Sherbrooke Twins tb-8

by Catherine Coulter

  Sherbrooke Twins

  ( The Bride - 8 )

  Catherine Coulter

  When the family ghost, the Virgin Bride, warns Alexandra Sherbrooke that her husband is in danger, Douglas takes the prediction with a grain of salt. But when he is shot and wounded and then is warned by the Duke of Wellington himself that someone from his past is bent on revenge, everyone, including twin sons James and Jason, gets into the act. A pair of identical twins worthy of the Sherbrooke legacy (The Bride of Sherbrooke); a plucky, outspoken, but charmingly na ve heroine who leads James on a merry chase; and a plot with more than one unexpected twist result in the kind of lively, sensual, danger-filled adventure that fans of Coulter's historicals have come to expect. The best-selling author of both historical romance and contemporary romantic suspense, Coulter lives in the San Francisco area.

  Catherine Coulter

  Sherbrooke Twins

  To Judy Cochran Ward-

  You have a beautiful smile and a beautiful heart to match. I’m very grateful you’re in my life.

  CC

  CHAPTER ONE

  Who can refute a sneer?

  WILLIAM PALEY

  NORTHCLIFFE HALL

  AUGUST 1830

  James Sherbrooke, Lord Hammersmith, twenty-eight minutes older than his brother, wondered if Jason was swimming in the North Sea off the coast of Stonehaven. His brother swam like a fish, no matter if the water froze his parts or cradled him in a warm bath. He’d say while he shook himself like their hound Tulip, “Now, James, that doesn’t matter, does it? It’s rather like making love. You can be on a grainy beach with cold waves nipping your toes, or wallowing in a feather tick-in the end the pleasure’s the same.”

  James had never made love on a grainy beach, but he supposed his twin was right. Jason had a way of putting things that amused you even as you nodded in agreement. Jason had inherited this gift, if that’s what it really was, from their mother, who’d once said as she’d looked lovingly at James, that she’d delivered one gift from God and now it was time to grit her teeth and deliver the other gift. This had gained her looks of sheer amazement from her sons, and, of course, nods, at which point, their father gave them both a look of acute dislike, snorted, and said, “Gifts from the Devil, more like.”

  “My precious boys,” she’d say, “it’s such a pity you’re so beautiful, isn’t it? It really annoys your father.”

  They’d stare at her, but again, they’d nod.

  James sighed and stepped away from the cliff that overlooked the Poe Valley, a lovely stretch of undulating green, dotted with maple and lime trees and divided by ancient fences. The Poe Valley was protected on all sides by the low-lying Trelow hills; James always believed that some of those long, rounded hills were ancient barrows. He and Jason had built countless adventures about the possible inhabitants of those barrows-Jason had always liked to be the warrior who wore bearskins, painted his face blue, and ate raw meat. As for James, he was the shaman who flicked his fingers and made smoke spiral into the sky and rained flame down on the warriors.

  James stepped back from the edge. He’d fallen off that cliff once because he and Jason had been fighting with swords, and Jason had flattened his sword button against James’s gullet, and James had grabbed his neck and flailed about-all drama and no style, Jason told him later. He’d lost his footing and tumbled down the hill, his brother’s yells blasting. “You stupid bloody bleater, don’t you dare kill yourself! It was only a neck wound!”

  He’d been laughing even as he’d landed. Hard. But thankfully he’d survived with just a mass of bruises on his face and ribs, which made his Aunt Melissande, who’d been visiting Northcliffe Hall, shriek as she’d run her hands over his face. “Oh my dear boy, you must take care of your exquisite and perfect face, and I should know since it’s mine.” And his father, the earl, had said to the heavens, “How could such a thing have happened?”

  It was true. James and Jason were the image of their glorious Aunt Melissande, not a single red hair from their mother’s head or a single dark eye from their father. All their features were from their Aunt Melissande, which made no sense to anyone. Except their size, thank God. They were both near the size of their father, and that pleased him inordinately. Their mother had actually said something to the effect that, “A boy should be almost as big as his father and almost as smart; it’s what all fathers want. Possibly mothers too.” And her boys had blinked at her and nodded.

