The Sherbrooke Bride - Catherine Coulter [7]
“I hope that may be true. As for you, too many turnips and lewd Greek plays. Oh, and give Eleanor and Lucy another couple of years and it will be Ryder who will draw their female swoons and sighs.”
“Oh dear,” Sinjun said, her brow furrowing. “You must make Ryder promise not to seduce them for he’ll find it an easy task because they’re so silly.” Sinjun fell silent for Douglas was obviously distracted again.
He was thinking that he would protect what was his just as had his long-ago ancestor, Baron Sanderleigh, who had saved Northcliffe from the Roundhead armies and managed through his superior guile to convince Cromwell of his family’s support, and after him, Charles II. Throughout the succeeding generations, the Sherbrookes had continued to refine the fine art of guile to keep themselves and their lands intact. They had provided mistresses of great mental aptitude and physical endowment to kings and ministers, they had excelled in diplomacy, and they had served in the army. It was rumored that Queen Anne had been in love with a Sherbrooke general, a younger son. All in all, they had enriched themselves and kept Northcliffe safe.
He shook his head, backing farther away from the cliff edge. There’d been a recent storm and the ground wasn’t all that solid beneath his feet. He warned Sinjun, then fell into abstraction again as he sat on an outcropping of rocks.
“They won’t leave you alone, Douglas.”
“I know,” he said, not bothering to pretend ignorance. “Damn, but they’re right and I’ve been a stubborn bas—fool. I have to marry and I have to impregnate my wife. One thing I learned in the army is that life is more fragile than the wings of a butterfly.”
“Yes, and it is your child who must be the future Earl of Northcliffe. I love Ryder dearly, as do you but he doesn’t want the title. He wants to laugh and love his way through life, not spend it with a bailiff poring over account books or hearing the farmers complain about the leaks in their roofs. He doesn’t care about all the pomp and dignities and the knee-bending. His is not a serious nature.” She grinned and shook her head, scuffing the toe of her riding boot against a rock. “That is, his is not a serious nature about earl sorts of things. Other things are different, of course.”
“What the devil does that mean?”
Sinjun just smiled and shrugged.
Douglas realized in that instant that he’d made his mind up; more than that, he also knew whom he would marry. Ryder had himself brought her up during their meeting. The girl he’d fancied three years before, the beautiful and glorious Lady Melissande, daughter of the Duke of Beresford, who had wanted him and had cried when he’d left and hurled names at his head for what she’d seen as his betrayal. But three years before, he’d been committed to the army, committed to destroying Napoleon, committed to saving England.
Now, he was only committed to saving Northcliffe and the Sherbrooke line.
Aloud, he said, “Her name is Melissande and she is twenty-one, the daughter of Edouard Chambers, the Duke of Beresford. I met her when she was eighteen, but I left her because I had no wish to wed then. The devil, I was only home because of that bullet wound in my shoulder. It is likely she is long wed now and a mother. Ah, Sinjun, she was so beautiful, so dashing and carefree and spirited, and behind her was the Chambers name, old and honored, become dissolute only in her grandfather’s day. There was little money for her dowry three years ago, but I didn’t care if she came with naught but her shift on her back. Aye, her brother is another rotter, and even now he brings new odor to London with his profligacy. He is dissolute and a wastrel, gaming away any guinea he can get his hands on. It is likely that he will finish off the Chambers line.”
“I think it noble of you not to be concerned with a dowry, Douglas. Mother says again and again that it is the only basis for marriage. Perhaps your Melissande has waited for you. I would. Perhaps no one wed her