead Garth. A good walk is balm to a weary soul.”

She wondered why he’d gotten that bit of errant treacle, but was wise enough to keep her curiosity to herself. She watched him walk ahead of her; there was a jagged rip in his buckskins. She could see a patch of hairy thigh. Black hair. It looked rather nice to her. She looked down at herself then, jerked her chemise about, covering any hint of skin. She straightened again, and kept her eyes on the back of her husband all the way back to the stables.

This annulment business was still somewhat a mystery. She would have to ask Tony about it. She knew too little about marriage sorts of things. All she knew about virginity and virgins was that she was one. She would have to be in her husband’s bed before she wasn’t one anymore.

She should ask her husband, but she doubted he would take any question of that sort in a proper frame of mind.

He stopped suddenly in the middle of the road and turned back to face her. “I’m tired. Garth is tired. Get down and come here. We will rest a moment beneath that oak tree.”

Alex slid from the saddle, saying not a word.

Douglas didn’t bother to tether Garth, just left his reins loose. “Sit down,” Douglas said, pointing to a grassy spot.

Alex sat.

Douglas sat also, a good three feet away from her. He leaned back against the thick oak trunk and crossed his legs at his ankles. He sighed, folded his arms over his belly, and closed his eyes.

“I am sorry you’re so tired,” Alex said. “Tony said you were on some sort of mission and that was why he’d come to us rather than you.”

“Yes. I certainly made the wrong choice, didn’t I? I certainly chose the wrong man to trust. Jesus, my entire life ruined because—”

“Was your mission successful?”

“Yes.” He opened his eyes then and looked at her. Perverseness sang through his veins. “Actually, I would have preferred the lovely lady I rescued in France to be here rather than you. Her name is Janine and she’s a woman, not a girl playing at being a woman, and she was more than interested in me as a man. She offered herself to me, without guile, without playing the coquette. However, since I believed I was a married man, believed that Melissande was awaiting me here, I didn’t take her. Indeed, I pushed her away.” He closed his eyes again.

“You are a married man.”

“You, however, are not Melissande.”

“This woman you rescued, she is French?”

“Yes, and a very important man’s mistress.”

“Surely you wouldn’t want a mistress for your wife.”

“Why not?”

“That’s beyond foolish! You’re only saying that to hurt me, to make me feel horrible. No man wants a woman who isn’t all that is proper. It’s all a matter of heirs. I heard my father saying that to a neighbor.”

“There speaks eighteen-year-old wisdom and eavesdropping.”

“Will you annul me?”

He was silent.

“Won’t you at least give me a chance?”

“Be quiet. I wish to rest now.”

Alex eyed Garth, who was placidly chewing thick grass at the side of the road. If she coshed Douglas, then he couldn’t whistle for his horse and then the horse would take her back to the Sherbrooke stables. She sighed, closing her own eyes. The morning was warming and becoming clear. Soon the sun would shine fully.

Alex said then, “I had the oddest dream the first night I was here in your home, sleeping in the countess’s bedchamber. I dreamed there was a young lady in the room and she was standing next to the bed, just looking down at me. I thought she wanted to say something, but she remained silent. She looked so sad and beautiful. When I awoke fully, she was gone, of course. A dream, yet it seemed so real.”

Douglas opened his eyes. He stared at her. He said very slowly, “The devil, you say.”

“Dreams are strange, aren’t they? They seem so real, so tangible, but of course—”