  James had heard a rumor many years before that his father had wanted to marry his Aunt Melissande, and would have, if it hadn’t been for his Uncle Tony, who’d up and stolen her. James couldn’t imagine such a thing. Not that his Uncle Tony had stolen her, but that his Aunt Melissande hadn’t preferred his father. His mother had stepped into the breach, luckily for James and Jason, who, although they found their aunt very interesting, loved their mother to their toes. Fortunately, they had the Sherbrooke brains. Their father had told them many times, “Brains are more important than your damned beautiful faces. If either of you ever forget that, I’ll pound you into the ground.”

  “Ah, but their beautiful faces are extraordinarily manly,” their mother had hastened to add, and patted them both.

  James was grinning at that memory when he heard a shout and turned to see Corrie Tybourne-Barrett, an annoyance who’d been in his life nearly as long as she’d been in hers, riding like a boy with more guts than brains up the slope, bringing her mare Darlene to an abrupt stop not two feet from the cliff edge and only one foot from him. To his credit, James didn’t even twitch. He looked up at her, so angry he wanted to hurl her to the ground. But he managed to say in a fairly calm voice, “That was stupid. It rained yesterday and the ground isn’t all that firm. You’re not ten years old anymore, Corrie. You must stop acting like a boy with mud between his ears. Now back up Darlene, slow and easy. If you’re not worried about killing yourself, you might want to think about your mare.”

  Corrie stared down at him and said, “I admire how you can speak so calmly when smoke is coming out of your ears. You don’t fool me for one minute, James Sherbrooke.” She sneered down at him, and click-clicked her mare right into him, nearly knocking him over. He side-stepped, patted Darlene’s nose, and said, “You’re right. Smoke is coming out of my ears. Do you remember that day you wanted to prove how skilled you were and rode that half-wild stallion my father had just bought? That damned horse nearly killed me when I was trying to save you, which, fool that I was, I did.”

  “I didn’t need you to save me, James. I was skilled, even at twelve.”

  “I suppose you planned to have your legs wrapped around that horse’s neck, hanging on, screaming. Ah, that was a measure of your skill, wasn’t it? And don’t forget the time you told my father that I had seduced a Don’s wife at Oxford, knowing he’d be furious at me.”

  “That’s not true, James. He wasn’t furious, at least not at first. He first wanted proof because he said he couldn’t imagine you being that stupid.”

  “I wasn’t stupid, damn you. It took me a good two months to convince Father that it was all your doing, and you whimpered and whined that it was just a wee bit of a little joke.”

  She smiled. “I even found out the name of one of the Dons’ wives to make it more believable.”

  He shuddered, remembering clearly the look on his father’s face. “You want to know something, Corrie? I think it’s long past due that someone explained manners to you.” Without warning, he grabbed her arm and pulled her down off Darlene’s back and dragged her over to a rock. He sat down and pulled her between his legs. “This thrashing is long overdue.” Before she could begin to imagine what he was going to do, James flipped her over on her belly across his legs and bro
ught the flat of his hand down hard on her breeched bottom. She gasped and yowled and struggled, but he was strong, more than determined, and held her easily. “If you had on a riding skirt,” smack, smack, smack, “this wouldn’t hurt because you’d have a half dozen petticoats to pad you.” Smack, smack, smack.

  Corrie fought him, twisting, and yelling, “Stop this now, James! You can’t do this, you idiot! I’m a girl, and I’m not even your bloody sister.”

  “Thank God for that. Do you remember the time you slipped that medicine in my tea and my bowels were water for a day and a half?”

  “I didn’t think it would last so long. Stop, James, this isn’t proper!”

  “Oh, now that’s rich. It isn’t proper, you say? I’ve been saddled with you all your blessed life. I remember seeing your skinny little backside when you were swimming in Trenton’s pond. All the rest of you as well.”

  “I was eight years old!”

  “You don’t act much older now. This, Corrie, is long overdue discipline. Just consider me acting in your Uncle Simon’s place.”

