Mad Jack

by Catherine Coulter

  They stared at each other. She licked her lower lip. He stared at that lower lip as she said, “You didn’t debauch me on the periphery either. Why?”

  “This isn’t a bone. Stop chewing. Let it go.”

  “What if I were older than you, what then?”

  “It would depend, I suppose, on how much older than me you were. Ten years? No, I’d probably still have to hie myself and you to the altar. By the way, I like older women,” he said and smiled. “I also like the way your mind works, like a wheel that backs up when one doesn’t expect it to.”

  Then he laughed. “It’s late at night, you’re sitting here in your nightgown, we’re quite alone, which simply isn’t allowed, you know, yet I didn’t even think twice about coming into your bedchamber, and we’re talking about all the particulars of debauchery.

  “No hope for it, Jack, we’ve got to marry, and soon. Since your stepfather isn’t your legal guardian, which is a very good thing, and since I also know Lord Burleigh very well indeed, I don’t believe I’ll have much difficulty obtaining his permission to be your husband. Oh, incidentally, your father might be dead, but Lord Burleigh isn’t, and he’s a very powerful man. Were he to find out—and he would—that I was alone for four days with his ward, he’d be on my doorstep with the ink on the marriage agreements scarcely dry.”

  “I have sixty thousand pounds. That’s a lot of money.”

  “I believe Sinjun was a greater heiress, but you’re right, it’s nothing to raise one’s brows at.”

  “So, you spend four days alone with me and you earn sixty thousand pounds.”

  A dark blond eyebrow shot up. “Is that how you translate this mess? Into groats for my coffers? Let me tell you, Jack, I don’t want to marry you any more than you want to marry me. My life was pleasant, blessedly predictable, until Mathilda and Maude came trooping in, claiming disasters so they could stay.”

  “What disasters?”

  “As Aunt Mathilda would say: Featherstone—fire and flood.”

  She laughed. She couldn’t help it. “I heard them arguing over the excuse they’d give you, but they never told me what it was. That’s very inventive.”

  “Yes, it was well done of them. Quincy didn’t buy it for more than a minute, but I really didn’t care enough to question them closely. I knew I’d enjoy having them here. I really have no other close family, you know. Actually, I would have welcomed them without a whimper if they’d just asked to visit me for a while. On the other hand, I can see their need to protect your innocence. They couldn’t have known I was a saint among gentlemen.”

  It was quite fascinating, really, just watching the myriad expressions on her face ranging from absolute terror to rage to even a brief smile that showed the dimple in her left cheek. He sat forward and said, “No, Jack, I’m marrying you because as a man of honor I have no choice. Your money doesn’t matter in the least, at least it doesn’t matter in terms of being the catalyst to matrimony. No, your ill-planned thievery of poor Durban is what precipitated this whole thing.”

  “It wasn’t ill-planned.”

  “You would have ended up in Bath, if some malcontent hadn’t robbed you, then tossed you into a ditch. I call that ill-planned, at the very least. If I were more honest and less sensitive to your female feelings, I should possibly refer to your debacle as the end result of brain fever, a supposed common ailment amongst females.”

  To his surprise, she laughed, actually laughed in the face of his amusing insult and her unamusing situation. She said, shaking her head, “It wounds me to have to say this, but you do rather seem to have the right of it. Oh, dear. It was ill-planned.”

  She rolled off the other side of the bed and shrugged into one of Mathilda’s dressing gowns, a particularly odd affair because it was completely black, the neck a swatch of black feathers. It dragged the floor. She tied the sash, then turned to face him. “Actually,” she said, a good fifteen feet between them, “if I want to keep you at a distance from me, I need to light more candles. You’re all shadowy over there by the bed.”

  “True enough,” he said. He watched her light the eight candles on a very old gold candle branch and set it on a circular table in the center of the room. The corners were still hidden in deep shadows, but they could see each other clearly enough. “So you want to see me? My face?”

  She was twisting a hank of hair around her fingers. “Yes, I want to see you, particularly your face. I’m coming to know what your various expressions mean. Listen to me, Gray. I have quite ruined your life, and the truth of it is that I don’t know what I would have done even if I had managed to sneak into Carlisle Manor, grab Georgie, and escape undetected. I’m an idiot. I thought I’d rescue Georgie, then sneak over to Featherstone, cozy the servants there into hiding us until my stepfather gave up on finding me, then sneak both Georgie and me to London, to Lord Burleigh. I don’t know him. I can’t begin to imagine the look on his face were I to arrive at his front door with my little sister. I wouldn’t have come back here. Your good nature never would have extended that far.

