The Sherbrooke Bride (Sherbrooke Brides 1)

Alex screamed, loud, shrill, terrified. She was at his side in an instant, kneeling over him, trying to protect him from the slashing dense rain.

He was still. She found finally the pulse in his neck. It was steady, slow. She sat back on her ankles a moment, staring down at him. “Wake up, damn you, Douglas!”

She shook him, then slapped him soundly.

“Wake up! I won’t have this! You do not play fairly, not at all. You hold me here because you are helpless. It is not well done of you. No, I can’t leave you like this. Wake up!”

He didn’t move. His eyes remained closed. Then she saw the blood seeping from behind his left ear. He’d struck a rock when he’d fallen.

Alexandra didn’t realize at first that she was rocking back and forth over him, keening deep in her throat, so frightened she thought she’d choke on it.

“Get hold of yourself, Douglas! Don’t just lie there.” There, it was her voice, and it was strong and she had to do something. Douglas needed her. She looked up. Both horses had bolted, probably back to the Sherbrooke stables. They were alone. It was raining like the very devil. Douglas was unconscious, perhaps dying.

What to do? She leaned over him again, blocking the rain from his face. If only he’d regain consciousness. What if he didn’t? What if he simply remained silent as death until he did indeed die?

She couldn’t, wouldn’t, accept it. She had to do something.

But there was nothing to do. She couldn’t lift him or carr

y him. She could possibly drag him along the ground, but where to?

She cradled his head in her lap, bent over him, protecting him as best she could. She was cramped and so cold her flesh rippled then grew blessedly numb.

“My God, will you suffocate me, woman?”

She froze, disbelieving the voice she heard, the voice that was filled with irritation and annoyance, the muffled voice coming from her bosom. Slowly she raised her face and looked down at him. His eyes were open.

Her hair straggled about his face, a thick curtain of dripping strands. “Douglas, you’re all right?”

“Of course I’m all right. Do you believe me a weakling? My head hurts like the very devil, but I’m just fine.” He paused a moment, his nose not two inches from hers. “I preferred having my face buried between your breasts, though.”

She could only stare down at him. He wouldn’t die. He was too mean, too unreasonable, too outrageous, to die. She smiled as she said, “Both horses have left us. We’re stranded. I don’t know how far we are from home. It’s raining very hard. There is blood behind your left ear. You struck your head on a rock, just a small one, but still a rock and thus hard, thus the blood. You were unconscious for a minute or two. If I help you up, you will simply become soaked.” She stopped, not knowing what else to say, staring down at him.

Douglas silently queried his body. Only his head gave reply but it wasn’t all that bad, just a steady deep throbbing. “Move,” he said to himself.

He sat up, his head lowered for a moment, then he straightened and looked about. “See that narrow path there? We’re near my gamekeeper’s cottage. His name is Tom O’Malley, and of all my people, he’s the one who won’t faint with consternation when we arrive on his doorstep past midnight wet and in this piteous state. Come, Alexandra, help me rise, and we’ll go there. ’Tis too far to walk back to the hall.” It came into his head at that moment that she’d called the hall home. Stupid thought. She shouldn’t have said it. It wasn’t her home and it probably never would be.

Douglas remained silent until he was upright and realized he was a mite dizzy. Even more than a mite. Irritation was clearly in evidence as he said, “I must lean on you. Are you strong enough to bear some of my weight?”

“Yes, certainly,” she said, and hunkered over, bracing herself as she wrapped her arm around his waist. She peered up at him through the thick rain. “I’m ready, Douglas. I won’t drop you.”

His head hurt. He was cold, he was dizzy. He looked down at the dripping female, scrunched against his side. She was half his size, yet she was trying to keep him upright. He couldn’t help himself. He laughed. “A veritable Hercules. I don’t damned believe it. This way, Alexandra.”

He fell once, bringing her to her knees with him. “I hope it isn’t stinging nettles,” she said, her breath coming in short gasps as she pushed off the suspicious foliage. “Are you all right, Douglas? I’m sorry I dropped you but that root did me in.”

He wanted to vomit, but he didn’t, even though the nausea was great. He remained on his knees for a moment, knew he had to rise, knew he wasn’t going to disgrace himself, and so he rose, his face white, his mouth closed, his bile swallowed. “No, it wasn’t your fault. I was on my way down when you hit that root. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“No, no,” she said, scrambling to her feet. She was shivering with cold and slapped her hands on her arms.

“That isn’t stinging nettles, thank the magnanimous Lord, or we’d he itching right now. Let’s hurry. It’s not far now.”

Tom O’Malley’s cottage sat at the end of the narrow path in the middle of a small clearing. It was clearly the home of someone who valued his privacy, a slope-roofed cottage of sturdy oak, but one story, and freshly painted, the grounds surrounding it clear of weeds. There were roses and honeysuckle, all well tended, climbing up the sides of the cottage. It looked like a mansion to Alexandra and as dark as a tomb.

“I don’t want him to shoot us,” Douglas said quietly, and began to lightly pound on the stout door, saying, “Tom. Tom O’Malley.” He pounded harder then. “It’s Lord Northcliffe! Come, man, let us in.”

Alexandra didn’t know what to expect, but the very tall, very gaunt-looking man of middle years, fully dressed, quite calm to see his master on his doorstep in the middle of the night, wasn’t quite it. He had a very long, very thin nose and it quivered as he said in a low gruff voice, “My lord, aye, but surely ’tis ye. And this be yer new countess? Aye, and certainly she is for Willie at the stables told me about her and how she was comely and a bit slight, and light-handed with a horse. Welcome, milady. I’ll build up the fire so that ye may warm yerselves. Nay, it matters not that ye are wet. The floor will dry, and ’tis but wood after all. Come in, come in. Don’t tarry in this miserable rain.”

“This is Tom O’Malley,” Douglas said to Alexandra. “He and his mother arrived at Northcliffe from County Cork some twenty-five years ago, thank the heavens.”