And Dolly, all of eighteen years old, Jack’s age, said with worship in her voice, “It’s my dream, my lord. Being here in London. My dream.”
Once Dolly had left with Mrs. Piller to see her own bedchamber, Jack once again looked down at her sister and saw that she was now asleep. Gray said, “I saw you looking at Dolly. I’m afraid I saw a bit of jealousy in those blue eyes of yours.”
“Jealous of Dolly? It’s true that she blushes quite a bit in your presence, but no, I swear I’m not jealous.”
“No, no, Jack. You know that’s absurd. She blushes because you’re always kissing me in her presence. No, I meant that you’re jealous because Dolly is so close to Georgie.”
She thought about that a moment, and because she was a good foot away from him, he was able to observe her reactions with more dispassion than not.
“Oh, dear, I believe you’re right. That brings me rather low on the worthy-person scale, doesn’t it, Gray?”
“You’ll slowly shed your less appealing traits the longer you’re married to me. Trust me. I’ll mold you into female perfection. You’ll be towering over everyone female on that scale by the end of the year.”
“My lord.”
Gray turned, a smile on his mouth. “Yes, Quincy?”
“The earl of Northcliffe is here. He has brought his wife, the countess, to meet her new ladyship.”
“News moves about London at an alarming rate. We’ve only been home an hour.”
“Closer to an hour and a half, my lord.”
“Thank you, Quincy. Come, Jack, and meet Alexandra Sherbrooke. She’s a dandy lady.”
Jack had no idea if the red-haired countess of Northcliffe was a dandy lady or not. She spoke, but only to Jack and Gray. Otherwise, she was silent. She didn’t look at her husband, but took a chair as far away from him as possible. What was going on here? Was she sickening of something? Was she terribly shy? Did she hate Douglas Sherbrooke?
Alexandra was small, Jack saw, save for a magnificent bosom, which they’d all been treated to a view of when Quincy had gently removed her cloak. Douglas Sherbrooke, on the other hand, was a large man. He towered over his wife. Goodness, Jack thought, when they made love the earl would have to worry about crushing her. Or maybe, Jack’s thoughts continued, as she wondered if something like it could work, the countess remained on top of her husb
and. Jack spent a few moments wondering what that would be like, wondering if such a thing would be possible. When Gray looked over at her, he saw that her face was flushed, her blue eyes gleaming.
He looked back at Douglas Sherbrooke. Evidently the earl and his countess weren’t speaking to each other, of all things. If they indeed weren’t speaking, then why the devil did they have to pick his drawing room not to speak to each other in? And what was Jack thinking? Her face was red. Was she sickening of something? And where were the aunts? He’d never before seen Alex stare down at her slippers and remain silent as a clam.
Jack, sitting on the edge of her chair, said brightly, “Your hair is lovely, my lady. The color is the exact shade of a woman’s hair in a painting. Italian, I think. I like it all braided on top of your head.”
“Thank you,” Alex Sherbrooke said. “Call me Alexandra.” She patted one fat braid. “All stacked up like this, I look taller. I’m surrounded by giants. Being short also seems,” she added, tossing a killing look toward her husband, “to indicate a frail brain, at least to some people.”
Douglas remained tight-lipped, looking not at his wife but at a globe that sat in the corner of the drawing room. The countess fell silent and studied her slippers again.
Douglas Sherbrooke cleared his throat and said to Gray, “Helen Mayberry is still in town with her father. You know, Gray, she is very enthusiastic about this King Edward’s lamp, won’t even consider that it’s probably nonsense. She swears she rescued a very old and tattered parchment from one of the ancient abbeys near her home in Court Hammering that spoke of the lamp and its powers—no outrageous specifics, however—and its supposed immense age. The parchment also questioned whether its powers represented good or evil at work in the lamp.”
Gray said, “Miss Helen seems a very sensible lady. She carried me over her shoulder, Jack told me, after I knocked myself unconscious against an oak tree trunk. Didn’t even wind her. When I came to myself I remember thinking she had blond wagon wheels over her ears.”
Jack said, smiling and guileless, “Didn’t she say at our wedding that she’d loved you, Douglas, since she was fifteen?”
Alexandra Sherbrooke stood abruptly, her hands on her hips. “You tried to deny that, Douglas. Now I know the truth. Thank you, Jack.” Then she turned so quickly to face Gray that she nearly tripped on her skirt. “I could carry you as well, Gray. I’m fit and strong, even though I’m not such a huge grand specimen of womanhood as Miss Helen Mayberry. How dare she tell you that she loved you, Douglas? How dare you pretend that it didn’t happen? How could you ever imagine that I don’t know everything—everything, do you hear me?—everything that is said to you or said about you?”
“Alex, for God’s sake, just stop this now.” Her husband, at least a foot taller than his wife, was on his feet, ready to hover over her and thus intimidate her. “So all this is about Helen Mayberry? You’re being a fool. Listen to me, Helen was simply reminiscing. She meant nothing by it. It was just conversation, nothing more.”
“Ha! One does not reminisce in such a fashion to a married man, a very married man, and that’s what you are, Douglas Sherbrooke, even though you don’t have the same desire for me that you had before, and don’t bother to deny it. You were behaving oddly even before I knew about Helen Mayberry, all silent and withdrawn from me, not even wanting to nibble on my earlobe when your mother would be coming into the room in only two seconds. So what am I to think now? Perhaps the mystery of your wretched indifferent behavior is explained. Just perhaps you’d already seen her. Yes, that’s probably it, you sod. It’s another woman you want, whose name is Helen Mayberry.”
“Alex, stop it. If you insist upon getting your back up just because an old friend said something utterly meaningless, at least wait until we’re alone. We’re visiting Gray and Jack. We’re in their drawing room. I’ll wager they haven’t even had a minor disagreement yet. They’re still thinking only about making love, nothing else.
“Now, I won’t have you acting like a fishwife. Sit down, Alex, fold your hands neatly in your lap, and smile. It would be preferable if you also kept your mouth closed. We are in company where you must act polite and well bred, not alone where you can shriek at me if it pleases you. As for the other, you’re imagining all of it.”
But the countess didn’t sit down. She walked right up to her husband until they were standing toe to toe, in the center of a drawing room that wasn’t in their home, unheeding of both Gray and Jack, their hosts. Alex poked her husband in the chest. “You don’t have to keep talking about Helen Mayberry as if she’s a saint and so intelligent and so lively and so attuned to those around her. Attuned? Ha! It just means that she wants you, you wretched clod. She saw you without me there to protect you from predatory harpies like her, and she knew she could pull the wool over your eyes. You’re splendid, Douglas, but you’re still a man, and that means your brain isn’t always focused on what is proper and appropriate, particularly when there’s a very big, very blond hussy around you.”
Douglas stared down at his small, very angry wife. “I suppose this means that the dam has burst,” he said slowly. “I’m sorry, Gray, Jack. I didn’t realize she was so jealous of poor Helen that she would lose all her refinement and her exquisite manners in front of you.”