The Sherbrooke Bride

by Catherine Coulter

  “For heaven’s sake,” he said, and pinched out the single candle. “I have no intention of shocking you the way you shocked me. Do women believe that men can’t be embarrassed when they play the seductress? No matter, I don’t want an answer from you. Unlike you, all my stripping will be done in the dark. Don’t squawk.”

  When they were both lying on their backs, not two inches separating them, Alexandra said, “Tom didn’t seem at all surprised to see us.”

  “Tom comes from a long line of phlegmatic O’Malleys. He’s a good man, though I don’t like taking his bed. He’s as tall as I am and the damned bed is too short. I shall have to see about a new one for him. It’s the least I can do.”

  Douglas moved, cursed when his elbow bumped her head. “Damnation, woman, your hair is still wet. Do you want to die of a damned chill? Spread it on the pillow to dry.” He kept muttering about thoughtless, stupid women under his breath as Alex made a halo of her hair.

  “You needn’t use your foul language with me.”

  “Come, lie down and I’ll spread the hair away from your head. You haven’t done it right.”

  She could feel his warm breath on her cheek, his long fingers stroking through her hair, pulling out the wet ripples as he fanned it out. “There,” he said, sounding bored. “Go to sleep now. I’m tired. You’ve quite exhausted me with your recklessness.”

  What to do, Alex asked herself again and again, indeed, the question plagued her until she fell asleep beside her husband in the gamekeeper’s bed.

  Douglas awoke feeling very hot and very aroused. His member was hard, uncomfortably so, and for an instant, he was disoriented. Never had he felt such intense desire, a desire so urgent, a desire that was pushing him, prodding at him, making him forget who he was, where he was. He realized that Alexandra’s cheek was pressed against his bare shoulder, her bare right leg was resting on his bare belly. The linen shirt she wore was up around her waist and he felt every exquisite female inch of her. He wanted to touch her breasts, to feel their texture, their softness. He saw her standing there beside his chair, naked, her arms at her sides, her hands fisted for she was set on her course, and he, well, he had humiliated her thoroughly.

  It hadn’t been well done of him. But what was he to have done? To have taken what she offered would have admitted that he’d given in and accepted her, that she’d won, that her damned father had won, and all because she’d stripped down to her lovely white skin and let him look at her? She’d offered herself to him. He cursed now but it didn’t help. His sex hurt, actually hurt with want. Well, why not? She was very nearly naked now, pressed up against him. Why shouldn’t he feel lust? He was a normal man, wasn’t he? He gave it up. None of it seemed to matter now. It was dark, they were alone, the rain was lashing heavily against the single windowpane and thudding loudly upon the roof. Everything that was real, everything that was solid, everything that mattered, everything that shrieked for decisions and consequences, was blessedly far away. It could all be ignored for a good long while.

  He turned slightly toward her and his hand caressed her breast. She moaned. The low soft sound froze him, then made his heart pound frantically. He wanted to come inside her right this instant. Damn her, he hurt. He cursed again even as his hand cupped her, but only for a moment. He quickly unlaced the front of her shirt. He pulled it off her, shoving the shirt to her waist. Why didn’t she wake up? He could barely see her, but he knew her breasts were magnificent. He wanted to touch her now, kiss her now, taste her. He didn’t think, didn’t consider a single consequence of his actions, merely lowered his head and took her nipple into his mouth. She tasted hot, so incredibly hot, and so sweet he couldn’t bear it. He was in a sorry state, and he knew it.

  He raised his head a moment, and again she moaned and then moaned again, her head falling to the side. He kissed her throat, as his fingers caressed her breast. He wanted her mouth. He wanted her to groan into his mouth, to fill him with the passion he was rousing in her. When his mouth closed over hers, he was aware again of the immense heat of her. So very hot she was, hot with passion, hot for him. Again she moaned.

  He was nearly frantic now, his body surging, his sex swelled against her thigh. Why the hell didn’t she wake up? “Let me get this ridiculous shirt off you.” She moaned again and he paused, frowning down at her. Surely she should only moan if what he was doing to her made her feel passion.

