The Courtship - Catherine Coulter [113]
“Ah, my lady. So you are Douglas Sherbrooke’s wife.” He gave her a slight bow. “Your husband is a cocky bastard I greatly admire. He is a genius at strategy and has proved it many times over the years. I suppose my son here brought you along as leverage against Helen?”
“Yes, I did,” said Gerard, pushing off the wall and finally managing to stand straight. “And it will work. Helen is fond of her. They are great friends. I have but to point my gun at the countess’s head and Helen will take us to the magic lamp. She already said she would, once I threatened her friend here.”
“A lamp,” Sir John said, marveling at his son. “You actually believe that foolishness that is all over London? Are you an utter fool? There is no magic lamp. It is all fiction, an interesting tale invented in Helen’s fertile imagination. Everyone is enjoying gossiping about it. It means nothing. Don’t you realize that if there were something that important, some ancient relic with strange powers, no one would know about it? It would be kept a close secret.”
Helen looked at him and smiled inwardly. Spenser had been exactly right. How could anyone possibly believe in something purportedly magic when everyone knew about it?
Alexandra went to stand by Helen, making Sir John laugh. “Just look at the two of you together. You are a giant, Helen, an oddity, a freak.”
She grinned over at him. “At least I am not so old that my skin is spotted and hanging off my body and my teeth are all rotted.”
He took a step toward her, raised his hand, then slowly lowered it. He looked down at his hand for a moment. “You were not so impertinent when you were eighteen,” he said slowly.
“And you were not so openly rude—though you were older than death even back then. I remember as well how you looked at me and how you did not want your precious son to marry me.”
Sir John shrugged. “I knew you wouldn’t hold him. I knew you wouldn’t give him a child immediately, as he claimed you would.”
“What do you mean, I wouldn’t hold him?”
“Even then, my worthless son was already searching out ways to make more money. I bought him the commission, hoping, praying he would change. He could have followed in my footsteps. But he didn’t. He got an excellent dowry from your father, but it was gone in a month. And what did you do? Nothing. You believed every ridiculous lie he told you. But I knew you would change. I knew there was grit in you, a strong will, but you just didn’t change quickly enough to be of any use to me. Yes, I was right. Just look at what you’ve become.”
“No, Father,” Gerard said. “Her dowry lasted two months. It would have lasted much longer, but I was cheated. It was Jason Fleming, Lord Crowley, who cheated me. I wanted to kill him, but then he left to go hunting in Scotland, the conniving bastard, and I could do nothing. And Helen refused to get pregnant.” Gerard gave his wife a malignant look. “All I wanted from you was a child, nothing more, nothing less, at least after your dowry was gone. But you wouldn’t give me one.”
“I am very pleased about that,” Helen said. “Incidentally,” she said to his father, “I was only eighteen. If I had been as smart then as I am now, do you believe I would ever have attached myself to your toad of a son? Not very likely, sir. He turned out badly enough. I cringe to think if he had, instead, turned out like you.”
Gerard, unlike his father, did not have much self-control. “Don’t you insult my father, you worthless woman!” He was on her in an instant, his arm drawn back to strike her. Helen just shook her head as she raised her knee, struck him hard in the groin, then sent her fist into his neck.
Gerard howled, clutched himself, and fell to the floor, hitting the wall. He didn’t know whether to rub his crotch or his neck, both hurt so badly. He kept swallowing and moaning as he rocked back and forth. Finally he whispered, “Father, look what she did to me. Kill her. No—just wound her. You can kill her later, after I have the lamp—but maybe not. She is my wife, after all. I will think about this. Also, if she