“N-n-not you, F-Freddie.”
“You’re right, Georgie. Our Jack—that’s her name now, if you don’t mind—she’s the best of sisters, the best of wives. No, Jack, listen. It’s just that we never really know anybody, do we? You meet someone for a short amount of time, then possibly you might learn a bit more about them. But with Ryder it was different. Not even his family knew what he was doing.”
“How did you find out about what he did?”
“Well, actually, he helped me when I was in very deep trouble once, about five years ago. I found out everything as time went on. Ryder, naturally, never went into any detail.”
“Goodness, Gray, what sort of trouble?”
He opened his mouth, frowned in a deep breath, then closed it. “It’s better that you don’t know. No one knows, actually. Yes, that’s best.”
“You mean like it was best that no one knew about Ryder’s saving children?”
“No, nothing of the sort. No, forget it, Jack.”
“I’m your wife.”
“Barely.”
“I-I-I’m your sister,” Georgie said, beaming at Gray, her small fingers lightly touching his chin.
“You certainly are,” Gray said and kissed those fingers.
Jack waited, but he said nothing more, probably because what he wanted to say wasn’t proper for a little girl’s ears. “All right. You don’t want to tell me about that. Very well. Tell me what Ryder Sherbrooke said was the most vital ingredient to a marriage.”
He looked up to see Dolly standing in the doorway, a small tray in her hands. “Ah, Georgie, here’s Dolly with some milk and cookies for you. Would you like to go with her and eat your goodies? Then you can come and sleep in our room again.”
“They’re probably almond cookies, Georgie,” Jack said, and that did it. Georgie went readily to Dolly.
“I’ll bring her back shortly,” Dolly said. She gave them a last look, then blushed, and quickly ducked her head.
Gray said nothing until Dolly had shut the door to the Oak Room, leaving them alone. He turned back to Jack, stared down at her mouth, parted slightly, and began kissing her. He whispered at last, his breath a warm sigh against her cheek, “Dolly knows what’s on my mind. Yours too, probably. Now, I’ll tell you when it’s the right time. Not just yet, Jack. Not just yet. We will have a little girl joining us again all too soon. Patience.”
“All right. I think I’ll go eat a biscuit with Georgie. I’ll bring her back with me, Gray.”
Within the next hour both sisters were sleeping soundly. As for Gray, it was difficult for him to lie not six inches from his wife in a very soft bed, listening to the occasional little snorts and sighs. She was a restless sleeper. The third time she flung her elbow into his ribs, he gave it up. Torture, he thought, as he pulled her against him. He supposed that torture was better than pain, although where sex was concerned, it was many times one and the same. He fell asleep with his hand on Jack’s bottom.
Jack said, “You’re naked, Gray.”
That woke him up faster than the smell of coffee under his nose. She was on top of him, her nose not an inch above his, and she was smiling. “I like the way you feel. It’s just dawn. Georgie’s still asleep. Her breathing is clear. I’ve been thinking hard about this. Gray, may I have a teasing lesson? I’ll speak very quietly.”
The day a woman needed lessons in matters of driving a man insane with lust, he thought, was the day pigs would take to the skies.
“All right,” he said, agreeable and warm and already so hard he wondered how the devil he was going to keep himself together. “I can manage this if I really try hard. If I think about my ancestors staring down on me from their gilded frames, so ancient that I can’t begin to imagine how they could have ever begat the next generation. It quite curdles the belly to think of it.”
She was giggling, surely the nicest sound he’d ever heard at dawn. “First thing you do is hold very still.” She did. It was an unspeakable relief, and at the same time terribly disappointing.
“Now, lightly stroke your thumb over my lower lip. Yes, that’s it. No, don’t press hard, just lightly rove around.” Then he caught her thumb in his mouth. When he released her, she was staring down at her thumb, and said, “I didn’t know a mouth could do that to a thumb. It should be silly, but it wasn’t. It made me feel very warm all the way to my toes. I know, Gray—what if I stuck two fingers in your mouth?”
“You think to gain twice the pleasure? Make your toes twice as warm? No, it doesn’t work that way. Let’s do it again. Slowly this time, Jack. You decide when you want to slide your thumb into my mouth.”