  “It supposes that everyone else remotely involved would have to be idiots too, even if I’d succeeded.” She paused, then, under his horrified gaze, she began to cry.

  “Jack, for God’s sake, don’t do that.” He was out of his chair in a flash, across that fifteen feet, and gathering her up against him, black peignoir and black feathers and all. He rubbed his hands up and down her back as he said over and over, “No, don’t cry. I can’t bear it. Please stop.”

  “I’m an idiot,” she said, tears making her choke. “An idiot. And now you’ve got to pay because men are afraid that an unacceptable flower could spring up from the female’s soil.”

  He began untangling her hair with his fingers. “All right, maybe you didn’t think your plan through. But you’re not an idiot. I wager you would have thought of something. Even if you’d ended up first in Bath and then had to change course, you would have managed it. Of course, I would have caught you by then, but I know—I’m positive—that you would have given me an excellent chase. Actually, you did. It was just your ill luck that I saw your light blink in the stable that night.”

  “Rotten luck,” she said against his neck.

  “Perhaps not so rotten. You’ll be gaining my manly self as a husband. How is your rib?”

  She pulled back, sniffed, wiped her nose with the back of her hand, and said, “It aches and pulls, but it’s nothing, really. But your manly self doesn’t want to wed me.”

  He tilted her head back and looked down at her. “The bruise on your face isn’t as bad as I’d thought it would be. I think whatever flowers you and I grow together will be quite acceptable. I am becoming rapidly accustomed to the idea of marrying you.”

  “You like ladies in black feathers who cry all over your collar, do you?”

  They both became still as stones at the sudden light tap on the bedchamber door, followed by Maude’s face peering into the room. “I heard voices and was worried. Goodness, my boy, why are you in here with Jack? Holding her while she’s wearing one of Mathilda’s peignoirs?”

  “She’s going to marry me, Aunt Maude. She was so happy that she began to cry. I’m a gentleman and thus I’m comforting her in her joy.”

  Mathilda appeared next, wearing an identical black peignoir. She towered over Maude, like a hovering witch over a fairy who was gowned in dazzling puce. She eyed the two of them. “Mortimer,” she said.

  “Ah, yes,” Maude said. “What Mathilda would have said if she’d wished to elaborate is that the vicar once grabbed her and managed to hold on to her until one of the silly Gifford sisters came by and twittered.”

  “I didn’t know about that,” Jack said. “I wish I could have seen that.”

  “When?” asked Mathilda.

  Gray slowly released Jack. He took a step back from her. “Just as soon as I can get us a special license. It is fortunate that Lord Burleigh is Jack’s guardian. There will be no problem at all gaining his permiss
ion to marry her. You see, he’s my godfather. Now, I will see him tomorrow. I’m thinking we should marry on Friday. That’s a full four days from now. Is that all right with you ladies?”

  Mathilda was staring hard at him. Maude patted her sister’s hand. “It’s all right, dear,” Maude said. “Our boy here isn’t a thing like his father. Are you, my boy?”

  “Do call me Gray, Aunt Maude. Compared to my departed sire, I’m an undisputed saint. By the way, what do you call her? Freddie? Do you call her by that dreadful Winifrede name?”

  “Graciella,” Aunt Mathilda said.

  “What Mathilda means is that Jack’s father wanted her named Graciella, but her mother refused, and thus she became Winifrede. Her father called her Graciella upon occasion. As I recall, he called her Graciella in moments of affection. Otherwise, it was Levering, surely a painful name for a girl, but he wasn’t to be dissuaded from it. Actually since both Mathilda and I are very fond of her, we also call her Graciella. It has a nice sound to it, doesn’t it? It rolls on the tongue.”

  He tried out the word on his tongue. It didn’t sit right. It was a lovely name, but no, he didn’t see it fitting her. He looked at her and smiled. “May I continue with Jack?”

  “I rather like it myself,” she said. She was looking at him strangely, and he wanted to know, just about more than anything at that moment, what she was thinking, exactly.