  “Alexandra,” he said softly, and lightly tapped his palm against her cheek. Heat.

  For a moment he simply didn’t want to believe it. She moaned again, twisting away from him. Dear God, she wasn’t moaning because she wanted him; she wasn’t moaning to seduce him; she was moaning because she was burning with fever.

  He felt like an animal; he felt guilty as hell, then he wanted to laugh at himself for his conceit. He shook his head, the seriousness of it washing over him. She was ill. She was very ill. He got hold of himself. His lust died a quick death. He saw then the many men bathed in fevers after battles. So many had died. Too many. But at least he knew what to do. It was still raining hard. There was no way to fetch a doctor. It was up to him. Douglas quickly rose and went into the front room.

  “Tom,” he said quietly.

  “Milord, there be a problem?”

  “Aye, Her Ladyship is ill. I need you to make her some herbal tea and I’ll bathe her with cold water to bring down the fever. Have you any special potions that would help her?”

  Tom had no potions, but he had his dear mother’s excellent herbal tea.

  When Douglas returned to Alexandra, a lighted candle in his hand, he realized he hadn’t even noticed that during his conversation with Tom he’d been quite naked. He shook his head at himself, set the candle down on the small table next to the bed, and quickly pulled on Tom’s pants. He touched his palms to her cheeks, then to her shoulders. She was soaked with sweat. He pulled the damp linen shirt off her. Within moments Tom brought a bowl of cold water and a soft cloth.

  Douglas straightened her arms and legs. He began methodically to wipe her down, long steady strokes from her face to her toes. When the cold wet cloth returned to her face, she tried to twist away, but he held her, saying quietly, “No, Alexandra. Hold still. You’re the one who is now ill. Hold still.”

  She couldn’t understand him, he knew. He wiped her face, holding the cold cloth still for several moments. She turned her face against his palm, trying to burrow into the cloth.

  “Yes, you’re hot, aren’t you? No, I won’t stop doing this, I promise. I know it must feel good. I know you’re burning up. Trust me in this, at least.” The cloth went down her throat to her shoulders. He lifted the cloth then and realized it was hot. The fever was heavy upon her.

  He eased her onto her stomach. Again and again he stroked the cloth over her. He tried not to look at her, tried not to assess how he felt as he looked at her, tried not to acknowledge that his sex was swelled even though she was ill and not ready for him, that she probably wouldn’t want him even if she wasn’t ill.

  “Alexandra,” he said. “Listen to me now. You’re ill but I fully intend that you get well and very quickly. Do you hear me? Stop this foolishness now. Open your eyes and look at me. Damn you, open your eyes!”

  She did. She gazed up at him, her eyes clear. “Hello,” she said. “Does your head pain you, Douglas?”

  “Who gives a damn about my head? How do you feel?”

  “I hurt.”

  “I know you do. Does this feel good?” He wiped the cloth over her breasts and down her belly.

  “Oh yes,” she said, and closed her eyes.

  Douglas continued until Tom knocked on the door with his mother’s special tea.

  Douglas covered her and propped her up on the pillows. He sat beside her and held her up against his arm. “Wake up again, Alexandra. I want you to drink this tea. It’s important that you drink liquids or you’ll dry up and blow away. Come now, open your mouth.”

  She did. She choked on the tea and he slowed i
t to a trickle. He was patient. She drank the entire cup. Then she moaned again. He laid her back down and began again to stroke the cloth over her body.

  At the end of an hour, the fever was down. She soon began to tremble and shudder with cold.

  Douglas didn’t hesitate. He crawled into bed with her and drew her against him. She sought him out then, trying to burrow inside him, her legs pushing against his, her face under his right arm. He smiled even as he tried to straighten her body. He was soon sweating but he didn’t pull away from her; he pulled her closer, trying to cover every inch of her. Odd that she was so hot yet felt so very cold inside. This is very strange, Douglas thought as he leaned his cheek against the top of her head. Her hair, at least, was now dry. He was fully aware that she was his responsibility, fully aware that his hands were stroking up and down her back.

