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 You were behaving oddly even before I knew about Helen Mayberry, all silent and withdrawn from me, not even wanting to nibble on my earlobe when your mother would be coming into the room in only two seconds.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.”
His wife poked him in his waistcoat, hard.
He looked ready to pick her up and shake her, Jack thought, watching Douglas flex his hands. He took a step back from her. “Alex, for God’s sake, get hold of yourself.”
“You’ve been gone a lot lately, Douglas. All you tell me is that you had to take a trip to see to this, and then another trip over there to see to that. You’ve been gone at least three weeks in the past two months. Three weeks! You were with her at her ridiculous lamp inn, weren’t you? My God, did you see her shortly before Gray’s wedding? You did, didn’t you? Just where is this ridiculous town, Court Hammering? You let her seduce you with talk of that lamp, didn’t you?”
Douglas took two more steps back from his wife, whose face was now nearly as red as her hair. His back was nearly touching the mantelpiece. “Listen to me, Alexandra,” he said, stern as a magistrate now faced with a roomful of ruffians, “This is beyond absurd. If you don’t cease this ludicrous jealousy I will send you home. You will stay there, dealing alone with your mother-in-law—may God preserve you—until you learn how to comport yourself. I have never been to Court Hammering. Well, no—I visited Lord Prith once many years ago, but not since that time. Forget Helen.
“Very well, I remember now that I also visited Lord Prith at Grillon’s Hotel after Gray’s wedding. You weren’t yet here. They invited me to dine with them. There’s nothing more to it than that, Alex.”
Then Douglas blundered. He smiled as he said to Gray, “One of the footmen tripped over a hassock. He would have fallen on his nose if Helen hadn’t grabbed his collar and hauled him right up.”
“Oh, yes, she’s so fast and competent, isn’t she? Oh, yes, I heard how she even faced down Arthur Kelburn, who’d kidnapped Jack. Well, Douglas, I could have faced him down as well. Just because I’m small doesn’t mean that I’m stupid or a coward. I could have vanquished him. I could have saved that footman, too. A hassock would be nothing to me.”
Douglas smote his forehead with his palm. “This is beyond ridiculous. Listen to me, Alex—you couldn’t have faced down Arthur Kelburn. You’re so small he probably wouldn’t even have seen you. No, I revise that. If he’d seen you, he wouldn’t have been able to look away from those breasts of yours. Yes, that’s right. He would have just stood there, gaping and slavering over your breasts until someone thought to kosh him.”
The countess of Northcliffe was shaking her fist at her husband in front of two very interested spectators. “Just listen to you. I will tell you, Douglas Sherbrooke, you haven’t a notion of how one should comport. You’re standing here talking about my bosom when a gentleman simply doesn’t do such a thing.”
“Oh, yes, gentlemen do it, just not in front of ladies. But you haven’t acted like a lady for the last hour. All the way over here in the carriage, you just narrowed your eyes and stared at me. When I asked you what was wrong, you just kept shaking your head and saying ‘Nothing, Douglas, nothing at all.”’
“You know, Douglas,” Gray said mildly, “I was remarking to myself that if Jack were as well endowed as Alex, Arthur Kelburn wouldn’t have cared about her money. He would have stolen her away because he was overcome with lust.”
“I see,” Jack said, rising slowly from her chair, turning to stare at her husband as if he were a roach in the corner. “But being that I’m just skinny and flat-chested, and utterly unappetizing, Arthur only wanted the money he’d get if he managed to drag me to the altar.”
That’s what I get, Gray thought, for trying to distract Alex. He looked up at his wife with a lopsided grin.
It was a pleasing, quite charming grin, disarming and wicked, but Jack wasn’t going to be taken in. She was going to stand firm.
“Not exactly,” Gray said, that grin now becoming white-toothed and even more wicked. “It’s just that you require a bit of exploration, Jack, to truly appreciate all the lovely scenery you have to offer. Your terrain isn’t obviously mountainous, you see, but—”
“Don’t do it, Gray,” Douglas said. “It won’t work. Geographical metaphors filled with hillocks and valleys and forests and such, never work. Trust me.”
“I’m strong, too,” Jack said. She swooped down and jerked Gray’s chair back, and he and the chair went toppling onto the pale blue and peach Aubusson carpet.
That gained everyone’s attention.
“If I pull myself upright, what will you do, Jack?” He lay on his back, his legs still over the fallen chair.
“Jack,” Alex said, “oh, dear, you mustn’t argue with Gray. You’ve been married only a week. That isn’t right. I was very wrong to leap at Douglas’s throat in front of you. It wasn’t well done of me. I apologize.”
