The Sherbrooke Bride (Sherbrooke Brides 1)

Douglas ignored her and turned back to his wife. “If you don’t come with me this moment, I will throw you over my shoulder and carry you.”

As a threat, it was specific and precise. However, Alexandra didn’t think he would want to provide more scenes for the servants’ delectation. No, he was far too proud to do something so very indecorous. She turned on her heel and walked toward the front door, head high, the broom handle well in place.

In that instant, Sinjun shrieked, an unearthly sound that brought everyone’s attention to her, including Alexandra’s.

She was jumping up and down, shouting herself hoarse.

“Damnation, Sinjun,” Douglas shouted. “Be quiet!”

“A rat, Douglas, a huge, awful, hairy rat! Look, over there! Right next to Alexandra! Oh my God, I can’t believe it, it is going to climb her skirt!”

Alexandra grasped her skirts and ran into the nearest room, which was the Gold Salon. She slammed the door, stopped in the middle of the room, quickly realized there had been no rodent, that Sinjun had done it to her again. She’d prevented her from walking out on Douglas, perhaps prevented Douglas from humiliating her further . . . but it was quite possible that Douglas would have simply let her walk out. When the door opened, she didn’t turn around. When the door closed and when she heard the sound of a key turning in the lock, she still didn’t turn around.

“Your sister is a menace,” she said.

“If you are careful, you just might save yourself a good thrashing. If you do, why then, you can thank Sinjun for rescuing you.”

Alexandra walked slowly to a sofa and sat down. She folded her hands in her lap and remained completely quiet.

“Would you like a glass of wine? Brandy? Ratafia?”

She shook her head.

He was standing directly in front of her, his arms crossed over his chest.

“How do you feel?”

That surprised her and she looked up. “I am fine, thank you. Certainly well enough to travel back to Claybourn Hall. By myself, without your noble presence.”

“I doubt that.”

“Well, if I collapsed dead in a ditch, why then, it would result in the same thing, wouldn’t it?”

“No, not at all. I wouldn’t get my settlement back from your father.”

Alexandra stood up. She held out her hand. “Give me the key to that door. I have been a fool to remain here for as long as I have, enduring your insults and your ridicule. I was wrong to believe that you would come to accept me, that you would realize that I would be a quite good wife for you. I was wrong in what I felt about . . . never mind. I have come quickly to despise you, nearly as much as you despise me. I won’t stay here for another minute. Give me the bloody key.”

Douglas ran his fingers through his hair, and cursed. “I didn’t mean that precisely. What I meant to do was talk to you, not fight with you, not insult you or have you insult me. You don’t despise me, surely you don’t mean that. Nor do I despise you. Never did I have any intention of hauling you back to your father in disgrace.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Please sit down.”

“Give me the key and I will leave.”

Douglas closed his hands around her waist and lifted her. He carried her to a chair and sat her down in it. He stood directly in front of her, blocking any escape. “Now you will listen to me. I don’t know how we have come to such a pass. I had thought you more reasonable, more—”

“Submissive? Malleable? Stupid?”

“Damnation, be quiet! None of those things. You’re being absurd, you’re trying to rile me.” He began to pace back and forth in front of her chair. She watched him, not understanding and uncertain whether or not she wanted to.

He came to a halt, bent over, his hands clutching the arms of her chair, his face not three inches from hers. “All right, I will simply tell you what I have decided to do, decided in fact when we were still at Tom O’Malley’s cottage.”

She looked about as interested as an oak tree.

He straightened, looking down on her from his impressive height. “I have decided to keep you as my wife. I will not have this marriage annulled. Your father can keep the bloody settlement. You will suit me, I suppose, as well as any other female. You were right; you will make me a quite good wife. You carry a good bloodline; you have excellent breeding, as least you should. By keeping you, I won’t have to travel to London to find a likely candidate and court her until I am demented with boredom. Tony was right in that, curse his bounder’s hide. Of course, you are not all that I could wish for. You must learn to moderate your damnable tongue. I fancy I can assist you in improving your manners and your behavior toward me. So, Alexandra, there is no need for you to leave. There is no reason for you to act unreasonably. You are now my wife—I recognize you as such—you are now the Countess of Northcliffe.”

He beamed at her.