The Sherbrooke Series Novels 1-5

by Catherine Coulter

  CHAPTER

  15

  THE SCREAM BROUGHT Alexandra bolting up in bed. It was loud, piercing, and it was coming from the countess’s bedchamber, the bedchamber she wasn’t in. She jumped out of Douglas’s bed, realized she was quite naked, and grabbed the counterpane, wrapped it around her as she dashed to the adjoining door and flung it open.

  There was a maid, Dora by name, fifteen and foolish and thin, and she was shrieking, her hands covering her face, and she was staring at the bed through her fingers.

  Douglas was sitting up in bed, staring in some confusion down at his naked chest, now covered with hot chocolate. The white sheet came only to his belly.

  Alexandra skidded to a halt, staring.

  Douglas raised his head and yelled at the maid, “For God’s sake, you silly wench, shut up!”

  Dora clamped her jaws together. She began to wring her hands. Alexandra quickly came into the room, and Dora, seeing the mistress she’d expected instead of His Lordship who was amazingly naked, said, “Oh, my lady! Oh dear! ’Tis His Lordship and I thought it was you and I gently shook your—his—shoulder and he came up and he doesn’t have any clothes on and it scared me so that I spilled the chocolate all over him and I burned him. Oh my lady!”

  Alexandra looked at Douglas. There was chocolate matting the thick hair on his chest and staining the white covers. His hair was tousled, his jaws dark with whiskers, and he looked so beautiful to her that she couldn’t understand why Dora had been shrieking. If she had discovered him thus, she would have leapt into the bed with him and kissed him until she was breathless.

  She said to the maid, “It’s all right, Dora. You may leave now. Fetch some warm water and washcloths and towels. Hurry now, His Lordship can’t be all that comfortable with the chocolate on his chest.”

  Alexandra turned to her husband. “Are you all right? Did the chocolate burn you?”

  He looked vastly irritated. “Dammit, no, but she startled the devil out of me, the hysterical little—”

  “You probably scared her more, being in my bed.”

  She managed to hold herself quiet until Dora let herself out of the bedchamber. Then she laughed and laughed, so hard that tears pooled in her eyes. She hugged her stomach, bending over, still laughing.

  “Damnation! Be quiet!”

  “Yes, my lord,” she said and laughed some more. Finally, Alexandra wiped her eyes on the edge of the counterpane, and looked at her husband.

  Douglas, pulled from a deep sleep, doused with hot chocolate, and then shrieked at, shoved away the covers and rose from the bed. He was quite naked and Alexandra became quite still at the sight of him.

  He didn’t look at all like he had the night before.

  “Good Lord, woman, stop staring at me!” It was then that Douglas looked down at himself. He drew in his breath. There was blood on his member.

  He looked at the shrouded woman with long tousled dark red hair who was standing there like a half-wit staring at him, the woman he’d taken the previous night, that former virgin woman who was also his wife, and said, his voice deep and gruff, “Did I hurt you?”

  She stared at him, unconsciously clutching the counterpane more closely. “Yes.”

  “Do you still hurt?”

  She was terribly embarrassed, standing here with him perfectly naked, asking her questions that made the roots of her hair turn even redder. “A little bit. No, not really. Some, it’s strange.”

  He walked past her into his own bedchamber, grabbed up his dressing gown and shrugged into it. He looked back at her, and said, “Come here.”

  Alexandra, her head cocked to the side in question, walked slowly to him. Without warning, he lifted her and laid her onto her back on the bed. He began unrolling the counterpane.

  “Stop! Oh dear, what are you doing? Douglas!” She was swatting at him, but it did no good. Soon she was lying naked and he was looking down at her. “Part your legs.”

  She twisted away from him, but he grabbed her ankles and flipped her back. “Dammit, hold still, woman!”

  “No, this is horrid! Stop it, Douglas! I might not be a virgin now, but this is still very embarrassing.”

  He came down on top of her. “Be quiet. I saw blood on my member, your blood, your virgin’s blood, and I need to see if you’re all right. Did you bleed much? I forgot to warn you. Were you frightened? Blessed hell, I’m sorry.”