  Damnation.

  She moaned softly, her nose pressing against his rib, very close to his heart. He felt something altogether strange and unwelcome as her warm breath feathered against his skin.

  He came awake when it was dawn, a gray dull dawn with the rain still pounding down, lessening but a little bit. He wouldn’t be able to take her back to the hall. A carriage couldn’t drive up to Tom’s front door and he couldn’t risk carrying her back to the road. She was too ill.

  He forced more tea down her, cajoling her, threatening her, until the cup was empty. Tom left for the hall to get medicine from Mrs. Peacham and clothing for them both.

  Douglas continued to hold her and wipe her with the wet cloth. Her fever rose and fell in cycles, endless cycles that scared him to death.

  He was so scared he was praying.

  He’d rather expected Mrs. Peacham to return with Tom, for she’d nursed all the Sherbrookes during his lifetime, but she didn’t. Only Finkle, his one-time batman and valet, came back with Tom. Finkle, fit and strong, just turned forty, and nearly as short as Alexandra, said without preamble, “The idiot doctor is in bed with a broken leg. I will assist you, my lord. I’ve brought all sorts of medicines. Her Ladyship will be well in a trice.”

  Douglas tended her, alternately bullying her into drinking tea or eating Tom’s thick gruel, and bathing her. Toward the end of one of the longest days of Douglas’s life, he knew she was going to live. He’d forgotten his own headache and was surprised to feel the lump over his left ear where he’d struck the rock when he’d fallen.

  He stood over the bed, staring down at her, knowing that the fever had broken, knowing that if only she would try, she would get well.

  “Don’t you dare give up now,” he told her. “I’ll thrash you but good if you dare to give up.”

  She moaned softly and tried to turn on her side. He helped her, then nestled the blankets snugly against her.

  “She’ll do,” Finkle said matter-of-factly from the doorway. “She’s got guts worthy of a Sherbrooke.”

  Douglas walked to the door and quietly closed it after him. He turned to his valet. “Don’t give me any of your damned impertinence. She’s only a temporary Sherbrooke, only a Sherbrooke through guile and betrayal, and just because she’s ill, it doesn’t make her my wife by default.”

  Finkle, in His Lordship’s service for eleven years, said, “You aren’t thinking clearly, my lord. She will live, thank the good beneficent being who dwells above us, and it is you who have saved her. Once you save a person’s life, you cannot discard the saved person like an old boot.”

  “I can do whatever I wish to the damned deceitful chit. Do you so quickly forget what she and her father and my dear cousin Tony did?”

  “Her sister, Lady Melissande, said her ladyship, the temporary one who lies here, was never ill. She said it was most likely a ruse to gain your sympathy, but that she said it was her duty to come and see for herself.”

  “Oh God,” said Douglas, whipping around toward the door, as if expecting Melissande to appear at any instant.

  “She’s not here, my lord.”

  “How did you stop her?”

  “I told her if Her Ladyship wasn’t pretending illness, it was very possible that she could catch the fever herself and that a fever immediately ruined a lady’s looks for the rest of her life. I told her a fever always left spots on a lady’s face.”

  Douglas could only stare at his valet. “My God, that was well done of you.”

  “Lord Rathmore agreed that this was so, that he himself had witnessed such phenomena as nursing spots many times before. He said that it shouldn’t deter her, though. He commended her on her selflessness. He nicely inquired if she would like him to drive her here to see her sister, to tend to her herself if she was indeed ill and not playacting. Lady Melissande shrieked. Quite loudly. Lord Rathmore laughed.”

  “You did well, Finkle, as did my cousin, the bounder. Now, since I must, since there is no one else, I will go back to the chit and see to her. Why didn’t Mrs. Peacham come with you?”

  “She and Hollis decided it wasn’t the right thing to do.”

  “Ha! Hollis decided that and you know it, damn his interfering hide! Why he wants this chit to remain as the Countess of Northcliffe is beyond me. You’d think he would remember where his loyalties should lie.”

