“Lower your voice, damn you!”
“Why? Your mother wants me here about as much as she would welcome the plague! My words must make her rejoice.”
“Be quiet!”
“I will not be quiet! I no longer recognize you as my husband. I will no longer obey you.”
“You are in my home! I am master here, no one else. You will do exactly what I tell you to do and that’s an end to it! No more of your nonsense, madam.”
And Alexandra, mild of manner and of quiet, thoughtful temperament, flew at her husband and struck his chest with her fists.
He let her strike him simply because he was frozen with shock and surprise. Her face was flushed, her eyes dilated. He very gently clasped her wrists and pulled her hands to her sides.
“No more, Alexandra, no more. Now, you and I have some talking to do.”
“No,” she said.
Douglas was a firm believer in reason and calm. He exercised beneficent control. He also was quite used to being the master in his home, he hadn’t been bragging about that for it was the simple truth. He was not a despot nor was he a malignant savage. But his word was the law and his opinions the ones that counted. But this damned woman dared to go against him. It was infuriating and intolerable. He found himself uncertain what to do. In the army, any recalcitrant soldier he faced would simply have been removed and whipped or confined to quarters. But what did a man do when his wife disobeyed him in front of every servant and his mother and his brother and sister? If she struck him?
“No,” she said again.
“Let her leave,” said the Dowager Countess of Northcliffe. “She wants to go, Douglas, let her.”
He bent on her a look she had never before received from him. “Mother, I would that you keep still.”
His mother gasped.
Douglas ignored her and turned back to his wife. “If you don’t come with me this moment, I will throw you over my shoulder and carry you.”
As a threat, it was specific and precise. However, Alexandra didn’t think he would want to provide more scenes for the servants’ delectation. No, he was far too proud to do something so very indecorous. She turned on her heel and walked toward the front door, head high, the broom handle well in place.
In that instant, Sinjun shrieked, an unearthly sound that brought everyone’s attention to her, including Alexandra’s.
She was jumping up and down, shouting herself hoarse.
“Damnation, Sinjun,” Douglas shouted. “Be quiet!”
“A rat, Douglas, a huge, awful, hairy rat! Look, over there! Right next to Alexandra! Oh my God, I can’t believe it, it is going to climb her skirt!”
Alexandra grasped her skirts and ran into the nearest room, which was the Gold Salon. She slammed the door, stopped in the middle of the room, quickly realized there had been no rodent, that Sinjun had done it to her again. She’d prevented her from walking out on Douglas, perhaps prevented Douglas from humiliating her further . . . but it was quite possible that Douglas would have simply let her walk out. When the door opened, she didn’t turn around. When the door closed and when she heard the sound of a key turning in the lock, she still didn’t turn around.
“Your sister is a menace,” she said.
“If you are careful, you just might save yourself a good thrashing. If you do, why then, you can thank Sinjun for rescuing you.”
Alexandra walked slowly to a sofa and sat down. She folded her hands in her lap and remained completely quiet.
“Would you like a glass of wine? Brandy? Ratafia?”
She shook her head.
He was standing directly in front of her, his arms crossed over his chest.
“How do you feel?”
That surprised her and she looked up. “I am fine, thank you. Certainly well enough to travel back to Claybourn Hall. By myself, without your noble presence.”
“I doubt that.”
“Well, if I collapsed dead in a ditch, why then, it would result in the same thing, wouldn’t it?”
“No, not at all. I wouldn’t get my settlement back from your father.”
Alexandra stood up. She held out her hand. “Give me the key to that door. I have been a fool to remain here for as long as I have, enduring your insults and your ridicule. I was wrong to believe that you would come to accept me, that you would realize that I would be a quite good wife for you. I was wrong in what I felt about . . . never mind. I have come quickly to despise you, nearly as much as you despise me. I won’t stay here for another minute. Give me the bloody key.”
Douglas ran his fingers through his hair, and cursed. “I didn’t mean that precisely. What I meant to do was talk to you, not fight with you, not insult you or have you insult me. You don’t despise me, surely you don’t mean that. Nor do I despise you. Never did I have any intention of hauling you back to your father in disgrace.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Please sit down.”