  She stared up at him. “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know?”

  “I feel sticky but I didn’t look at myself. It was dark and you had left me.”

  “It’s not dark now. Hold still, Alexandra.” He rolled off her and shoved her thighs apart. “Damn,” he said, “it’s you who need the water Dora is bringing. You’re a mess.”

  She was so humiliated, so utterly mortified, that she just lay there, her eyes tightly closed. She felt his big warm hands on her thighs, touching her, knew he was looking at her and it was a bright morning, sun flooding through the windows. She wanted, quite simply, to open her eyes and discover that she was ten years old again, waiting for her nanny to come fetch her for breakfast, and none of this was happening.

  She felt the mattress shift and knew he was standing beside the bed now, staring down at her. “Don’t move. I’ll bring the water and bathe you.”

  She heard the master bedchamber door open, and she did move, faster than she’d thought possible. She buried herself in the sheets.

  “My lord?”

  It was Finkle, Douglas’s valet.

  “Go away!”

  “My lady? Is that you, all muffled? Oh dear. Excuse me, oh dear.”

  “Finkle, is that you?”

  “Oh my lord, forgive me, but I thought it was you but it wasn’t, it was her—”

  “No matter. I do understand, believe me. Go away and bring bathwater. Next time, knock. Her Ladyship still isn’t certain which bed is hers. She has problems with direction, you know, and I have assured her that I quite understand.”

  When the door closed, Douglas looked down at the shrouded figure on his bed. It was his turn to laugh, which he did. She burrowed more deeply. Finally, he said, amusement filling his voice, “You can come out now. Finkle is quite gone. Can you imagine how I felt?”

  “This is worse. Men don’t seem to care who sees what. They have no modesty.”

  “This conclusion, I gather, is from your vast well of experience? Never mind. Get used to me seeing you, whenever and wherever I please. As for poor Finkle, with all those ‘oh dears,’ you and my valet could sing a duet. Come along, there’s warm water in your room.”

  She came along, the counterpane trailing after her like a very long bridal veil.

  She dug in her heels in the doorway. “I will bathe myself, Douglas.”

  “Nonsense, I need to see that you’re all right. I am the one responsible for wounding you, though that is not the appropriate thing to say about the rending of your maidenhead, but no matter. I did it and I will tend you.”

  “You will go away. I cannot allow this. It is too embarrassing.”

  Douglas frowned. “Do you so soon forget what I did to you last night, madam? Do you so soon forget how you squealed with pleasure? Believe me, I was looking at you then. Now it’s different, but just a bit. Be quiet.”

  “No.” She fidgeted. “It was dark last night. You said the blood is natural?”

  He heard the fear in her voice, and softened his own. “Yes. I should have warned you, but I didn’t.” He frowned, remembering how he’d felt so utterly stripped of everything comfortable, everything known and accepted at the power of his release, so completely unfamiliar to himself, an alien feeling he hated, that he’d reeled away from her and from the scene of his fall.

  “Go away, Douglas.”

  Douglas picked up the bowl of warm water and set it on the tabletop next to the bed. He laid the washcloths next to the water. Then he turned to her. Alexandra tried to run but the counterpane tripped her up and she fel
l into his arms. He picked her up and dumped her onto the bed. He unrolled her, then said, “I am tired of playing Caesar to your Cleopatra, though you continue to unroll well. I am weary of telling you to be quiet and to hold still. I don’t wish to tell you again.”

  She lay there, her head turned away, her eyes tightly closed, as he pushed her legs apart and bathed off the blood and his seed.