Jack was thorough, very slow and very thorough. He finally had to grab her wrist. “No, stop, Jack. That’s quite enough of the thumb lesson.” He drew a deep breath and said, “I’m strong. I have grit. I can do this. Kiss my throat, Jack, then go down to my chest.”
She straddled him as she worked her way down, every so often raising her face to see if she’d gained his approval. Soon, he was beyond nodding. She was right over him. He was saved, or cursed, finally, when Georgie said in a soft whispery little voice, “Freddie, what are you doing on t-t-top of Gray?”
Jack twisted around on him and he thought he’d expire. Her flesh was naked and warm and very soft. “Georgie, good morning, little love. How are you feeling? Your voice sounds all clear and sweet as you are.”
“I’m f-f-fine, F-Freddie.”
“Let me climb off Gray and we’ll get you the chamber pot.” As she brought her bare leg over him, sliding slow across his groin, he nearly wept. “No more lessons, Jack, no more. I’m just a man. A pathetic creature who suffers more than you can imagine from your defection. No, go, there’s no choice. I will gird my loins. I will survive this.”
She laughed, leaned down, kissed his belly, then sang out, “Now, where did I put that chamber pot?”
Gray heard Sir Henry yelling from the entrance hall. Darnley was nowhere in sight. Excellent.
He whistled as he quietly let himself out the front door of Carlisle Manor. It was a lovely morning, not a rain cloud in sight—an unusual occurrence in England on any morning. He breathed in the sweet smell of freshly scythed grass. He saw three gardeners tending bushes and plants on the east side of the house. Carlisle Manor was a beautiful property, a gem set amid green rolling hills and a thick oak forest.
Gray stayed away for a good hour. Upon returning, he saw Sir Henry standing on the stone front steps, hitting his riding crop against his boot. His face was red. Gray waved, dismounted, and gave the gelding over to a waiting stable lad.
Gray dusted off his charm and bonhomie and gave his host a big smile. “And just how are you this fine day, Sir Henry?”
“It’s about time you deigned to come back here. Damnation, I won’t allow this to continue.” Sir Henry raised his voice to the heavens and yelled, “Get the child out of here or I’ll send her to York forever.”
“Child? York? Excuse me, Sir Henry, is there some sort of problem?”
“I told you my household wasn’t running smoothly. I told you the meals weren’t cooked well and were late. I told you my valet even nicked my neck. Well, now Darnley and Mrs. Smithers tell me it’s either the child or them. They say they cannot tolerate further disarray. I’ve thought about it. Winifrede wants her little sister. Well, she can have her. Take her, my lord, today.”
“I beg your pardon, Sir Henry. You’re saying that you want to give away your only child?”
“If it were a boy child it would be different. The child is a girl, she is absurd-looking with her mismatched eyes, and now she’s begun to stutter. Mrs. Finch doesn’t like her, either.”
Gray walked past Sir Henry into the manor.
“Well, my lord?”
Gray turned slowly and smiled. “May I inquire how you intend to make it worth my while to take the child?”
Jack pulled back beneath the stairs. Oh, Gray, she thought, please don’t push him too hard.
??
?What do you want?”
Gray struck a thoughtful pose. “Money,” he said.
“You want money to take the child?”
“Yes,” Gray said. “Let us say you’ll give me one hundred pounds a year. This will take care of feeding and clothing the child.”
“Clothing her like royalty! Ten pounds and not a sou more!”
“All right, fifty pounds, but that’s the lowest I’ll go. Don’t forget I’ll have to pay her nanny, Dolly. Also I’ll require a signed paper from you that I will be Georgina’s guardian. You will relinquish any and all authority you have over her, Sir Henry.”
“Yes, yes, certainly.” Sir Henry was nearly rubbing his hands together. He believed he’d won a mighty victory. So much the better.
“Let’s see it done, then,” Gray said. “Jack doesn’t particularly like it here, as you can imagine. We will leave as soon as all the papers are signed. Is there a solicitor in the neighborhood?”