“Shouldn’t you be ap
ologizing to me?” Douglas said, taking a step toward his wife. “It’s my throat you want to slit.”
“Stop right there, Douglas. Now, tell me, my lord, why did you take the utterly charming and very strong Miss Helen Mayberry to Gunther’s for an ice on Monday?”
The earl stared down at his wife as if turned to stone. He cleared his throat, once, twice. “How do you know of that, Alex?”
Both Jack and Alex were looking at Douglas now. They were frowning. Gray, still lying on his back, was also frowning at Douglas, but his frown was not one of condemnation but one of how could you be so stupid?
Alex shook her fist in his face. “You believe, you faithless hound, that I wear blinders in my own house?”
Obviously, one of the servants had found out and told another servant, who probably told her maid, who naturally filled her little ears. He sighed. “It was a lovely day, Alex. Helen had never been to Gunther’s. I escorted her there. I’ve known her for fifteen years. There was nothing more to it than that.”
“Did she tell you anything more about King Edward’s lamp?” Jack asked.
“Just that she’s convinced it’s somewhere in East Anglica, perhaps near Aldeburgh, close to the water. She told me that King Edward’s queen, Eleanor, loved the coastline, the ruggedness of it, the savagery, especially at that particular spot. She believes that after Eleanor died, King Edward hid the lamp somewhere near there as a tribute to her, a shrine.”
“I don’t believe,” Gray said, still on the floor, “that any man, even King Edward, would have hidden away a possibly magical lamp, particularly if it was covered with jewels.”
Alex said, “You don’t know your history, Gray. You’re thinking the way most men think.” She looked at her husband, then loudly cleared her throat. “Actually, King Edward—unlike most men—loved his wife, Eleanor, more than anyone on this earth. It’s said that when she was dying, he was frantic, offering himself in her place, anything to spare her—unlike most men, I daresay. He, I might add, also adored his wife physically, sometimes even leaving his counsel chamber in the middle of the day to go to his wife. Unlike you, Douglas, who haven’t come out of your estate room to hunt me down in more days that I can count, at least on those days that you’ve even been home and not out spending weeks away from me and refusing to tell me where you’d been or where you were going the next time. It is clear that you no longer love me. It is even clearer that you prefer to forget that I even exist.”
“Bosh,” said Douglas. “You’re hugging conclusions to your ample bosom that have no more reality than a bad dream.”
Alexandra Sherbrooke, small and delicate as a Dresden shepherdess, as sumptuously endowed as a Rubens model, topped with red hair more vibrant than an Irish sunset, yelled at the top of her lungs to her large, dark husband, who towered over her like a prize bull over a heifer, “You want a blond hussy who’s as big as you are, Douglas? You want to feed Gunther’s ices to a brawny trollop who can look you right in the eye? You’re weary of someone half your size? Well, you don’t have to be.”
Alex pulled a chair up right in front of her husband, jumped on it, and stared down at him. “There, does this give you pleasure, Douglas? Am I tall enough for you now?”
“I can look straight ahead right into your damned cleavage,” the earl of Northcliffe said, his wife’s bosom at his eye level.
“Er, Jack, can I get up now?”
“If you keep your distance, perhaps it will be safe enough.” Jack gave him her hand, her eyes never leaving the spectacle of the earl and countess, who were waging a very interesting war in her drawing room. Then she drew her hand back. “No, Gray, I believe you’d best remain there a while longer. It’s probably the safest spot in the room. Do you think I should order some tea or something?”
But Gray wasn’t listening to her. He was staring at Douglas. “No, Douglas,” Gray said under his breath, “no, don’t do that, Douglas. I strongly recommend you forget that idea immediately.” It was going to happen. Gray yelled, “No, Douglas, don’t do that.”
But the earl paid him no heed.
He leaned forward and kissed the top of his wife’s breasts.
23
ALEXANDRA SHERBROOKE screeched, flew at her husband, wrapping her arms around his neck. She hung off him until he clasped his hands about her waist and gently set her on the floor.
Jack said, louder now, “Would you like some tea, Alex? Douglas?”
Douglas Sherbrooke looked over at his host and hostess and began to laugh. “Do forgive us. Normally we are quite comfortable guests.”
Alex grabbed her husband’s big hand and bit his thumb. “You may laugh, and jest about all of this, even try to shove me under the carpet, Douglas, but it won’t work. I will not allow you to betray me with that dreadful Helen woman. I won’t change my mind on this. You will not consider it, Douglas. I don’t care how big and how beautifully strong she is.”
