The Sherbrooke Bride - Catherine Coulter [31]
“Ah! There you are, you damned scoundrel!”
Douglas rose half out of his chair, only to feel Hollis’s hand firmly on his shoulder. He subsided.
But he didn’t want to. He wanted to go to bed and sleep for twelve hours, awaken and find that everything was as it should be. No, he wanted to kill his cousin.
Instead, Douglas, the man of normally fine-working mental parts and skilled strategies, said very calmly, “Tell me why you betrayed me.”
Tony’s hair still stood on end, the result of that other female’s attack. He was still wearing his dressing gown, now ripped beneath the right arm and hanging longer on one side than on the other. He kept his distance. “Will you listen to me without trying to kill me again?”
“I’ll listen. As for killing you, I dare say that will happen some morning soon at dawn.”
“God, Douglas, don’t talk like that! Damn, I didn’t mean it to happen, but it did.”
Hollis cleared his throat, saying gently, “Enough mea culpas, my lord. His Lordship is in need of facts. All this emotion is wearisome and not at all to the point.”
“I fell in love with Melissande the moment I saw her and she fell in love with me. I know all her faults, Douglas, faults you can’t begin to imagine, but I didn’t care. I understood her and I knew that I could handle her. We eloped. Upon our return to Claybourn Hall, the duke and I decided that I would wed Alexandra by proxy to you. She was willing and the duke was more than willing. Indeed, he had just heard his wastrel son had not only left England in the dark of night, he had also bequeathed his father a mountain of debts. The duke was frantic and thus agreed, for your settlement in addition to the one I made him would rescue him and his family from disgrace. Still, I wasn’t certain, Douglas, you must believe that, but there were so many good reasons for doing it, least of which Alexandra is lovely, she’s a lady, she’s not stupid, and you won’t have to go to London and start all over again to find another wife. You have one and she’s quite all right and here and you will get to know her and everything will be fine.
“Perhaps this angers you, perhaps you believe I did it just to try to placate you, perhaps everything I’m saying rings false to you, but I swear to you that I gave it great thought. I studied Alexandra thoroughly, and I swear she is worthy of you. She’s a good sort. She isn’t arrogant or vain. She’s kind and steady and loyal—”
“You make her sound like a damned horse, Tony. Or a panting hound. She isn’t Melissande!”
“No, lucky for you. Come, you saw how she defended you, her husband, nearly killing me! Truly, Douglas, you wouldn’t be pleased for long with Melissande for your wife.”
“Ha! You slippery sod, you make it sound as though you saved me from a fate worse than death. You want me to believe that you removed the plague from me and took it onto yourself, that you martyred yourself for me. You stole my wife, Tony! Damn you, it is too much, I have listened to your lame excuses and I—”
“My lord,” Hollis said softly, his hand once more on Douglas’s shoulder, “we must remain for the moment with the facts. Emotion is enervating and leads, evidently, to violence. I cannot allow more violence in Northcliffe.”
“Where is my sister? Where are Ryder and Tysen and my mother?”
“Master Ryder insisted they all leave Northcliffe until everything was sorted out. He is an intelligent young man. Once he understood what had happened, he had the family gone from here within two hours. They, ah, are staying presently in London, at the Sherbrooke town house.”
Lord, he’d very nearly taken Janine to the town house, but in the end, Lord Avery had seen to her lodgings. Douglas twisted about to look up at Hollis. “So, I’m alone in the house with this bloody wife thief?” Douglas rubbed his hands together and he smiled. “Excellent! That means I can kill him with no one the wiser, without Tysen preaching to me from his future pulpit, without Ryder laughing at me, without my sister and mother falling into a swoon.