“Give me the key and I will leave.”
Douglas closed his hands around her waist and lifted her. He carried her to a chair and sat her down in it. He stood directly in front of her, blocking any escape. “Now you will listen to me. I don’t know how we have come to such a pass. I had thought you more reasonable, more—”
“Submissive? Malleable? Stupid?”
“Damnation, be quiet! None of those things. You’re being absurd, you’re trying to rile me.” He began to pace back and forth in front of her chair. She watched him, not understanding and uncertain whether or not she wanted to.
He came to a halt, bent over, his hands clutching the arms of her chair, his face not three inches from hers. “All right, I will simply tell you what I have decided to do, decided in fact when we were still at Tom O’Malley’s cottage.”
She looked about as interested as an oak tree.
He straightened, looking down on her from his impressive height. “I have decided to keep you as my wife. I will not have this marriage annulled. Your father can keep the bloody settlement. You will suit me, I suppose, as well as any other female. You were right; you will make me a quite good wife. You carry a good bloodline; you have excellent breeding, as least you should. By keeping you, I won’t have to travel to London to find a likely candidate and court her until I am demented with boredom. Tony was right in that, curse his bounder’s hide. Of course, you are not all that I could wish for. You must learn to moderate your damnable tongue. I fancy I can assist you in improving your manners and your behavior toward me. So, Alexandra, there is no need for you to leave. There is no reason for you to act unreasonably. You are now my wife—I recognize you as such—you are now the Countess of Northcliffe.”
He beamed at her.
Alexandra rose very slowly. He stepped back, still beaming at her, obviously eager for her to throw herself on his manly chest and weep her relief, to bless him for his wondrous nobility, to kiss his hands and vow eternal devotion and servitude.
She turned, very slowly, picked up the spindle-legged marquetry table beside the chair, raised it over her head and brought it down. He stared at her in disbelief, jerked out of the way, and the table crashed down on his shoulder, not his head. The key dropped from his hand and fell to the floor.
She picked it up and raced to the door. Douglas was shaking his head, furious, bewildered, a bit disoriented. He was fast, but not fast enough. She was out of the door in a trice, had slammed it in his face in the very next instant, and even as his hand closed over the doorknob, he heard the key grate in the lock. She’d locked him in.
He stared at the door.
The damned woman had locked him in the Gold Salon. The door was old and beautiful and stout and thick. It would take five men, at least, to knock it open.
Douglas had been a soldier. He was strong, he was wily, he’d lost few fights. Damnation, he even spoke French and Spanish fluently. And yet this female kept catching him off guard. It was beyond too much.
He gave it up and yelled, “Open this damned
door! Alexandra, open the door!”
There was pounding on the outside of the door, and a babble of voices, but no sound of a key in the lock.
“Open the door!”
He finally heard Hollis’s voice raised above the din, saying firmly, “Just a moment, my lord. Her, ah, Ladyship, has flung the key away, somewhere under the stairs we think, and we are currently searching it out.”
“Stop her, Hollis! Don’t let her get away!”
“There is no need for you to fret, my lord. Lady Sinjun has, ah, detained her as we speak.”
It was simply too much. Douglas stood there like a fool, saying nothing more, simply standing there, helpless, unable to do anything at all. The door opened. He walked out into a press of servants and family. From somewhere Uncle Albert and Aunt Mildred had appeared. Everyone was yelling and jabbering in a cacophony that made his ears ring.
He stared over at his sister, who was sitting astride Alexandra, holding her down, stretching her arms flung over her head on the Italian black and white marble floor.
He shook his head. Northcliffe Hall had gone to seed faster than any army could lose a battle. He threw back his head and laughed.
“My goodness,” came a familiar drawling voice from the open front door, “I say, Douglas, what the devil is going on here? Whatever is Sinjun doing sitting on Alex? Where did all these people come from? I believe it is nearly every Sherbrooke from London to Cornwall.”
