The Sherbrooke Bride - Catherine Coulter [70]
It wasn’t until five more minutes had passed that Alexandra noticed the quite smug grin on Sinjun’s face. She stared and winced and shuddered as understanding hit her. The chit had knowingly done her in. Guileless, ha! Alexandra felt a perfect fool. Dear God, what malignant force had set her in the midst of this remarkably horrid family?
Done in by a fifteen-year-old girl who looked as innocent as a nun. It was very lowering, more lowering than falling off a horse and landing on her bottom.
Douglas stood on the bottom step of Northcliffe Hall, his hands on his hips. He watched the carriage pull into a wide arc and come to a halt not six feet from him. John Coachman looked triumphant. Relief flowed from his smile. Douglas was glad he’d sent his mother into the hall with orders that she remain there. Her initial impression of Alexandra hadn’t been promising. He sighed even as he stoked his anger. Tysen stood at his elbow, telling him what Sinjun had done, how forward she’d been and how he should discipline the chit, but Douglas had only smiled, knowing rather that he would thank her.
He knew Sinjun. And he’d been right. She’d brought his errant wife back, and with little waste of time. She should have been born a male; she would have made a masterful general.
When the carriage door opened and Sinjun leapt out, Douglas didn’t move. He stared beyond her. Finally, Alexandra emerged, her head down, her shoulders bowed. She looked defeated and that angered him even more.
“I see you came back,” he said, cold as a fish on ice.
“Yes,” Alexandra said, not looking at him. “I don’t want to be, but it appears that I cannot even best the youngest Sherbrooke.”
She was trying to hold her valise and that angered him even more. She was still recovering from her illness and yet she’d tried to leave him again—and carrying that damned valise herself!
“The Sherbrookes are competent, for the most part.”
“May I leave now, my lord?” As she spoke, she raised her head and looked him squarely in the face. “I want to leave. May I have Your Lordship’s august permission?”
“No.” Douglas strode to her and pulled the valise from her fingers. “Come along now.”
She didn’t move. He was aware that every Sherbrooke servant was an avid watcher to the damnable melodrama they were witnessing, and that he was serving up meaty gossip for many winter nights to come.
He moved closer to her and said very quietly, “I am tired to death of your imprudence. You act without thought, you are reckless, and I will tolerate it no more. You will come with me this instant, and for God’s sake, stop acting like I am going to beat you!”
She straightened her shoulders and walked beside him into the hall.
Her mother-in-law stood there, looking ready to breathe fire at her. Alexandra hung back. She didn’t want this. She looked at the other young man, and knew him to be Tysen, the youngest brother who was in love with the twit of two names and no bosom. Sinjun was nowhere to be seen, but Alex knew she was watching. No Sherbrooke would pass up such a promising spectacle.
Douglas turned back when she stopped. “What is it now?”
“When are you going to take me back to my father?”
“What the devil does that mean?”
“You know very well that you don’t want me to remain here. I simply left to save you valuable time and to spare myself further mortification at your hands. If you would but allow me to leave, you would never have to see me again.” She paused and the bitterness crept into her voice. “I suppose you prefer to take me back, don’t you? Will it give you pleasure to further humiliate me? To tell my father that I am sorely deficient and that you want all your money back?”
“Lower your voice, damn you!”
“Why? Your mother wants me here about as much as she would welcome the plague! My words must make her rejoice.”
“Be quiet!”
“I will not be quiet! I no longer recognize you as my husband. I will no longer obey you.”
“You are in my home! I am master here, no one else. You will do exactly what I tell you to do and that’s an end to it! No