  “Next Friday, Jack?”

  “Yes, Gray. Next Friday.” He watched her gather up the slithery skirt of her black peignoir, walk back to the raised bed, and climb in. He smiled when she burrowed beneath the bedclothes, covering her head with the soft down pillow.

  He couldn’t say that he blamed her. He thought of doing some burrowing in his own bed.

  He bid Mathilda and Maude good night and went to his bedchamber to do just that.

  12

  “IT IS impossible, my lord,” said Snell, Lord Burleigh’s formidable butler for more years than Gray had been on this earth. He’d terrified Gray as a child with his very precise hauteur, which bordered on the glacial. Now that Gray was a man, Snell still made him want to apologize for interrupting the household.

  “It is urgent, Snell. Terribly urgent. I must see Lord Burleigh.”

  “I’m sorry, my lord, but you don’t understand. Lord Burleigh is very ill. He is upstairs in his bed with Lady Burleigh seated on one side of him, one of her hands covering his. Dr. Bainbridge is seated on the other side of him, staring at the whites of his eyes, which, Dr. Bainbridge says, tell him exactly whether a patient is ready to journey to the hereafter or remain here, hovering but alive.”

  “But what is wrong with him, Snell? His heart?”

  “Yes. It was rather sudden. Just last Sunday he simply collapsed at Lady Curley’s card party. I might add that Lord Burleigh didn’t wish to go to the card party, but her ladyship very prettily begged him until she carted him away with her.”

  There was simply no one like Snell, Gray thought, stroking his long fingers over his jaw, to see that things were properly explained and commented upon, leaving no doubt as to his opinion of everything in the world. Lord Burleigh had had difficulties with his heart for years now. He prayed his godfather would survive this. Dr. Bainbridge was a good physician. Well, hell. After this unexpected blow, what the devil should he do now?

  “Good morning, Snell. How is his lordship this morning? Any improvement?”

  Gray turned to see Mr. Harpole Genner, a lifelong friend of Lord Burleigh’s. A man of quiet manner and unassailable honor, he’d known Gray all of Gray’s life and had even put him up for membership at White’s some seven years before.

  “There is no change this morning, sir,” Snell said.

  “Is that you, St. Cyre? It is. It’s been a very long time, my boy. Ah, you’ve heard about poor Charles. It’s a siren’s call to us all, this collapse of his. When I awoke this morning, I felt my bones aching.”

  Gray looked at Mr. Harpole Genner and saw a path to rescue. “Snell,” Gray said, “may Mr. Genner and I come in and perhaps use Lord Burleigh’s library for a moment? It’s very important, as I told you. I believe Mr. Genner may be able to help me, if he wishes to.”

  “Naturally, Gray, naturally,” said Mr. Genner, focusing now on the young baron. “There is something wrong, Gray? Something I can assist you with? Ah, some distraction from this trying time is welcome. Come, Gray. Bring us tea, Snell.”

  “. . . So you see, sir, since it involves such a vast sum of money, I cannot, as a gentleman, simply marry her without Lord Burleigh’s blessing. It simply wouldn’t sit right with me. He is her guardian and I must have his approval to wed her.”

  Mr. Harpole Genner slammed his fists down on his bony knees. He was smiling. “By damn, boy, you’ve given me a splendid tale. My wife will burst her seams when she hears this. The demmed girl was riding west instead of south? No natural sense of direction like we men possess? Ah, and you were her savior?” Mr. Genner rubbed his veiny hands together. “Now the little pigeon’s all yours.”

  “Actually, I believe she sees herself as a flower, or perhaps a gardener of future flowers. No, there’s no way around it, sir. But I must wed her quickly, before her stepfather can step in and make this situation even more awkward than it already is.”

  “Yes, Sir Henry Wallace-Stanford. A wobbly wheel with crooked spokes. A man with no finesse, and a black heart. Aye, a bloody rotter, that one. He’s trying to force her to wed Lord Rye, an equally dissolute character. His son’s following in his father’s tracks, so I hear. Sir Henry wants this, of course, so he can take part of her dowry as his fee. Hmmm. Charles would never have allowed that. Never. I suppose Sir Henry was going to force the girl to wed Lord Rye and then come to Charles and announce it?”

