The Heiress Bride - Catherine Coulter [8]
“I can’t accept all of your assessment.”
“Perhaps you have already found a lady to meet your groat requirements.”
He grinned at that. “Plain speaking, huh? No, I haven’t, as I suspect you already know, having overheard my whining plaints to Brass. Actually, you are quite the loveliest young lady I have met. You’re tall. I don’t have to get a painful crick in my neck speaking to you.”
“Yes, and I can’t help it. As to my loveliness, certainly my brothers think so, but you, my lord? This is my second Season, as I said, and I didn’t wish to have it, for there is so much sheer boredom about, but then I saw you.”
She stopped talking but didn’t stop staring at him. He was startled at the hunger in those quite lovely light blue eyes of hers. This was really beyond anything in his experience. He felt bowled over, off kilter, and really quite stupid. The vaunted control he was known for was gone. It was disconcerting.
“Come over here, out of the crush. Yes, that’s better. Listen, this is difficult. It is also a highly unusual situation. Perhaps I could call on you tomorrow? I see a young lady walking toward us, and she looks quite purposeful.”
She gave him a dazzling smile. “Oh yes, I should quite like that.” She gave him the Sherbrooke town house address on Putnam Place. “That is Alex, my sister-in-law.”
“What is your complete name?”
“Everyone calls me Sinjun.”
“Yes, but I don’t like it. I prefer Joan.”
“All right. It’s Lady Joan, actually, for my father was an earl. Lady Joan Elaine Winthrop Sherbrooke.”
“I will call on you in the morning. Would you like to ride with me?”
She nodded, looking at his white teeth and his beautiful mouth. Unconsciously, she leaned toward him. Colin sucked in his breath and quickly backed away. Good Lord, the chit was as brazen as a Turkish gong. So she’d fallen for him the first time she’d seen him. Ha! He would take her riding tomorrow, discover why she was playing this insane jest, and perhaps kiss her and fondle her just a bit to teach her a lesson. Damned impertinent chit—and she was a Sassenach to boot, which made sense since he was in London. Still, he believed Sassenach young ladies to be more reticent, more modest. But not this young lady.
“Until tomorrow, then,” he said, and was gone before Alex could bear down on them.
Colin searched out Brass and unceremoniously plucked him out of the theater. “No, don’t complain. I’m taking you outside, away from all these female distractions, and you’re going to tell me what the devil is going on here. I think you’re probably behind this absurd jest, and I want to know why you set that girl on me. The gall of her still has my head spinning.”
Alex watched the man, Colin Kinross, pull Brass from the huge lobby. She looked back at Sinjun to see that she was also staring after him. She correctly assumed that Sinjun’s thoughts about the man weren’t nearly as prosaic as her own.
“He is an interesting-looking gentleman,” Alex said, getting the ball rolling.
“Interesting? Don’t be ridiculous, Alex. That’s utterly inadequate. He’s beautiful, perfectly beautiful. Didn’t you see his eyes? And the way he smiles and speaks, it—”
“Yes, my dear. Come along now. The intermission is over and Douglas is getting testy.”
Alex bided her time, but it was difficult. The moment they arrived back at the Sherbrooke town house, she kissed Sinjun good night and grabbed her husband’s hand, dragging him into their bedchamber.
“You want me that badly?” Douglas asked, staring at her with some amusement.
“Sinjun met Colin Kinross. I saw her speaking to him. I fear she’s been rather forward, Douglas.”
Douglas looked down at his hands. He then lifted a branch of candles and carried it to the table beside their bed. He studied it for a while, in meditative silence, then shrugged. “We will leave it be until tomorrow. Sinjun isn’t stupid, nor is she a silly twit. Ryder and I raised her properly. She would never ever jump her fences too quickly.”
At ten o’clock