  Douglas felt calm and in control even when his fingers touched her flesh and she quivered. He remembered he’d felt just as calm, just as in control when he’d tended her during her illness. No savage lust for him then and none for him now. It was finished, thank God. He was back to normal. When he decided to take her again, it would be accomplished with reason and logic and a modicum of involvement. No abandon, no frenzy. She would not disturb him again to the point that he lost himself entirely. He took one final swipe, then tossed the cloth aside. He turned back to tell her to get up when he looked down at her and discovered that he couldn’t seem to look away from her. His calm fled from one short breath to the next. His task was done and so was his control. His vaunted control was a valueless memory. Now he couldn’t stop looking at her, his fingers twitching at the closeness of her body. Her flesh was soft and pink and warm and he found that he’d begun to tremble. No, he wouldn’t tremble at the sight of a naked woman. He never had before. His fingers dug slightly into her inner thighs. He wanted to stroke her, and he wanted to caress her with his fingertips and his mouth. And her breasts, he wanted to cup her breasts, to fill his hands with her breasts, he wanted to suckle her, to rub his cheek against the soft flesh and hear her heartbeat against his face.

  He sucked in his breath. It was worse than it had been the previous night, this crippling lust, this alien urgency that turned him into a wild man, a man he didn’t recognize, a man the logical side of him could not approve of. He felt blood pounding in his head, felt his muscles, his sex, tighten and throb. His sex was hard and he was filled with such desire for her that he was shaking with it. He tried to find a shred of reason in his brain, but there wasn’t any, not even a thread. “Damnation,” he said, and fell on top of her, parting her legs wider as he came between them.

  “Lift your hips,” he said, then lifted them with his big hands. He was panting now, close to shattering, so close to releasing his seed, and he couldn’t understand it, couldn’t begin to explain it, and then, suddenly, he thrust into her.

  Alexandra cried out in surprise.

  Douglas froze over her, but for just an instant. She was hot and very small, and he could feel her flesh accommodating to him; she was accepting him smoothly, so there must have been some desire in her for him as well. There was no force, only the soft acceptance of her, and he could feel every movement she made and it was exquisite and he felt everything he understood spinning away from him and he arched his back and thrust deeper and deeper still. She was crying and it was those small broken sobs that brought him a semblance of reason. He was pressed against her womb, so deep, yet it wasn’t enough for he wanted his tongue in her mouth, wanted to have her breasts heaving and pressing against his chest.

  “Alexandra.”

  She opened her eyes.

  “Please, hold very still. Am I hurting you?”

  “Not really hurt, it’s just that I don’t know what will happen and it is frightening.”

  “I promise the next time it will be very slow. I swear it to you, but not this time. Please, don’t move. If you move I will go insane. Do you understand?”

  She looked at him, at sea.

  “Just say you understand.”

  “I understand.”

  “Good. Don’t move. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It is beyond my experience. This isn’t acceptable to me or—” He felt her muscles clench around him and he groaned and tensed and heaved. He cursed and his eyes closed. He pushed deep then withdrew only to thrust forward, his hands digging into her hips as he lifted her higher.

  He yelled when his climax hit him, yelled like a madman, yelled like he’d never yelled before in his life. Then he was flat on top of her and he was kissing her, wanting to consume her, tasting her tears, tasting the warmth of her mouth and still he was moving inside her, and he simply couldn’t believe it, couldn’t comprehend it and it just wouldn’t stop.

  When finally he calmed, he stilled above her. He’d done it again. He’d lost himself again and forgotten who he was and what he was. And it was this woman who had brought him to this ludicrous pass and he wouldn’t accept it. He frowned. She was crying, her face pale, her hair tousled around her face.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, and pulled out of her. “Next time, I swear it will be slow and you won’t be afraid. I’m sorry.”

  He stood there, stiff, his chest still heaving, looking at her sprawled legs. “I’m sorry,” he said again, “but I can’t—”

  He turned quickly, his dressing gown flapping open, only to be brought up sharply by a very angry voice. “If you run away again, Douglas Sherbrooke, I swear I will leave Northcliffe Hall and travel to London and tell everyone that you are a pig and not an excellent lover. I will tell all the ladies that you have no control at all, that you’re a raving lunatic, that you can’t think of anything except yourself. Oh yes, and you’re very hairy and you sweat a lot!”

  “Damn you, it’s your fault! If you weren’t so—”

  “So what? So extravagantly beautiful? So utterly perfect?”

