"Ryder made up those names—Goosie, indeed! And Brassy—'tis too ridiculous."
Douglas raised his hand. "No, it's true, I promise." Douglas eyed the brandy bottle, then grinned down at his wife, leaning down to kiss her mouth. "No hope for it, I guess." He picked up Alex's snifter, filled it with brandy, and downed it. He set the bottle down, arranged himself cross-legged, and said, "Now, as to the story—Goosie was a very popular lady. Actually, she was the first one to escape off the island. She'd only begun to carve up the pirate's wooden leg. All she managed to carve was what looked like a keel. She went to St. Thomas with a crew of Dutchmen who were all blond and couldn't understand a word she said. But the captain, ah, he wasn't Dutch, he was a Dane and, of course, blond, but he understood the universal lan-guage, and that is one language that Goosie spoke quite fluently." He leaned down and kissed his wife again.
"You mean French, Douglas?"
"No, no, Alex," Ryder said from the doorway, "my brother is talking about love."
Sophie stared at her husband, stared at the brandy bottle, then flopped over on her back, and closed her eyes. She moaned.
"May I join the party?" Ryder asked.
"You said you'd be busy all day," Sophie said, her eyes still tightly closed.
"I was. It's after five o'clock now."
"Here," Douglas said, and handed his brother the nearly empty brandy bottle.
But Ryder had no intention of getting drunk. Therein lay disaster for a randy man. He'd watched and listened from the doorway for a good ten minutes and had been charmed. Sophie was drunk. He'd heard her laugh, a sweet, merry sound that warmed him to his very toes. Hell, all of them were going to feel vile tomorrow, but that was many hours away. The hours Ryder wanted were those just ahead. He tilted up the bottle and pretended to drink the rest of the brandy, then carried the bottle over to the sideboard and fetched another.
"Tell us what happened to the one-legged pirate," Alex said. "Douglas doesn't know, I'm sure of it. I want to know about Brassy. Douglas keeps avoiding it and going on to other stories."
"Actually, Brassy's story is shown in the gardens."
"What are you talking about?" Sophie said, still not looking at him.
"There are statues hidden deep in the garden. Haven't you yet seen them, Sophie? They were brought over by our very own uncle Brandon—you know, the fellow who left me Kimberly Hall. Let's go and I'll show you. Then you can come back and tell Alex."
"An excellent idea," the earl said, coming up on one elbow. Ryder saw that his brother wasn't at all drunk. What he was, the fraud, was enjoying himself immensely. He was running his fingers lightly over his wife's arm, then up her shoulder. He watched his brother's fingers lightly caress Alex's ear. Douglas was a cunning bastard, no doubt about it. Ryder grinned at him, then reached out his hand to take Sophie's. He pulled her to her feet, jerking hard at the last minute, and she came flying against him and he held her against his chest for a moment, before touching his fingertips to her chin, kissing her, then releasing her.
Sophie looked profoundly worried, and said even as she was weaving slightly, "Statues, Ryder? A statue of Brassy? How is that possible? Why Brassy and not Goosie?"
"You will see," Ryder said. "Douglas, take good care of your wife," he added, and led Sophie from the estate room. As he closed the door, he heard Alex giggle.
"I suppose this drinking orgy was brought on by something awesomely miserable?"
"Your mother," Sophie said.
"I quite understand."
"You will really show me Brassy?"
"I will show you whatever you want to see," he said.
When he led her onto the narrow paths of the garden, trees planted so closely together that there was a thick green canopy over their heads, she said, "This is beautiful. I didn't know about that turn back there. Why is this hidden?"
"You'll see," Ryder said.
He watched her look at the first statue—entwined statues, actually. The woman was sitting on the man's thighs, her back arched, her marble hair hanging loose, and his hands were on her hips, frozen in place, half lifting her off his sex.
Sophie gasped. "This is just awful."
But she didn't sound as if she thought it awful. She sounded very interested. She was weaving a bit again and he put his arm around her and brought her close to his side. "He's inside her, Sophie, as you can see. Not a bad life for a statue. Frozen for all eternity in the throes of pleasure."