  “That, or perhaps Lord Rye would simply have raped her. Once that was done, Lord Burleigh would have had no choice but to give her over to him, and her money as well.”

  Mr. Genner began to pace about Lord Burleigh’s library, a large, square room that admitted little light even on the sunniest of days. It was whispered behind gloved hands that Lord Burleigh preferred the night, the blacker the better, and why was that, pray tell?

  “I must speak to Lord Bricker. You know him, do you not?”

  “Yes, but not as well as you or Lord Burleigh. I have heard him speak in the House of Lords. He is a very eloquent man.”

  “A pity he has to be a blasted Whig, but what can one do? I will get back to you this evening, my boy, no later. Theo—Lord Bricker—and I will work this out. I realize this is a matter that must be dealt with quickly, and with a good deal of discretion. Yes, Lord Bricker is just the man to resolve everything properly.

  “Oh, dear, if only Charles would wake up and quit this nonsense! I say leave this sort of illness to younger men who would deal with it more quickly. Aye, it’s a young man like you who could have his heart beat like a faint drum one moment and then have it pounding hard again the next, all without scaring the wickedness out of his friends.” He sighed.

  “I’m sure Lord Burleigh would agree with you, sir.”

  “I must tell Snell to close the draperies in his bedchamber. Charles hates the sunlight and it’s fair to bursting in on us today. Yes, he must have the comforting darkness. I’ll inform Snell that he is to see to it right now. I will speak to you later, my boy, after Lord Bricker and I discuss the best way to proceed.”

  Gray and Mr. Harpole Genner shook hands. Mr. Genner patted Gray’s arm. “Don’t worry about this, we’ll see it done. I know how very fond Charles is of you. It will delight him to know that his ward and his godson are to be married. Yes, it will please him very much.”

  Gray left the Burleigh town house. He hoped that Lord Burleigh would recover. He very much liked his godfather. Odd how one took one’s very close friends for granted. He would never do so again.

  Now there was nothing to do but wait. He didn’t know Lord Bricker well. But surely the man would approve of him—surely.

  Doug
las Sherbrooke looked at his brother, Ryder, over the top of the London Gazette. “I’m glad you’re back. How is the little girl?”

  Ryder Sherbrooke, full of life and vigor and charm, spread strawberry jam thick on his toast, took a big bite, and said, “Her name is Adrienne. She’s only five years old, Douglas, but as brave a little child as you can imagine. As I told you, her father had sold her to men who preferred children. Evidently one man become furious with her because she was so thin and silent. He threw her in the gutter, where I found her. She’s safe now at Brandon House with Jane and all the other children, thank God. When I left I heard three of the children around her, all of them interrupting and stumbling over each other to tell her of their own dreadful experiences and how they were the very worst and the other children’s experiences weren’t even close. The last sound out of Adrienne’s mouth was a laugh, a little one, but it was still a laugh.”

  “How many children are at Brandon House now, Ryder?”

  “Only thirteen. Jane is fretting. She told me her quiver wasn’t even close to being full. I just looked at her, for surely that was an odd way of putting it. Your boys are just fine, wreaking mayhem, just as one would expect. Now, our wives will be coming to London a good three days before your auspicious birthday.”

  “It isn’t auspicious. It’s depressing and regrettable,” said Douglas.

  “You’re only thirty-five, Douglas, not yet a doddering grandfather. Although I did hear Alex talking about pulling a gray hair out of your head. I also heard her telling my Sophie that she supposed it was inevitable that you would lose interest.”

  “What the hell does that mean? Lose what interest?”

  Ryder made a big show of examining his fingernails. “Your wife, Douglas, told my wife that you were tiring of her, obviously, since you only made love to her once a day now. She had nearly given up, she told Sophie, all teary-eyed. She’d tried to rekindle your interest in her fair person by singing you an Italian love song in the gardens beneath one of the naked statues; she’d tried to stimulate your passion by hand-feeding you strawberries from Lord Tomlin’s hothouse. She’d even gone so far as to write you a sonnet quite in the classic style. However, she said, you laughed so hard you didn’t even make it to the fourteenth line, which, she told my wife, was indeed a moving tribute to marital love in all its varied forms. Yes, she said, she’d failed with you and was at her wit’s end.”