Tony and Melissande stepped into the entrance hall and quickly joined the bedlam.
CHAPTER
13
GIVEN THE EARLIER ruckus, it was an amazingly sedate group of people who were seated around the formal dining table that early afternoon for luncheon. Hollis was at his post, looking as unflappable as a bishop, unobtrusively directing two footmen to serve. Neither Harry nor Barnaby said a word. They appeared to be treading on eggs. Douglas sat at the head of the long mahogany table, and Alexandra, still as a statue, sat on his right, placed there by a gently insistent Hollis. The Dowager Countess of Northcliffe sat at the foot of the table.
Ah, Douglas thought, what a damnable mess.
He took a bit of thin-sliced ham and chewed thoughtfully. His mother had established herself quickly, before Alexandra had come lagging into the dining room. As for Douglas, he hadn’t noticed until it was too late. He said nothing. No more upsets, no more scenes, at least for this afternoon. He couldn’t begin to imagine what his mother would say when informed she was no longer the mistress of Northcliffe and that chair down the expanse of long table was no longer hers. She was, at the moment, looking rather pleased with herself, and that bothered him. Did she enjoy the immense embarrassment his wife had caused? Did she believe that he would remove Alexandra from Northcliffe? Did she believe she could still remain the mistress here even if Alexandra remained?
Of course, Alexandra seemed oblivious of her duty as mistress, the damned little twit, oblivious of the fact that the dowager was sitting in her, Alexandra’s, rightful place. What to do?
He gave her lowered head a look of acute dislike. He’d offered her the earth and the moon and himself as a husband, and she’d flown at him like a damned bat, coshed him with a marquetry table, and locked him in the Gold Salon. She should have been grateful, happy as a grig, she should have thanked him for his generosity of spirit, for his forgiveness, for she’d been as duplicitous as Tony and her father. It really made no sense, particularly given her own behavior. Hadn’t she stripped off her clothes and offered herself to him to make him forget about an annulment? On the other hand, perhaps he hadn’t treated her all that well. He had rejected her, firmly and rather coldly. But no, that wasn’t important any more. He’d saved her, taking excellent care of her when she’d been ill. He shook his head. All that was in the past, both the well done and the miserably done. What was important now was that he’d finally decided to accept her.
His humor at seeing his sister sitting on top of Alexandra, holding both her arms over her head in the entrance hall had faded quickly. Alexandra had looked furious, her face flushed, but Sinjun was the stronger and she hadn’t been able to move. He’d looked at her when the laughter had burst out of him, really looked. Now he didn’t think there could be a funny nerve left in his body.
There was only grimness. His wife was still recovering from her illness, yet she wasn’t eating enough to keep her left leg alive. He wanted to tell her to eat more because she needed her strength, when in his mind’s eye, he saw her wielding that damned table at his head. She’d certainly been strong enough to bring him low. He sighed as he looked over at Melissande, so beautiful she made the room and everyone in it pale into insignificance. He chewed thoughtfully, growing more depressed by the minute.
Finally, Sinjun broke the silence, saying cheerfully, “Well, isn’t this pleasant! All of us together, and so many of us. It is very nice to meet you, Melissande. Since we are related, I hope you don’t mind me being informal?”
Melissande raised her beautiful face, glanced with little interest at the eager young girl opposite her, and gave her a slight nod, saying, “No, not at all.”
Tony said, “Call her Mellie, Sinjun. My dear, Sinjun is my favorite female cousin.”
“I am your only female cousin, Tony!”
“Oh no, there are three maiden cousins, all with protruding teeth, who live with twenty cats, and knit me slippers every Christmas.”
“Well, thank you, I guess,” Sinjun said. “Mellie. I like that name.”
To Alexandra’s surprise, her sister actually smiled and said, “To the best of my knowledge Alex has never before been flung to the floor and sat upon. I could but stare. You are very enterprising.”
To Alexandra’s further surprise, Sinjun, for the first time since Alexandra had met her—what was it, two hours before?—kept her mouth shut and her head lowered after shooting Alexandra a guilty look.