"That looks difficult."
"Nonsense. Would you like to try that or see some other statues? There's a good deal of variety."
She nodded, looked surprised that she'd nodded, then slipped her hand in his. Ryder felt a surge of lust that was wonderfully familiar, but he also felt a deep tenderness that made him frown. What he was doing was dishonest. He was taking advantage of her drunken state. Who cared?
He led her to the next exhibition, this one very nearly hidden behind a half-dozen yew bushes. Sophie gasped but she never looked away.
"You would prefer this way, Sophie? It's a bit difficult for a woman to find pleasure in this position, but I think I could manage it. Also, with a woman on her hands and knees, the man is very deep inside her. Ah, but his hands are free to roam, it's just that—" He broke off. "Let me show you."
She looked up at him, her eyes blurry, her voice sounding uncertain. "I don't think so, Ryder. I should like to see more. I would like to make my own selection, if you don't mind."
"No," he said, awed by his discovery of a very different wife, "I don't mind a bit."
He showed her all the other groupings. When they came to the one with the man between the woman's raised thighs, his head thrown back, his mouth yelling his release, she stopped cold and simply stared, saying nothing.
"You are a traditionalist then?"
She thought about that for a moment, then suddenly, she paled and swallowed convulsively. "Ryder," she said, "this isn't good." She pulled away from him, fell to her knees, and vomited.
"Well, hell," Ryder said.
Sophie wanted to die. Her mouth felt as if it were filled with foul-tasting cotton, her head pounded, and even the beating of her heart made her shudder.
Ryder had carried her back to the house and put her to bed. He met his brother in the upstairs corridor, and the two of them had laughed then sobered quickly.
"Is Alex in as bad shape as my wife?"
"Probably worse. I have the remedy. My only problem is getting Alex to drink it."
"We could trade wives if you liked just long enough to get the potion down their respective throats."
So it was that Ryder found Alex lying on her back, her arm over her eyes, not moving at all.
"Don't worry, Alex, it's just me, Ryder. Now, I'm going to raise your head and you're going to down every bit of this potion. You will feel like trouncing Douglas within the hour, I promise you."
Alex looked at her brother-in-law, so surprised that it wasn't her husband that she opened her mouth and drank.
It wasn't quite so simple for Douglas, but Sophie was very nearly beyond embarrassment with him, and thus only moaned once before drinking the vile potion.
The brothers met in the corridor. Douglas said, "Sophie's asleep now and will probably stay that way until tomorrow. Sorry, Ryder, you will just have to contain your lust tonight. Now, tell me how you're going to travel to Chadwyck House and what I can do to help you."
On a very foggy Friday morning, the Sherbrooke family was gathered outside the mansion to see off Ryder and Sophie. Ryder moved away from his wife when she held Jeremy against her.
"I will miss you, love," she said for the first time. "Be a good boy, won't you? Your pony is wonderful and you must remember to take good care of him."
"His name is George, Sophie." Jeremy suffered all her advice because she was his sister, and he loved her, but at the end of it, he was beginning to squirm. Ryder saved him by lifting him up and saying, "Cosh Sinjun over the head every once
in a while. She needs it. We will see you soon, Jeremy." He lowered the boy, shook his hand, and then assisted his wife into the carriage.
Three carriages bowled down the long drive. The second one held Tinker, Ryder's dour valet, and a young girl he'd insisted Sophie hire to train as her maid. She was painfully shy and her name was Cory.
The third carriage held mountains of luggage, most of it Ryder's.
"This is very difficult," Douglas said, staring after the carriages. He turned to smile at Jeremy, who had surreptitiously wiped a tear from his eye. "Ryder will take very good care of your sister, my boy. Don't worry. We'll all be together again soon."
As for Sophie, she didn't want Ryder near her, much less taking care of her. All she could think about were those utterly dreadful statues and staring at them and wanting Ryder to do all those things to her. It was beyond embarrassing and he knew exactly what she was thinking and how she was feeling.
