The Sherbrooke Bride - Catherine Coulter [100]
She heard him yelling at her and just click-clicked the horse faster. He couldn’t catch her, not in his bare feet, and he could whistle to the horses all he wanted, they wouldn’t pay him any heed. Alexandra smiled. The cynical bounder. Retribution tasted very sweet.
Thirty minutes later, Douglas passed the yew bush that flew his shirt like a white flag of surrender. He’d wondered where his shirt had gone to. She’d taken it, damn her eyes. He was hot, sweating, and wished he had her neck between his hands, just for an instant, just long enough for him to squeeze and make her face turn blue.
Damned twit. Lust, good full-powered bone-deep lust, and like every other female in the history of the world, she had to make it into something more grand, more elevated than it really was. Doubtless if he encouraged her, she would begin to wax eloquent about a spiritual joining, a mating of their very souls. It wasn’t to be borne.
His shirt stuck to his sweaty back. The afternoon sun was grueling. Another quarter of a mile and he spotted his coat flying from the lower branch of a maple tree.
When he finally stomped up the wide front steps of Northcliffe Hall, he was ready to kill.
Hollis greeted him, looking as bland as a bowl of broth. “Ah, Your Lordship is back from your nature walk. Her Ladyship told us how you lauded the lovely tulip trees that were bowed so gracefully over the stream; she said you strained your neck to see to the top of the poplar trees alongside the trails. She said you were humming with the lovely song thrushes and smelling the lilac flowers. She said you then wished to commune with the fishes and thus swam in the stream. She said how very kind you were to allow her to continue back here since she had the headache. You look a bit hot, my lord. Should you like a lemonade, perhaps?”
Douglas knew that Hollis was lying and he knew that Hollis knew that he knew. Why did everyone insist upon protecting her? What about him? He’d been the one to have to leap into the stream and pull his boots from bottom silt. He’d been the one to trudge three miles back to the Hall. Lemonade?
“Where is Her Ladyship?”
“Why, she is communing with the nature that’s confined here at Northcliffe, my lord. She is in the gardens.”
“I thought you said she had a bloody headache.”
“I fancy she cured that.”
“Just so,” Douglas said. The thought of her sitting at her ease on a chaise longue, cool and sweat-free, would have sent him into a rage. Douglas drew himself up. He shook his head at himself. All of this, it was ridiculous.
A month ago he’d been a free man.
Two weeks ago and he’d thought himself married to the most beautiful woman in England.
And now he was shackled to a twit he’d never seen before and who tortured him. She also turned him into a wild man. She tortured him very well.
In the east gardens, Tony leaned negligently against the skinny trunk of a larch, his eyes on his sister-in-law. She was filthy, sweat darkening her hair, her hands were black with dirt. She was murdering a weed, her movements jerky, and she was muttering to herself.
“I think things march along just fine,” he said.
Alexandra paused and raised her face to Tony’s. “Nothing is marching anywhere, Tony. He doesn’t like me, truly.”
“You mistake the matter, my dear. He’s accepted you as his wife. Too, I’ve seen him look at you. I’ve seen him look violent with need and replete with pleasure.”
“He hates that. Until today, he blamed me for his loss of control whenever he touched me. Just two hours ago, he decided to blame the bedchambers and the beds. He planned to discuss philosophy or war or something whilst he loved me.” She sighed. “When that failed, he . . . well, now he is probably intent on finding me and wringing my neck.”
“What you did to him was splendid, Alex. I wish I could have seen him dash naked into the stream to save his pants and boots. As I recall there are many rocks to trip