The Heiress Bride - Catherine Coulter [38]
Sinjun said to him as she patted his hand in what she hoped was a wifely gesture, “It takes my brothers time to change and adapt to things. Ryder will come about, just give him a year or so.”
“I am not amused, Sinjun!”
“No, neither am I. I am married. Colin is my husband. It was doubtless the damned MacPhersons who wrote the anonymous letter to Douglas claiming Colin killed his wife. They’re cowards and liars and they’re out to destroy him, and what better way to go about it than to begin by ruining his nuptials with me?”
Colin stared at her. She was frightening. He’d mentioned the MacPhersons but one time, yet she’d put it all together. Of course, he hadn’t really spoken to her for nearly three days. She’d had a lot of hours to think and sort through things. Thank God she didn’t know the full extent of it—yet.
A very fat woman came into the room. She was wearing a huge red apron that went from right beneath the massive bosom of her black gown to her knees. She was smiling widely. “Och, ye’re here, me lord. It’s home ye be at last. And this sweet little lassie be yer wife?” She curtsied, using her apron.
“Hello. What is your name?”
“Agnes, me lady. I’m here wi’ Angus. I do what he doesn’t, which be most of everything. Look at the hole in the ceiling! My Angus always was excellent at his work. Be any of ye hungry?”
There was a chorus of yeas and Agnes took herself off. Angus hadn’t moved from his spot in the corner, blunderbuss still held firmly against his chest.
It was at that moment Colin realized that he’d been silent as the grave. He cleared his throat. It was his home, after all. “Gentlemen, would you care for a brandy?”
Ryder nodded and Douglas clenched his fists again and said, “Yes. Good smuggled French brandy?”
“Naturally.”
Well, that was something, Sinjun thought, relaxing just a bit. Men who drank together couldn’t smash each other, not with brandy snifters in their hands. Of course, they could throw the snifters, but she’d never seen either Ryder or Douglas do that.
“How are Sophie and all my nephews, and the children?”
“They’re all well except for Amy and Teddy, who were fighting in the hayloft and a bale of hay rolled off its stack and knocked both of them out and down to the ground. No broken bones, thank God.”
“I expect Jane lambasted them but good.” Jane was the directress of Brandon House, or Bedlam House, as Sinjun called the lovely large three-story house that lay but one hundred yards from Chadwyck House, the residence of Ryder, Sophie, and their young son, Grayson.
“Oh yes, Jane had a rare fit, threatened to pull ears and dish out bread and water after they recovered from all their bruises. I think that’s what she did do, adding just a dollop of jam to their bread. Then Sophie kissed them both and yelled at them as well.”
“And then what did you do, Ryder?”
“I just hugged them and said if they were ever so stupid again, I would be very upset with them.”
“A dire threat,” Sinjun said, and laughed. She rose and walked to Ryder, leaned down, and hugged him close. “I’ve missed you so very much.”
“Blessed hell, brat, I’m exhausted. Douglas dragged me out of bed—and Sophie was so warm, it was damned difficult to leave her—and he forced me to ride like the devil himself were snapping at our heels. He said he would outfox you, bragged, he did, but you won, didn’t you?”
“Here is your brandy, my lord.”
“I’m not a lord, Kinross. I’m a second son. I’m only an honorable, and that strikes me as a mite ridiculous. Just call me Ryder. You are my brother-in-law, at least until Douglas decides whether or not he will kill you. Take heart, though. Not many years ago Douglas gave a good deal of thought to killing our cousin Tony Parrish—called him a rotten sod—but in the end he gave it up.”
Angus relaxed a bit.
“That situation is nothing like this one, Ryder.”
Angus snapped back to attention.
“True, but Sinjun is married to the fellow, Douglas, no way around that. You know she’s never one to do things half-measure.”
Douglas cursed