"You're a bounder," she said aloud.
"And you are a traditionalist," he said, "despite everything you know about men. But you will want eventually to experiment with my poor man's body. You needn't worry that I'll forget any of the interesting positions of the statues in the garden."
"I wasn't thinking about those horrible statues. I hate it when you know what I'm thinking."
"Ah, perversity. Thank God I'm your husband. Otherwise you would spend all your time with me in the agony of mortification."
"I'm no more with child than I was in Jamaica."
Ryder wanted to cry, but he didn't. He grinned at her, patted her gloved hand, and said, "Perhaps there is something to having a harem. No need to have to put things off, you know."
Chadwyck House lay only five miles to the east of Strawberry Hill, the seat of the Viscount Rathmore, and very nearly in the middle between Lower Slaughter and Mortimer Coombe. Ryder had no idea if Tony Parrish and his beyond beautiful bride, Melissande, were still at Strawberry Hill or if Tony had taken Melissande to London. He really didn't care. They reached the Chadwyck House grounds by late afternoon.
"Have you ever before been to the Cotswolds, Sophie?"
"No. It's very beautiful."
"You're in for a treat. Just wait until October. The leaves are brilliant, the air crisp, and you want to cry it is so lovely."
But all thoughts of crying for loveliness fled Ryder's mind when the carriages bowled to a stop in front of Chadwyck House. He hadn't been here in close to a year he realized with a start. Eleven and a half months. And this had happened in that short period of time?
The graceful Tudor manor house with its diamond-paned windows, several of them broken, looked as if it had been left to molder. Ivy climbed to the second story of the house; the grass and weeds covered everything, even sprouting through the cracked stone front steps. The stables looked deserted, field implements lay rusted and unused next to the stable.
Sophie frowned. "I don't understand," she said finally.
"Nor do I."
He jumped from the carriage, then assisted her down.
He heard Tinker say, "Good Gawd, what the hell happened here?"
"I'll find Allen Dubust and find out," Ryder said. Sophie looked at him. She realized in that moment that she hadn't seen him this angry since Jamaica, since he'd found her beaten.
"Stay here," he said shortly, and strode up the cracked front steps. He pounded on the oak double front doors.
He pounded again.
Finally, very slowly, one of the doors opened just a crack and an old wizened face peered out.
"Master Ryder! Lawdie, Lawdie! The good Lord finally answered my prayers!"
"Mrs. Smithers, what's happened here? Where is Allen Dubust? What the devil is going on?"
"Lawdie, Lawdie," Mrs. Smithers said, then pulled both doors open wide.
"Sophie, come on in. Tinker, bring Cory, and oversee the luggage. I don't think there's much help coming out of here."
The interior of the house was a mess. Ryder started to curse, then noticed that Mrs. Smithers was leaning on two broomsticks roughly fashioned as crutches.
"Tell me what's happened," he said. He saw Sophie from the corner of his eye and added, "This is my wife, Mrs. Sherbrooke. Sophie, this is Mrs. Smithers. She's been here forever. She will tell us what happened."
What happened was that Allen Dubust had thrown Mrs. Smithers down the stairs after dismissing all the other servants because she'd refused to believe him and threatened him with the local magistrate. "I told him he were a rotten sort and I always knew it and I wouldn't leave and he couldn't make me. I told him I'd tell everyone what he did. He didn't like that. He picked me up and threw me down the stairs." He'd stripped the house, taken all the money, sold off land he had no authority to sell, and left the district. "He told me, he did, that he'd been telling everyone that you had sold Chadwyck House." Unfortunately, Mrs. Smithers hadn't seen a blessed soul, because, after all, the house was vacant, and since she couldn't walk, there was no way she could get to the village to tell anyone what had happened. She'd barely managed to get to the front doors.
Sophie said, "I will have Tinker ride immediately back to Lower Slaughter and fetch a doctor for you, Mrs. Smithers."