At three o’clock that same afternoon, Gray stepped up into the carriage and sat down on the seat opposite his wife and her little sister, wrapped up warmly in one of Jack’s old cloaks. He tapped his knuckles on the carriage roof. He said nothing until they had turned out of the Carlisle drive and onto the country road.
“Do you think my stepfather will send you fifty pounds for Georgie’s care?”
“Oh, no. It doesn’t matter. I knew I had to appear to be as venal as Sir Henry, else he just might have seen through everything and offered Georgie to me only if I paid a vast sum for her.”
“He’s despicable.”
“True, but if he marries Mrs. Finch, I have this feeling that he will receive just what he deserves.”
“Why do you think that?”
“When I was thanking Darnley and Mrs. Smithers for their assistance in making Sir Henry miserable, they told me that one of the servants at Cit Palace found out—doubtless from eavesdropping—that Mrs. Finch was married to a very rich man who died shortly after their marriage.”
“Was he very old?”
“Not above sixty. But that wasn’t the point.”
“What was the point?”
“Mrs. Finch has been widowed four times.”
“Oh, dear.” Jack pressed her knuckles to her mouth. “Oh, dear. But Gray, my stepfather isn’t old or rich.”
“Ah, so you believe Mrs. Finch loves him?”
“He is exceedingly handsome. He can be charming. My mother refused to believe ill of him until the day she died.”
“Be that as it may,” Gray said, leaning forward to straighten Georgie’s collar. The child just stared at him, saying nothing. “It also appears that Lord Rye is interested in the lady. It also appears that she’s seen in his company as well as in Sir Henry’s.”
Jack laughed. She couldn’t help herself. She hugged Georgie close, kissing the top of her head. “Your hair, Mistress Georgie, is like silk, all slippery and shiny. What do you think of that?”
“I-I-I heard P-P—”
“Your papa?”
The little girl nodded. Gray wondered if she would ever be able to speak her father’s name.
“He said to himself that he’d s-s-swallow what he had to and marry the b-b-bitch. B-B-But not for l-l-long.”
The two adults stared at the child. “Now this is a kicker,” Gray said at last.
“You mean that the two of them just might try to do each other in?”
“May the best man or woman win,” Gray said. He leaned over and lightly stroked his fingertips over Georgie’s cheek. “You have an excellent memory, Georgie. Now, how will you like London?”
“W-W-What’s Lunnon?”
22
“I HADN’T expected to fill my nursery quite this quickly,” Gray said as he watched Jack tuck Georgie into a little girl’s bed, quickly brought down from the attic, all draped with frills and gauzy material. Had it belonged to his grandmother? He didn’t know. It was simply very old. He listened to Jack singing to her sister, rather a thin voice, but true.
“No, I hadn’t either,” Jack said quietly, her lullaby finished, looking up at him. She smiled toward Dolly as she said to Gray, “We’re lucky that Dolly loves Georgie so very much and wanted to come with us. I was afraid of too much change for her. When my stepfather’s sister came to take her to York, I thought Georgie would just fold down. She became so quiet, as though if she were quiet enough everyone might overlook her and leave her be. The stuttering is new. All the change, the uncertainty, I suppose. But she’ll be all right now, thanks to you, Gray.”
Again, the dreaded gratitude he didn’t want. Then she leapt on him, laughing, kissing his chin, the end of his nose, tugging his ear so that he bent down to kiss her. “Thank you,” she said into his mouth. He didn’t want to stop kissing her, but Dolly was standing there, looking down at her toes, blushing a bit, Georgie wasn’t completely asleep, and Mrs. Piller had materialized not eight feet away from them. Gray pulled back and gently pressed his forehead against Jack’s.
“My lord,” she whispered, lightly touching her fingertips to his chin, “you’re so smart I’ve decided to enroll in more of your teasing lessons. And I must practice what you’ve already taught me. I wouldn’t want to forget anything or grow inept.”
Where had this delightful flirt been hiding herself?
Gray said, as he pulled himself together, “Dolly, this is Mrs. Piller. She’s the best housekeeper in all of London. She’s known me since I was three years old and has complained ever so long now that this house needed a child’s laughter again. She told me you’ll be in the bedchamber at the opposite end of the nursery. Thank you for coming with us.”
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.”