  James stopped. He just couldn’t wallop her again, despite the overflowing memories of atrocious things she’d done to him over the years. He started to roll her off his lap, then saw the rocks on the ground. “Oh damnation, brat,” he said, and lifted her off his legs to set her on her feet. She stood there, rubbing her bottom, staring at him. If looks could kill, he’d be dead at her feet. He rose and shook a finger at her, much in the same manner as a long-ago tutor, Mr. Boniface. “Don’t be such a pitiful little sissy. Your bottom smarts a little, nothing more.” He looked fixedly at his boots a moment, then said, “How old are you, Corrie? I forget.”

  She sniveled, wiped her hand across her running nose, stuck her chin up, and said, “I’m eighteen.”

  He whipped his head up, appalled. “No, no, that’s impossible. Just look at you, a hairless young man who just happens to have a round butt beneath those ridiculous britches that no self-respecting young man would ever want. Well, I didn’t mean to say it exactly like that.”

  “I am eighteen years old. Do you hear me, James Sherbrooke? What’s so impossible about that? And do you know what else?”

  He stared down at her, slowly shaking his head.

  “I’ve had a round backside for at least three years now! And do you know what else?”

  “How was I ever to notice, what with the breeches you wear, bagging off your bottom. What else?”

  “This is important, James. I am having a sort of practice season this fall. Aunt Maybella says it’s called the Little Season. And that means I’ll wear fancy gowns and silk stockings with garters to hold them up, and shoes that will raise me off the ground a good two inches. It means I’m now a grown-up. I will put my hair up, smear cream all over me so I’ll be soft, and show off my bosom.”

  “It will take buckets of cream.”

  “Just maybe. But I’ll soften up sooner or later and then it will take less. So what?”

  “Show off what bosom?”

  To his absolute horror, James believed for one second that she was going to rip her shirt open and show him her breasts, but thankfully reason prevailed and she said, eyes slits now, “I have a bosom, a very nice one that just happens to be hidden right now.”

  “Hidden where?” He looked around.

  She actually flushed. James would have apologized if he hadn’t known her all her life-seen her as a five-year-old with no front teeth trying to figure out how to bite into an apple, assured her she wasn’t dying when she’d begun her woman’s monthly flow at thirteen, and been the recipient of that sneer of hers too many times in recent years.

  She poked her fingers against her chest. “They’re all in here, smashed down. But when I unsmash them and frame them with satin and lace, a dozen gentlemen will very likely swoon.”

  He tried on one of her sneers and found that it fit him well enough. “Only in your twit’s dreams will you be able to unsmash that much. Good Lord, I’m picturing a board with knots on it.”

  “A board with knots? That’s very mean of you, James.”

  “Very well, you’re right. I apologize. What I should have said was that the thought of your unsmashed chest boggles my mind.”

  “There’s nothing but swamp water in your mind.” She drew herself up, threw back her shoulders, stuck out her chest, and said, “My Aunt Maybella assured me this will happen.”

  Since James had known Maybella Ambrose, Lady Montague, practically since his birth, he didn’t believe this for an instant. “What did she really say?”

  “Very well, Aunt Maybella said something about when I was cleaned up properly I shouldn’t disgrace them. As long as I wear blue, just like her.”

  “That sounds more like it.”

  “Don’t you slap me in the face with your insults, James Sherbrooke. You know my aunt, she’s a veritable mistress of understatement. What she really means is that I will knock them down in the street when I ride by in my very own curricle, holding, perhaps, a poodle on my lap.”

  “The only way you would knock down gentlemen is if you were driving.”

  It was a meaty insult. Shaking her fist in his face, she bellowed at him, “You listen to me, you codsbreath! I drive as well as you do, maybe better. I have heard it remarked many times-I have the better eye.”

  That was so patently absurd that James just rolled his own eyes. “All right, name one person who remarked that.”

  “Your father, for one.”

  “Impossible. My father taught me to drive. My eye is as good as his, probably better now since he’s getting old.”

  She gave him a beatific smile. “Your father taught me to drive as well. And he’s not old at all. What he is is very handsome and wicked-I heard Aunt Maybella saying that to her friend, Mrs. Hubbard.”

