The Sherbrooke Bride - Catherine Coulter [1]
The earl looked over at the gilded ormolu clock on the mantel. Where was Ryder? Damn his brother, he knew their meetings were always held on the first Tuesday of every quarter, here in the estate room of Northcliffe Hall at precisely three o’clock. Of course, the fact that the earl had only initiated these quarterly meetings upon his selling out of the army some nine months before, just after the signing of the Peace of Amiens, didn’t excuse Ryder for being late for this, their third meeting. No, his brother should be censured despite the fact that Douglas’s steward, Leslie Danvers, a young man of industrious habits and annoying memory, had reminded the earl just an hour before of the meeting with his brother.
It was the sudden sight of Ryder bursting into the estate room, windblown, smelling of leather and horse and the sea, alive as the wind, showing lots of white teeth, very nearly on time—it was only five minutes past the hour—that made the earl forget his ire. After all, Ryder was nearing an ample age himself. He was very nearly twenty-six.
The two of them should stick together.
“Lord, but it’s a beautiful day, Douglas! I was riding with Dorothy on the cliffs, nothing like it, I tell you, nothing!” Ryder sat down, crossed his buckskin legs, and provided his brother more of his white-toothed smile.
Douglas swung a brooding leg. “Did you manage to stay on your horse?”
Ryder smiled more widely. His eyes, upon closer inspection, appeared somewhat vague. He had the look of a sated man, a look the earl was becoming quite familiar with, and so he sighed.
“Well,” Ryder said after another moment of silence, “if you insist upon these quarterly meetings, Douglas, I must do something to keep them going.”
“But Dorothy Blalock?”
“The widow Blalock is quite soft and sweet-smelling, brother, and she knows how to please a man. Ah, does she ever do it well. Also, she’ll not get caught. She’s much too smart for that, my Dorothy.”
“She sits a horse well,” Douglas said. “I’ll admit that.”
“Aye, and that’s not all she sits well.”
Only through intense resolve did Douglas keep his grin to himself. He was the earl; he was the head of the far-flung Sherbrooke family. Even now there might be another Sherbrooke growing despite Dorothy’s intelligence.
“Let’s get on with it,” Douglas said, but Ryder wasn’t fooled. He saw the twitch of his brother’s lip and laughed.
“Yes, let’s,” he agreed, rose, and poured himself a brandy. He raised the decanter toward Douglas.
“No, thank you. Now,” Douglas continued, reading the top sheet of paper in front of him, “as of this quarter you have four quite healthy sons, four quite healthy daughters. Poor little Daniel died during the winter. Amy’s fall doesn’t appear to have had lasting injury to her leg. Is this up-to-date?”
“I will have another baby making his appearance in August. The mother appears hardy and healthy.”
Douglas sighed. “Very well. Her name?” As Ryder replied, he wrote. He raised his head. “Is this now correct?”
Ryder lost his smile and downed the rest of his brandy. “No. Benny died of the ague last week.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
Ryder shrugged. “He wasn’t even a year old, but so bright, Douglas. I knew you were busy, what with the trip to London to the war office, and the funeral was small. That’s the way his mother wanted it.”
“I’m sorry,” Douglas said again. Then he frowned, a habit Ryder had noticed and didn’t like one bit, and said, “If the babe is due in August, why didn’t you tell me at our last quarterly meeting?”
Ryder said simply, “The mother didn’t tell me because she feared I wouldn’t wish to bed her anymore.” He paused, looking at the east lawn through the wide bay windows. “Silly wench. I wouldn’t have guessed she was with child although I suppose I might have suspected. She’s already quite great with child. She may well give