“For God’s sake, Alex, I didn’t betray you. I wouldn’t betray you.” This time he did pick her up, bringing her nose to nose with him. “You will cease this jealous display.”
“And after you took her to Gunther’s and fed her two ices—yes, two!—you took her in your phaeton all around the park.”
“Who the hell told you that?”
“Heatherington told me. He wanted to know who the blond goddess was who was laughing and sitting nearly on your lap and had you ready to lick her palm, blast you.”
“Heatherington,” Douglas said to Jack, “is a man so steeped in debauchery he isn’t happy unless he can claim another man is just as low as he is. Alex, he was baiting you, nothing more.” He finally set her down. “He enjoys baiting you because you won’t ever let him seduce you. It’s a game with him, nothing more.”
Alex took a step back. “I have decided what to do,” she said, flinging her arms out to include both Gray and Jack. “Yes, I have decided that I shall go riding in the park myself this afternoon. No, it’s already afternoon. I shall ride tomorrow morning in the park. I won’t be by myself. I shall be accompanied by a gentleman who will look ready to lick my palm. I will spend the remaining part of this afternoon searching out such a gentleman. I will discover where Heatherington lives. I wonder if he’s as knowledgeable in matters of the flesh as you are, Douglas. Good-bye, Gray, Jack. Congratulations on your marriage. I’m sorry that marriage is the very devil.”
Alexandra Sherbrooke grabbed her cloak and her small straw bonnet with a cluster of grapes cleverly perched on the edge of it and marched out of the drawing room.
They stood frozen, listening to Quincy, who was rushing to the front door, gasping, he was speaking so quickly, “No, my lady, surely you don’t wish to leave just yet. Why, I haven’t been asked yet to fetch tea or other interesting delicacies from Mrs. Post. She makes a marvelous almond pastry that would make you smile if you took but a single bite and—”
The front door slammed and Quincy trailed off into silence.
“Yes,” Douglas said slowly, “congratulations on your marriage.”
Gray, who was still sprawled on his fallen chair, said, “Thank you, Douglas.”
“I believe I’ll go home now and see my little girl. She looks exactly like me. She’s nearly three years old now and adores me, unlike her twin brothers who look exactly like Melissande and adore me as well. That’s Alex’s sister,” Douglas added to Jack. “She’s so beautiful your teeth ache and your tongue falls from your mouth just looking at her. And now my two bright boys must share that same appalling beauty. They will be uncontrollable when they become men. No female will be safe from them.”
Douglas sighed, looked thoughtfully toward the dark afternoon sky beyond the bow windows, and said over his shoulder as he was leaving, “I hope Alex doesn’t find Heatherington today and bully him into taking her to the park. It will rain soon. Actually, he would go willingly with her. I hear that Heatherington prefers the weather to be dreary so it will match his dark soul.”
“Goodness,” Jack said so
me moments later, after Douglas Sherbrooke had left. “That was an adventure. It was much more exciting than a play. And it was free, right in our drawing room. Do they perform such spectacular dramas often?”
“Actually, that’s the first time I’ve ever seen any real discord at all between them. Certainly there’s a lot of yelling and insults between them, but that’s nothing unusual. Douglas is usually touching her or trying to bite her ear, or Alex is leaning up to kiss his neck, teasing him like I’m teaching you how to do.” Gray stood up, then straightened the chair. He dusted himself off. “But this was different. I didn’t like this at all.”
“It’s your fault, Gray, all because you insisted that Helen come here for our wedding. The poor countess, alone and cast out, all because of you bringing that temptress here. Did Douglas really kiss his wife’s breasts? In front of us? And I missed it?”
“Yes,” Gray said, grinning like a glutton over a plateful of pastries, “he most certainly did. Trust me, I would never have insisted that Helen come if I’d had a clue that this could happen. On the other hand, perhaps Alex and Douglas have gotten a bit too settled with each other, too predictable, each knowing what the other is thinking before he speaks, that sort of thing. This has certainly stirred things up, hasn’t it?”
“But what if Douglas falls in love with Helen?”
“No, that won’t happen. Ever. Now, it occurs to me that you haven’t enjoyed my mouth on you in a very long time.”
Jack swallowed, pleated her fingers through the soft muslin of her skirt, and said, “Did you mean that just exactly the way the words emerged from your mouth?”
“Oh, yes,” he said, walking to her, “oh, yes.”
It was Gray’s immediate aim to remove Jack to his bedchamber in the next four minutes, strip her to her white skin, and wallow. He made it to the bottom stair, but no farther. Ryder Sherbrooke burst through the front door, flung his hat on the marble floor, and stomped on it.