When Aunt Mildred, an older lady of iron-gray hair, thin as a stick, with a pair of very sharp eyes, said in her fulsome voice, “All this is not what I am used to, Douglas,” he knew that any calm at the dining table was at an end. He mentally girded his loins for Aunt Mildred’s offensive, and he wasn’t disappointed.
“Your uncle and I arrive with a message from the Marquess of Dacre, informing you of the imminent visit of his dear daughter, Juliette, who, as you know, is beautiful and sweet-tempered and immensely well dowered, to see this person on the floor and everyone yelling and babbling. Juliette is, incidentally, arriving tomorrow. She, I am certain, has never in her life spent even an instant lying on the floor, particularly with someone sitting on her. You have made a mess of things, Douglas. We discover you’re already wed by proxy to her. We’re told that Tony wed her for himself, the girl you had originally wanted to marry, not this one sitting next to you. It is passing strange, Douglas. And all of this without a word to us. It is perhaps an unwelcome omen that you are in danger of Becoming Like Your Grandfather.”
Uncle Albert cleared his throat. “Er, Mildred refers to your father’s father, Douglas, not your dear mother’s father. The other father died on the hunting field, if you will recall, back in seventy-nine.”
“All of us have heard of Dicked-in-the-Nob Charles,” Tony said. “But didn’t the fox turn on his hunter and frighten him so badly that the old earl fell off and broke his neck?”
“Tony, of course not,” said Uncle Albert. “The horse wasn’t all that frightened. It was a bit of bad luck, that’s all. Doubtless Charles was thinking about his chemicals and not really paying attention. And don’t be flippant, boy, it don’t become you.”
Aunt Mildred then turned on her spouse with ruthless speed. “Perhaps a hunting accident is what finally killed him, Albert, but he wasn’t right in his brain well before then. His notions of behavior were really most unacceptable—I mean, having three talking parrots with him at all times!—and his experiments in the east wing caused the most noxious odors to float throughout the hall, making everyone’s eyes water.”
/> Douglas stared, fascinated. They’d all grown up with stories about their eccentric grandfather. Then he recalled the awful bit of news his aunt had dropped. He groaned silently, then said with ominous calm, “You say, Aunt Mildred, that the Marquess of Dacre’s daughter is coming here?”
“Certainly. Your uncle and I invited her. It was time someone took a hand to correct this deplorable situation. You weren’t behaving as you should, Douglas. Now, however, what you’ve done is beyond even what I can repair. You’re married to her and not to this lovely girl over here who is married to Tony, and now dear Juliette is coming as well. It is quite a pointless tangle. I’m sure I don’t know what to do. None of it is my fault. You will have to make arrangements to set everything aright.”
And just how, Douglas wondered, was he to do that?
Aunt Mildred sat back and regarded her veal stew in awful gloom.
The Dowager Countess of Northcliffe said in a loud, clear voice, “I agree, Mildred. It is distressing, all of it. However, Douglas isn’t to blame. It’s Tony and this girl here. Tony took Melissande and left Douglas with this—this—”
“Mother,” Douglas said, leaning forward, his voice low and deadly calm, “you will moderate your speech. I am master here and I will be the one to decide what is to be or not to be.”
“Ah,” said Sinjun, grinning at her brother, “that is the question, isn’t it?”
Douglas gave it up. He had no control over anyone, even his fifteen-year-old sister.
The dowager continued after a moment, just a bit moderated. “Lady Melissande, should you like some more apple tart? It’s quite tasty, one of cook’s specialties.”
Melissande shook her head and asked her husband in a lowered voice, “Who is this Juliette?”
“Ah, my love, Juliette is second only to you in her beauty. But second, I swear it.”
“I would like to meet her,” said Melissande. “She sounds charming.”
Oh Lord, Douglas thought, that was all he needed, two exquisite diamonds glittering around his house making every man in their vicinity hard with lust, and numb in the brain, and incoherent in speech.