  That nearly made him puke. As for her driving, James remembered seeing the girl sitting proudly beside his father, hanging on his every word. He remembered feeling a stab of jealousy. It was mean-spirited, particularly since both Corrie’s father and mother had been killed in a riot right after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo. It was an unfortunate accident that happened during an official visit by Corrie’s father, diplomatic envoy Benjamin Tybourne-Barrett, Viscount Plessante, to Paris to discuss the second restoration of the Bourbons with Talleyrand and Fouché.

  Talleyrand had seen to it that Corrie, not yet three years old, was returned to England to her mother’s sister in the company of her dead mother’s heartbroken maid, and six French soldiers, who were not warmly treated.

  When James finally brought his brain back, it was to hear her say, “And my uncle will have fits trying to decide which gentleman is good enough for me. I shall have my pick, you know, and that immensely lucky man will be strong and handsome and very rich, and nothing like you, James.” Another sneer, this one very refined, meant to make him shake with rage. “Just look at your eyelashes, all thick and poking out a good inch, like a Spanish lady’s fan. Even a little curl on the ends. Yes, you’ve got a girl’s eyelashes.”

  He’d only been ten years old when his mother had come up with the right answer for him, and so he smiled now and said easily, “You’re wrong about that. I’ve never met a girl who had eyelashes as long and as thick as mine.”

  She was silent, her mouth open. She couldn’t think of a thing to say. He laughed. “Leave my face out of this, brat. It has nothing to do with your bosom. Bosom, for God’s sake. Men don’t say bosom.”

  “What do men say?”

  “Never you mind. You’re too young. And you’re a lady. Well, not really, but you should be since you’re eighteen. No, I can’t believe you’re eighteen. That means nearly twenty, which would place you in the same decade as I am. It’s just not possible.”

  “You bought me a birthday present just two weeks ago.”

  He gave her a perfectly blank look.

  Corrie smacked her palm to her forehead. “Oh, I see now, your mother bought the present and put your name on it.”<
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  “Well, that’s not really what happened, it’s-”

  “All right. Then what did you get me?”

  “Well, you know, Corrie, it’s been a long time.”

  “Two weeks, you bloody sod.”

  “Watch your mouth, my girl, or I’ll smack you again. You talk like a damned boy. I should have gotten a riding crop for your birthday so I could use it on you when the need arose. Like right now.”

  He took a menacing step toward her, got hold of himself, and stopped. To his amazement, she walked right up to him, stood toe-to-toe, sneered up at him, and said in his face, “A riding crop? You just try it. I’ll take it away from you, rip off your shirt, and whip you with it.”

  “Now that’s a sight I’d like to see.”

  “Well, maybe I’d leave your shirt on you. After all, I’m a gently bred young lady and it wouldn’t do for me to see a half-naked man.”

  He was laughing so hard he nearly fell backward off the damned cliff.

  She wasn’t done, humiliation ripe in her voice. “You used your hand when you whipped me-your naked hand. I’ll wager I’m scarred for life, you bully.”

  He grinned down at her. “Your bottom still smarting a bit?”

  To his amazement, she blushed.

  “Is your face turning red as well?”

  She opened her mouth, then tears welled up in her eyes, and she jerked away, climbed into Darlene’s saddle, and straightened. She gave him a long, emotionless look, twitched Darlene’s reins, making her rear on her hind legs, sending James stumbling back. He heard her shout, “I will ask my uncle what men call a bosom.”

  He devoutly hoped she wouldn’t. He could picture her Uncle Simon’s eyes rolling back as he keeled over in his chair, his glasses sliding off his face. Uncle Simon was at home with his collection of leaves. He had leaves, carefully dried and pressed, from every tree found in Britain, France, and even two from Greece, one of them from an ancient olive tree near the Oracle of Delphi. Leaves, but not females. Uncle Simon wasn’t at home at all with females. James watched her ride away, not even looking at him to see if he’d survived her attack. Her long hair, tied up tight in a fat braid, slapped up and down on her back.