  “Well, no, you’re not, not really, it’s just that . . . it has to be your fault. No woman has ever before made me into such a fool, such an uncontrolled imbecile, and God knows you’re not your sister so—”

  “No, I’m not my bloody sister! I’m just me and you barely even can bring yourself to look at me!”

  “That’s been soundly disproved. All I have to do is look at you and go mad—Well, maybe not your face, but the rest of you and that’s still you. You must be a witch. You’ve brought me low. It must be those breasts of yours. But there are your thighs and belly and . . . What have you done to me?”

  “I have done nothing as yet, but I tell you that I am considering taking a sharp knife to your miserable throat!”

  “Don’t you dare threaten me! Well, blessed hell! The good Lord knows I was much better off before you thrust yourself into my life! At least I knew who I was and why I did what I did.”

  At least this time, she thought, staring at the newly slammed adjoining door, he had retreated to his own room and not to hers.

  She pulled her legs together. She was very sore, deep inside, and her thigh muscles ached and pulled. She was also no longer a virgin. If she hadn’t recalled the incredible pleasure of the previous night, she surely would have cursed him now for being an animal. As it was, Alexandra sighed and pulled herself out of the rumpled counterpane. She was a mess, he’d been right about that.

  She gave the bell cord a jerk.

  It was close to an hour later when Alexandra emerged from her bedchamber to see Douglas standing there, leaning against the opposite wall between two Sherbrooke paintings, his arms folded across his chest.

  “You took long enough,” he said and pushed off the wall. “I trust you’re ready for your breakfast.”

  “Why not? Perhaps your mother will have put some rat poison in my scrambled eggs.”

  “I will eat off your plate, just as I slept in your bed. I will be your royal taster. Incidentally, that gown isn’t at all what is acceptable for the Countess of Northcliffe.”

  “Give me a moment, and I will contrive a wheedle.”

  “No, you don’t have to. Since I accepted you, why then, I must also clothe you appropriately. I particularly don’t like the way all your gowns flatten down your breasts. Also, it can’t be particularly healthful. Not that I want them on display when we select new gowns, but a bit more hint of cleavage would be nice. I won’t have to be dependent entirely on my imagination to—”

  “What are you doing here?”

  He grinned down at her as he offered her his
arm. “I thought you just might bolt. You were all but spitting fire at me, lying there on your back with your legs sprawled. I can’t allow you to go to London and tell all the ladies how I have behaved.” He gave her a bigger grin. “Not, of course, that they would believe you. They wouldn’t. They would snigger at you. They would think you a jealous woman and a liar.”

  She wouldn’t look at him. “I will leave for London as soon as I am certain your sister is nowhere around. I shall convince them.”

  “You won’t leave.”

  “Stop grinding your teeth, it will do you no good. I will do whatever I want to do.”

  He said very quietly, “You could be with child.”

  That brought her face around and she gaped up at him. “Oh no, that can’t be possible. You can’t be that efficient. No, it isn’t reasonable and you’re making that up just to make me toe the line. Can it?”

  “Certainly it’s very possible.” He placed the flat of his hand on her stomach, splaying his fingers. “I did spill my seed inside you twice. Don’t tell me they were both such forgettable experiences that you’d already dismissed them?”

  “How could I? The first time you hurt me and the second time you were a mauling savage.”

  Douglas frowned and removed his hand. “Yes, well, I didn’t mean to. And you’re lying about the first time. You squealed like a—”

  “Be quiet! If that is supposed to pass for an apology, let me tell you, my lord, that it is sorely lacking. At least you didn’t blame me again.”

  He gave her a brooding look. “I would be the same man if you weren’t here, so what am I to do?”

  “I believe I shall go sharpen a knife.”

  Douglas was grinning when he looked up to see his cousin approaching from the other end of the corridor. “Ah, if it isn’t Tony, you traitorous sod. I would that you stay out of my sight. Where’s your wife?”

  Tony gave them a sleepy, quite sated smile. “Still asleep, doubtless dreaming of me.”

  Douglas’s grin dissolved into a growl and Alexandra, so furious with him that she couldn’t help herself, struck him hard in his belly with her fist.