Mad Jack (Sherbrooke Brides 4)

Aunt Maude, her small hands fluttering, had said, “Yes, that’s a good idea. She will be a boy, with a cap pulled down over her eyebrows, a boy with breeches bagging down to her knees. Ah, the church rummage barrel. It will have all that we need. Our great-nephew, poor dear boy, won’t be tempted by her exquisite self if it turns out he carries his father’s bad blood.”

She’d rolled her eyes. “I’m as exquisite as a turnip, Aunt Maude.”

“Jack,” Aunt Mathilda had said, ignoring her.

Aunt Maude had nodded. “Yes, Jack’s a very good name. Solid, unromantic, a name to trust, not question. But wasn’t there a highwayman some years ago with that name? Wasn’t he Mad Jack or something equally silly?”

“Black Jack,” said Aunt Mathilda. “But ‘Mad’ is better. That’s our boy.”

“Yes, a very romantic bad man, that one,” Aunt Maude had said. “Now, the baron, if he thinks anything at all out of the ordinary when he sees her, will think ‘Jack’ and then go about his business.”

She’d been Jack for four days, and Mad Jack only in the company of the aunts. How long would it take her stepfather to find her?

She’d seen the baron only on that first morning when they’d arrived, and just for a moment before she’d quickly turned her head away. In all honesty, she realized that just about every woman she knew would say the poor dear boy was too handsome for his own good in a blond, blue-eyed Viking sort of way; every woman would probably dance right up to him, sigh in his face, bat her eyelashes, and fall metaphorically at his feet. She felt her flesh ripple with distaste and fear.

She’d had just a brief glimpse of him. Was the young man like his father? Bad to the bone? Was he like her stepfather? Rotten to his heels?

Yes, his great-aunts had said that the baron’s own father had bad blood, something common in the St. Cyre males, they’d said, their voices matter-of-fact. She believed the great-aunts implicitly. If he was a womanizer—like her stepfather, like his own father—then she would remain Jack, and she would loathe him to the toes of the great-aunts’ stableboy Jem’s old boots and avoid him at all cost.

Just for that brief moment when he’d looked over at her, her hands overflowing with the aunts’ valises, she’d seen his eyes, seen that weary sort of arrogance that bespoke the kind of knowledge that a man as young as the baron shouldn’t have. It was a pity, but it was likely that he was a rotter, a debaucher to his boots.

She drew her knees more tightly to her chest.

She saw her stepfather’s face in her mind, his devil’s handsome face that her mother had seen once and loved until she’d died. She heard his deep, brilliant voice raging.

Now they’d found out yesterday in a message sent by the great-aunts’ housekeeper, that Georgie was back at Carlisle Manor.

Dear God, what should she do?

4

GRAY WAS tired. He was also still furious, calmly and coldly furious now, back in control, but he knew that if Lily’s husband hadn’t been lying sprawled in a drunken stupor in the corner of the bedchamber those first minutes after he’d arrived, he would have pounded him into the floor, with deadly enthusiasm. At least Lily was now safe, because Charles Lumley had regained his wits enough to understand that Gray would kill him without warning, without hesitation, if he ever touched his wife again. Lumley, still on the drunk side but no fool, had agreed. Gray didn’t trust him, but he’d wait and see.

He drew another deep breath. Only an hour had passed. And he was still so angry he could spit.

Charles Lumley was a weak sod who was a bully and vicious only when his victim was half his size, as was his wife, Lily. Well, no more would he strike her. No more, or Gray would bring him down.

He had the hackney stop at the corner of Portman Square, paid the driver, and walked to his town house. He didn’t want to awaken anyone, particularly his great-aunts, and their bedchambers faced the front of the house. He had his latchkey in his hand, raised to fit into the lock of the front door, when from the corner of his eye he saw a light flash. No, he thought, it was nothing, but still, even as he dismissed the flash of light as nothing important, he turned. There it was again—a flash of light coming from the stables. So his head stable lad Byron was up with one of the horses. What if it was serious? What if Brewster, his bay stallion, was colicky? What if Durban had hurt his hock? He turned quickly and walked toward the stables, set just back from the house and extending nearly to the street.

The light went out. The stables were completely dark now. This was very odd indeed. His heartbeat picked up. The door to the stable was cracked open. It wasn’t Byron, then.

It was a thief.

Jesus, that a thief would break into a gentleman’s stables at Portman Square. It made no sense. He knew the stables well. Once he had eased inside, he immediately flattened himself against the wall directly to his right. His three riding horses were in separate stalls some dozen feet away. He stood quietly, listening. He heard a voice then, speaking to one of his horses. He could make out an open stall door, heard that low, soothing voice again, and knew he was covered with shadows and the thief wouldn’t see him. Then he saw his gray gelding, Durban, his head jerking up and down, snorting low. The thief was leading him out. The thief bridled the gray, then, with the ease of long practice, swung up on his back. Slowly Durban was coming right toward him.

He felt himself smile. He’d not been able to pound that drunken animal, Lumley, but now he had his very own thief, and there was no doubt at all about his guilt. He’d caught the bugger in the act. He felt viciou

sness flood him. He felt good. He said very softly, “You bloody little sod. You’ll not escape me.” And then he grabbed the thief’s leg and jerked him off the gray’s back. The thief went flying to the ground.

Gray raised his leg and brought his foot down into the man’s ribs. He heard a satisfying thud. At least he’d bruised a rib. Damn, but ribs were sturdy.

“You rotten scum, I’m going to kick your ribs through your back.”

“You already did.”

The thief didn’t sound like a very old thief. Pain laced that faint voice. It was a boy—he saw that now—a slight boy who had tried to steal his horse and would have gotten away with it if Gray hadn’t come home at just the right time.

“I should beat you to hell and gone, you puking little bandit. You don’t steal one of my horses, you bloody beggar.” He reached down, grabbed the boy by his arm, and jerked him up. He shook him. He drew back his arm. He wanted to smash the thief’s jaw. He was smiling.