"But the house!" Mrs. Smithers wailed and looked for the world as though she would burst into tears.
Sophie patted her bent old shoulder and said gently, "It's just a house. We'll fix it up again. You'll see. It's you we're worried about. You've done very well. Don't you agree, Ryder?"
He looked at his wife. Jesus, he thought, she'd certainly changed from the frightened, wary girl who'd lived in his brother's house. He cleared his throat and said, "Everything will be put to rights. You first of all, Mrs. Smithers. I'm proud of you and I thank you."
Two hours later, Mrs. Smithers was tucked into bed, heavily dosed with laudanum, her broken leg properly set by an aghast Dr. Pringle, who just kept shaking his head. "I just don't believe she managed to survive," he said over and over again. "That old woman just wouldn't give up."
Once the doctor had left, Ryder and Sophie stood facing each other in the filthy entrance hall.
"I couldn't have manufactured a more excellent nightmare," he said. "I'm sorry, Sophie."
To his surprise, Sophie grinned. "Let's go to the kitchen and see if there's anything to eat."
There wasn't, not a scrap. But there were rats, big ones, who had enjoyed themselves for the past three weeks.
Sophie frowned, and said to a shrieking Cory, "Do be quiet. You're hurting the master's ears. Now, I want you to go stay with Mrs. Smithers. Mr. Sherbrooke and I are going to Lower Slaughter and hire help, and buy food."
"Yes," Ryder said, staring at his wife. "Ah, Tinker, please help the coachman with the horses and the luggage."
He rubbed his hands together. "Nothing like a challenge, is there?"
CHAPTER
18
There was no bed.
Ryder just stood in the doorway of the great master bedchamber and stared blankly about the bare room. He'd avoided looking into the bedchamber earlier because he'd always hated this room. Damned dark and the ceilings were too low. The thick dark gold draperies still covered the long windows, draperies so ugly and shiny with age that Ryder wished Dubust had taken them as well, curse his hide.
No damned bed. It was too much. Sophie was exhausted, he was still so furious he hadn't allowed himself to feel weariness, and Mrs. Smithers was sound asleep, snoring loudly, after consuming a feast of food. She was in the sewing room, which had been quickly converted for her. Cory would sleep in the room with her. Dubust, the discriminating bastard, hadn't touched any of the servants' furniture.
He turned to see Sophie standing right behind him, linens on her arms. She said as she gazed about the room, "Oh dear. I'm so sorry, Ryder."
"According to the good doctor, Dubust simply told everyone that all furnishings were being sent to Northcliffe Hall. I still can't believe it. Damnation, Sophie, it's all my fault." She shifted th
e linens and he quickly took them from her.
"We will have to sleep on blankets, I suppose. You're so tired, sweetheart, I'll stop my ranting until morning. All right?"
"I don't particularly like this bedchamber, Ryder."
"I don't either, never have, for that matter. Let's go downstairs. Mrs. Smithers said Dubust slept in here, acted as though he were the prince of the castle. Damn, how could I have been such an irresponsible idiot?"
"If I didn't know firsthand just how awful the consequences, I'd suggest that we try to find a bottle of brandy."
He was forced to smile down at her. "You don't have to down an entire bottle, you know. There is a concept known as moderation."
"Ah, the concept of moderation—as in you and the very modest number of women you have in your herd?"
Was that acrimony he heard? He grinned down at her like a fool. "Herd? Did you hear Douglas say something? No? Well, let me tell you that I have only one mare now and she appears a real goer, glossy coat, good shoulders and flanks, lots of endurance, thank God. She'll need all the strength she can get with an idiot for a husband and an empty house. Come, Sophie, before you fall on your face, let's build ourselves a nest. Thank God, Dubust didn't take all the blankets and pillows."
"No, he just wanted all the furniture. So many beautiful things, Mrs. Smithers kept telling me over and over, most of it from that damned second George, she said, not the crazy third George."
Ryder burst into laughter. "She's right. Let's go find a place to stretch out our exhausted bones."