Mad Jack (Sherbrooke Brides 4)

“There was hell to pay last night, my lord. Her ladyship flew around the house, searching every room, questioning everyone in the household. I’d hidden myself in the cellar with a good book so she couldn’t find me and question me until I broke down. I heard she was like a dog with a bone in its mouth. She just wouldn’t stop. I remained out of sight until well after midnight. Quincy told me she’d taken three footmen and they were in the carriage driving around London, looking for you.

“She was afraid, naturally. There was no note from you, no message, nothing. Even the great-aunts were searching. The little girl started crying because her sister was obviously upset.

“Her ladyship returned in the middle of the night. Naturally they hadn’t found you. She waited more, pacing the drawing room. Finally she went upstairs near dawn this morning.”

Gray looked at his knee through the thick steam, then rubbed it with a bit of soap. “I suppose that was a grass stain.” He rubbed the other knee, then looked up at Horace. “They wouldn’t have found me. I was down by the river, looking at the water and thinking about how our lives have simply flown apart.” He wiped a washcloth over his face. It came away grimy. “I’m sorry about my boots, Horace. Muddy water lapped over my feet last night.”

“It doesn’t matter. What does matter is what you do now.”

Gray didn’t say anything more until he was dressed, shaved, his hair brushed. He looked like a gentleman again; only his face, pale, the flesh too tight over the bones, bore the signs of wreckage.

He walked quietly into his bedchamber. The clock on the mantelpiece sat at only eight-thirty in the morning. Dear God, he felt as though a decade had passed. He looked toward the bed. He was beyond exhaustion. He was nearly numb, but not his head. No, his head pounded with the knowledge that had destroyed them both. He wished for just a veil of grayness, a sheen of blessed darkness to lessen the sharpness. But everything remained stark and real. He was appallingly clearheaded, his brain wide awake.

The bed was empty.

Jack was wrapped in a blanket in a window seat that looked out over Portman Square. He watched her white fingers trace an outline in the fog on the window. Her hair was tangled down her back.

“Jack.”

Slowly she turned. If his face looked like wreckage, hers was worse because there was fear burning dark and hot in her eyes.

“Gray! Oh, God.”

She was on her feet, stumbling over the blanket that had fallen. She went down to her knees. Before he could help her, she was on her feet again, the blanket left on the floor, and she was running to him. “Gray,” she whispered, her face against his neck, her arms wrapped so tightly around his back that he was momentarily surprised at her strength.

Slowly, his arms came up to hold her against him. God, the feel of her. He closed his eyes. The thought of never holding her again, of never kissing her again, never again making love with her. It nearly broke him. A sister. She was his damned half sister. He didn’t think he could bear it.

Then she drew back. “You’re home, finally. God, are you all right?” Her hands were all over him, his shoulders, his chest, feeling his arms. Then she was on her knees in front of him, her nightgown billowing out around her, and she was running her hands up and down his legs. “Nothing’s broken. Thank God. What happened?”

She stood again, pressing against him. He realized she was shivering violently. From the cold? He didn’t think so. It was from fear. Fear for him. He closed his eyes a moment against the magnitude of it all.

God, he was a bastard, a selfish bastard.

“It’s all right,” he said, marv

eling that that calm, utterly emotionless voice belonged to him. “I’m all right, Jack, truly.”

“But why didn’t you come home?”

“Come, let’s talk.” He grabbed her dressing gown and gave it to her. She just held it loosely in her hands, staring at him, not looking at it. It was as if it were something she didn’t recognize.

He took it from her and dressed her like a child. It was very pretty, all soft shades of peach, going wonderfully with her coloring. He tightened the sash around her waist. She didn’t move the entire time, just stood there, staring up at him, saying nothing.

“Sit down,” he said and pointed to a wing chair in front of the fireplace.

He knelt down and lit the fire. “It will be warm soon.”

“I’m not cold,” she said.

When the fire took, he rose again and came to her. He went down on his knees and closed his fingers over her bare toes. She was right, she wasn’t cold. Even her toes were warm.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She waved away his words. “It depends on what you’re sorry about.” She looked at him closely. He knew he wasn’t an inspiring sight. He knew what he felt like—a man who’d battled demons all night, and lost. She touched her fingers to his mouth, then shook her head slowly, putting off what he had to tell her, he knew. “Just a moment, Gray.”

She rose and gave the bell cord a good pull. She kept looking back at him over her shoulder, as if she were afraid he would disappear. She walked to the bedchamber door, opened it, and went into the corridor. Every few minutes, she looked back into the room at him. She said nothing at all.

Some minutes later he heard her speaking to her maid, ordering breakfast to be served here, just coffee and toast, he heard her say, brought here, to their bedchamber.