  Finkle merely looked at his master. “You disappoint me, my lord,” he said and left Douglas to himself.

  “Well, hell,” Douglas said. Within minutes he was under the covers next to Alexandra, knowing even before realizing it that she was cold again. Cold from the inside out.

  He supposed it was later that night when she was snuggled against him, both of them naked and warm, that he considered accepting her. It would please her, no doubt about that. It would make her deliriously happy, no doubt about that either. After all, she’d tried to seduce him. She was a lady, a young lady of impeccable breeding and upbringing who had, nevertheless, stripped off her clothes in front of him. Well, he just might keep her. Perhaps she would come to suit him as well as any other young lady. The good Lord knew that her father would fall on his knees with prayers of thanksgiving to heaven. Everyone would be delighted, except perhaps him. Ah, but she would probably come to suit him as well as any other female.

  It was a pity that she wasn’t as beautiful as Melissande.

  But no young lady on the face of the earth was as beautiful as Melissande.

  There was no point in trying to locate another female to match her beauty. On the other hand, he wouldn’t have to watch every man who came in sight of Alexandra for signs of complete besottedness. Nor would he have to worry that she would flirt with the men she’d rendered besotted. He frowned at that thought, for Melissande didn’t just flirt; she flirted outrageously. She basked in the flow of compliments men rained upon her beautiful head. He wondered then, for the first time, if Tony hated the effect she had on every nondead male between the ages of ten and eighty who saw her. He wondered if some day he would ask his cousin.

  He doubted it. He still wanted to kill Tony.

  Alexandra cried out softly beside him. Without conscious thought Douglas kissed her forehead and drew her closer.

  What to do?

  He would think about it. He imagined the relief, the joy on her face were he to tell her that he had decided to keep her.

  Why not make her deliriously happy?

  CHAPTER

  11

  IT FELT REALLY rather good. She was alive, truly, honestly alive.

  Alexandra took a deep breath and was relieved that it didn’t hurt too much. She felt absurdly weak, so weak in fact that when she spotted the glass of water on the small table beside the bed, she didn’t have the strength to get to it, and oh, did she ever want it.

  She did manage to turn onto her side and raise her arm toward the glass. She was near to tears of frustration when the bedchamber door opened and Douglas looked in.

  “You’re awake. How do you feel?”

  She stared at the water, saying in a low hoarse voice, “Thirsty. Please, I’m so thirsty.”

  He was there in but a moment. He sa
t beside her, brought her head against his shoulder, picked up the glass, and efficiently put it to her lips. “Why didn’t you call me? I wasn’t all that far away, no more than twelve feet.”

  She closed her eyes in bliss. The water tasted wonderful. Douglas allowed only a trickle but it was just fine with her. To swallow was a chore.

  When she finished nearly half the glass, he set it down, but continued to hold her. He repeated, “Why didn’t you call me? Tom’s cottage isn’t all that large, you know. I would have heard you.”

  “I didn’t think about it.”

  “Why not? You haven’t been taking care of yourself. I have been taking care of you and I’ve done a rather good job of it. You do remember that, don’t you?”

  “What day is it?”

  He frowned down at her, but said, “It’s Wednesday, early afternoon. You were very ill for only a day and a half. With my good doctoring, you’ll be just fine now.”

  “How is your head?”

  “My head is filled with its own importance again.”

  “Are we still in Tom O’Malley’s cottage?”

  “Yes, as I said, you should have called me if you needed anything. Finkle has returned to Northcliffe Hall to fetch a carriage. You’ll be in your own bed soon.”

  “I don’t have any clothes on.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t like it. You’re dressed and I’m not.”

  “Should you like me to bathe you now and help you to dress? It’s the old gown you were wearing but at least it’s dry.”

  “I can do it myself.”

  “Nastiness won’t help your recuperation.” He held up his hand. “All right, stubbornness, then. I should realize that you’re never nasty. No, don’t berate me. You’re not even stubborn, it’s maidenly sensibility that directs your every word. I think I should simply bundle you up in blankets and take you back to the hall that way.”